"Let’s go one more ti."
"Okay."
At Lucas’s voice coming through the headphones, Ayeon closed her eyes and steadied her breathing.
'This is hard.'
Even while working on the past two albums, it had never once been easy, but this ti, Ayeon thought it was especially difficult.
Dance and singing.
Both were abilities idols needed, but these days, idols usually specialized in one of the two.
And there was a reason for that. Because idol groups, by nature, had so many mbers, the recent trend had been to specialize in what each person did well.
Vocal mbers did vocals, dance mbers did dance.
These days, idols were so diverse and subdivided that even things like acting and variety were assigned as positions.
And in Ayeon’s case too, she was specialized more toward dance than vocals.
Her vocals were by no ans bad either, but compared to Kurosawa Yuri, the team’s main vocal, or Seo Ryujin and Lee Sion, the lead vocals, she was a little lacking.
-I don’t think I could ever dance like you do, Ayeon unni, no matter how much I dance.
Ayeon didn’t think it was simply a matter of lacking effort.
Just as Yunkyung, the youngest mber of the team, had looked at Ayeon and said she could never have the confidence to dance like Ayeon, every person had talents given to them.
When it ca to dancing, Ayeon was confident.
Even before she entered TSP as a trainee, she could watch the choreography of singers on TV a few tis and imdiately copy it.
And after she beca a trainee and started learning dance in earnest, even when she had been lacking compared to the other trainees who had entered earlier, she had never once thought she was inferior to them.
All she needed was ti and effort.
She had been confident that she could catch up to them and beat them soday.
But singing was different.
-Ayeon, I think this part’s range is too high for you.
-I’ll try it one more ti.
-This isn’t sothing that works just because you try hard.
In classical singing, singers were divided into tenor, baritone, and bass according to vocal range.
So people said vocal range could be developed through effort, but because the fundantal frequency differed depending on the form and shape of the vocal cords, there was a difference in the range each person could sing naturally, and that was why they were distinguished that way.
At first, unwilling to accept that fact, Ayeon had clenched her teeth and practiced while dancing until her throat felt ready to burst.
However, just as dance was an art that shone by burning up the consumable called joints, singing also consud the muscle called vocal cords, and what ca back was only the injury of vocal nodules.
Fortunately, because it was discovered early, the condition hadn’t gotten very bad, so it was treated with a simple injection and rest, but after that, Ayeon had no choice but to give up a certain amount of greed toward singing.
No, to be exact, it wasn’t giving up.
♬
While she had briefly fallen into thought, the song started again.
Even if I fall, I get up again
The more I shake, the stronger I beco
Matching it, Ayeon concentrated on the singing while recalling the parts Lucas had pointed out while directing.
"Okay, much better."
"Thank you."
"Then let’s rest for a mont and record the next part."
At last, with Lucas’s okay sign, she finally caught her breath and took off the headphones she had been wearing over her ears.
'I am a flounder.'
With that brief break given, Ayeon suddenly rembered what had happened when they recorded "DON’T BLINK," the title track of their second album.
Back then, the Iam mbers had been bewildered by the unfamiliar style of singing loosely to match the unfamiliar music style called Jersey club that they had encountered for the first ti.
Even Yuri, the main vocal, had struggled with that unfamiliar style, so there was no need to ntion the other mbers.
But unlike the other mbers, Lee Sion had handled even that unfamiliar style too easily.
At the ti, Ayeon still hadn’t completely let go of her greed toward vocals, so if she said her feelings hadn’t been complicated while watching Sion back then, that would have been a lie.
To Ayeon, Sion, who climbed so easily into the position of main vocal that Ayeon herself could never reach no matter how hard she tried, had seed too unfair.
-Talent is making it bloom. Sense is honing it.
-···What nonsense are you talking about now?
-Flounder··· beco a flounder, Ryu-zami.
But as if she had read Ayeon’s heart, Sion had co over during a break in practice and suddenly blurted out sothing absurd.
At first Ayeon couldn’t understand, but the mont she realized it ant Sion was telling her to give up her greed toward vocals, she was just about to get angry.
-Do you know baseball?
-I do.
-In baseball, there’s sothing called the batting order from first to ninth, and that batting order isn’t just decided at random.
Sion had explained that each batting spot had its own assigned role, and among them, the first and second batters were called table setters, whose virtue was getting on base no matter what.
-If a table setter swings the bat around trying to hit ho runs, they get cursed out. Because that position has a role.
-What are you trying to say?
-What batter wouldn’t want to hit a ho run? But they hold back and aim for singles or walks. Even if they lose out a little themselves, they trust that if they just get on base, the cleanup trio waiting behind them will smash them in.
