Chapter 33

“Did you guys practice?”

“Yes,” I replied as the leader of Team 1.

“Really? You guys were really bad yesterday. I’m not even sure practicing would be enough.”

“We think it helped us a lot.”

“Yeah? I guess we’ll see about that. I’m sure you remember from yesterday, but I show no mercy. If you guys dance like you did yesterday, I’m just going to cut it off. Got it?”

‘Do what you want, bitch,’ I said to myself.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Okay. Let’s begin.”

When Mi-hyang gave the command, we all got into our positions. Jia and Yoo-jin kneeled next to each other at the front while I stood in the back. The music started. From the very beginning, it wasa strong beat. I ran towards Yoo-jin and Jia and leaped forward. With each foot on both of the girl’s shoulders, I kicked off and jumped hard! I did two clear fly-spin kicks in the air before the song started and we began the choreography. During the climax, the spotlight hit us one by one, and when it hit me, I did a flip kick that made everyone stare in awe. The three minutes just flew by and during the end, I jumped up and did a backflip in the air. The music ended right as I landed.

I’d say about five seconds passed before everyone was on their feet and started applauding.

We did it.

“Wow!!!”

“Amazing!”

“Incredible!”

Jinwoo complimented us with two of his thumbs up. Even Mi-hyang looked impressed as she gave us a small clap.

“This is different from what I saw yesterday?”

‘It’s not that different,’ I said to myself. It’s really not. The rest of the dance is the same, we only changed some of my parts.

“The kicks Sian did made the ‘Fire Dance’ choreography more intense. The timing of each kick was well thought out too. Did you guys come up with it? I feel like you got some help from someone,” Mi-hyang asked. Alright, I’ll give it to her – she knows her stuff.

“Hye-jin helped us,” Jia answered.

At that, everyone began nodded, the look of understanding coming over them.

“I thought so. Hye-jin is definitely skilled enough to come up with something like this. But were you guys the only ones who got help from her?”

“Yes.” This time it was me who answered.

“What about the other teams?” Mi-hyang asked the others. They all shook their heads.

“So the other teams didn’t get any help. Then it’s not really that fair.”

At Mi-hyang’s statement, Jinwoo nodded.

“That’s true. Hye-jin is already a proven choreographer. She gave you guys an edge. Then again, it’s a good thing she helped you. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have seen something as good as this.”

Mi-hyang nodded. I guess she agreed.

“But we still need to evaluate them based on the fact that Hye-jin helped them. To keep it fair.”

“True.”

So, the two of them agreed.

“Then, we’ll judge you guys considering the fact that you guys received Hye-jin’s help. The two of us are going to discuss this over before scoring you guys, but we will try to be as objective as possible.”

“Yes, sir!” We all replied.

“Then I’ll see you guys on Monday. Bye, guys.”

Jinwoo stood up and began to clap, and we all joined in. With that, Week 5 was a wrap.

***

The Week 5 mission was over. The episode will air on Friday and we’ll get our rankings on Monday. We got our new roommates and this week, I was placed with Yoo-young, Ji-hyun, Jia, Eunmi, Liang Liang, and Hainan. We were one team. We were told that we would get the next mission via text later.

“Sian, when did you learn how to rap?” Yoo-young asked me on our way to the dorms.

“I didn’t,” I replied honestly. I had simply spit out the first thing that came to mind.

“You’re pretty good at it.”

“Wasn’t it bad?”

I thought it was, so it was surprising to actually hear someone say it was good.

“No, it wasn’t bad at all,” Yoo-young said as she wrapped her arms around mind.

“Oh my god, why are you so thin?”

“I lost a lot of weight.”

“Your nose is so sharp.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you hungry?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to go to the sauna?”

“….”

“What do you want to eat?”

“….”

Needless to say, I was rather thrown off by her sudden invitation.

***

I decided to just follow along with Yoo-young. We went to a sauna and followed it up with fried pork cutlets. By the time we got back, it was evening. We didn’t see anyone except Yoo-jin who was sitting in the living room, looking at her phone.

“Ji-hyun, good job today,” I said as I sat next to her. Remembering that some of these girls were physically older than me and giving them due respect was hard at first, but it’s getting easier by the day.

“You, too. Where did you go?”

“Sauna.”

“With who?”

“Yoo-young.”

“Oh.”

Ji-hyun nodded as she turned back to her phone.

“What are you up to?”

“Texting my younger brother.”

“You have a younger brother?”

That was the first time I was hearing about this

“Yeah. He’s a trainee here as well. He’s nineteen.”

“I didn’t know.”

“You never asked.”

“I guess,” I replied.

“Hey, Sian.”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t you think there’s something off about Yoo-young?”

Why is Ji-hyun bringing up Yoo-young all of the sudden?

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…okay, look. This is my brother.”

Suddenly, Ji-hyun showed me a photo of her brother on her phone screen. He was very tall with a sharp, weasel-like face.

“So what?”

“My brother told me he confessed to Yoo-young.”

“Really? When?”

“Before we started filming for Fifteen.”

“So what happened?” I asked curiously. How could a guy like that think he had a chance with Yoo-young? And he was young as well.

“Apparently, she just keeps ignoring him. What a bitch. What gives her the right to do that to my brother?” Ji-hyun said, getting angrier with each syllable. Then again, he is her younger brother. It would make sense that she would feel protective.

“Maybe he’s not her type.”

“How can you say that after looking at him?”

‘It’s because I saw him that I can say this. Need I say more?’ I said to myself.

