On the way back from visiting the contemporary dance studio, Jion sat in the car and sighed as he caressed the face of Seonwoo Jin sitting beside him. If only his nose were a bit lower or his eyebrows even slightly less attractive, he could have let go of his lingering feelings, but Seonwoo Jin’s face was too perfect.
“……Why are you starting again?”
And at Jion’s sudden compliment, Seonwoo Jin’s face turned red. It wasn’t a face turning red from not knowing he was handsome. If Jinyeong, Eungi, or Ryu Geon had said the same thing, Seonwoo Jin wouldn’t have even pretended to listen and would have turned up the volume on his wireless earphones. But when Jion said the same words, they sounded different to Seonwoo Jin.
“……I’m telling you, you’re pretty too.”
It was probably because Jion’s appearance matched most closely with the ideal beauty he envisioned. Seonwoo Jin concluded that the reason he felt embarrassed every time Jion touched him was because of Jion’s looks.
“Your eyes are pretty. Your nose and lips too.”
“Isn’t everyone’s face made up of eyes, nose, and mouth?”
A sarcastic voice from Jinyeong came from behind, but it didn’t reach Seonwoo Jin’s ears. Seonwoo Jin gently touched the eyelashes of Jion looking up at him. During the two years they’d spent together, he wondered why he hadn’t noticed—Jion was so pretty. And……
“Do you kind of look like my mom?”
Seonwoo Jin carefully brought up something he’d been thinking about for a while. In fact, he’d been thinking about it since that night when just the two of them were left at the studio.
“My mom also had eyelashes like yours, really, like this…… like this……”
Due to his vocabulary being as lacking as his concept of chastity, he couldn’t describe it in detail, and Seonwoo Jin carefully tapped Jion’s eyelashes with his fingertips as he spoke. Understanding roughly what he meant from the gesture of lifting them upward, Jion smiled and pushed his chin forward so he could see his face more closely.
“I didn’t see you this way, but you’re a mama’s boy?”
“It’s not like that…… But my mom was really pretty.”
“I can tell from looking at you.”
Usually, sons take after their mothers and daughters take after their fathers. Jion listened to Seonwoo Jin’s words casually and patted his chest.
“This time, I’m really going to clearly show people your face. We have such a handsome member, come stan us. Like this.”
“……”
“We promised to do well together, right?”
32-year-old unmarried, romance-less virgin otaku Woojin’s mom Seong Jion raised Seonwoo Jin with the mindset of raising a five-year-old son she’d never birthed or raised before, coaxing and soothing him. They’d only just received the concept and song. With a long road ahead, she had to pull along this group-life-maladapted youth with infinite patience and tolerance.
“……Well, I’ll do it if you’re there.”
“Right, right. Let’s do well together.”
However, for Jion, who had finished collecting the concept, song, and references for the next single using past memories and experience, one huge wall remained.
……Since the song changed, the choreography changes too!
It was an unconsidered barrier.
Jion was originally a terrible klutz, with the slowest choreography memorization speed among the members, and his dancing was at the level of barely managing to output what he knew in his head. Until now, it hadn’t been noticeable because he’d been enthusiastically dancing choreography that remained in his memory, but memorizing completely new choreography for a completely new song was a tremendous crisis for Jion.
“Uh, here, one, and, two, and, three, and four! I think we need to break down the movements a bit more……”
It was good up to the point of entrusting the choreography to Ryu Geon and Eungi to save money. However, what Jion hadn’t anticipated was that the two’s skill level was much higher than what Jion remembered.
“Uh, On-i hyung. Listen to the music more…… You seem so focused on following the movements that you’re not hearing the music right now.”
Ryu Geon had been active in an amateur dance team before debut, and Eungi had built up his skills attending a dance academy until high school. Only then did Jion recall the members’ detailed profiles he’d forgotten.
“Ahhhhhhh!”
His body had clearly returned to his twenties, but his joints seemed to have gone to his sixties. Jion fell to his knees in frustration at his hands and feet that wouldn’t move as he wanted. Seeing Jion’s humiliating state, Jinyeong clicked his tongue and made a sarcastic comment.
“Strange. You use your vocal cords so well, but why are your ligaments like that?”
“I’ll give you the high note parts. I’ll give you the high note ad-libs. I’ll give you the three-tier high notes.”
He tried threatening him over part distribution, but it had no impact on Jinyeong. The only one suffering was Jion collapsed on the practice room floor.
The choreography is this difficult—this is completely outside my calculations.
Jion banged his head on the floor in regret. Part of the reason Jion had pushed for the fresh and refreshing concept was with the direction of the choreography in mind. After all, sexy or cool concepts required difficult choreography with perfect sharp angles and precisely changing formations, but with cute and bright concepts, people didn’t scrutinize too closely, thinking it matched the song’s atmosphere even with simple choreography just a level above basic movements.
He’d planned to make up for his lacking dance with singing, but 20-year-old Seong Jion’s body was much closer to a log than what 32-year-old Jion remembered. Seeing Jion’s frustration, Eungi worried.
“On-i hyung, if it’s too hard, should we take out some formations or details?”
“Forget it. What are you taking out when all the other members have memorized it?”
Jinyeong cruelly cut off Eungi’s suggestion. Jion also didn’t want the other members to spend too much time on choreography practice because of him alone. These people had many other things to do besides this. Things like vocal practice, vocal practice, vocal practice, vocal practice.
