“Ah, yes yes.”
The staff were busy organizing AVN’s stage equipment and setting up OnX’s new stage. The people who had been nearby quickly disappeared.
Chase stared at that prop cart for a long while. Colorful traditional masks were visible.
“Hmm.”
Even after hearing the answer, Chase didn’t leave. He glared at the masks. The face of that fucking maknae bastard, Lim Sehyun, who had snarled at him in the hallway calling him ‘disgusting,’ came to mind.
Just then, a fellow team member called him from down the hallway.
“Hey, Chase! What are you doing? Let’s go quickly! We have to monitor!”
Without even looking back, Chase just lightly raised his hand.
“Yeah. Just a moment.”
He confirmed that the members had disappeared around the corner and the junior staff had run off somewhere else. In an instant, the surroundings were empty. Chase took a step toward the masks. No one noticed his movements amidst the stage noise and staff shouting around him.
He took out one mask and dropped it on the floor. The mask, custom-made to fit facial features, was quite sturdy. Chase stomped on the mask with his hard shoe heel, thud thud.
It felt just like crushing Lim Sehyun’s face, which felt refreshing inside.
Chase smiled with satisfaction and roughly kicked the broken mask into a corner. He roughly swept back his sweat-soaked yellow hair and muttered quietly toward OnX’s waiting room, where they would be waiting for their next turn.
“Let’s see you do well. Loser bastards.”
He hummed a tune as he leisurely left the backstage. That melody was the chorus of their hit song they had just performed on stage.
* * *
There was a problem.
“Um… This, this is the mask you’ll use for the competition…”
In the hands of the junior props staff, whose face had turned deathly pale, was one mask broken miserably.
The smiles completely disappeared from the members’ faces. Especially Sehyun’s eyes gleamed sharply.
“What happened?”
“I’m sorry! I’m really sorry! It was fine earlier, but I don’t know how it ended up like this…”
The junior staff kept bowing and apologizing. They looked like they were about to cry.
Manager Cheolhwan yelled with a flustered face. His face clearly showed distress. They had to film right now, but an important prop was broken. Moreover, this was a mask they couldn’t urgently obtain from anywhere.
“What do we do? There’s no replacement for this… Without the mask, the storytelling will be completely ruined…”
Haram bit his lips anxiously. This concept’s important part was using the dokkaebi mask and traditional masks to make the story more intuitively understandable.
“Should we just take off all the masks…?”
Yunbeom offered an opinion.
“That won’t work. The mask in the introduction is essential to visualize our theme.”
Sehyun firmly objected.
“But in the end, without this mask, it’s meaningless.”
Sehyun had no particular solution for that part either and narrowed his brow.
Anxiety appeared on the members’ faces. Manager Cheolhwan started calling the company because of this problem.
Doha stared blankly at that scene. The broken mask, members in panic, and the distressed manager.
Hmm, what a mess.
Indeed, isn’t the beauty of competitions these sudden events? Am I being too much of an observer?
Certainly, the role of the mask in the introduction was important for this concept. Due to the nature of masks, it grabbed attention, and it matched the message the song carried. Especially since the broken mask represented the narrator of the song lyrics, making it a bit more problematic. But it was a device that would leave regrets if they removed it like this.
After thinking carefully, Doha cautiously opened his mouth.
“Want to try doing it my way?”
Though not particularly creative, something suddenly came to mind. Everyone’s attention focused on Doha.
* * *
[Episode 3] To Me Beyond the Wall – OnX (ON:EX)│EP.2 Second Competition #BattleCrown Views 3.32 million · 3 days ago
A stage thickly covered in fog. Blue lights pour eerily through several bizarrely twisted dead trees.
In the center of the stage, matching the sorrowful melody of the geomungo and haegeum, Haram wearing a Hahoe mask waves a white cloth with large movements.
On the opposite side, Yunbeom wearing a fierce yaksha mask displays a violent dance as if wailing.
Just then, Doha, the only one with a bare face, slowly walks out from the back of the stage. Doha covers his face with a fan. His pale face showing only his eyes has no expression. The reddened eye makeup is particularly pitiful.
Dancers wearing white masks circle around him as if they were his inner self, and Doha’s murmuring intro begins.
