Page 28 of Idol Prize
Tae Woo’s eyebrows bunched together. “I’m sorry?”
“The song. What’s the song about? What do the lyrics say?”
Tae Woo frowned. “It’s a basic love confession. The singers are confessing their feelings to the girl of their dreams. If she chooses them, they say they’ll be together forever.”
Andy nodded. “Basic, yeah. Not exactly groundbreaking stuff, but it’s meant for a broad audience, so it has to stick with themost broadly appealing concepts.” He turned to Min Jae, ignoring Min Jae’s apparent surprise and his own, deeply buried anger. Deal with that later. “You said make it dark, and that’s just as basic. Dark versus light. But you meant more than that, right? Not just putting us all in black leather.”
Min Jae’s other eyebrow floated up. “I did.” Not exactly a question or confirmation.
Andy nodded anyway. “Exactly.” He glanced at Woo Jin and Min Jun. “And your killer rap bridge and five-part harmonies. Those are great ways to showcase our skills. But, what ties it all together?” The idea was there, floating just out of Andy’s reach. If he just kept going– “What makes it current? What makes it relatable to a modern, more sophisticated audience?”
“Sex.” Everyone turned to Min Jun, who seemed just as surprised as them that he’d said that aloud. “The song glosses over the implication that the singer is attracted to her.”
Woo Jin burst out with an almost forced laugh. “That’s what you think this song needs? A little fucking?”
Andy ignored Woo Jin’s outburst, focusing on a random point on the wall as he let his mind work. Sex would definitely work, but that wasn’t quite right. Sex appeal definitely sold, but he wanted to push it further. Not just sex, but– “Seduction. That’s how we make it dark. That’s how we update it. It’s not a love confession. It’s a lust confession.” He turned to Min Jae. “It’s sultry darkness, with black and oxblood, because we’re setting a sensual mood.” To Woo Jin. “Your killer rap bridge leans into your sex appeal.” To Min Jun. “We expand the vocal harmonies into the lower register to make them a little more dangerous.” And, finally, to Tae Woo. “And it all honors the original song, updating it in an honest, open way.”
Andy sat back, letting everyone absorb his pitch, knowing it was the right direction. Beating everyone over the head with it wouldn’t help. He needed their buy-in.
Woo Jin slowly nodded. “Okay, I see it. I could rap more inmy lower register, too. Spit harder, but slower. More deliberate. Give it some sauce. I like it.”
Min Jun was nodding, too. “Lower harmonies would give the melody more depth. Make it sound more mature.”
“This totally turns the song on its ear,” Tae Woo countered. Then he grinned. “I really like it.”
That left Min Jae. Andy expected him to protest just to be defiant, like he’d been on the treadmill that morning. Or, to gaslight everyone into thinking it was his idea. That would actually be fine. Andy didn’t want the credit. He wanted to win.
“I can already see several ways,” Min Jae finally admitted, “where we can build on the original choreo. Make it more sensual.” He glanced around the room. “As long as you all don’t mind taking some risks.”
“Taking risks is the name of this game,” Woo Jin replied.
Andy nodded. “Hell yeah, it is. We’re risking it all just by being here.” He leaned forward, finally allowing himself to grin. “And now it’s you and me, forever.”
12
All of MinJae’s planning, rehearsing, more planning, and more rehearsing weighed him down like the thud of a dropped mic. Absolute. Deafening. His urge to escape had him longingly plotting the locations of all the emergency exits in Sky Village. Just in case. But he still needed to breathe, to move without the watchful gaze of mentors or the constant attention of the so-called Dream Team. He couldn’t escape by running away. But he could indulge in the one practice he truly commanded, a language his body spoke fluently.
The fluorescent hum in Practice Room One faded as Min Jae flicked off the overhead lights, leaving the vast space swallowed by a near-total darkness. Only the faint spill of moonlight from the high windows–silver streaks slashing across the polished floor–remained, with the glowing, green and orange lights on the sound system controls, tiny stars reflecting in the mirror wall. He stripped off his shirt, tossing it aside as he approached the colorful constellation in the corner. He plugged in his thumb drive, filled with all the songs he’d used when practicing for the competition. Plus, one more. That’s the track he cued up.Ephemeral Echoes, an instrumental piece he'd discovered a fewyears ago. A sweeping soundscape built on a haunting piano melody that surged into a crescendo of layered strings and a driving, almost desperate hand drum beat, wordlessly telling a story he felt deep in his bones, a narrative of longing and unspoken truths.
The song’s quiet opening notes escaped into the darkness, and Min Jae began to move. A fluid, unrestrained outpouring. His body unfurled like a flag catching the wind, limbs stretching and reaching into the shadows. He spun, a dark silhouette against the faint moonlight, each movement a whispered confession to the empty room. His spine curved and arched, a willow bending in a storm, conveying a vulnerability he would never allow his face to betray. His hands, usually precise and deliberate, flowed through the air like water, sculpting invisible shapes of sorrow and yearning.
Min Jae was a brushstroke on a canvas of night, a melody made visible. His leaps were moments of breathless suspension, defying gravity, trying to escape the very ground that held him. The turns blurred his form into a fleeting phantom, a murmur of emotion too raw to be fully seen.
As the music swelled, nearing its emotional core, Min Jae let himself go, eyes closed, releasing himself into the movement, drawn by a passion no longer entirely his own. A phantom grasp met his outstretched hand. An unseen force supported him in a turn, their imagined momentum flowing together. His private monologue became a conversation. And the presence that answered, in the silent language of muscle and bone, was unquestionably Andy.
Reveling in his waking dream, Min Jae bathed in the endless fountain of wondrous connection, movements real and imagined seamlessly swirling and intertwining. A dance of perfect understanding, an unambiguous acknowledgment of the potent charge that pulsed between them. The heat from Andy’s gaze, the rhythm of his warm breath. So vivid, so real as the music surgedto its peak. They reached the final, breathtaking pose–a moment of perfect equilibrium, their forms impossibly close, their energy intertwined. He opened his eyes, panting, the echoes of his shadow dance partner still vibrating in his muscles.
That was new.
Min Jae relaxed his posture, sweat pouring down his face and naked chest, expecting exhaustion but only feeling energized. Refreshed. If that had been the real Andy, their bodies intertwined, their–no. It wasn’t the real Andy. Only a figment of Min Jae’s much abused imagination, escaping from its carefully constructed compartment in his mind, wearing Andy’s face. His solitary reflection, staring back at him in the moonlit mirror, was proof enough of that. A reminder that the kind of connection he craved lived only there. In his mind. And that’s where it would stay.
By the next morning, after a night of fitful sleep Min Jae mostly attributed to nerves around evaluation day, he’d moved on. His morning routine centered him, pointing him on the day’s path with little thought to the shadows lurking in the deeper corners of his mind. Shower and dress. Coffee and light breakfast. No time for a workout, since Team One’s evaluation was first on the schedule. Naturally.
Except, of course, those deeper corners weren’t always so deep as Min Jae wanted. And those shadows always had a way of lingering, popping back up when you least expected them.
“You know you were talking in your sleep last night?”
Min Jae snorted, knocking into Woo Jin’s shoulder as they walked toward the auditorium after their warm up. “I don’t talk in my sleep.”
