#rkmgateam1

[rkxiao]

✾ MGA SEASON 3: TEAM JINRI ✾

♫ ✿ ♫ : young forever - bts ( 0:30 - 2:00 )

Waiting backstage was more nervewrecking than what the girl originally thought it was going to be like. It was interesting how she always got nervous, but Xiao never expected her to be. It was rather stupid, really, but the girl moved off of inspirational thoughts and positive thinking, so, to her, that wasn’t stupid at all.

She was supposed to be practicing her lyrics, or warming up her voice, but instead the rapper stood still in a corner while holding her hands close to her heart. She was never one to pray, so she wasn’t. Yet, if anyone walked past her, they would be able to hear her faint whispers of hope. The girl asked for the moon and the stars, and whichever destiny or fate which carried a happy ending, to turn their attention towards her team only for that night. It wasn’t much to ask, she wondered, as Xiao never asked for much, so maybe luck would hear her.

+++

When the teams were announced Xiao couldn’t help but feel rather upset. She was more than glad to have a team, of course, but Sphere wasn’t even listed under her wanted companies. ‘At least it isn’t TRC’ was her second thought, and soon a smile was spread across her face. The girl spent the next hours intensely researching about the company and the singers that came from it. If she was going to the official building the girl didn’t want to leave good first impressions by the door, but walk in with them.

There was not much sight seeing, sadly, as the competitors weren’t allowed anywhere except the practice room and the bathroom. It was kind of nervewrecking to be so close to great technologies - and probably even some talented people too - but not being given the chance to go appreciate such things.

So the girl hurried with her quick legs towards their designated room, bowing down to her team members before even looking them in the face. Xiao didn’t know any of them except for their names and the few performances she got to watch, which was not very good to her side of the story. For someone as shy as Xiao, making group projects with people she didn’t talk to at school was already terribly hard, but only to imagine preparing a performance with random people from across the world made her heart skip so many beats that she wouldn’t be surprised if they found her dead.

+++

Someone called out her name, which was what broke her focus. The girl had already started to practice the few lines she had, so she wasn’t exactly paying attention to anything else. It took her a while to spot Jinri even if there wasn’t much people around, but the rapper hurried towards her coach a second later with no second thoughts.

The whole team stood in a circle like people would normally do in movies or tv shows about teenagers achieving their singer dreams. Not all of them were teenagers, but when Jinri started saying her inspirational speech it almost felt like it. Xiao seriously thought about reaching for someone’s hand, and then someone else would start crying, but thanks to the stars none of that happened and she was saved from embarrassment.

For a second there, when Jinri looked at her in the eye, Xiao was sure she had missed the whole speech because of a daydream, but the woman didn’t seem to be stopping. “I know it’s hard, but you have to swallow your nerves and show them you know who you are, because you are really, really great.” The rapper made the saddest face she could achieve, but only nodded to the other’s words. “I know we’re gonna rock this!”

+++

While everyone expressed their opinions and random facts about themselves that could maybe come to be useful, Xiao sat quietly while holding her legs, paying attention to their words, but not saying any of hers. Whenever she felt like it had been a while since she had spoken out, the girl would mumble a “yes” or other approving sound to fill in the void. The nodding was almost constant, and when she didn’t like something the girl simply shook her head in silence.

If anyone stared her in the eyes and asked her opinion on the subject, or maybe requested for any thoughts, Xiao quickly commented on how she liked someone else’s idea and then let the conversation unfold on itself. It was definitely not the best way to be a productive part of the team, but her nature didn’t allow her to adventure into socializations.

The final result was, after all, better than she expected they could achieved with such short time, so the girl had no regrets. It was kind of embarrassing when they all had an instrument to play and Xiao had to awkwardly admit she couldn’t play anything, forcing them all to think of something else - yet, the girl was sure she was able to make it up by fitting her hand inside her mouth at some point. She simply deleted any embarrassing memories as fast as they happened, so there was no way for her to be sure.

+++

When they stood on stage, all together, Xiao quickly made a wish for some sort of last-minute salvation. There was no way she could be sure if it worked or not until the performance was over, but her hopes were too high to be easily crushed. Her hands ran across the black dress to make sure everything was in order before remembering to do the breathing once more. It was an easy thing to forget.

