▎ Cast (working title): Harin (leader·vocal) / Se-a (main dancer) / Yuna (maknae·rap) / Jiwon (vocal) / Soi (sub-vocal·new member)
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1
Seoul in July didn’t cool down even at night.
At the end of the corridor on basement level 2, only practice room No. 3 had its lights on. The faint flicker of a fluorescent tube, the groaning of an old air conditioner,
and the same eight counts playing out from the speaker for the twelfth time.
"Again."
Se-a pressed the remote. The music rewound to the beginning.
"Se-a, that’s already the twelfth time."
Harin rolled a water bottle along the wall, still leaning back against it. Her sweat-soaked bangs stuck to her forehead.
"Then make it the thirteenth."
"That’s the fourth time you’ve said that today."
Yuna, who had been lying spread-eagle on the floor, lifted one hand. "Unnie, my legs don’t feel like my legs anymore. It feels like I borrowed someone else’s legs"
"and I’m dancing on those."
"Then dance with those borrowed legs."
"Se-a unnie, that’s mean……"
Jiwon burst out laughing and plopped down beside Yuna. The practice room, which had seemed roomy enough for five, somehow felt cramped today.
More precisely — because there was one more person.
2
Soi was standing by the door.
She hadn’t made it all the way to the mirror, and she couldn’t bring herself to leave either. That morning, the company had told her, You’re joining next month’s debut team.
Start training with them from today.
Just one sentence. That one sentence had overturned three years.
For three years, Soi had always been half a step outside. The kind of kid every evaluation ended with, "Not bad." Not bad enough to get cut, and not special
enough to be chosen. So why now, of all times? Why in the middle of a finished four-member team?
In the mirror, four people were laughing. They were sharing jokes from years ago. Soi didn’t know the first half of those jokes.
"Um……" Soi opened her mouth. "Could I just watch today? I haven’t memorized all the choreography yet, and I’m afraid I’ll break the flow for no reason."
A brief silence fell.
Se-a put down the remote.
"Soi."
"Yes."
"Come here and stand in the middle."
"……Pardon?"
"The middle. Spot 3."
Soi thought she’d misheard. Spot 3 was center. Center was — the spot where your own face looked biggest in the mirror.
"I still don’t know the blocking."
"Exactly why you need to stand in the middle." Se-a shrugged. "If you stand in a corner, nobody can see where you mess up. Then nobody can
fix it."
"You want me to show you where I’m wrong?"
"Yeah."
"That’s a little……"
"Embarrassing?" Se-a asked. Her tone wasn’t teasing. She looked genuinely curious.
Soi couldn’t answer.
3
Harin sat up.
"Soi. Want me to tell you about when I first joined the debut team?"
"……Yes."
"The moment I got into the practice room, I tripped over the audio jack and fell. Knocked over all the mic stands too. There were twelve people in this room then."
Yuna shot upright. "Seriously?"
"Seriously. And out of those twelve, the only one still here now is me."
The practice room went quiet. All you could hear was the air conditioner.
"But I didn’t stay because I was embarrassed about falling that day. After I went down, all twelve of them laughed, but one of them held out a hand." Harin nodded toward Se-a. "It was her. Want to know what she said to me?"
"What did she say?"
"‘Get up. There are still eight counts left.’"
Se-a turned her gaze toward the wall. "Why do you remember stuff like that."
"Of course I remember it."
Harin walked over to Soi and held out her hand. Like reenacting that day from three years ago.
"Soi. We’re already complete. You’re not butting in. It was missing you, so things never fit."
"……"
"I’m serious. We couldn’t get this eight-count section right for two months. Because the middle was empty, everyone kept reading each other’s faces."
Jiwon quietly added from the side, "That’s why Se-a unnie kept running it twelve times. She never usually goes past three."
Soi looked at Se-a. Se-a was still only looking at the wall.
"……All twelve times today, because of me?"
"No." Se-a said shortly. "I knew it’d click once you came, so I was getting ready."
Soi stepped into spot 3.
4
Her own face was reflected straight on in the mirror. For the first time in three years, not from the corner, but from the center.
"Going in."
The music started.
Eight counts. Soi turned the wrong way on the fourth count. She went right when she should’ve gone left and collided head-on with Se-a. Both of
them fell to the floor.
"I’m sorry—"
"There are still four counts left."
As Se-a got up, she grabbed Soi’s arm and pulled her to her feet.
"Huh?"
"The music didn’t stop, did it? Finish the remaining four counts."
Soi stumbled up and carried on into the fifth count. Her timing was off and the blocking was a mess, but — when the eight counts ended, all five
of them were standing in the same place.
The five of them were reflected side by side in the mirror.
Yuna shouted first. "We got it! We got it! Unnie, we got it!"
"We got it while making mistakes." Jiwon laughed.
"But we still got it!"
Harin laughed and turned off the speaker. In the room that suddenly went quiet, only the sound of the five of them breathing remained.
Only then did Soi understand. Completion wasn’t never making mistakes. It was standing together to the end, even while making them.
At one in the morning, the five of them sat side by side on the practice room stairs and tore open convenience store bags.
5
"Is Soi unnie in spot 3 tomorrow too?" Yuna asked.
"Uh…… I’m not sure about that."
"Spot 3 it is." Se-a said as she handed over a sports drink. "Tomorrow too, and the day after."
"I’m probably going to keep messing up."
"Then we just keep doing it again."
Soi took the drink. The cold bottle touched her palm. Suddenly her throat tightened, and she couldn’t tell whether it was from the heat or something else.
"Um, unnies."
"Hm?"
"I really want to do well."
Harin ruffled Soi’s hair.
"I know. That’s why we brought you here."
The lights in practice room No. 3 on basement level 2 went out.
Two more months of summer still lay ahead.
— EP.01 END"]}]}}]}] }】}]}