Sion had said that it was because there was a table setter that the cleanup trio beca frightening, and that runs were scored.
-I’ll hit it. You set the table.
-···If you don’t hit it, I’ll kill you.
-I’m Lee Sion, cleanup hitter of Haan-dong. I specialize in hitting rather than dodging.
Watching Sion say with a completely shaless expression that she would hit the ho run, so Ayeon should just set the table well in front of her, Ayeon had no choice but to laugh in the end.
'If everyone puts strength into it, paradoxically no one stands out.'
This title track, "Black Pearl," was a song with a double structure whose powerful chorus was especially impressive.
And the ones handling that storm-like chorus part were Kurosawa Yuri and Lee Sion.
If that was the case, then the rest of the mbers had to safely guide the ship to its destination so Yuri and Sion could cut through that storm.
It was fine if the highlights went to the other mbers.
The old Ayeon would never have tolerated that, but not now.
Ayeon still rembered clearly the Position Evaluation from Agbaek, which had now beco a mory.
Back then, the symtrical choreography that Ayeon and Sion had done together as the highlight was still being talked about among not only fans but people in general even now.
But that stage hadn’t been possible because Ayeon had been good enough.
It had been possible because there had been other mbers who had quieted themselves down for that part—or rather, to make Ayeon and Sion shine.
-There is no star that shines alone, Ayeon.
The advice Park Taesu had given her after she was dropped from the debut lineup.
At the ti, she had thought it was a ridiculous excuse, but now Ayeon understood the aning of those words better than anyone.
***
"Is this really possible?"
"It’s possible. I’ve done it."
"···."
Yuri looked at Raon with an expression as if she had been completely cowed.
Then Raon looked back at her as if asking whether Yuri thought she was lying.
'She’s insane.'
Yuri wasn’t soone who lost to anyone when it ca to sheer intensity, but after debuting in Iam, she had often found herself wondering whether she was actually quite a gentle person after all.
"Now then, everyone listen carefully. This song is such a nonstop rush that there’s barely any ti to rest, and the choreography is complicated too, so out of all the songs we’ve done so far, this one has the highest difficulty."
Whether she knew Yuri’s thoughts or not, Raon clapped her hands to gather the mbers’ attention and continued explaining.
'The difficulty can’t even be compared to the earlier songs.'
The choreography for this new song was so intense that it almost felt unfair to compare it to the previous songs.
Even Yuri, whose fundantals were solid in their own right, though not on the level of Ryu Ayeon or Seo Ryujin, found it burdenso, so the choreography for this new song was absolutely not easy.
"You know how MR-removed clips are trendy these days, right? As idols have increased, people’s standards have risen too. The song being hard, the choreography being hard, that’s our problem. The public will simply judge based on what they see and hear."
If that song difficulty was added to the recent intense trend of verifying idols’ real skills, then if they handled it wrong, it could end in a disaster.
"We have to show them once, right?"
However, Raon, Iam’s producer, was instead trying to use that very situation as an opportunity.
[The Big Three really are different]
"Iam’s songs are definitely good, but compared to VYNNIA or LYNX’s stages, there does seem to be so kind of difference."
⤷Yeah, and both of them lost to Iam.
⤷If you take fan bias out of it, those two really are a little more polished on stage.
⤷Honestly, comparing them to VYNNIA or LYNX in the first place is weird. Those girls trained for years.
⤷It’s not like the Iam mbers were picked for skill alone.
⤷Wasn’t Iam openly made to target mainstream popularity?
⤷Right. They were a team created through a survival show in the first place.
Compared to their rival groups, VYNNIA and LYNX, Iam had perford stages with relatively easier songs.
Of course, their level hadn’t been diocre, but since rivals were rivals, doubts about their skill had always existed.
"I don’t think your skills are lacking."
And there was no way Raon, their producer, didn’t know about those doubts, just as the mbers themselves knew them.
"Certainly, when we first ca together, I think there were a lot of parts where we were lacking."
Raon brought up the ti when Iam had first been ford.
Seo Ryujin and Ryu Ayeon were already skilled enough that they wouldn’t have been lacking even as active girl-group idols, but the other mbers had all each been missing sothing.
Even Yuri rembered how, back then, Raon had singled her out and drilled her because her dancing was lacking.
"But now it’s different. It’s no exaggeration to say we’ve been running toward this album from the very beginning."
Was that why?
Through the last two albums, Raon had intentionally trained Iam over ti through their stages.
In the first album, with a song focused on synchronized group choreography so they could match each other like idols from other major agencies despite the short preparation period.
