Jibeom was one of the first trainees to arrive as he looked at the dorm arrangements with his suitcase with him. He already called his sister and told her about the show but since she is in the industry he can't really interact with her much because she is in the industry and it would drive his credibility to the ground
He looks at the arrangements and finds out he rooms with Ryunwoo, Grisha, and a D rank named Taeyang. He enters the room and is suprised to find Ryunwoo there humming as he places his things on his bed of choice.
Jibeom immediately starts conversation saying "Hello Hyung." Ryunwoo quickly and happily answered "Hello, how's your day Jibeom." Jibeom happily answered "I'm excited, we are finally going to be shown to the people and I can be like ReJoy."
Jibeom had actually grown excited about his situation throughout the past month of being with the system, he can actually shave something to strive for and be like the people he was a fan of. He and Ryeonwoo continue their chatter as they see Grisha and Taegeon enter. Taegeon was talking to Grisha with him just smiling and listening clearly admiring him.
Taegeon Greets them "Annyeonghaseyo" Grisha said the same with his own slightly broken Korean and his natural blank stare. Grisha was extremely handsome and had a naturally charismatic face with somewhat long black hair and it also helped that he was quite tall. Jibeom took it upon himself to introduce Ryeonwoo to the other 2 even though he doesn't know them that well either. He with a loud voice said "This is Ryeonwoo Hyung, Ryeonwoo Hyung this is Grisha and Taegeon." They all locked eyes for split second and all said a quick hello with Grisha quietly saying "Nice to meet you" with his broken Korean that Taegeon then corrects. Ryeonwoo looked at Grisha and asked "You're not Korean?" Grisha answered "I'm from Singapore and I'm half Russian" which is another phrase that Taegeon must correct.
As they were talking more a short brown haired boy entered the room.
"Hello I am Lee Taeyang, nice to meet you." He said enthusiastically and quite happily.
Lee Taeyang
173 cm
18 y/o
Vocals: C-
Dance : C-
Rap: C -
Visual: A
SP: A
They all greet each other and sort out the room until they have to go because it was time to go learn the signal song. They were split into 8 groups meaning 10 per practice room and were all told to practice the vocals and dance of the song and the producers and mentors had already chose Koki as the center which makes sense as he was eliminated in the last episode of the show that made one of the most popular groups, TrailBlaze. They were all told that the mentors would come and check on them occasionally and can agree to rank you up or down with all the higher rank trainees getting a fancam that was easier to see. Finally they were all told that they would have 7 days to learn everything before they film the title song and the street performance will be a day after. They were all split into their groups as they all went to their assigned practice rooms. Jibeom took a long look at his stats and realized how much work he had to do.
So Jibeom
175 cm
18 y/o
Vocals: B
Dance: C
Rap: D
Visual: B-
SP: C-
He lets out a heavy sigh to himself as he meets the other trainees with all of them being nice and some being extremely helpful even helping him learn to do the things that he was quite bad at learning the songs tempo and some choreo steps but he worked extremely hard and was always positive like he always was. He even decided to help with some of the many vocal lines in the song. On day 3 Jibeom was feeling quite sick for some reason and was having extra trouble. Soojin and Jinho came in to evaluate the trainees and get a feel for what they can do. They all went one by one with some people messing up and some harsh criticism. A guy named Eddy went up and he was immediately torn to shreds by their critisism.
Jinho started speaking as Jibeom came up " You are all quite disappointing for the B group." Jibeom came on stage and he continued "Show us something good." Jibeom immediately started with a stable voice until he forgot some lines and missed a lot of beats and his empty expression on stage did not help." Soojin and Jinho just stared disappointingly until Soojin said " Jibeom I'm quite disappointed mainly in your dancing. I could tell you were clunky in the audition but you were still able to atleast find the beat and hit the moves at a good pace and you didn't show any of those skills here." Jinho spoke after her " You are quite a solid vocalist with a nice tone but you don't have enough presence or expression or really anything like that. You need to work on your dancing as you obviously just learned what you were supposed to do without learning the proper steps. Just overall you need to work on a lot but you don't have a terrible foundation to build on, just listen to what we told you and you will be ranking down." Jibeom walked off the stage deflated from their words but he completely understood as he did terribly.
