8. Ghost
The candidates for the Signal Song Center were given time to practice their dance and song in the practice room until the other contestants on the beach arrived.
While the nine people were huddled together and passing around one tablet to practice their dance, Neoul was surprised to see that the people on the screen had moved to smaller tablet PCs.
He finally understood what the Sea Priestess had said after seeing the contestants repeat the same dance and song every time they pressed the play button.
—ᴛʜɪꜱ ɪꜱ ᴀ ᴍᴀᴄʜɪɴᴇ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ꜱᴛᴏʀᴇꜱ ᴍᴇᴍᴏʀɪᴇꜱ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛᴏ ᴋᴇᴇᴘ.
—ʟᴏᴏᴋ ʜᴇʀᴇ. ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴀᴄʜɪɴᴇ ɪꜱ ᴡᴀᴛᴄʜɪɴɢ ʏᴏᴜ ᴀɴᴅ ꜱᴛᴏʀɪɴɢ ᴛʜᴇᴍ ɪɴ ɪᴛꜱ ᴍᴇᴍᴏʀʏ.
So this is what it meant to store. To leave them vividly like this so that you can watch them over and over again whenever you want.
Humans were truly amazing. They are beings that could create things that Neoul could never have imagined.
Neoul sat on the floor with interest. Then he stared blankly at the lyrics he had received from the staff.
'How do I read it?'
Neoul couldn't read human letters and strangely shaped symbols at all.
Not knowing what to do, he quietly watched the humans, and then hummed along to the signal song that had been playing on the tablet until just a moment ago.
At that moment, nine pairs of eyes were fixed on Neoul at the same time.
'It's a bit scary...'
Neoul turned his head in bewilderment at the gazes of the humans and sir rabbit.
"Neoul-ah. You sing really well."
"Wow. But do you have perfect pitch?"
Kim Ji-rok with empty eyebrows and messy Gye Tae-seok came closer to Neoul excitedly, forgetting what had happened earlier.
"Your tone is also a fraud, and wow... you have it all."
As they approached and talked more, Neoul's forehead flinched at the stench that surged in.
The moment Neoul, who couldn't hold it in, was about to say a word.
"Wait, wait...…!"
Baek Yu-ri, who noticed this, ran over and stuffed something into Neul's mouth.
'Hmm?'
Neoul, who was embarrassed by the rabbit's violent and undignified behavior, opened his eyes wide at the sweetness he was eating for the first time.
"Sir Rabbit, what is this?"
"It's a mini chocolate bar. I brought it because I thought my blood sugar would drop while filming. Who wants to eat it?"
"Me!"
"Cheongi too!"
Everyone was hungry and tired, so they accepted the bite-sized chocolate bars without hesitation. Neoul watched the chocolate bar in Baek Yuri's hand gradually decrease.
"Would you like another one?"
Neoul nodded vigorously with shining eyes. Baek Yu-ri handed over the chocolate bar and took out a sharpie. Then he wrote a sentence on the back of his lyrics.
[Neoul ssi. I think it would be better not to say the same thing as before. I don't know what it smells like, but anyway, can you just ignore it and let it go even if it smells? I'll ask you.]
Baek Yu-ri quickly showed the paper to Neoul, intending to erase it with an eraser. However.
"Sir Rabbit. What did you write?"
Neoul couldn't read it and just blinked. He even tried to put the chocolate bar he had given him in his mouth without knowing how to open it.
Baek Yu-ri was startled and quickly snatched it away and opened it, looking embarrassed.
"Sir Neoul. Are you a foreigner?"
"Yes. Didn't I say I came from the Dragon Palace earlier?"
".....?"
"Ah. The Dragon Palace is the palace where the Dragon King resides."
When Baek Yuri didn't seem to understand, Neoul kindly added an explanation.
"Ahaha... That's right... Dragon Palace..."
Baek Yuri thought Neoul was joking. He laughed because he wasn't good at taking jokes, but the other person didn't seem to have much intention of laughing, so things quickly became awkward.
Moreover, he spoke Korean so well that he couldn't possibly be a foreigner, and he didn't know how to react when he encountered illiteracy in Korea, which has the lowest illiteracy rate, so he erased the sentences he had written with an eraser.