As if the pressure wasn’t already enough the girl was in charge of the first line of the song. They all stood in the dark, as they had decided it should have been, and the darkness was as comforting as it was distressing. And that was when the single spotlight suddenly illuminated no one but herself, making her right hand raise up in anticipation. She almost touched her lips on the microphone, but her voice reached it first.

더운 텅 빈 무대에 섰을 때 I stand on the middle of the hot, empty stage

괜한 공허함에 난 겁을 내 And suddenly I feel so afraid of the void

복잡한 감정 속에서 삶의 사선 위에서 These mixed feelings with my life on the line

괜시리 난 더 무딘 척을 해 I pretend to be careless

Her left hand reached out and touched the other side of the microphone to give her more stability. The lyrics seemed like a far away dream, but at the same time so close to reality. As no other spotlights were on it felt like Xiao was standing there by herself, singing to no one the frustrations of someone else’s words - yet they were all hers.

처음도 아닌데 익숙해질 법한데 This isn’t the first time, I better get used to it

숨기려 해도 그게 안돼 I try to hide it, but I can’t

텅 빈 무대가 식어갈 때쯤 When the heat of the show cools down

빈 객석을 뒤로하네 I leave the empty seats behind

And the spotlight turned off, her hands fell down, and she was back in the dark. It was no longer distressing, and the more she was engulfed in it, the better she began to feel. Kris’ voice could be heard flying across the same air as she breathed, making her realize that she wasn’t alone, after all. As he stood in the spotlight by himself Xiao wondered what he wondered - and if he thought he was by himself, too.

Aah

Soon they were all there, under the light, and it felt better to share the stage with them than to wonder what it would be like. They were once her competition, she remembered - and they still were, though she liked to pretend that wasn’t right.

While the two vocalists sang their parts Xiao couldn’t help but feel a certain joy she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to achieve by herself. She wasn’t the best at vocals, after all, so it was always too fascinating for her to watch. The girl tried singing those same lyrics once in the practice room, but that only served to reasure her of what she had already known. When it came to rapping she only had one line left to sing and before it reached her Xiao was already smiling.

꿈, 희망, 전진, 전진 dreams, hopes, forward, forward

She raised her eyes soon afterwards in a search for the stars she had talked to earlier, but found different, eletronic blinks to replace them. It was close enough, she thought, before looking front again on the search of a camera that was in charge of filming her. It wasn’t hard to find as it had a blinking light of itself.

Xiao gave the camera a nod right before everything went blank again at Soojung’s final line. It sent a chill down her spine as it was simply over. The darkness showed up with it and so did the distress, slowly climbing up her legs. Maybe it was just the chill that went down a second before, the girl thought, and only wanted to go back home. 

Comfort.

[rkrxcky]

M G A s ------ season 3 episode 4 : SURVIVAL EDITION             ✯NOVA’s #teamricky | song [ 0:15-0:19 / 1:05-2:29 ]

His first thought is his mind wondering over and over again like a broken record why anyone thought it was a good idea to put him in charge of anything. He doesn’t know how to lead a team or tell people what to do. How can he be expected to lead any group of people to victory when the majority of his own time is spent trying to hold the delicate fibers of his own life together and only succeeding half the time? Sure, he made it all the way through the first season of the MGAs and found himself one recording contract with his dream company richer. But he also found himself scared and questioning the integrity of his future and nearly every aspect of his identity or lack thereof. He didn’t even think anyone around him considered him an adult, in spite of his recent birthday, or anyone particularly special, let alone someone who was capable of coaching his own team on a national competition show for a prize even he couldn’t help but covet.

His second thought is a reminder to himself not to let his nagging self-doubt show on camera. But there are certain things he knows the cameras are allowed to see: basic insecurities about being young and only somewhat experienced, about not yet having debuted himself and being unsure of just how qualified he is to coach the talented members of his team (though if he lets that one show, it must be promptly followed by the reassuring backtrack that he must have something to offer if his CEO handpicked him of all the trainees in the company; it’s just enough humility mixed with just enough inspired confidence so as not to seem too far toward one end of the spectrum or another). They’re allowed to see his initial shyness around the teammates he picked out himself, the initial unsureness about his song choice, and his gradual warming up to the entire situation at hand.

