“You’re the dance position in the team, right?”
“Yes. I’m the main dancer.”
“Dance for me.”
“Here?”
A flustered Lee Yeonun looked at Go Yoon and Kang Juno, who were blinking at him, then alternated his gaze to the barbecue restaurant backdrop spread out behind them before giving Go Yoon a look that begged him to please not make him do that.
‘?’
Of course, Go Yoon and Kang Juno hadn’t been thinking anything like that. So Go Yoon placed some meat on Lee Yeonun’s plate and spoke in an incredulous tone.
“You want to dance here? We don’t mind.”
“……No, sir. Then what kind of dance are you referring to?”
“You know. You know Abyss’s <Nightmare> song, right?”
Lee Yeonun made a stupid expression.
‘Abyss? That’s the group Ka Jerim belongs to, did they release a new song?’
Even though the two were close, they didn’t talk about each other’s work areas and only exchanged news about the liquid monster. So Lee Yeonun, who didn’t even know about Abyss’s new song, was flustered and tried to ask back what song it was.
“What song—”
But before he could even ask, herbivore Lee Yeonun, who sensed another crisis approaching, quickly spread his wings of imagination based on the title <Nightmare> and added embellishments.
“—would that be, something very decadent?”
“Decadent?”
“Se, sexy?”
“Sexy?”
The more he spoke, the more Kang Juno and Go Yoon stared at Lee Yeonun as if looking at something strange, then soon looked at each other and wondered “Was that kind of song?” while treating Lee Yeonun like a peculiar child.
“He’s unique.”
“For real. First time I’ve seen someone describe it like that. Is he kind of a pervert?”
<Nightmare>, contrary to its title, was a tropical EDM genre full of freshness and brightness. So naturally it was far from sexy, and incredibly far from decadent.
‘They can hear everything, you know.’
Of course, Lee Yeonun, who couldn’t reveal that fact, could only pretend to be calm and hurriedly drink water.
“Can you possibly do a cover dance of that? If so, by when would it be possible?”
“Well……”
Since he didn’t know the song, he naturally didn’t know the dance either. But since he’d just said he knew the song, he couldn’t now say he didn’t even know what kind of dance it was, so Lee Yeonun’s worries deepened.
‘It should be fine, right?’
As someone who held the title of main dancer in his group, Lee Yeonun was very good at picking up dance covers. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Lee Yeonun had choreographed most of Retro’s dances, so he was confident he could dance whatever it was reasonably well.
But that was that and this was this.
To suddenly have to do a cover of Abyss’s dance, Lee Yeonun asked for the reason.
“Um, may I ask…… is there a reason I need to do a cover dance?”
“We’re doing a song cover.”
Lee Yeonun had no choice but to accept it at an incredibly fast speed.
“Then I should do it too……”
“Would it be possible by two days from now? Even just about a minute would be fine.”
“Two days is a bit difficult but—”
As soon as he made eye contact with his senior colleagues who were like the sky, Lee Yeonun bowed his head deeply.
“I’ll give it a try.”
If he said a week, they looked ready to kill him, so he couldn’t dare say in front of them that it would take a whole week. In the end, Lee Yeonun nodded saying he would provide the cover video by the date they mentioned, and the two were satisfied.
‘I can do it, whatever.’
Anyway, it was a period when activities were temporarily on break, and he cheerfully nodded, recalling the memory of feeling that Abyss’s <Routine> choreography was on the easier side in terms of steps, excluding the magic tricks.
And as soon as Lee Yeonun came home and watched the choreography video, he regretted it.
“Fuck…… how am I supposed to do this……”
From the start, it involved breaking the neck, and the steps were incredibly dazzling. And so Lee Yeonun practiced the choreography while crying.
**Episode 15**
Before starting the reverse run, Abyss members released the album’s music and made a fan chant for the title song and uploaded it to their YouTube channel, but the view count was dismal.
So naturally, none of the members thought anyone would follow their fan chant, and they just hoped that even one fan would come to the live audience as they waited nervously with tense faces before entering for their first stage.
“Ah, what should we do.”
As soon as the song started on Abyss’s <Nightmare> first stage, Ma Doun kept fidgeting, asking what to do over and over as he watched the minority of fans shouting the fan chant at the top of their lungs, worried their artists might feel discouraged.
The group called ‘Now’ that had just finished their stage right before had an incredible reaction, but the audience’s response to Abyss that followed was quiet. The minority of fans who did come called out to them at the top of their lungs as if trying to fill the portion of other fans too, and while the Abyss members were so grateful for that sight, they were also filled with apologetic feelings.
