#but it was fun! for me. not joomi. SDFSDGSDGSDG

[bejoomi]

♪ ┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅  GOING SOMEWHERE YOU NEVER THOUGHT OF BEFORE.

joomi isn’t ready.

he wasn’t ready to set foot in the studio when they told him he made it on the show, and he wasn’t ready to hear he’s second place. he wasn’t ready to stand under bright lights and an audience and a dozen of cameras, or to hear their next mission, or to practice any of it.

that’s one of the thoughts of many that race through his head during the days leading up to the performance of my turn in front of the judges. he also thinks about how little he belongs there; how little he deserves this; how disappointed everyone will be in their second place contestant sucking so bad at everything outside of playing the piano, and apparently, singing.

he has a lot to come to terms with, maybe the most of which, oddly, is the fact that he’s good at singing. he has an incredible voice, apparently. joomi never thought there was anything about him worth looking at or hearing, and it’s...incredibly uncomfortable for him, as are the cameras, and the attention, and everything else that comes with a survival show that thousands of people sent audition tapes into. he feels so sorry to them. he has no right to be here over them: him, someone that doesn’t ever want to be an idol, or a trainee, or even dance at all. he just wants to play his keyboard at the back of a stage with music so loud he should probably wear earplugs. 

he wants to go home. that’s how he spends the first few days. he tries his best while always teetering on the precipice of seeing himself out; of just walking up to someone on the camera crew, or one of the instructors, and telling them he needs to go home for one reason or another. overall, he is so ashamed of everything: ashamed to be so bad at dancing and rapping, ashamed to not want this, ashamed to be here at all.

the worst part is that he can’t think his way through it. his mind must be so boggled by everything happening that he can’t set his thoughts in order like he usually would, and then pick them apart and analyze them to find a solution or an answer. at first, it’s only confusion and despair and exhaustion. 

it's failure and incompetence and frustration.

at least he memorizes the lyrics quickly, and he can sing those well enough. he still has a hard time believing his voice is anything special, but at least he holds his own in that area.

dancing and rapping? not so much. he memorizes those quickly too, but what's the use of that if he still can't execute them well no matter how hard he tries? the rap isn't even hard. all he really needs to do is talk to the beat, and maybe he's just nervous because he's out of his depth, but he always manages to stumble over the words or rap off beat.

when it comes to dancing, he's hopeless. he knows what he should be dancing, and he tries, but his stupid body can't keep up, or can't extend enough, or can't hit a move sharp enough, or in the case of the beloathed kick at the beginning of the first chorus...he can't really do it at all.

he tries to stretch plenty before he dances, because he knows his body isn't used to any of this, and it would be easy for him to injure himself. he doesn't know how to build flexibility quickly enough to make that kick look at all presentable, though. he still tries.

he tries really hard. he doesn't know why, for how little he cares about his success on the show; how much he almost hopes he's eliminated sooner rather than later. maybe it's just for those thousands of other people he beat out for this sought after spot he takes up on the show. he doesn't want to give up. he's tired and he hates it and he wants to go home, but...he doesn't want to take this opportunity for granted; not because he wants it himself or is even thankful for it, but because other people must want it so badly. he wants to pretend he's worthy of it. he doesn't care if he does well, but he wants to at least...give it his best shot, just to say he did it; just so all of those others that want the position he has know he isn't just throwing it away.

so he dances, and he dances, and he dances, but not as much as some of the others, if only because he can hear his therapist in his ear telling him not to sacrifice his health for something he doesn't even want. he practices, but he tries not to skip meals, or get less than six hours of sleep each night, even as he grows progressively more determined, somehow.

he wants to learn the stupid dance. he wants to go through it without stumbling or missing beats. that's his only goal. he doesn't care if he hits the moves strongly or gracefully or like he should, as long as he hits them. he's always been a realistic person, if not a little pessimistic, and he thinks that's a reasonable enough hope for someone that has never danced a day before in his life.

everything is so unfamiliar. he tries to write songs when he gets home, hoping that a different outlet will free his mind of some of the overwhelming static, but all he hears when he tries to write something down is the chiming in the instrumental of my turn, or i will make you look at me. every time, he always thinks about how little he wants that.

by the time their performance in front of the judges comes, he's...not really nervous, strangely. maybe it comes with the apathy, and the comfort of knowing even if he totally blows it, he'll be able to go home and say he tried. if he does well...he doesn't know. he's trying not to think about making it another round.

joomi isn't a particularly religious person, but he is a curious one that seeks answers, so he studied many different ones over the course of his life. maybe it was searching for meaning, or hope, or some other soul-seeking, but he finds himself thinking something he thinks he read in the christian bible: do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. today has enough trouble for today, or something like that. jesus had a point with that one.

joomi, of all people, marks the dance steps before it's his turn to perform. he can at least make it through the routine doing this much. he can sing and mark the steps if it gets too hard. the judges will surely rip him apart, but that doesn't scare joomi.

then it's his turn.

he's not ready.

no, that's not true. he's ready; he just isn't any good, and he doesn't know if any amount of additional time could fix that.

