going to minsoo on friday seems like an appointment with a therapist, what with all of the mental stress meiqi has been feeling. she doesnât intend to unload everything on her mind to the coach, but it ends up happening that way anyways as soon as he asks the first question (which, to be fair, really does remind her of an american movie therapist).
âhow was your week?â
meiqi doesnât hesitate to let out a whine. âterrible!â the coach laughs, but she canât tell if itâs out of sympathy or because he agrees after spending hours listening to her mumbling trash. itâs probably both. âi canât rap for shitâoh my god, wait, can we start over again? can i re-walk in? I didnât mean to let that slip.â
how stupid of you, meiqi, she scolds herself, pinching the skin of her wrist as her hands are in her lap. she just keeps messing up this week, whether itâs while practicing or watching her words because of the cameras that catch her every move. the whole situation is stressful, and definitely harder than she expected. meiqi has to keep reminding herself that this isnât forever, and that when she actually debuts, there wonât be cameras in her dorm to capture every possible mistake for netizens to pick apart.
taking a deep breath, she starts over. âitâs really hard, rapping i mean. i was definitely not made for this, even if i did pick such an easy song. i thought it would be easier, but thereâs a lot of pressure⌠i donât know why everyone has to rap or sing. singers shouldnât have to rap, and vice versa, if they canât, you know? ah... i went to jongin for help because heâs like the god of rap in nova. iâm a little biased when saying that though because out of everyone, iâve known him the longest. but at the same time as i was grateful for his help, i was also immensely intimidated because heâs so good and i canât even go one line without mispronouncing a word or something⌠coach, iâm dying, please help me.â meiqi says the last sentence cutely, but itâs definitely far from a joke. âiâm so nervousâŚâ
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week two is perhaps the most stressful seven days meiqi has ever experienced. minus that one time her cousin was in the hospital, and that time she failed her first ever audition, and when sheâokay, so maybe itâs not the worst, but itâs definitely in the top ten, because the extent of meiqiâs rapping skills is her ability to follow along with a drake song which, even then, is more of a monotonous way of singing rather than showcasing actual skills. how the fuck is she supposed to manage one stanza, let alone a whole performance?
itâs the second day of the week and she still hasnât even decided on a song. frankly speaking, meiqi doesnât think she can keep up with the likes of the hip hop artists whose music she enjoys. she needs a second opinion if she doesnât want to be eliminated from the sn project due to incompetence.
meiqi finds herself in front of hugo. oh, her trusted hugo. heâs her only hope. âhey, hugo. my friend. my creative soulmate. you know, i donât think iâve ever told you how nice your hair looks? or how well of a rapper you are? or... i donât know, how sweet it is that youâre always willing to help your friends?âÂ
âď¸ â  sn project: month one, week two â âď¸
    now playing: 21st century girls by bts
there are so many songsâchinese, korean, and english alikeâthat contain raps. of course, meiqi canât go with one of the english songs because theyâre full of swears. no one would understand if she went with a chinese song. really, her only option is a kpop song.Â
(if she had the choice, she wouldnât pick any song. week two of the nova project shouldnât be a thing).
21st century girl is what she ultimately decides on for her second weekâs evaluation. her reasoning for her choice goes like this:
  1. an upbeat song will allow her to hide her terrible rapping behind a charismatic facade which, in turn, will make her performance seem better than it really is;
  2. the raps are fairly slow and straightforward, so with enough practice, she should be able to follow along adequately enough; and
  3. itâs been two days since the challenge was proposed and she has to perform by the end of the week, so meiqi is downright panicking at this point.
to put it bluntly, meiqi is fucked.
she doesnât know why non-rappers even need to show their skills. itâs stupid and a waste of time because the company already knows they canât do it. a dancer and a vocalist shouldnât even need to be able to rap, and it should simply be considered an asset. fuck hyun bin. fuck nova. fuck everything.
itâs only been one hour since she started practicing, but meiqi already wants to give up. the members of bts make it seem so easy when she listens to them, so why canât she grasp a couple lines of rap?
frustrated, she tosses the sheets of paper, with lyrics neatly typed out and notes in the margins scrawled like chicken scratch, in the air and watches them float down to the floor. the private training room feels like itâs closing in on her, or maybe thatâs just her eyes drooping. sleep is still sparse and fleeting; maybe thatâs why she feels more on edge than usual.
meiqi stares blankly at the papers scattered across the room, sighs, and then bends down to sweep them up.
* * *
hugo is a lifesaver.
meiqi knows that he has his own performance to perfect, but she goes to him anyways. heâs better off than her, she thinks, and so he can spare a few minutes of his schedule to help her as a friend. right?
heâs also the only rapper that meiqi actually knows well enough to throw her ego out the window and ask for help (other than minsoo, but the last time she checked in with him, he looked like she had just given him a puppy and murdered it in the same breath).
she offers him one of her snacks, the ones that she hides in the bathroom vent, as if itâs a drug deal: looking nonchalant and slipping it to him behind her back so that no one catches the exchange, even though the cameras film the trade anyways.
* * *
meiqi forgets the lyrics. she literally forgets half of the third rap verse the minute she steps in front of the coaches, and all throughout her introduction, she racks her brain for any little thing that she can remember.
it doesnât work.
the song starts, and meiqi already has lost all of the barely-there confidence she had after practicing with hugo, minsoo, and youtube.
the first few lines are easy because theyâre in english, and meiqi much prefers that over korean. but it switches quickly and sheâs barely able to keep up with j-hope. she makes it through the first half of the song, but not without a few stumbles and an awkward flow.
sugaâs verse is the problem. meiqi runs out of breath because sheâs technically doing two peopleâs parts, and on top of that, now sheâs forgotten the lyrics.
so she mumbles. she makes up words as she goes, her entire demeanor changing as her shoulders hunch and she tries to disappear into thin air because holy fucking hell this is so fucking embarrassing.
meiqi only knows the english part for that verse, thus she can end it better than how she started. but thereâs still the last bit of the edited version of the song where she sings the closing. it feels like the longest 30-or-so seconds of her life, but she finishes with that before she bows uncomfortably and hurries out of the room. tears are already staining her cheeks as she exits into the hallway.
meiqi doesnât talk to any of her roommates for the rest of the day. she takes one of her crisps bags from the bathroom vent and buries herself under her blanket. the sound of sniffles and crinkles and crunching are all her roommates are met with when they step into the dim room.
