I woke up to a wave of water being splashed onto my face. I gasped for air as my eyes shot open. I looked around me frantically to see a middle aged woman with slicked back hair staring at me in disapproval while holding a dripping bucket.
"Oh how nice of you to finally return Sunwoo" She snarled with a nasty expression on her face.
I stared at her in confusion wondering what this woman was mad at me for. She raised an eyebrow before gripping my face and yelling, "You really thought you'd be without punishment after disappearing for two days?!"
And just like that, I was forced to do chores without a chance to think about anything else. Eunho had witnessed the entire thing but was too afraid to say anything, instead he sneakily helped me with my punishment as an apology.
I sighed while massaging my shoulders as I lazily slumped into the comfortable bed. I paused for a moment before finally filling out the audition form on my phone. I glanced at Eunho and saw that he was also filling up the audition form. He looked strangely excited, reminding me that Eunho was a major fanboy of the female version of 'Stella Planet'. I smiled softly as I finished the audition form, pressing the submit button.
I checked the time and it just turned 12 A.M. I unconsciously yawned as I turned to Eunho.
"Eunho let's think of a plan for our audition"
Eunho and I spoke late into the night. By the time our discussion had ended it was just past 2 A.M. We decided that we'd have a synergy between our roles, Eunho would upgrade his dancing and rap skills, and I would upgrade my vocal and dance. We also talked about what type of image we'd like to show. I wasn't very confident in being able to have a bright and cheerful personality that I had seen idols displaying when I came across them on tv. So, after some arguing, we concluded that Eunho would attract people's attention with aegyo along with his naturally cute face and I would have a more cool aura to be polar opposites.
Feeling satisfied with our plan, we finally went to bed.
I groggily opened my eyes, I grabbed my phone to check the the time. [7:45 A.M]
I instantly snapped out of it and jumped out of bed in a panic, rushing towards the uniform that was hanging on a chair while also yelling at Eunho to wake up.
"We're gonna be late its almost 8 already!"
Eunho woke up in confusion before saying, "What are you talking about hyung? its Saturday."
I stopped putting on my blazer, with a stupid expression on my face. "Oh... It is?" Eunho glared at me for waking him up before putting a pillow over his face and seemingly went back to bed. I looked at him apologetically before I sighed and sat down on my bed. "Damn is this the leftover stress from getting interrupted from taking the CSAT?"
I tried to close my eyes again to get some rest, but the nerves from the small panic I had were still strong. With a heavy sigh I reluctantly opened my eyes and decided to check my [Status Window].
[Name: Kwon Sunwoo (Kang Juwon)]
Age: 19
Potential: ???
Vocal: D-
Dance: E-
Rap: D-
Visual: A
Skill Points: 1
Attribute: Limitless, Become An Idol Or Die!
Skills: All Eyes On Me!
I looked at my abysmal stats for a moment before pressing the skill point button. After a short moment of hesitation, I inputted it into the dance skill. With a slap of reality of my subpar stats. I decided that I'd better start training now than later.
I looked up dancing tutorials of popular songs and my finger landed on a song by a group that even I had heard of despite having little interest in idols. It was the song 'TNT' by NTS
I stared intently as a groovy beat started playing. I stood up to copy the moves but I felt like a fish out of water. I even slowed the video down to be able to follow the moves easier. However, my skills were so terrible I probably looked even worse than a robot dancing. I held my face in my hands and decided on finding an easier song to dance to and searched "Easy kpop dance tutorial"
I clicked on the first video that showed up and it was a girl group song. This time, I was able to follow the movements alot easier, although I still needed to slow down the video. I still wasn't amazing but at least I wasn't a bumbling mess.
One hour passed by and I finally managed to get through half the song without stopping. Considering my previous failure, I was quite proud of myself. Feeling slightly exhausted, I jumped onto my bed and started scrolling on my phone. Suddenly, an idea popped into my head.
I started watching previous auditions for survival shows and observed what was most common in the popular auditions. "Hm... It seems like there's mostly three categories people pay attention to." The comedic, the pure talent and the charming ones."
