After Mentor JP's announcement, we were all dismissed, after the group practice, it was already 6 p.m. It was already time to eat dinner. As we made our way to the cafeteria next door, I thought about the announcement.
"How the hell do they have so much budget?" I said to Eunho while grabbing a tray.
"Huh?" Eunho replied. He was probably too hungry to think about anything right now.
"I mean, they hired such big stars as mentors and now they're even spending $10,000 in total just for us trainees to film a video? Only one video is going to stay up too!" The more I thought about it, the more strange it sounded.
Behind me, a voice suddenly spoke "Well, the previous season's 'LeStar' has become the nation's girl group, so they probably have a lot money right now, they even extended their contracts."
I jumped in surprise as the voice was strangely close to my ear. When I turned around I saw the face of Jung Daeho, who sat beside me during the first star evaluation.
"Ah, sorry. I must've surprised you." He said nonchalantly while rubbing the back of his head.
"Hm... I guess it could make sense with that, but its still strange they're suddenly being so generous this time." I replied after shaking my head that he didn't have to apologize.
He shrugged as I turned back around to move up the line. A few minutes later, I filled up my food tray and sat down at a table where Riku and Haru already were. Eunho and I greeted them as we sat down.
"You guys did great earlier!" Haru complimented us. I threw up a peace sign with a smile and replied, "I was really nervous about the dance but I managed to pull through."
"Speaking of the dance, let's practice the choreography together later!" Riku chimed in. "Sounds great! Where do we practice though?" Eunho replied.
"I guess we can just ask the staff if the practice rooms are open?" I said while stuffing my mouth with rice.
Shortly after, Jung Daeho joined our table, his tray was even more stacked than mine. "He must be hungry." I thought as I stared back at my tray that was also quite filled.
"Hey guys, nice to meet you, you can call me Daeho, I'm 17 years old by the way." He introduced himself as he sat down beside us. Also, I was surprised by his age, I thought he was older than me considering his skills.
Almost right after his introduction, Aidan and Dohyun appeared out of nowhere, filling up the last two seats of the table. "Hey! Mind if we sit here?" Aidan said, already sitting down.
"Of course not!" Eunho happily replied. "By the way this is Daeho, and that's Aidan and Dohyun." I said, introducing them to each other.
Aidan animatedly waved at Daeho while Daeho and Dohyun nodded at each other. It was kind of funny seeing the clear personality difference between the three.
"Anyways, we were just talking about practicing the choreography together earlier, are you guys up for it?" I asked Daeho and the two.
The three quickly agreed and we finalized our group to practice later. A few minutes later, we all finished our dinner, and somehow, Daeho had finished his meal first, despite having a tray filled with enough for 3 people.
Regardless, the six of us left the cafeteria to find a staff member to ask about the practice rooms. Luckily, there was a writer walking in the hallway just outside so we found out that the practice rooms were just a floor above us.
We thanked the writer as we made our way to the practice rooms. Once we reached, we picked a random room. However, when I opened the door, Kang Hajun was sitting in a corner alone with his head down. It didn't seem like he heard us so I quickly closed the door.
"Hyung why did you close the door? Eunho, who was right behind me asked. "Oh, there was already someone in there, lets just go somewhere else." I replied, making a hand sign to Eunho to not ask further.
Eunho raised an eyebrow but he didn't press me. Anyways, we just went to the room opposite instead. There was a speaker and a laptop placed by the center of the wall. I walked over to it and found that the signal song track was already available, as well as the choreography video.
Like that, the six of us started our practice, split into a V formation so we'd be able to see each other. Daeho and Dohyun were the most skilled dancers in our group so they led us through the details of the choreography.
"Hyung, for this part you have to make sure your arm stays straight." Dohyun explained as he clearly showed the part to me. I was glad that he didn't seem to down about the vocal evaluation previously and smiled while he fixed my movements.
By this point, about 2 hours had passed, we managed to fix the details for over half of the song, deciding that we'd do one last run-through before we went back to our rooms. As the music started to play, I could see in our reflections that we were perfectly in sync, I couldn't believe how well our group clicked despite us just getting to know each other.
Throughout the song, I felt like my dance skills had improved tremendously just with the guidance of Dohyun and Daeho, unlike learning with Eunho alone, it definitely helped to have someone much better than me together. We managed to get a perfect run, although out of breathe, we all huddled up and cheered.
"That was amazing guys! It felt like we were already a debuted group!" Eunho yelled out, he was really hyped. "We couldn't have done it without Dohyun and Daeho, let's clap for them! Woo!" Aidan also excitedly said. We all laughed as we clapped to his request.
"But man, I'm beat, let's go back to the dorms." I said, I was happy but the tiredness took over. Everyone nodded as I was already standing by the door. When I opened it, I thought I had heard the sound of someone running away but it must've just been the others behind me.
With that, our dance practice was an ultimate success as we all wearily trudged to our rooms. I fell onto my bed and fell asleep almost instantly.