The thoughts that follow are a series of observations as the week progresses. Mostly they’re observations about his teammates, some that he keeps to himself and others that he shares into the gaping lens of a camera when he’s asked. They all have the work ethic ideal for any Nova hopeful, especially Soyou, who seems to latch onto his style of coaching effortlessly. Luhan is...a handful on his worst days, noticeably foreign in more ways than one and harboring a distracting sweet tooth for the pretty girls he won’t stop flirting with, but even he (usually) falls back into line after a bit of prodding. Wendy keeps Luhan in line when Ricky can’t, because it’s still taking Ricky some time to find the right way to tell a team that consists of contestants that are mostly older than him what to do, and he’s grateful for that. He’s also grateful that his CEO seemed to agree with his picks for the team, and though he was initially flooded with a small wave of disappointment when he lost Seulgi, who’d arguably been one of his favorite competitors from the beginning, to one of Sphere’s teams, he finds himself with a group of contestants he couldn’t have been more lucky to be partnered with. That revelation comes when he sees them all dance the complex choreography of MYNAME for the first time together. It needs cleaning, needs matched angles and identical kick heights, and he hears that much in the split second differences between shoes squeaking against polished hardwood flooring. But none of them are lost or confused or uncomfortable, and many of the insecurities he harbored from the beginning about his song choice fly out the window.

He’s still not so sure about himself as a coach, but he does his best, and so far the group doesn’t seem too unsatisfied with him. He passes on what knowledge he can, though he’s sure he doesn’t have that much to give (he surprises himself as time goes on and he realizes some of the most basic aspects of performing he’s learned during his years as a trainee are some of these competitors’ most valuable lessons, and he starts to wonder if maybe he’s not so bad for this job after all).

He teaches them how to search for the right camera, how to find that little red light and perform to it directly, as if making eye contact with every single audience member simultaneously (For Luhan, he tells him to look into the lens as if he were looking at a pretty girl who’s broken his heart; it’s mostly a joke, but it turns out to be more effective than he thought). He tells them that nerves are normal and that really singing the way they’re expected to while really dancing the way the choreography demands them to is really, really, really, really hard and not to get discouraged if the routine ends and they feel like their lungs might explode. He does his best to divide their lines according to their skills while still giving everyone a chance to shine and he gives them the creative freedom of picking out their performance outfits among themselves.

He apologizes once or twice, just in case he’s being too tough on them, because as the nights get later he starts to fixate more on the little things, on bent elbows being lifted a little too high or knees not being bent enough, or facial expressions lacking in charisma in a way that makes it look like they’re overthinking their every mood, and he has to laugh at himself a little too because he’s starting to sound like the Nova coaches he spends fourteen hours a day with during normal schedules. He still occasionally wonders if someone like Min would have been more suited for this; her collective years of training make her more seasoned than him and she gives off an aura of maturity and wisdom that he’s certain he lacks. But he reminds himself that there’s a reason Hyun Bin picked him, and even if he doesn’t know what that reason is, even if he might never know, it’s his job to justify that decision, regardless of whether or not his deepest darkest thoughts aren’t sure if it was the right one.

He very nearly cries (keyword: nearly) when they show him the team chant Wendy’s come up with, because never in a million years did he think he’d be able to unite a team of strangers like this in such little time, and he’d certainly never expected that anyone would be so enthusiastic about being on a team headed by him of all people. That foreign feeling of pride swells up somewhere in the pit of his chest that’s usually reserved for less pleasant emotions and he does his best to swallow it down so he can lead them in at least three more run-throughs of the routine (this time with handheld mics, because he’s not sure what they’ll get on the night of the actual stage).

That foreign feeling returns on performance night, as he watches from the wings, eyes flickering like anxious flames between the stage itself and the monitors playing above his head. He gets the slightest feeling of deja vu, a flashback of a forgotten few minutes backstage at his own MGAs where he’d stared nervously at the impressive vocal performance of the pretty female singer that had gone before him. He’s just as nervous now, if not more, even though there isn’t nearly as much at stake. For him that is.

He might get on them for those uneven elbows later, or he might forget about them completely, because everything else seems to go so smoothly and so in sync, like the well-oiled unit they’re shaping up to be, and to think a few days ago they’d all been amateur individual performers used to performing on their own and on stages much smaller than this one.

It all seems too good to be true, says the permanently nagging voice at the back of his mind. They still have to make it through the judges’ commentary, through the first round of voting, through whatever the next episode has in store for them, and through whatever the rest of the season will put them through. But for now, as they file off the stage in one big sweaty group, he lets himself be happy and exhilarated and nervous all at once. Even if it’s just for these next few minutes.