In the end, even though the members didn’t make a single mistake on the first stage, they entered the waiting room with deflated faces. And as soon as they entered, they heard the sound of cheers loud enough to bring down the hall as another group went on stage, and the memory of feeling even more discouraged was still vivid now.
But today was different.
“Wow.”
Seon Hobeom, who had finished the stage, stomped his feet in place, not knowing what to do with his face full of excitement.
“The cheering was so loud I almost forgot the choreography in the middle!”
“You too?”
Park Eden, who would normally have glared at Seon Hobeom for almost forgetting the choreography, also had a face full of excitement.
“I didn’t know this many fans who came for us would be here.”
During the last <Routine> activities, they had performed in front of other singers’ fans because they had no fandom at all, and the early part of this activity was the same, with almost empty cheering because there were no fans.
However, from the second week when they slowly started the reverse run, fans began to gather and the cheering sound grew louder. But until that time, the fan base wasn’t secured, so the members didn’t really feel that their popularity was rising.
But today, staying in the upper ranks of the music charts and reaching the peak, the most fans they’d seen in the four weeks of activities had come to cheer for Abyss’s stage.
“It’s so amazing.”
Since last week, <Nightmare> had entered the upper ranks of the music charts and fans had increased tremendously. On YouTube, following this reverse run trend, <Nightmare> choreography reaction videos increased, and because the song was quite good, everyone’s reactions were positive too.
As <Nightmare> reverse-ran, the first stage <Routine> also started receiving attention. From the stage where Routine’s injury accident occurred, to the fill-in broadcasts they did whenever they had time, they were edited entertainingly by fans’ hands, increasing the influx of many fans.
Occasionally their own fancams were uploaded, and seeing various languages appearing in the comments was so amazing that the members couldn’t put down their phones.
“The sound was really loud.”
“I still can’t forget it.”
Today especially was legendary. The Abyss members were so surprised by the cheers they heard after the stage ended that they couldn’t say anything. In the eyes of such members, placards that fans must have made themselves came into view, and those afterimages still vividly lingered before their eyes.
Even though staff members bustled around them, stamping their feet to wipe the sweat off the members drenched in sweat, the members were so excited they couldn’t stay seated in one place.
But the reason the members were in such high spirits, rummaging through the waiting room today, was partly due to the fans, but there was a biggest reason.
“Yeah, Mom. If you vote with that number, it’ll work!”
They had made it onto the music show’s number one candidate list.
Seon Hobeom ran around like a crazy colt in front of Park Eden, who still had a face asking if this was a dream or reality, and Onseol sat dazed in front of the TV waiting for their stage screen that would soon come up.
“We’re number one candidates!”
An excited Ma Doun contacted acquaintances to vote, then fidgeted next to Seon Hobeom, who was still calling friends to tell them to vote.
“Ahhh…… I’m so nervous. What should I do. Can I take some Cheongsimhwan?”
The stylist who was touching Doun’s head like that called the manager with a pale face, and the manager took out Cheongsimhwan as if he’d been waiting and handed it to Ma Doun, but for some reason, two hands were extended.
“Doun-ah, you didn’t even take it when performing on stage. Just taking it before a ranking announcement……”
As if to stop Doun from taking Cheongsimhwan, Park Eden grabbed Doun’s hand, then.
“Very good. I’ll take some too.”
“Eden’s taking it too? But there’s only one of these……”
“Ah, what are you doing. Hurry up and feed them Cheongsimhwan!”
Director Gye, who was coordinating in the middle, patted the manager’s back and said.
Even Onseol, who would normally need to pull himself together, was slumped in a chair, and the members were making more chaos in the midst of chaos, creating a total disaster.
Among them, the calmest was the youngest, Ka Jerim. Ka Jerim sat peacefully alone in a chair, receiving touch-up makeup from the stylist while watching the members like an audience member.
“Wow!”
“Where’s the Cheongsimhwan?”
Seon Hobeom started running again saying he couldn’t believe they were number one candidates, Park Eden going around like a faceless spirit with his hands out looking for Cheongsimhwan, Ma Doun sticking close next to him helping to look for Cheongsimhwan together, and finally Onseol, who seemed relatively calm but whose hands were trembling.
“Guys, please stop running around. I need to do touch-ups!”
Thanks to them, the ones dying were the staff who had to do touch-up makeup. When the staff caught and sat down one kid who was running around, another kid would go crazy and run wild, and they turned pale watching members who, after they’d finally wiped off their sweat, broke out in sweat again from nervousness.
Ka Jerim, who had been watching such a scene, finally burst into laughter, then looked puzzled seeing a call coming to him and answered it.
“Hello?”
[Jerim!! What number are you?!]
It was an unexpected call from Lee Yeonun.
