New Seoul; Finding Taehyung

햇빛의 주머니 (9)

Dae Pov

A Pocket of Sunlight

"Aigoooo... my everything is sore!"

Seung complains as we all lay on the floor of the practice room after dancing for four hours straight.

"You're telling me. We still have singing lessons after this." Kwan says and we all groan except Izumi who sits up in the corner and checks his phone.

"Hey, don't you ever get tired?" I ask Izumi and he turns off his phone and looks up at us.

There was only a single bead of sweat coming down his forehead but other than that he was perfectly dry as if he only did a light workout. The rest of us, however, were drenched with sweat and just wanted to go back to the dorm to shower.

"Hmm? No, I've been doing stuff like this since I was younger so I guess I'm used to it." He says and rests his chin on his knee.

Seung sits up and turns to him. "How young! Cause I've been doing this since I was twelve and I'm still exhausted!" he yells and Izumi raises an eyebrow.

"I can't remember how young I was when I started," he says which angers us further but before we can start an argument the CEO and our personal assistant walk in and we all scramble to stand up and bow.

Mr. Kasuma holds up his hand and we all await his instruction. Ms. Sue pinches her nose from the smell of our sweat.

"Okay NTB." He says with his hands in his pockets. "You now have almost two months before your debut at the annual Factory 39 concert. But before then I want to see what you're made of and what kind of band you are."

He pulls out his fist and holds them out to us with a sly smile.

"Pick one,"

he says and We all look at each other.

Seung steps forward and strokes his chin, looking at each fist before making a decision. He chooses the left and Mr. Kasuma opens his fist to reveal a folded slip of paper.

Seung takes the little piece of paper with utmost precaution as if the paper could blow up in his face. He opens it slowly then his face turns from one of confusion to excitement as he leaps in the air, twisting in circles like a child who was given way too many sweets.

"It's a song! It's called 'Butterfly' by BTS!"

He shouts and we all look at him confused.

Mr. Kasuma pets Seung on the head.

"I'm surprised you know this song. It's about a hundred years old," he says and Seung stops jumping to get serious again.

Izumi snatches the little paper from Seung and looks at it while Seung pouts over his stolen song.

"What is this for? And why a century-old song?" Izumi asks and Mr. Kasuma shrugs.

"What can I say, I'm an old soul. And you boys will need to sing this song and come up with choreography for it by the end of the week. You can mix it up between Korean and English if you wish."

Mr. Kasuma answers his questions and before we can start complaining about how unfair and cruel it is to only give us six days, he raises his palm.

"You have until Friday. Get to work."

***

"How good is your English?" Izumi asks Seung and I later that night when we were in the dorm. We standing around the grand piano in Izumi and Seung's room.

"I mean I learned some English in school so I wanna say I'm proficient," Seung says and Izumi suddenly switches to English and the two of them start talking but it was so fast I couldn't concentrate.

"Hey! This is supposed to be a group conversation! Don't single us out!" I complain and they go back to Korean.

"Your accent is flawless. Did you live in America?" Seung asks and Izumi just nods.

"I think we can do that part of the chorus in English. we should be ok,"

Seung says and starts to play the intro to the song then stops.

"Wait! shouldn't we assign parts first?" Seung asks, looking to Izumi.

Han runs out of the room and comes back with five Screen-lighter pens in different colors.

Izumi gets a blue one,

Seung grabs the pink one,

Kwan goes for green,

I steal red,

and poor Han is stuck with purple.

"You want to switch?"

I ask but he shakes his head.

"Don't you know purple is my favorite color?" He says sarcastically and I poke him.

"Everyone keep your Screen-lighter. This will be your color from now on." Han offers and we all thank him.

"Alright Dae let's start with you," Izumi says and we all ready our screens for Izumi to mark them. As soon as he marks My screen with the red screen-lighter it appears on everyone else's screen.

"I've never used this feature before. That's so cool!"

Seung says and watches Izumi write my name with the red marker.

He was giving me the English parts.

***

I twist in a full circle and drop to one knee with everyone else while Izumi comes up and sings his solo. I do a small countdown in my head and tap my foot to the beat while listening to him sing.

His voice was that of a beautiful well-trained tenor with a masculinity to it that was unique to him.

Then we reach the part where my thumbs clasp together and my hands flap like wings and fly up as high as I can go until Seung comes up and does his one solo line.

His voice was like that of an angel and he could hit all of the high notes perfectly.

Then I go flying forward with Han as we do Seung's backup while Kwan and Izumi move to our formation and we dance the end of the song with our end pose with one hand in the sky grabbing and slowly pull down.

It was Thursday but we were ready.

"Wow, that was pretty good guys." Izumi says and we all look at him in shock. That was the first compliment he had said all week.

"But Dae I need a little more strength in your voice and then you'll be perfect, Seung no comment keep doing what you're doing, Han your footwork on the first chorus could use a little more practice, and Kwan, I know you like rapping better but just a little bit less strength on you notes because your words need to be smooth and graceful," Izumi says and stretches out his arm.

We all double over after doing the song twelve times in a row.

Izumi claps and we all look at him while holding our breath.

"If we have to do this one more time I'm going to collapse from hunger."

Seung growls angrily and just as he does my stomach lets out a large groan and I pretend to faint. Izumi rolls his eyes.

"Alright, let's go get something to eat," he says and I come back from the dead with my arms raised in celebration.

"Food!"