“Uh…yeah…I guess…” I said with a shrug. I didn’t want to fight with Ji-hyun over something like this. Ji-hyun’s anger was at an all-time high. It was best to be careful.

“When Yoo-young comes, I need to talk to her. Where is she? Didn’t she come back from the sauna with you?”

“She should be back soon.”

Just as I said that, Yoo-young walked in.

“Where is everyone?” Yoo-young asked brightly. The sauna did good for her – her skin looked better than ever.

“Hey, Yoo-young,” Ji-hyun said as she got up from the sofa.

“Hey, Ji-hyun. What is it?”

“You know my brother, right?”

“Yeah,” Yoo-young answered with a nod.

“I heard he asked you out.”

“He did.”

“But you keep ignoring him?”

“He’s annoying so yeah, I just ignore him. Is that wrong?”

“Wow? Are you serious? Didn’t you think about how hurt he’d be?” Ji-hyun shouted. My first cat-fight. It had my interest piqued.

“Why should I care? I told him clearly that I’m not interested, but he doesn’t take the hint. So, I ignore him. Don’t I have my rights?”

“What?”

Ji-hyun stepped closer to Yoo-young. That girl was dead meat. No. Ji-hyun will probably chop her head off first.

“You’re a bitch, you know that?”

“Takes one to know one.”

Yoo-young sneered. I could feel the tension rising.

‘Three…two…one!”

The moment my countdown ended, the two reached up and grabbed each other by the hair. These two look so nice on camera and here they are, trying to pull each other’s hair out. If people saw this, they would be pretty shocked. If I was a celebrity news reporter, I’d be all over this.

“Who do you think you are to reject my brother?”

“Hey! Let go! What’s wrong with you?”

The two were really going at it. I could have just kept watching, but I decided it was time to step in.

“Guys, come on.”

I grabbed their hands and tried to pry them off of each other, but they both refused to budge. Super-glue would have been easier to remove.

“Guys, come on…Hey, stop…Hey. Hey!”

And guess what? These bitches grabbed my hair. Are they crazy? They just continued to pull and claw at whatever they could get their hands on. So I did the same thing as well.

“Hey! Fuck! Let go of me! Hey! Stop it!”

***

The next morning.

Yoo-young and Ji-hyun got over their fight. But the air between them was awkward. Even as a guy, I knew these two girls were not going to forget this anytime soon.

We all received our texts regarding the next mission at the same time. The text read:

[To put on a show. Details will be confirmed by manager.]

“What? A show?” I asked. A show in the midst of auditions?

“I don’t know how to put on a show,” Jia said next to me with a pout. Now that I think about it, I’m always with her.

“What show?”

I headed to the living room. The others were already there, chatting.

“Hi, Sian!” Hainan said, waving to me. I took a seat next to her.

“What’s this about a show?”

“It’s for a cable channel. We’re going to be on it.”

“Oh?”

“The manager will be here soon to explain.”

Not even two seconds later, the doorbell rang.

Ding-dong.

Jia opened the door to let the manager in.

“Hi, guys~”

“Hi.”

“Hey, Mr. Lee. What’s this about a show?”

“Are we all going to be on it?”

“I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Hurry and tell us.”

We all began talking at once.

***

“You’re going to film a mukbang,” Manager Lee answered.

“A mukbang?”

We all looked each other. I bet I looked just as confused as the rest of them. We were going to film a mukbang?

“Yeah. A mukbang. And it’s going to be put on the internet. You guys are going to break into teams of three and check out dishes at different restaurants. We’ll judge you based on how many viewers you can attract.”

“So the team that gets the most viewers wins,” I concluded.

“That’s right,” the manager said.

“Yay!”

Jia cheered excitedly. What was she so happy about?

“I figured you’d be excited, Jia. I know how much you like to eat.”

Manager Lee said as he watched Jia jump up and down. We all knew how much Jia loved food. It’s really not fair that a girl can eat that much and not gain weight.

Anyways, Manager Lee kept going.

“You guys get to pick your teams this time.”

As soon as those words came out, Jia and Hainan plopped themselves next to me. I have to say, it was nice to have the two prettiest girls link their arms to stake their claim on me. If there’s one good thing about being in a girl’s body, it’s that being touchy with other girls come naturally. On the other hand, it has its drawbacks. I have so many opportunities but no chance of seizing it. It’s almost a form of torture.

“I guess I’m with Hainan and Jia.”

The manager nodded. The living room became noisy as the others began to pick their team members. Some even called other members that were living in other dorms, while others did rock paper scissors to pick their teammates.

“Do you think you’ll do well?” I asked Jia.

“Of course! Don’t you know how much I love to eat?” Jia asked with a smile. She looked really excited at the idea of eating.

“Your reactions and commentary need to be good, too.”

I tried to think of a time when I reacted well to a dish, but none of them really stood out to me. When I was fat, I really did enjoy eating. That is, I didn’t really care about reacting as much as actually eating the food. Was it last year? I was invited onto a cooking show, but all I did was eat. I wasn’t very entertaining to watch and I received a lot of scolding because of that.

“Don’t worry about that.”n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Hainan cut in.

“You?”

That was surprising. Hainan is from Vietnam. Her Korean was okay, but she still struggled a bit and you could hear her accent when she spoke. Then again, it does make it adorable when she does commentary.

“Yeah. I watch a lot of cooking shows.”

“Really?”

“You can trust me!”

“Okay. I’ll trust you, then.”

I guess I’m off the hook then.

“Then Jia will shove…I mean, eat the food and Hainan will give commentary. I’ll join in from time to time as I’m eating.”