#rkmay16eval

kt’s holy trinity is not to be messed with.

despite being the youngest trainees under the company, they all can pack a punch or two when it comes to performances. a collab is long overdue, and the evaluation gives them the perfect excuse to prepare something of their own.

when they first got the lyrics printed, yeri and yul both giggled fervently. due to what, the oldest is not sure, but if she can comment on the lyrics, she’d say they were shallow. a sigh was one of her first responses, not only because of the lyrics, but also because of the fact that it is yet another dance related track. barely any korean pop songs are lacking of dances really, but this particular one they chose even has a dance break halfway through the song.

if anything can kill her, it’ll be this stage.

countless session after session, she grasps most of the english pronunciation, even if her thick accent still coats the words like gravy. but most importantly, she gets more and more familiar with the dance. although in the end she doesn’t really get to impress as much as she would, she’s still glad that she didn’t fall once.

of course, some moves she execute awkwardly, and some others she just completely messes up. but she makes up for it with her expressions and lack of shame. if she suddenly jumped, so what? make it look intentional and everything’s alright.

being asked to join the all-kt-girls eval performance is an honor. it feels like home, the air suddenly changing around her when she finally realizes that she’s accepted in the company for who she is. even with the bad dancer and bad singer title stuck on her, no one thought of kicking her out of the group and excluding her from the set. in fact, the others even tried to help her become better instead of leaving her to fend for herself in front of the panel.

at first, she felt bad for the others. both yulhee and her were the worst dancers of the batch, and it didn’t help that they were both quite new compared to the other trainees. her growth is rapid, she has to admit, but it wasn’t quite enough just yet. she still struggled, a lot, and sometimes extra effort is needed for her to be able to get the whole choreography right. if it wasn’t her not knowing what to do with her foot, it’s her forgetting where she’s supposed to be within the formation.

it gets repetitive after some time though, and she slowly learned the whole dance. it gets easier, she thinks, and it shows through her movements that are a bit more relaxed. definition, maybe not, but she’ll get to it one day. so with pertinence and dogged determination, the rapper does it.

of course, no girl group is ever without its conflicts, even if they weren’t an official group. hyeri and tiffany’s endless squabbles breaks the silence of the room, and the maknae line is always together in one corner, laughing over something completely random. piper slays, and taeyeon slays as well, both in dancing and singing respectively. and while people like sunyoung struggle with charms, yul is overflowing with it. every single person has their own specialties, and she’s proud to say that she’s okay with not being the best at everything.

“you’ll be tired” and “i’ll be tired anyway.”

“i could go back to acting—” and “you said you wanted to try out something different.”

ultimately, it’s “don’t you want to make up for the last time we danced together” that wins hyunjae over and he knows there’s no fighting that one. by now, he was more than over fighting with her— they’d fought too much then for him to let it fall apart again, or so he thought, so he hoped.

good things never last.

‘it’s difficult’ would be putting it lightly, because tiffany is the one with more experience this time around and it’s odd. they’d learnt the choreography together before, struggled together, but it’s a song she’s performed before with a different trainee who’d also been one of her best friends within company walls and most definitely outside of them.

even away in china, she considers him one of her best friends because keeping any secrets from him is easier to avoid than with hyunjae but it’s harder for her to deliberately lie to him, to not want to tell him in the first place. but one thing tiffany knows best about hyunjae is that he performs best in the clutch— and so he does this time, he exceeds even her own high expectations of him and it’s almost distracting. he owns the song and there’s a stroke of guilt when she thinks, “even then, people are never satisfied” and she knows she’s projecting remnant feelings about the mgas onto him. or was it the other way around?

she writes it off as a sweet dream that became a nightmare with the significant loss— a child that has to say goodbye first and first love becomes bittersweet. she’s changed since then, views and feels love oh-so-differently but when she looks at woohyun, she knows he’s still there.

he’s still there and she’s a little envious. because, yes, she’s seen woohyun sing before and for anyone to think the guy doesn’t sing with his heart and soul, head to toe especially his facial expression, would be a erroneous assumption.

if it wasn’t enough that tiffany already admired his voice from the moment she first heard it, it’s his technique and how much he commits to a song that infatuates her more— only singing-wise, of course. it reminds her of herself when she first joined kt, the title of an emotional singer following her as she started training only to quickly become both a weakness and a strength, balance yet to be achieved yet he nearly perfected it in her eyes. a control over his voice that she strives for.

there’s no denying her smile as the melody plays, seats already taken and her jacket from the last performance tossed to the side for a softer look, a more feminine look, because it’s exactly what the song calls for, what the innocence of first love calls for and feels like.