My mind started wandering on how we could grab people's attention as we only had one month to prepare. "Showing off our talent is a pass, there's no way we can even get decent in just two weeks. I have never performed on a stage before, so I doubt I can enchant the judges with just my expressions, so pass..."
I sighed, I guess we'll have to go with the comedy route? Just then, I heard Eunho finally waking up beside me. He had a refreshed expression on his face while greeting me. "Good morning hyung!"
"...Its 1pm Eunho." I deadpanned.
Shortly after Eunho woke up, we decided to have lunch and come back to figure out what song we would be performing after I told him that we'd have to go with something comedic.
Once we reached our room, we started searching for songs to perform. We spent a whole hour deliberating, until I found the perfect song. It was a song from a popular anime that had recently gone viral. Many famous kpop idols had made videos of its trend. It was perfect for the concept I had in my mind. The key point of the song was the dance in the chorus where our hands would sweep side to side as we moved up like an elevator.
I grinned while nodding "Eunho-ya this is it!"
For the rest of the day we started practicing the dance, which turned out to be alot more taxing than it looked. It was alot more difficult to hop left and right then I thought and it was after a relatively energetic build-up.
We were so immersed in dancing that it was already dinner time when we finally decided to stop practicing. A few hours later, it was time for bed and I decided to check the missions tab to see if I had any new missions.
However after opening my status window, I realised that my dancing skill had risen past the point I had added to it.
[Name: Kwon Sunwoo (Kang Juwon)]
Age: 19
Potential: ???
Vocal: D-
Dance: E+
Rap: D-
Visual: A
Skill Points: 0
Attribute: Limitless, Become An Idol Or Die!
Skills: All Eyes On Me!
It seems like I can grow my skills organically as well. I was worried that it would take forever to raise my skills just through missions so this was a relief. After quickly checking my missions tab and seeing nothing different, I went to bed.
After this first day of practice, Eunho and I established a routine that we would keep up until our audition day.
And just like that, 2 weeks had flown by. We were now standing in the crowded lobby, with numbers pasted on our clothes. I heard our number being called and mentally prepared myself, checking mine and Eunho's status window one last time.
[Name: Kwon Sunwoo (Kang Juwon)]
Age: 19
Potential: ???
Vocal: B
Dance: D
Rap: D-
Visual: A
Skill Points: 0
Attribute: Limitless, Become An Idol Or Die!Skills: All Eyes On Me!
[Name: Song Junwoo (Kang Eunho)]
Age: 17
Potential: ???
Vocal: D
Dance: C
Rap: B+
Visual: B-
Skill Points: 0
Attribute: Limitless, Become An Idol Or Die!
Skills: Feel What I Feel
I felt quite satisfied with our growth. I focused heavily on my vocals, and Eunho decided that he'd balance out his skills. We managed to raise our skills more than we thought thanks to receiving more missions related to the creation of our SNS accounts.
With a deep breath, we stood up and entered the audition room, going face to face with a group of PDs and writers for the show. We wore bright clothing which seemed to surprise the judges, but they regained their composure quickly.
"Hello, contestants #234 and #235. Please begin whenever you are ready."
We introduced ourselves briefly to the camera that was placed before us and the funky music started to play.
I could feel the judges staring at us intently while writing notes as we performed. However, by the end of our performance, I could tell that the judges were holding back their laughs. It seemed like my plan had worked.
"Ahem. Thank you for the performance. We will contact you in three days to inform you whether you have passed or not" One of the judges told us while clearly stifling a laugh.
We thanked them and quickly walked out of the room. The moment I stepped out, I felt a wave of relief come over me. I patted Eunho on the back and said with a smile "I think we're going to make it!"
I felt judging stares from the people around us, someone even scoffing at us, but I was too happy to even care.
Three days later, we received the message.
"Congratulations, you have passed the audition to participate in the survival show program 'Stella Planet" followed by details of the first shooting. Eunho and I were ecstatic, now our journey would truly start.