#ytrk

especially considering the pressure he sometimes feels having seungah as his cousin--miss cheri from luxe. shes been hitting new highs with each new comeback, her group recently having gotten their first win and all. hyunjoon likes to pretend he isn’t effected by this, that he would be the one to end up comparing himself to his cousin given their age difference and the fact she had been training long before he had even decided he wanted to be an idol. 

but its hard not too when he hears them--her--every where. other buskers are always covering luxe, he walks into stores and one of their songs is playing. he see’s ads for them all around and of course his stan twitter account is always blowing up about luxe. his mom is always always gushing about her niece anytime she gets the chance to. playing the songs and watching whatever show one of the luxe girls might come on. she tells hyunjoon work hard and you can be there with her one day and hyunjoon takes that to heart.

it’s a lot of the reason he threw himself into practice once he was all cleared from the doctor. leaving school and going straight to a studio so he can sweat away the hours until he needs to go home only to wake up and repeat the routine the next day. telling himself the only way for him to get better is for him to work hard. 

being a busker makes it easy for him to stay in top form and to keep on top of the new dances. he’s over a year now in orion and in that year hyunjoon has really picked up a skill for learning dances. he can figure out moves rather quickly and then its merely repetition to get them sharp and on time. on a good night he can learn a whole new dance, on a rough night he might learn half the dance. but generally, hyunjoon leaves practice with the knowledge of how the dance is to look and feel even if he doesn’t quiet have the sharpness--or fluidness--of the dance down yet. thats what hours and hours of practice is for. 

and hours upon hours of practice is what he did when he heard about the trc challenge. 

the triple threat challenge. he remembers watching the one that happened two years ago. remembers thinking how wild it must be to look for someone who is sufficient in all three of the main skills. thinking the company crazy for thinking any noob the find on the street would work. 

yet now here he is kicking his own ass trying to win that title for himself. though, it’s not so much that hyunjoon see’s himself as a triple threat. he knows there is a lot he still needs to work on--skills he can improve upon--but he likes to think the last few months have really balances out his collection of skills. dancing has already always been his strongest thing, he’s a dancer as much as he is a chef now and the trick was just adding in vocal performances to his dancing. 

when he was injured hyunjoon took to singing during busking since he couldn’t dance at that time. he gotten to speak with one of his dads old coworkers who worked with vocals and he gave hyunjoon some things to work on if he were serious about singing. 

and then he befriended a strange man working in a noraebang who was apparently a rapper. and with yuto’s help, hyunjoon started working on rapping as well. rapping? cool as fuck, so why wouldn’t he want to learn. he had gone with singing originally because he supposed he had an alright voice and singing seemed more tame than rapping but. in the end, he really had wanted to learn rap. 

when him and hyojeong planned their live performance of zero for conduct had been the real test for hyunjoon. the real question of can he see himself doing something similar to this for the rest of his life? and yeah, he can. it had been fun learning the song with her. learning dances with his best friend has always been great but there had been something so much more exciting about performing with her in that way. live singing and rapping while dancing? in the busy streets of hongdae where anyone could stop and judge? with no backing vocals? honestly, he had been scared shitless but they absolutely crushed the performance. 

he focused that energy--that feeling--into the performance he was using for the triple threat audition. only hyojeong had gotten word of what he was doing but he hadn’t even showed her any bits of his performance. wanting it to be a surprise even to her. 

as his name is called, hyunjoon heads up and gives a simple but cool greeting, a polite bow of course thrown in there somewhere but he was making sure his cool vibes could be noticed. it’s not hard, hyunjoon’s stoic nature and ability in fashion often do help him have a good vibe going on even if some he comes off as a cold cool he would accept that. his goal for this? his concept. was to show he can do more than one concept. which is why he walked onto stage and gave his greeting all cool and chill.

뭘 또 심각해 혼자만의  세상 속에 갇힌 채 빙빙 돌다 길을 잃어  You always be like that

괜찮은 척 하지만 귀찮은 척 하지만 아니잖아 아프잖아 더는 못 보겠어 jerk

his performance of choice though is a more chic cute vibe to it than anything. his song choice he felt really did help to showcase all three of the skills they were wanting. the song starts almost a minute and a half in with a vocal part, and then he gets to a rap portion before a more dance orientated section. the hardest part of this performance he chose was near the end after the dance segment there is a long higher note he has to old for a few seconds. a few hours has been dedicated to practicing that line alone and by the end of the night hyunjoon had really felt he would be able to nail it. it wouldn’t be too bad because he wasn’t dancing when holding this note. 

천천히 널 일으켜 Follow me 날 따라와 숨 들이 마시고 내쉬고 겁먹을 것 없어 uh

시간은 항상 누구나 같아 거짓으로 살긴 아까워

Original wa woo woo Original wa woo woo

honestly, he worries he might be being a bit too bold with going onto stage and performing his whole song live while dancing. he knows they want to showcase all skills, and singing plus dancing at the same time is some thing pretty much every idol needs to be able to do. but hyunjoon only has a couple of years of dance under his belt--and only a year of singing--so maybe it was a bit much for him to do this.

but it’s not like this is his first time dancing and rapping/singing because it’s not. hyojeong and him spent months working on their zero for conduct performance and on top of that, hyunjoon had added singing into his normal practices to help with is stamina. he supposed that if he could dance and singing or rap to most of the songs that he busks with then he should be able to get it for any song. and maybe he had been on to something. 

Ah yeah JY 세상은 무한의 색으로 칠해지길 원해 모두가 마음껏 끝없이 빛 나도 돼 Red yellow green uh 네가 그린 그림 그거면 돼 눈을 가렸던 그 안대를 풀어 잠그던 마음을 반대로 풀어 아무도 우릴 신경 쓰지 않아 just dance

through out his performance, hyunjoon makes sure to channel the energy he has when he’s busking. the facial expressions and dancing adlibs with always seem to make the fans go wild. he throws in peace signs where they fit, and some cool finger hearts when the moment calls for it. it was only around the main chorus of the dance did his voice come off more breathy but luckily this song he chose didn’t have much in the way of singing when it comes to the chorus. his rap is the cleanest part of his whole performance which was thanks to all the work he put into zero for conduct as his part for that song was very intense rapping so hyunjoon was really starting to get the hang of it.

Original Yeah yeah Original All right

as the song comes to an end, he falls back into the cool concept he had walked onto stage with. ending his performance with a stoic look and a calm facade as if he hadn’t just danced all cutely and full of energy. hoping his concept of showing his duality would give him a bit of an edge. regardless, as hyunjoon walks off he feels... content with his performance. 

이 세상은 생각보다 아주 작고 넌 그보다 커 숨기지 마 너의 모든 걸 보여줘 그대로의 너

he knows he has a ways to go with his skills and maybe he’ll never reach seungah noonas level. but maybe thats okay, they’re different performers after all.

and at the end of it all.

he had a lot of fun on that stage.