i had really sweet dreams yesterday i don’t wanna tell you now because i’m too shy — and also it’s known not very good to tell someone this kind of thing

they play roles so effortlessly ( save with the occasional stare from woohyun but she thinks he’s zoning out, thinking of whoever it is that has him charmed and she knows it must be as sweet as the song ) and practiced harmonization fills the room, sweet tones to match and she wonders when the last time she sung a love song was ever this tender— she wonders when she stopped choosing songs as affectionate and gentle as this one for ones that spoke of lost love and strife, of a struggle to even love anymore. she wonders when she started thinking of love as mostly a lie outside of her family.

mmm, you’re telling a lie with the look full of confidence but that’s so sweet to hear that is

dream, that i can never have again that was really sweet i think you are just like the dream

more reasons she remembers her first love as a dream, she can’t keep facts straight. details blur and fade and she recalls bitterly calling him a liar. it was her who often lied.

i’m okay, her favorite lie. the sweet dream that became a nightmare was her.

well, i don’t care even if you’re a sweet liar

there’s a silver lining though and it grows, spirals, overwhelms whenever she looks to woohyun for inspiration and strength. her voice builds and falls with his, chasing and leading, a push and pull of vocals and she hopes the song is what’s true for him. that his love story remains like this, as such a sweet dream.

For the most part, she attempted to remain neutral. Sohee simply refused to address the elephant in the room no matter how noticeable it was. On Jiwon and Yubin’s end, they seemed to not want to address it either. But the tension was still there. Jiwon seemed like she wanted to do anything else but be in the room. Negativity wasn’t going to help them get this over with.

Yubin was left in charge of the outfits while Sohee and Jiwon were left to their own devices to divide up the lyrics a bit more. Considering the distribution, Jiwon would get a good majority of the song, leaving Sohee with a verse and Yubin with even less (which was usually the case with rappers). They came to a decision to harmonise mostly, since it was easier than sitting there and trying to make things more even. Sohee agreed. It sounded like a sufficient plan for now.

Any time the three of them were in the same room, Sohee felt like slinking in the background, feeling too aware of the silent tension that still seemed to be there. It was hard to focus on anything else but how two important people in her life seemed to hate each other. Though they did nothing to make her feel trapped, she still felt like the middle man. The neutral zone of the war.

(It didn’t help that they didn’t speak really to each other.)

They made enough small talk to choose outfits. A conversation, she felt, was mostly carried by her, as opinions and ideas would be heard by all but doled out to her directly. But she could feel that as they exchanged and spoke, it was a bit easier. They all settled with something uniform but individual. Jiwon couldn’t help but smirk at Sohee’s expense, as the girl clearly wasn’t comfortable wearing anything portrayed as “sexy”.

Come their evaluation, she was waiting with Jiwon, clutching at the other’s hand in a nervous gesture. The younger already scolded her (playfully) for being so nervous over something that wasn’t that serious. They were already picked from the crop as the best individuals: eye candy with siren-song voices enough to capture attention for just about four minutes. There was no need for Sohee to be so nervous.

Even as the music began to play, her nerves were still there. She played it off, entrusting herself to get into character of the performance. She may not have the visual capabilities of Jiwon and Yubin, two women who obviously would easily be sexy icons but she was well aware of her own advantages. If being cute could really help her stand out here, so be it. Regardless, Sohee stayed off to the side, waiting to join the other in singing the chorus to really let her voice be heard.

Their voices were well matched together. She had always known that harmonising would never be a real issue for them and it made her all the more grateful that she chose Jiwon to be her partner for the eval. Had she had the time to, her mind would wonder to other things, like future songs together because their voices just went well together. It made her jittery with anticipation for the future, for moments she’d hopefully get to spend with Jiwon, whom she was grateful to call a friend and a sunbae.

She holds back her smile, tossed directly at the other as they finish up the chorus. She presses forward, taking point as centre as she sings. Her vocals are stable, finding no difficulty with the notes with a performance with little dance movements (they had agreed that there was no real choreography to add to it). She winked, shaking her hips in more of a cute way than a sexy one, knowing that her cuteness was her main advantage at this point to catch any eyes.

She let herself lower to the floor, looking over her shoulder as she finished the lyric before the next chorus picked up. Sohee rose again, letting herself breathe as Jiwon took over the first lyric of the chorus. She joined in, alternating with the other in singing backup and main vocals. They both moved off to the side to let Yubin enter with her rap. Rather than stand off to the side awkwardly, Sohee playfully danced with Yubin as she rapped just as she would as they practised. Rather than join Jiwon for the high note of the song, she let her sing it alone, despite the times in practise she would sing along side her.