𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐲 𝐤𝐢𝐝𝐬 𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐡 𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫

survival show (episode 3)

A/N: Hello everyone, I hope you're enjoying the story so far! Please look forward to my upcoming chapters and let me know if you have any suggestions or comments.

In this episode JYP creates an elimination round for Jeongin, Hyunjin, Minho and you.

Previously...
Your intro is quite stable so you feel okay for a while, but your problems begin when it reaches your part for the hook. You trip over slightly and make a few mistakes with the lyrics, quickly glancing up at JYP. You try to calm your heart, though, and continue without any other major issues.

When the song ends the nine of you all line up in front of JYP, nervously waiting to hear his thoughts.

After a long moment of silence, JYP finally speaks. He begins by saying that he really likes the song.
"Every aspect of the song is just brilliant," he states, causing the nine of you to break into small smiles. "I'm amazed by your skills, but..."

You feel like your heart is pounding out of your chest, the anxiousness causing an unpleasant shiver to make its way down your spine.
"...just as I feared, there are still many gaps." Your heart sinks to the pit of your stomach.

He leans over to ask one of the staff members for a phone with a keyboard app, and you hold your breath because you already know what he's going to say. When he presses on the keys, he gasps and immediately looks up at Chan.

He comments that the key is way too high for male singers, and proceeds to share his thoughts about each of the individual members. When he looks at you and opens his mouth to speak, you bite your lip and place your hands behind your back to hide the fact that they're trembling.

"Because you're not confident, everything you do looks unprofessional," he begins, you nodding in response, "This is a female key so this could've been your moment to shine, but you couldn't even sing the lower notes properly. Your whole performance looked messy," he continues.

"Being the only female member in this group means you have to be excellent and exceed people's expectations and stereotypes. You have to be skilled enough to fit in with all the boys without looking like you're bringing them down, but you also have to be confident enough and have lots of charisma to be on par with them."

You feel like crying, because all you can think is if you had just focussed and practiced more you could have done better, but all you had succeeded in doing was becoming a burden on the rest of your group.

What he says next is what shatters your heart completely.
"You're lacking in everything." All of your members members snap their heads up at JYP's harsh statement, eyes widened in shock.

He proceeds to criticise you for your unclear pronunciation and breathy singing, which was due to how much you were panting from the dance. You mentally scold yourself for not taking the mission seriously enough, your eyes now glued to the ground.

JYP decides to change some of the parts around; Minho is given a section of Hyunjin's rap, and most of your parts are shortened and handed out to the other members. All you have now is the small part of the intro that you share with Seungmin, and no parts to yourself.

He tells the nine of you that there's a chance that you may not be able to debut altogether, and that there are four members at risk of being eliminated: Minho, Hyunjin, Jeongin and you.

The moment JYP leaves the room, you lose the strength in your legs and slide to the floor in shock. The reality and the severity of the situation finally begins to settle into your head. You might not be able to debut. The other boys notice your state, all of them moving to embrace you in a group hug.

Your thoughts are racing, because you most definitely do NOT want to debut in a group that's anything less than the nine of you. You don't want anyone to have to leave. You just can't imagine not being in a group with them, and not debuting together. You need to improve, and fast.

The rest of that day is spent filming the music video for Hellevator, the criticisms you received earlier still fresh in your (and everyone else's) mind.

At the company:
The following day JYP announces the next mission, which is aimed at the members who are at risk of elimination. He tells your group to separate into three units, and for each group to make and perform a song separately. You make your way to the practice room to be allocated into teams and to decide the songs for each unit.

You sort yourselves into three teams, the first two being Minho, Felix and Changbin, as well as Hyunjin, Seungmin and Chan. You form a team with Jeongin and Jisung because you believe Jisung can help you and Jeongin with the vocals, which is one of your main focus points for this mission.

Despite being a rapper, Jisung's vocals are just as amazing so you feel like you would learn well from him. JYP had criticised your singing because it was being overpowered by your dancing and you weren't hitting the right notes, so you feel like Jisung can help you improve not only with the singing itself, but also with your pronunciation while you sing.

After Jisung finishes writing the lyrics for your unit's song, the three of you sit in a circle around Jisung's notebook. He understood how stressed you must be with everything going on, so he had offered to write the lyrics for the full song this time.

You all listen to his lyrics for the song he had named School Life, discussing it for a few minutes before the older boy allocates you and Jeongin your parts. You become very anxious, still feeling traumatised after JYP's response to the first mission.

Smaller groups automatically means more parts, and you're still feeling a little discouraged after the previous criticisms you'd received and having most of your parts taken away for Hellevator.

You want to do well, but you also don't want to bring the unit down. You begin to feel really insecure because the parts you've been given are in quite a high key, but Jisung reassures you that he will try his best to help you improve.

You have a lot more parts for this performance in comparison to what you usually tend to get in other songs; You have a small part of the intro, the second half of the first verse (after Jeongin's part), the second half of each of the choruses, as well as the bridge (after the dance break).

The next few days consist of countless rehearsals, with you locking yourself in a solo practice room whenever you aren't doing group practices with the other two boys in your unit.

The oldest member of the group begins to notice how stressed everybody is beginning to get, picking up on how tense they all seem to be after the first mission. He decides to arrange a little day off for each separate unit before getting back to work.

Jisung surprises your unit by taking you to a karaoke room to take your mind off things. It feels really soothing to sit down and just sing some of the songs you like, without having to worry about the mission for a while.