TDOCD Chapter 83

Chapter 83

Third Round Evaluation

"Though you're one team, you created distinct themes for each group that clearly showcased the concept and atmosphere of your actual groups—U&DA, Flora, and I Met You."

She wanted to elaborate further but kept her comments concise.

They hadn't merely performed according to each group's concept—they had executed it with exceptional flair.

U&DA's signature mature and sultry atmosphere never felt dull despite featuring minimal choreography. Flora truly revealed new dimensions of both members.

Sohae had never realized that Ji-ye could perform such bold, intense dancing, or that Ra-eun could command such powerful stage presence.

This revelation was especially surprising considering they had seemed relatively less confident in their dancing compared to Flora's main dancers.

Yet in this performance, they displayed the most impressive dance skills of all.

Sohae recalled how when Young-ju faltered and the audience's focus wavered, and on how the audience’s attention immediately snapped back as soon as Ryu Ji-ye appeared on screen and took the lead in the choreography.

"Especially for trainees like I Meet You's Young-ju and Flora's two members, this concept must have been unfamiliar and quite risky, but personally, I think it was an excellent choice. I really enjoyed it."

"Thank you!" they responded in unison.

Watching the trainees bow with overwhelmed expressions, Sohae gently withdrew her smile.

But of course, she couldn't just overlook the visible mistakes.

"However."

Sohae's gaze turned to Young-ju.

"It was a very immersive performance, but when Youngju was leading the stage alone, why did it suddenly—" Sohae raised her hand to her temple and twisted it. "—feel like the focus completely shattered? The live singing became very unstable and the expressions were quite awkward."

Ah... Young-ju nodded while forcefully swallowing back a groan that threatened to escape.

It was an issue she was already aware of.

Only after performing on stage in front of the judges did she realize - she didn't yet have the ability to carry a stage alone.

Overestimating her abilities had been a huge mistake.

Seeing her expression, Sohae continued with a gentler tone:

"I think you might have been too tense from the pressure. Your part was quite long, so you needed to pace yourself to maintain the same energy level throughout."

"Yes," Young-ju acknowledged, eyes downcast.

"But from your entrance through the early part, it was really excellent. Your entrance had tremendous impact. If you can maintain that feeling throughout next time, I believe you'll show us something even better. I look forward to it."

"Thank you!" Young-ju responded, her voice stronger this time.

After Sohae, other judges shared their evaluations.

After Sohae, the other judges shared their evaluations. They repeatedly highlighted U&DA's stability, Ra-eun's surprising transformation, Ji-ye's dance skills that had been overshadowed by the main dancers, and praised Young-ju's powerful entrance scene.

"That concludes FloU&I's performance!"

FloU&I descended from the stage, still dazed from receiving what amounted to rave reviews.

***

"Everyone worked so hard!"

"Great job everyone!"

Excited encouragement echoed all around.

Even during practice, we had sensed that this stage would definitely work.

The professional arrangement turned out better than expected, and our fellow members had such great stage sense that no words were needed.

In reality, multiple times we felt that everything was definitely heading toward "gains" rather than "nothing."

'Though I was worried when Young-ju faltered.'

Fortunately, no one else wavered because of Young-ju's mistake, and we finished well, so the overall evaluation wasn't significantly affected.

"Hey, Young-ju, why are you crying! You did well!"

At Young Il-rin's voice, they turned to see Youngju in tears.

"*sniff* I'm sorry to everyone..."

She seemed to be crying from frustration over her mistake and feeling apologetic.

'I guess in every group I was in there was someone crying after every competition .'

We all rushed to Youngju, gave her a big hug, and after barely drying our sweat, returned to the set.

"Awesome!"

Applause rained down on us as we returned to the set.

"That was amazing!"

"Wow, how can you be so good! What are we supposed to do now!"

Naturally, I Meet You was the loudest.

They cheered for us even more enthusiastically, as if trying to console Youngju for her mistake.

Behind I Met You, what caught my eye first were the expressions of Flora members from other teams.

"Ra-eun and Jiye were really amazing. I was shocked."

"We have to watch the broadcast together later. Those two were no joke."

They were genuinely happy about the high praise I received, as if it had been directed at them personally.

'They really are good people.'

I nodded with a slight smile and sat down with the other members.

Then the other teams' performances continued in succession.

Team Awesome Friends consisted of 5th May Rookie, U&DA, and Romance Story.

Given their strong team composition, everyone expected them to do well naturally...

"The genres we pursue are so different... it's hard to bridge that gap."

"I wondered what this was. Everyone just talked about what they wanted to do, so the same conversations kept going in circles. I worried we might just keep having meetings until the competition."

Surprisingly, an impossible war was being waged on their side.

Usually, most teams would decide on songs through meetings and mutual compromise...

Team Awesome Friends had many stubborn trainees.

First, the concept gap between 5th May Rookie and U&DA was huge.

Plus, they could only freely present what they'd prepared through their agencies if they won the song they wanted.

The atmosphere made it even harder to compromise.

After a long standoff between the two teams, U&DA finally yielded.

"Listening to your points, 5th May Rookie's arguments make sense too. Let's go with Retro Bomb."

The U&DA member's face was pale with worry as they said this.

"Retro Bomb" reinterprets 70s retro style with a modern feel - it's very humorous with an extremely fast beat.

Both the playful concept and the fast beat suggesting high-difficulty choreography were completely unsuited for U&DA - it was an inconsiderate song choice.

Like the U&DA members in our team, U&DA isn't actually a group known for dancing.

They're a team with professional-level singing and showmanship.

The usually cheerful set atmosphere froze for the first time.

"..."

5th May Rookie pushed through with their selfish song choice and got their way.

The silence was natural since everyone present knew how this had happened.

The ones who made the choice were off preparing their stage and wouldn't know, but the other 5th May Rookie members from different teams turned pale, as if sitting on pins and needles.

I swallowed a small, bitter laugh.

The 5th May Rookie members appearing in the video were the same ones who had semi-threatened me about song choice during Round 2 not long ago.

I could already imagine how Team Awesome Friends had fallen apart.

Plus...

'Where did Romance Story go?'

Something felt off from the start of the VCR.

Why were only 5th May Rookie and U&DA showing up? Romance Story members were definitely on the team too.

Even the song choice war interviews focused mainly on U&DA and 5th May Rookie members.

There was no mention of what songs Romance Story suggested in the meeting.

No, even if Romance Story's song suggestions were edited out for being disappointing, this was too much...

Shouldn't they at least show which side Romance Story took between 5th May Rookie and U&DA's choices?

It was a complete edit-out.

I turned to check the expressions of other Romance Story members.

Sure enough.

'They don't look happy.'

It was understandable.

It would be stranger if they looked happy when their team members didn't even appear for a second in the video.

Anyway, the VCR continued.

Once practice started, it was chaos - U&DA struggling to keep up and crying, arguments breaking out.

U&DA became discouraged from not being able to keep up and eventually started avoiding practice with May Rookie.

5th May Rookie, in turn, grew frustrated with U&DA's helplessness.

'How bad must it have been?'

How terribly must they have tried to take advantage for scenes like this to appear in an unfinished VCR that only we would see?

This must have been heavily edited down since Start Plan favored May Rookie, yet it was surprisingly raw.

Even more absurd was the fact that Romance Story members had only appeared in passing glimpses so far.

No one at the venue could ease their hardened expressions.

Romance Story completely edited out.

5th May Rookie shown primarily in a selfish light.

U&DA shown only crying.

How could anyone react positively to such footage?