After half an hour had passed, we gathered up again and sang our parts. We then discussed whether or not we were satisfied with our fixes to which we agreed. Following our discussion, we decided to refine our parts as there was still another half hour until we were reviewed by Jiho again, who was now doing his own practice.
By the time half an hour had passed, I felt pretty happy with my singing, I felt like I had substantially improved in my habitual unconscious facial expressions as I practiced while looking at the mirror. I also felt that my singing was more adjusted now to the more EDM style of the song compared to the groovy beat I sang to in the audition stage.
We then rotated our parts and started practicing our new lines. As I sung the new lines, I started feeling more confident as I could feel that the notes Jiho had given me were quite effective, I didn't feel awkward singing high notes and I didn't feel like my notes were off-beat.
After we practiced individually for a while, we grouped up again to review each others parts, now that we had switched, we would be able to compare our singing to each other.
As we sung our new parts, I felt quite pleased, I thought that my and Jiho's strategy was working really well so far. As we got our feedback from Jiho, we were able to point out mistakes that he had pointed out first for our parts, as such, we progressed a lot quicker than the first time.
Following our short review session, we decided to rotate our parts again to be head of schedule before we were reviewed by Jiho.
A few minutes later, we were called up by Jiho once again. I felt that we'd progressed far enough so we sang the next part we had practiced as well.
After we received our notes, I decided that I'd talk to Jiho about our current format. Thankfully, it seemed like he was taking a break as he was quietly sitting by the wall.
So, I approached him with a question, "Hey, I just want to ask if you think the way we're doing things right now is alright."
With a moment of contemplation, he turned his head to me and replied, "Hm... Honestly, I think it's going pretty well. Nobody seems to be falling behind, they're actually ahead of schedule so far. I think the part rotation was a good idea."
I nodded as I decided to sit down and talk for a bit, "Other than that, are you doing alright? Let me know if it's getting too hard to do this alone."
Jiho smiled at me as he replied, "Actually, I'm finding it pretty fun so far, it feels nice being able to help everyone, but thanks for worrying about me."
"Although, I am worried about a few people, this song's key is pretty high and its impossible to train their vocals to the point of being able to pull it off in just a few days." Jiho continued, furrowing his eyebrows slightly as he spoke.
"Hm... I agree, but I think we can work around that, it's more important that they can actually perform than to have bad vocals just because they can't reach the notes, right?" I spoke after thinking for a few seconds.
"You're right, broken vocals would easily break a performance... I'll tell the trainees that later. Thanks!" Jiho replied.
After our conversation, I decided to speak to the dance leader as well. The dance group was also taking a break so I freely approached Sunghoon.
"Hey Sunghoon hyung, do you have a moment to talk?" I asked while walking towards him.
Sunghoon nodded as he turned to look at me, before asking, "What's up?"
I sat down beside him and started speaking, "What do you think of our practice format so far?"
Sunghoon then relayed similar concerns to Jiho, but all in all, it seemed that he was okay with the current format.
"I think that it'll be harder later on when we switch groups since we decided on working on our weaker parts later." He said as I nodded in agreement.
Our conversation continued into our speed so far and we concluded that we'd worry about setbacks later and try to stay ahead as we currently were.
Following our conversation, I headed back to my group as it was time for Jiho's review again. As we'd already showed him our parts earlier, we were finished pretty quickly. So, we spent the last 30 minutes refining our parts once again, getting more used to singing this song naturally.
After that, I announced to all the 2-stars that it was time for lunch, bringing an end to our first practice session. I then told them that we'd gather again 30 minutes after lunch.
At the cafeteria, I sat down at the table which had gathered our improv dance practice group from yesterday. I greeted everyone while sitting down before talking to Eunho.
"How was your practice?" I asked him. "Oh-oh hyung! I'm so glad you asked, I my status window and my dancing is now A rank!" He replied excitedly, though lowering his voice when mentioning our secret system.
"Oh~ really? I should check mine too then." I replied. When I checked my status window, my vocal rank had indeed risen as well, rising by one grade to an A+, giving Eunho a thumbs up.
"I wonder what'll be after A rank though? Probably S rank right?" Eunho asked me while stuffing his mouth with food.
"Hey! Eat your food first before speaking!" I jokingly shouted like a teacher while patting his back. He stuck his tongue out at me, before I spoke, "Anyway, I wish we could see the other trainees' ranks too, I feel like we're decently ranked now but we're still so lacking compared to them."
"I wonder if they're all S rank and above? It feels like this season is a lot more top tier compared to the previous ones even in the top trainees." I nodded, I wondered how we made it but I guess they do need to strike a balance in the show too.
Somehow, the entire table got roped into our conversation as we spent the rest of our lunch time talking about the differences between our season and the ones before us.
With some time to spare, Eunho, Riku, Haru and I decided to just head to the practice room early, like us, it seemed that some people had gathered early as well, the two other leaders as well as a couple of trainees were talking while waiting.
"So, do you guys wanna practice? We can help each other with the vocal and dance while we wait." Riku asked us.
We all agreed as we started on our mini dance practice, like we'd done the day before. After a few minutes, the other trainees who'd just been waiting decided to start practicing as well. We spent about 15 minutes just going through the choreography and the rest on the vocals.
As the trainees started rolling in, we split up back to the dance and vocal groups and thus the same cycle as the 1st session began, this time we had each trainee sing the whole song through as we discussed improvements that could be made for each person.
This lasted for about two and a half hours. As we went through each trainee, I could feel that we had definitely improved a lot in this short time, everyone was more confident compared to when we performed in front of the mentors as well as the mood of the room being quite happy.
"And-- that's it! We've managed to complete everything on our schedule in time today." Jiho told our group as the final trainee sat down.
I checked the time and it was just about 4 P.M. I was quite surprised that we'd finish this quickly but I was pretty happy about it.
I then stood up to announce, "Since we've finished early, let's start on the dance practice!" I asked everyone to sit down for a moment before I headed to the dance group on the opposite side of the room.
I then asked Sunghoon if we could borrow someone to help us practice as we'd finished early, he agreed and called Eunho over.
"Hey hyung! What's going on?" Eunho asked as he approached, "Well, the vocal group finished first so we wanted someone to help us practice the dance now." I replied.
After that, we continued with our practice, now learning the choreography properly, which lasted until dinner time.