he doesn't necessarily enter the room and face the judges with confidence, but he doesn't tremble under the weight of their gaze. he knows they probably expect (or at least hope) a lot from him, but he tries not to think about that, or the inevitability of their disappointment. instead, he bows, and introduces himself, and then stares at a spot on the wall.

he can hear his heart pounding in his ears in the silence of the room, but he tries not to think about that either. maybe, if he tries hard enough, he can fool himself into thinking he’s about to get on stage with his band. he can tell himself it’s not that different. it’s not that new. performing is performing.

the familiar synth chiming of my turn’s instrumental plays, and it’s now that he feels a little sick to his stomach. great timing.

he tells himself: it doesn’t have to be good. it just has to be done, and one way or another, he’s getting through this, and then he’ll finally have room to breathe.

luckily, the beginning of my turn is basically just singing and the smallest movements, and that much he can do.

having flutters is such a good feeling, right? just like this feeling i’m feeling while looking at you now

nothing about this is a good feeling, really, and he doesn’t even look at the judges. if he does, he’ll get distracted and mess up. he knows it. 

well, maybe he’ll chance it. 

when all he has to do is sing and walk forward, that’s when he looks up. he doesn’t take a moment to analyze their faces. he just looks, and focuses on the words, and the tiny movement of his face behind his hand.

going somewhere you never thought of before try covering your eyes take a deep breath and open them up

that’s where the easy part ends, and so does his eye contact. he has about one beat to take a deep breath before the instrumental shifts from the chiming synth to one with fuller drums, and that’s when the real dancing comes in.

his moves lack power and his angles are messy, but he, for the most part, stays on beat, and the moves are all there, at least.

he still sings, and he knows dancing and singing at the same time puts strain on his incredible voice, or whatever. he has no experience dancing, let alone singing and dancing at the same time; he doesn’t even have that much experience singing, and that much shows.

he doesn’t think about it, though. he thinks about the lyrics, and his counts, and the moves, and the fact that the stupid fucking kick jump that starts the chorus is coming up.

for a moment, it’s just him in the stupid idol pose singing, instrumental cut out, so he tries to sing his best, because he knows it’s the only real time, aside from the start of the song, that he’ll look like he has a shred of talent.

then it’s the kick. the kick that he must’ve practiced a thousand times; it’s not just a kick, it’s a jump into a kick, and he’s pretty sure he’s nearly broken his ankle 50 times over the course of the past several days. about 75% of the time, he can’t get the timing of the jump right, or there’s some other mishap with it that makes him fall behind the entire rest of the choreography. then he gets lost trying to catch up. does he count on a 25% chance of pulling off the jump?

no. he’d rather get through it all doing a barely acceptable job than pull off one impressive move and lose control over the whole thing, making the rest an absolute shitshow of a job.

the kick isn’t nearly high enough, either, but it’s his best attempt, minus the jump. he’s through it, but the chorus doesn’t really get much easier. the lines of his moves are still bad, but he tries to at least breathe how they taught him so his singing sounds half decent. 

he doesn’t know if it does or not. he doesn’t think about that. instead, he thinks about the moves of the second half of the chorus, and how fast he needs to be with the footwork that was way harder for him than just about anyone else that tried to help him.

he isn’t quite on beat with them, and he doesn’t extend his leg far enough, but whatever. he just needs to survive this.

he finally makes it to the last part of the chorus. the first chorus. of three.

how much do you know?

he knows very little. he knows, somehow, it feels like it’s harder to breathe this time than it was  all of the times he practiced this yesterday. there’s a brief moment’s respite, where the track switches up, back to the chiming synth of the beginning of the song, and he tries to recover as much as he can before he launches himself back into the second verse.

the rap is awful. he breathlessly talks his way through it more than anything else, but that’s fine. at least it’s over.

halfway through the second chorus, he can barely breathe, let alone sing and dance at the same time. he makes it through, though, and there’s a brief transition period between that and the bridge where he tries to catch his breath and reorient himself. almost done. just get through it.

he sings the bridge, and the moves are easy enough that they don’t tire him out any further. he knows the final chorus is supposed to be explosive and grand, but he is exhausted, and even though he wants to go home, he also wants to give the judges any reminder he can of why he’s here. 

he’s here because of his voice, but it’s not like he can just stop dancing. even if he stumbles through the final moves, he wants to go through them.  

except the fucking jump and spin. he already feels dizzy, so if he has any hope of getting through the rest, he needs to skip them, and he does. his body feels so heavy. he doesn’t know if it would even be possible to jump. how do other people make it through the entire song and still have the energy to jump?

he doesn’t. he barely makes it through the rest, but he does, and by the time the music ends, he feels like he ran a marathon.

he bows to the judges, and rests his hands on his legs at the same time, more of an excuse to catch his breath than anything else. it’s a long bow, and he stands upright slowly, knowing if he moves too quickly he might topple over altogether.

he scurries out of the room then, and immediately falls to the floor once he’s outside.

he doesn’t feel proud of himself, but he does feel relieved.

he’ll feel more relieved if they just send him home.