"Let's practice. Practice...…."
Baek Yuri held his shaking eyes and went to a corner, where he devoted himself to practicing the song like crazy.
In the meantime, Woo Cheong, who had learned the choreography, slowly approached Neoul.
"Hyung-nim, hyung-nim! Everyone is practicing, so why isn't Neoul-hyung-nim dancing?"
"It looks too difficult."
"Then you should learn faster!"
"You're right."
To get the liver of Sir Rabbit, I have to debut, and if I want to debut, I have to dance this difficult dance and sing at the same time.
However, how can I move my whole body so freely when I haven't even learned how to walk yet?
Neoul got up from his seat and waved his arms, imitating what he had seen earlier.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm dancing."
"It looked like a balloon for a ceremony just now!"
"What is that?"
"When you open a store, there are balloons that dance in front of it, right? Like this."
When Woo Cheong imitated the event balloons realistically, the other participants clapped and laughed, saying that it was exactly the same. Only Neoul couldn't sympathize and tilted his head.
"It's like a dolphin with its tail caught in a net."
"A dolphin?"
Woo Cheong laughed out loud, saying that it could be seen that way.
"Hyung-nim, hyung-nim! I dance well! I'll help you dance, so please help me with the song!"
Although Neoul had never taught anyone to sing, he accepted the offer. Since Neoul didn't know even the first letter 'D' in dance, Woo Cheong's offer sounded pretty good.
The other participants watched them from the corner of their eyes while practicing on their own. Neoul's vocal skills had already been proven on the beach, and Woo Cheong had been famous as a dance prodigy since he was young.
They're afraid of what kind of synergy would be created if these two great people helped each other.
Furthermore, there was only one center position.
Baek Yu-ri, who was memorizing the song in the corner, and Ha On-ha, who was stretching, also watched them.
"I'll teach you how to dance!"
Woo Cheong led Neoul and stood side by side in front of the mirror.
"Watch carefully!"
One! Two! Tan! Ta-tan! Follow-up! Tan! Turn left! Fingertips! Isolation! Straighten your back! Slap!
Countless movements passed by in an instant at a fast pace.
"You can do this, right?"
"...?"
What did you just see?
Neoul tried to move his arms. His toes moved sideways.
"Hyung-nim, what are you doing?"
"I'm following what you taught me."
"I did that kind of movement...?"
I don't remember that!
Woo Cheong's eyes shook in shock at Neoul's poor movements.
The only hardships bright 18-year-old Woo Cheong had experienced in his life were his mother's charismatic scolding to dress like a student.
For the first time in his life, he was faced with a huge obstacle that he couldn't overcome.
Woo Cheong was flustered. Neoul couldn't follow his dance even when he showed his movements more slowly, as if in slow motion.
The problem was that he was trying hard, but it didn't look like the same dance at all.
"Hyung-nim, hyung-nim. Why are your arms and legs hanging out like this?"
In particular, the arms were able to do some easy movements, but the legs moved really strangely. It was strange, like a marionette with strings tied to the legs and controlled by someone else.
On the other hand, the vocal lessons that he was taking under Neoul were the same. Neoul sang in a much more beautiful voice than the guide vocal of the signal song that they had heard earlier.
"Now, follow along."
"....."
Woo Cheong tried to imitate what Neoul had sung a few times, then fell to the floor like a shriveled leaf.
"Boohoo. I was wrong."
Woo Cheong pretended to cry with a sobbing sound.
Some of the contestants who had been on guard felt relieved, while others felt frustrated, as if they had eaten sweet potatoes without water.
The two geniuses had a big problem.
One, they had no experience teaching anyone.
Two, they had never failed in their field, so they couldn't understand those who couldn't.
Three, their balance patch was extreme.
Woo Cheong was born to dancer parents and grew up hearing the name of a prodigy, but his singing was at the bottom of the class among the trainees.
Neoul was born with a mermaid-like voice and singing skills that seduce people, but all he had ever done was swim around in the ocean with Sangsang and Stardust, and that was it.
There was someone who couldn't stand to see those two people.
"I think Cheong-i needs to practice pushing his voice forward. Neoul ssi shouldn't just follow the movements, but start from the basics."