In the second album, with the bold attempt of Jersey club and waacking in order to raise the mbers’ ability to digest concepts in genres they still lacked experience in.
And on top of that, after going through Three Kingdoms, the skill and experience of the Iam mbers, who had needed to plan diverse stages on their own, had grown to a surprising degree.
"From now on, it’s ti to show all of that."
At Raon’s words, the Iam mbers recalled the ti they had spent and nodded.
The third album.
Since it was the last mini album to be released before the full-length album scheduled for next year, both KJ Entertainnt and the Iam mbers were unusually determined.
'The first was recognition, the second was experintation, and the third is the real thing.'
For idols, it was right to see everything from debut through the second mini album as the experintal phase.
It was the period where a group established its identity—what kind of music it would do, and what kind of image it would go with.
So groups started out with a firm concept and direction from the beginning, but for most groups, it was often through the third mini album that the group’s direction was decided.
From whether they would aim for mainstream popularity or go for a fandom-centered route, to how outsiders would judge the group, it was an important branching point.
There were countless idols who had sailed smoothly through their debut song and second mini album, only to collapse on the third mini album.
And because this was that third album, Raon was now telling the mbers to show that Iam was by no ans an idol group that competed only with buzz and popularity.
"So you’re saying we’re supposed to sing while riding this?"
"Yeah."
The mbers agreed with Raon’s opinion too.
No matter how much the previous albums had intentionally been albums ant to prepare them for the third album, there wasn’t a single mber who liked being judged as looking less skilled than VYNNIA and LYNX.
So in this third album, the Iam mbers intended to completely overturn the public’s evaluation.
But even those mbers had no choice but to be horrified by the training thod Raon was proposing now.
"One set is singing the whole song while running on the treadmill. I’m going to gradually adjust the speed upward, but in my case, when I was active, I used to run at 12."
"12?!"
At Raon’s words, the mbers gasped in shock.
And understandably so, because 12 was a speed that was hard even if you were just running normally, so running while singing on top of that was a level almost impossible to imagine.
"I guarantee that singing while running on a treadmill is way harder than singing while dancing on stage."
Swoosh.
Raon pointed at the seven treadmills prepared for the mbers.
"So if you can sing stably while running on the treadmill, there won’t be any problem on stage."
At last, when Raon finished speaking, the mbers stepped onto the treadmills with stiff expressions.
"This feels nostalgic."
"Sion-chan, aren’t you scared at all?"
"It’s fine. Soldiers run 3 kiloters while singing marching songs."
"We’re not soldiers!"
"What I an is, if you do it, °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° it all works out."
Even in the middle of all that, Lee Sion was making absurd jokes as if she weren’t nervous at all, leaving Yuri dumbfounded.
And so Raon’s special training began.
"Huff···."
"Haa."
Even in the first set, the mbers had barely managed sohow, even if it was difficult and the pitch and rhythm went wrong in places.
But from the second set onward, it went beyond being short of breath and started to feel as if their lungs hurt.
Since this was a part directly connected to performing on stage, the mbers had all been confident in their lung capacity, so it ca as quite a shock.
'Was it this hard?'
The mont the third set ended, Yuri imdiately collapsed flat onto the floor.
The break ti between each set was three minutes.
To steady her breathing even a little, she needed to stand and take big breaths, but there was no way she could do that.
After only three sets, all the strength had already drained out of her body.
Even Yuri, sprawled flat on the ground, was one of the better ones.
"Ugh!"
Lee Gahyeon and Geum Shinyu, whose stamina was on the weaker side, were clutching the treadmill handles and hanging their heads as if they were about to throw up at any mont.
"What, Sluggish Ryujin, are you tired already? With stamina that weak, no wonder your jokes never turn out funny either."
"Haa··· you’re hilarious. There’s sweat on your philtrum right now."
"So now you’re fabricating things again!"
However, the three inhuman mbers of Iam still seed able to endure.
There was Lee Sion and Seo Ryujin, still bickering with each other even though it was obvious they were out of breath,
and then there was Ryu Ayeon, who wasn’t saying a word, but despite the sweat pouring down, had the corners of her mouth lifted as if she was enjoying it.
Tap.
Watching that, Yuri planted a hand on the floor and pushed herself up.
'If it goes to the end, Yuri beats everyone.'
Back in her trainee days, when the other trainees saw soone exceptional and gave up in advance, Yuri had instead burned with motivation.
It was the sa now.
Ryu Ayeon and Seo Ryujin—and even Lee Sion.
They always amazed Yuri with astonishing talent and skill, but even so, she had not the slightest intention of giving up on catching up to them.
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