He said goodbye to the other B rankers as he went to the C rank practice room across the hall quite sad. He looked around and was in slight disbelief by what he was seeing.
Taeyang was ranked up by you could tell he still hasn't gotten a grasp on the vocals, a black haired guy who was almost tone deaf but was dancing the choreo perfectly. Two younger guys learning the dance together but neither could quite get it down and 5 guys who appeared to be foreign sitting in the corner trying to figure everything out. He was kinda appalled this wasn't D rank by the way things were but decided to meet everyone.
"Hello I'm So Jibeom nice to meet you all." He said in a calm and pleasant voice with only Taeyang noticing and waving while saying hi back. Taeyang quietly says "They aren't much of talkers because most of them are foreigners trying not to get eliminated or sent home." Jibeom noticed the black haired dancer sitting on the floor trying to get the notes right again and decides to help him a little bit and nudge him in the right direction. Jibeom looked at the paper and suddenly sung the line perfectly which made the black haired guy jumps a little bit at the voice and the other trainees look at him as they hadn't noticed him enter. Jibeom slowly kept going singing the whole chorus with the black haired guy looked at him in complete surprise and disbelief. The black haired guy finally said something saying "Hello, I'm Kade." In a quiet and very composed manner and Jibeom and Taeyang re introduce themselves as a Jibeom looks at his stats
Anurak Siriwanich
179 cm
20 y/o
Vocals: D+
Dance: A-
Rap: D
Visuals: B+
SP: A-
Jibeom was a little suprised by his stats because if he just sang a little better he would be a very solid trainee and he was eying Kade's stats he was given a mission.
"Help everyone in your practice room improve for the next evaluation!"
Reward: 3 stat points, One draw ticket
He was kind of annoyed with the mission as he kinda wanted to focus on his own improvement but realized that it would look very good for him on camera in episode 0 if he was helping the others learn. He started with giving Taeyang and Kade vocal lessons which proved to be somewhat difficult as Kade couldn't understand most of what he was saying and was relying on Boogle Translate. Taeyang was also hard to teach in the fact that he couldn't anything wrong except for the need of more training.
Jibeom kept teaching them and helping them get to a point where they were becoming better vocally and it was now day 4. They were quickly taken and suited up for the pictures on their profiles and for the voting apps and stuff and Jibeom immediately made the rounds helping all the other trainees with vocals while Kade and Taeyang stepped up and taught everyone the dance and helped with facial expressions respectively. They were working as a unit and it was quite obvious they were making progress and suddenly Jibeom was over joyed as everyone's singing stat went up one level from him just helping them as most were rappers and dancers. He was given his stat points and he put 2 in dance and one in stage presence which still left him in a bad place but one that was a lot less terrible. As the day ended he walked out the practice and went to his room where he saw Taeyang just lying there on the top bunk where he slept. He had a more straight face which Jibeom rarely saw from him as he was always smiling or yelling excitedly. Jibeom quietly asked him "You okay? You were off at practice." Taeyang quietly says "My grandma died today." Jibeom quietly looked at him and listened as he went on "She was the one who persuaded me to join my company and push to be an idol after I said I wanted to be one." He went silent for a second and went on "We used to watch old groups together and she took me to my first concert." He went silent again and Jibeom quietly looked and listened at him as he kept speaking "I wanted to make my debut before she died but this was a lot sooner than I thought. I guess I'll just have to debut in her memory now." Jibeom silently just stared at him again with Taeyang sitting up "Well thank you for listening hyung." Jibeom just looked at him smiling and nodding and Taeyang put on his usual smile asking "Why did you get so quiet? Come on let's go back to the practice room. We need to work hard to debut together." Jibeom was quite suprised "When did I join this dream." With Taeyang answering quickly "When you sat there and listened now come on and help me sing good." With Jibeom putting his questionable grammar aside he finally got fired up as well and said "Hwaighttiiiingggg!" Which appears to wake up Grisha who was taking a nap instead up practicing but he very sleepily said "Hwaigghtting." The two immediately go back to the practice room to see the other 8 had the same motivation which led to everyone practicing together even later in the night with their motivation. They all eventually fall asleep in the practice room peacefully as the next evaluation will arrive tomorrow.
End of Chapter 5