Chapter 53
The following day, my group members and I woke up later than our usual time at 9 a.m.
“Hm...?”
“Ahhhh~”
“Urgggh!”
“Wow...! I slept so well...”
Simultaneously, we felt that we weren’t as tired as before, and our bodies didn’t feel as stiff or heavy as usual. After all the fuss we made in the morning and arriving at the place at 5 a.m., I was surprised that four hours of sleep made us feel so refreshed. And we were able to find out the secret behind this change very quickly.
“Maybe it’s because there’s a big air filter running.”
“And we didn’t wake up because it was too hot or anything.”
“Light-blocking curtains...really make a difference.”
This was the result of the combined change in air quality, a well-functioning temperature system, and a light-blocking curtain that didn’t allow even the smallest ray of light to pass through.
“Tae-Yoon, you look really out of it.”
“...Huh?”
“Hahaha!”
“It feels like a long time since I saw you wake up so late.”
“Tae-Yoon, come here for a bit.”
Snap.
Woon suddenly pushed his phone towards me and took a picture. I didn’t even have the time to feel embarrassed because I was half awake. I shook my head side-to-side and shook away my remaining drowsiness.
I didn’t even think it was possible for me to sleep so well, and it felt like I hadn’t had such good sleep in years. I had been feeling very tense ever since I regressed in worry that someone could suddenly trespass into our shabby lodging place and had been wanting to move to a better place quickly. All these worries kept me awake at night, but I think I was able to sleep peacefully this time because all these worries were settled instantly yesterday.
“Give me a moment.” Dong-Jun then got up and searched the corner of the room and took out a remote controller. Then, when he pressed the remote, the curtain automatically moved.
“Ohhhh!”
“Ahhhh!” Witness the debut of this chapter, unveiled through Ñôv€l--B1n.
“What in the world?”
“What’s that...?”
Seeing the automatic curtains, we all reacted like an audience on a shooting site. Dong-Jun seemed to have thought our reactions were funny and burst out laughing. Yet, we were too shocked about what we saw next even to notice what he was doing. Through the large windows, we saw a city view that overwhelmed its viewers just by its extravagant appearance.
“This is...amazing...”
Honestly, there wasn’t anything that special about the view. It was the sort of view that one could easily see by looking down from a high-rise apartment.
“But each and every one of the buildings that I’m seeing right now costs a couple of hundred million wons...”
“I can’t wrap my head around it...”
“It’s like we were sleeping on top of a mountain of gold...”
This place was not even in the outskirts of Gangnam but in the dead center of it. As we looked too shocked about what we were seeing, Dong-Jun quickly closed the curtains again.
“Um...let’s see the view next time~” He looked a bit taken aback, and like that, silence continued on for a bit. And before the atmosphere became really weird, Yeon-Hoon spoke.
“Let’s first wash ourselves up.”
“Yeah.”
Following Yeon-Hoon’s suggestion, we decided on our orders for washing up.
“There are three bathrooms. You guys wash up first, and Tae-Yoon and I can go later,” Dong-Jun said and told us the number of bathrooms in the house.
—Since Dong-Jun allowed us to use his place as our new dorm, we are planning to stay here in the meantime.
—Huh? Sorry?
“We are planning to go back to our dorm to take the rest of our belongings. But since the people we saw yesterday could still be there, could I ask you to go to the dorm before us and check the place out for secret cameras and the like?”
—Ah, um, yes!
“Okay then, I will send you a message from our new address.”
—....Okay!
Ms. Seung-Yeon and Ms. Hyuna’s heads were probably in a mess right now since I just dropped a bunch of huge news over their heads and ended the call. Yet, there was no more information I wanted to share, and I thought this was enough for them to take care of the rest.
“Then, should we go practice?”
“Let’s go!”
We got our stuff and got up from our spots. We also didn’t plan to use the same practice room as before.
“I made a reservation from 11 to 11—a complete 12-hour reservation~,” Dong-Jun said.
We planned to use the facility inside the apartment complex. This place had subsidiary facilities that only residents could use and had everything from a gym to a pool. Among these facilities, there was a room that had mirror walls on all sides and was just perfect to use as a dance practice room...
“Is that place really free?” The members asked in astonishment.
“You can’t say it’s free. I mean, the management fee is a lot,” Dong-Jun explained.
“Wow...it’s really nice.”
“This is what you call a practice room.”
“Why do I feel kind of overwhelmed?”
But rather than paying attention to Dong-Jun’s words, my group members appeared overwhelmed by the sight before them. Then, they quickly connected their tablet to the speaker. Seeing how there was a speaker available to use, it seemed the space was really built to be a practice room.
“Okay then! Let’s stretch and match our choreographies~”
“Okay!”
We officially began our practice.
***
Time quickly passed after Siren members moved to Dong-Jun’s place. The rivalry between Siren and Only One’s fans continued as fiercely as ever on the internet, and each of the casts of The Showcase 2 practiced day and night for their upcoming second-round performances.
Some practiced to keep their number one title and others worked to turn over the ranks. Nevertheless, each of the groups poured all their effort and desperation into their practice. And when advertisements called for audiences in The Showcase 2’s second-round performances, more people gathered than before.
The people who had laughed saying that there was a show about doomed idols were now invested in the competition between Siren and Only One and began to keep up with The Showcase 2 more passionately than anyone else. And as the rivalry between each fandom reached its peak, the D-Day for the second-round performances came.
My group members sat and stared blankly at the morning sun. It was 5 a.m. right now, and we were inside the apartment’s practice room, which was available only to residents. Since this practice room was above the surface instead of the basement, we could see the sun rising. We had only slept three hours and went over our dance moves not so long ago. And now, my group members and I were simply staring out the window blankly.
“I think...this is good enough,” Woon said, looking as if he had exhausted everything he had. “Doing anything more than this...is just impossible anyway.”
“Haaaa.”
“We couldn’t have done more.”
The last two weeks, all sorts of things happened; and because of that, we had worked more desperately and intensely than ever. It was because we didn’t want to give a performance we would regret because we didn’t practice enough.
“Let’s go.”
Perhaps, that was why, instead of feeling nervous or scared of the second-round performances, we looked forward to it. We had done all we could possibly do.
“Let’s get first place again!”
“Ahhhh!”
“First place!”
“We can do it, Siren!”
We shouted our cheer and got up. It was time for us to stand on the stage again.