“I don’t want to hide myself.”
A heavy fusion beat explodes and Sehyun and Eden reveal themselves in the fog. Along with Sehyun’s opening that explodes with emotion, intense group choreography begins. The hem of the black dopo cuts through the air, drawing out the members’ mixed emotional lines of anger and sorrow.
The faces of other group members watching the stage are reflected on screen.
Haram and Yunbeom show paired choreography with the dancers wearing white masks.
The music rushes toward its climax. All the masked dancers simultaneously reach their hands toward Doha, cornering him.
Doha staggers backward as if terrified and eventually kneels in the center of the stage.
All sound stops, and the spotlight shines only on Doha. With trembling hands, he reaches for the stage prop inkstone and soaks himself in black ink.
The camera captures Doha’s face in an extreme close-up. He slowly begins to paint his own face black with ink, creating a mask.
Black ink flows like tears over the red shadow. Doha forcibly pulls up the corners of his mouth painted with ink with his fingers, completing his face to match the world full of masks.
With that appearance, he stares at the camera and the stage goes dark. Silence. And shortly after, a roar that seems to lift the studio bursts out.
[Comments 2839]
Shiiit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!What the!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Crazy..crazy..crazyyyy…
Did OnX stake their lives on this competition
The ink painting direction is scary ㅠㅠ but beautiful
Please vote for OnX!!! There’s voting on the Battle Crown website banner!!
@@@@@@Please vote@@@@@@
What is Doha’s fan dance lol thought he was a fairy ㅋㅋ
└He is a fairy, his face is a fairy
Nth time replaying infinitely
1:20 Is Yunbeom’s body made of springs???
What I’ve been feeling lately is Baek Doha’s vocals ㅈㅉ feel really solid
└He always sang well though?ㅎ He was famous since trainee days
Lim Sehyun… please just be good at one thing, singing dancing rapping arranging to directing, are you even human
└Not human, just GOD…
└ㅋㅋ Don’t know about looks but skills are just okay?
└Why picking a fight?
└Just stating facts though?
No Lim Sehyun is so handsome I’m shocked, like a horse, like a famous horse created by a breeder at a rich house
Ah when is the next video coming outㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ Why is OnX’s screen time in the 3rd round spoiler so tiny? Isn’t this screen time discrimination too severe?
└Where did you see it?
1:44 Pulling the chin is crazy; are they dating
I coolly turned it off saying I watched enough but Yunbeom’s indifferent face keeps lingering so I came back, take responsibility
Clean high notes “give such a good feeling”
Quality upgraded from last stage… 2:02 can’t escape from here
But why was the atmosphere in the preview so tense?
└Dunno? Weren’t they just nervous?
└The editing made it seem like there was conflict
└Evil editing
How do I wait until next week ㅡㅡ
Why are they so handsome geez
Thanks algorithm
* * *
Fortunately, the stage ended well. The grueling work paid off.
The suddenly added ink painting direction had many concerns, but it came out better than expected. There was even an internal reaction that it had more impact than just wearing a mask.
Thanks to that, Doha received praise from the members. Rather than thinking about doing exceptionally well, he had only thought about quickly resolving the awkward situation, but the results were good.
It’s really strange. Is Baek Doha’s fortune incredible? Why are the results so clearly different when life is the same? He was even bewildered by the luck that couldn’t be compared to his previous life.
“AVN’s agency is grinding their teeth.”
“Yeah. The stage equipment smells like money.”
“We put in effort too.”
After finishing the second competition, the members were checking other teams’ videos. Though they had already seen the rehearsal stages, the edited videos had a different feel.
“Can we get first place this time?”
“Well. The reaction is good but… there are teams with such strong overseas fandoms.”
Sehyun, who had seriously examined other groups’ stages, turned off the screen.
“We did our best on stage. The ranking isn’t our territory.”
What shameless words. Why is the person who cares most about rankings here suddenly acting like an enlightened clergyman?
Doha got a scratch on his hand during the performance. Whether there was foreign matter in the plastic bowl containing the ink, a wound formed on his palm.
Haram put a band-aid on Doha’s hand like that.
“Is your hand really okay?”
Sehyun asked.