“For now, you guys leave first and go do some vocal practice. I’ll just finish memorizing the choreography and then go.”
“Then we’ll leave first. Don’t push yourself too hard.”
“Right, do what you can…… We’re leaving first.”
And so all the members left the practice room, but there was someone who remained by Jion’s side as he lay face down. It was Seonwoo Jin, who had surprisingly fast choreography memorization.
“Are you okay? Drink some water first.”
“You didn’t leave?”
“How could I leave when you’re like this?”
Was this guy always this loyal? The way he even opened the water bottle cap for him looked like a different person. Jion looked at Seonwoo Jin anew. His surprisingly fast choreography memorization was also astonishing.
“Wasn’t that your right arm, not left arm earlier?”
“Ah, you’re right.”
Since they’d improvised the choreography, Seonwoo Jin accurately remembered even the minor details that occasionally confused even the original creators, Ryu Geon and Eungi. While he wasn’t at Eungi’s level of being able to copy choreography after seeing it once, he was still at a level where he could follow all the major movements after doing it four or five times.
“I’ll help you practice the choreography.”
“I’m grateful but…… it’s going to take me a really long time to memorize……”
“You also watch over my vocal practice one-on-one until past midnight every day.”
That’s because you’re seriously lacking in fundamentals……
Jion, who had been thinking internally, realized that Seonwoo Jin thought his dance skills were at that same level and lamented. That I’m at Seonwoo Jin’s level. That I’m the hole in the group.
“First, try dancing from beginning to end once. I’ll watch.”
Seonwoo Jin stood Jion up with a cheerful smile. And he sat down in the center of the practice room with his back to the mirror and played the music. Up to this point, he was still smiling.
And one hour later, Seonwoo Jin’s expression became serious. As soon as Jion finished flailing through the choreography, he clapped with a stiff expression.
“……At a glance, it kind of looks like you’ve memorized it all.”
Seonwoo Jin’s struggling encouragement hurt his pride even more. Jion wiped his sweat and panted heavily.
“I think I did…… something similar……”
“Uh, um…… yeah…… Similar? Maybe? Probably?”
Seonwoo Jin nodded without being able to meet Jion’s eyes. Certainly, sitting in front watching Jion’s dance, it looked like he’d memorized all the choreography.
So, it could be inferred which part he was trying to dance and how, but to call it dancing, the choreography didn’t seem completely memorized, and it didn’t seem like dancing in the first place……
How to put it. Even traffic control differs depending on who’s doing it—traffic police, marines, parking attendants. Among those, Jion’s dancing was about at the level of the Green Mothers’ Association on elementary school routes.
Beyond being high or low level, the purpose and degree of control were different…… that kind of…… non-professional volunteer work…… public service…… clearly not intended to receive money for these movements, a purely worthless flailing beyond measure……
“How was it?”
“Mm.”
Seonwoo Jin liked receiving compliments but wasn’t a specialist in giving them, so even faced with Jion’s expectant eyes, he couldn’t find the right words. White lies also depend on timing, and Seonwoo Jin had missed that critical timing.
“……Was it bad?”
At Seonwoo Jin’s subtle reaction, Jion’s expression stiffened.
If he’d just said “It’s fine” at the right time, Jion, who knew his own level quite well, would have been satisfied and stopped practicing. But for dancing at a level where “it’s fine” couldn’t reflexively pop out, Seonwoo Jin couldn’t manage even empty words.
“……But I think you’ve really memorized the big flow? Things like that.”
Seonwoo Jin finally succeeded in squeezing out a compliment that didn’t sound like a compliment, one beat late. And Jion discovered another new side of Seonwoo Jin.
……This bastard surprisingly can’t lie and has a good side to him.
Where would that personality that didn’t hide his romance go? Jion inwardly shed tears of blood and got up from where he’d been sitting.
“I want to try for one more hour.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to stop for today? You look tired……”
“I just want to try a few more times.”
Jion brushed off Seonwoo Jin’s dissuasion and took his position again. His legs were trembling, but he thought that since it was a body in its twenties, he could push it a bit harder. But this time, he should have listened to Seonwoo Jin’s words.
“One and two and thr…… Ah!”
“Ow!”
From the very first movement of sitting on the floor and getting up, he felt the steps getting tangled, and the angle of the heel touching the floor wasn’t good.
I need to hold on here!
Feeling his center of gravity shifting too much to the side, Jion hurriedly tried to regain his balance, but his weakened calves wouldn’t listen.
―Crash!
“Jion-ah!”
“Ow……”
Jion’s thin body tumbled to the floor. Hearing Seonwoo Jin running over in shock, Jion curled up and clutched his ankle.
“Ah, my ankle…… my ankle……!”
“Did you sprain it?”
“Yeah, I think I sprained it, I stumbled and……”
It seemed like his ankle bone had hit the floor too when he fell to the side. With the sharp pain, tears formed in Jion’s eyes. Seeing this, Seonwoo Jin hurriedly removed his shoes and socks and placed Jion’s ankle on his thigh to check the injury.
“It’s red. It’s swollen. Does it hurt a lot?”
“A bit……”
He was already irritated that his body wouldn’t move as he wanted, and when his exhausted body got injured on top of that, Jion felt miserable and tears dripped down.