He had been a trainee for 7 years. He had only 6 months of stage experience after debuting with CLEAR. After CLEAR disbanded, he was attending college majoring in practical music and vocals.
Not knowing that helping Neoul could lead to his organs being removed in the future, he naively offered a helping hand.
Baek Yuri explained and demonstrated in an easy-to-understand manner, and helped Woo Cheong's vocalization. Then, he calmly taught Neoul simple movements that even a kindergartener could follow.
Even if he repeatedly made mistakes or got lost, he never raised his voice. If he couldn't do it, he taught him again step by step until he could.
Thanks to that, Woo Cheong felt that the sensations in his legs and feet, which didn't seem like his own, were gradually becoming familiar.
"Wow. Baek Yuri, he's so patient."
"So how can he fix all the movements like that without swearing at them once?"
Gye Taeseok stuck out his tongue in agreement with Kim Jirok's words.
Woo Cheong and Neoul were different types, but in Gye Taeseok's eyes, Baek Yuri was the most different type.
A place where they gathered to compete for the signal song center. No one would swear or blame them, no matter if they did something stupid or didn't help them.
But Baek Yuri was definitely helping his competitors despite it being a competition.
'Why are you doing such a stupid thing?'
Are you that confident? Confident that you can win even if those two geniuses overcome their weaknesses and successfully complete the evaluation?
Gye Tae-seok felt a sense of crisis, so he rubbed the dark area under his eyes and devoted himself to practicing.
***
After all the participants who had remained on the beach got on the bus and went to their accommodations, the production crew tried to clean up the beach and finish filming.
"Don't forget your equipment and take care of it! Clean it up thoroughly!"
At that moment, the rock in the middle of the beach shook. The man who had placed a large beach towel on the rock screamed in surprise.
What appeared when the beach towel fell was not actually a rock, but a huge tube that realistically recreated the pattern of a turtle shell. A handsome man with refreshing features poked his face out from underneath it.
"Huh...…?"
He made eye contact with the assistant director who was trying to retrieve the busking sound equipment.
"Huh? Filming is over?!"
"Huh?"
The assistant director who found him also opened his eyes wide in surprise.
"Are you a participant?"
"Yes! It's Baek Gi-yeom."
"Huh? I sent everyone away, so why is there one person left? PD-nim!"
PD Seok Oh-young turned his head at the urgent call. Quickly grasping the situation, he checked the camera that was still on and sent a signal to the camera director. It was a signal to film something that had happened.
A 7-year veteran of entertainment PDs was speaking. We have to film this! PD Seok Oh-young asked Baek Gi-yeom.
"What's your name?"
"I'm Baek Gi-yeom."
Baek Gi-yeom crawled out from under the turtle shell and stood upright. He was a tall and slender contestant.
The PD found his name on the list of trainees and was puzzled.
"How could one of them be left out when there's an even number? I'll call. Just a moment."
He called the main writer who was in the dorm.
A cheerful voice flowed out from the smartphone with the speaker on.
- Yes, PD Seok! All the contestants arrived a little while ago. The kimbap I reserved was delivered just in time. The kids must be hungry, so I wanted to tell them to share it first.
"Yes, writer, just a moment. One of the contestants here couldn't get on the bus. Could you just check the number of people?"
- Yes? All 80 people arrived? Isn't that 80 people including the additional contestants?
"Oh, that's right...! But one person here got left out?"
- Yes? That can't be right? I checked the number of people twice, and there are 80 people.
"....!"
Then why is this guy here?
Suddenly, a chill ran down his spine and goosebumps appeared. The assistant director and PD Seok Oh-young turned their heads to Baek Gi-yeom, frozen.
"Y-y-y-you're not a ghost, are you?!"
"No?!"
"T-then one of the 80 people over there is a ghost...?"
"....?"
At the frightened muttering of PD Seok Oh-young, the main writer who had not yet hung up the phone gasped for breath.
Then a trembling voice was heard.
-Why, why, why are you doing this! Don't joke around!
"No, I'm not kidding, seriously. Baek Gi-yeom is with us. Please double-check one more time."
- Ah. I'll double-check!
—