May 21st, the day of the yearly evaluation for Echo Entertainment.On the fifth floor of the building, all the male and female trainees of the Idol department along with the coaches gathered at one of the two Evaluation halls, one for idol department and other for the acting department.
Turning his head aside, Jun"s saw so many beautiful female trainees for the first time. In the past eight months, he never even saw them because of different schedules as well as different cafeterias. he only a few of them in his free time or when he was leaving home.
Looking at everyone, Jun thought, "just this idol department has like 70-80 trainees in which only the girls are at least more than 40. Is it because they primarily focus on them? Might be. I mean looking at the Echo, the only thing that comes to mind is Clover and famous groups are UI, X Vision, 2YA, etc.. all of the famous ones are girl groups. The only boy group that"s famous is Emphasis. The remaining aren"t much. I guess that"s why they are focusing on boy groups, this year." As the front row seats are getting filled with directors, he spoke in his mind, Aria, show my character stats."
Name: Han Sung-Jun
Stage Name: N/A
t.i.tle: Echo Trainer
Age: 20 years, 11months, 14 days;
Attributes:
Strength: 9/10
Appearance: 8/10
Talent:
Music: 9/10
Dance: 7/10
Literary: 5/10
Luck: 6/10
Available Talent points: 0
Available Mission points: 1270
Missions:
Main: Became an Idol
Description: Now that you are a trainee, its time to work hard and move towards the next step. Debut in a group.
Mission Rewards: 1000 Mission points, 1 talent point;
Side missions: N/A
"Ever since my dancing talent increased by 1 and reached 7, I can pick up the beat and rhythm very quickly. Not to mention, ch.o.r.eography also became easier. Hmm, after debuting, I"ll have more than 2K mission points, which means, I can buy one of the popular Videos from the store. But it would better if I stick with just audio songs for now. After all, it would be weird if I started displaying my excellent ch.o.r.eography skills too. I can take a step slowly one at a time."
Jun came out of his thoughts as Minsu, who was sitting next to him, nudged him and whispered, "Hyung, stand up. The Chairman is coming." Jun immediately stood up as he found everyone else is standing and bowed to him.
After everyone sat in their seats, Chairman spoke, "trainees, old and new ones, some of you knew me while some of you might not know me, so, I"ll just introduce myself proceeding with the yearly evaluation. I"m Lee Yeong-Cheol, the chairman of Echo Entertainment.
Now, coming to the rules, everyone knows what we will evaluate you as you have already been informed. I"ll still say it just in case. It"s very simple. From the moment you joined the company to this day, every one of you trained hard together and must have known your talents, right? So, first, we will call the groups one by one, the ones you are training with, and you will all give a group performance, which was ch.o.r.eographed by your Coaches.
After that, each one in the group will come forward and introduce themselves and what they are going to perform. For solo evaluation, each one must perform an act, they are most confident in. It can be either a full performance comprising of dancing and singing, or you can just sing a song or just dance. It doesn"t matter whether it is English or Korean. It"s your choice. Although the judges sitting in the front row might ask you to do an additional performance and you must do it if they ask you. Understand?"
As everyone replied at the same time with "Yes," the chairman nodded with a smile and sat in the middle of the front row, with the directors.
Then, Taehee went on to the stage and announce, "first, let"s start with girls. Group B-1." Five girls, around 14-17 years of age, stepped on to the stage and bowed to everyone as a greeting. As the music started, they began to dance. After their performance was over, everyone clapped lightly and they bowed again with a smile. The six judges picked from the coaches, nodded, and wrote their marks on the paper sheet.
Then, one by one, the girls stepped forward and performed. After that, the judges once again nodded with no comments or expressions and written their scores.
One group after one group, the female trainees performed while judges were scoring them. As Jun observed them, he saw the judges began to ask at least 12-15 of trainees to either sing or rap or dance, etc... and then realized all of them have one point in common. All of their solo performances are extraordinary.
The evaluations proceeded until 1 o"clock. After that, they took a lunch break for an hour. Then, the evaluations continued again after 2 o"clock. Finally, at 4 o"clock, all the yearly evaluations of girls completed. Then, Taehee began to call the boys.
Again at 6 o"clock in the evening, everyone took a one-hour break for dinner. After dinner, the evaluations continued. Finally, at 19:45 hours, Taehee called, "now, it"s the turn of group 4." After waiting for almost 12 hours, Jun finally got his turn as he went onto the stage along with the other six.
As they went onto the stage, Woojin spoke to the coaches beside him, "that Sungjun, 3rd one on the right is the one I told you about. He"s most likely the most talented vocalist in all the trainees." And meanwhile, Chon Shin said, "the center Minsu is undoubtedly the best dancer."
After Jun and the other six stood in their places, the music started. It didn"t even take two seconds for everyone to recognize it. One of the judges spoke slowly, "oh, Soul"s Perfect man."
As the music began to play, the song started by Jun, who was standing in the back with the other four while the other two sat at the front in their positions.
"Yeah~
Ooh~ Ooh~ Uh~"
After he started with high notes, they all started to sing in Korean,
"I"ll only know of you even if my breath ends
Cause you are the one (English)"
Then, Minsu, who is in the center sang his part,
"Even when everything changes"
"I won"t change" - Jun
"Just let it be, my one will need the time
I have to only wait" - Minsu
"It"ll be hard sometimes, there"s always a perfect love for you
Many things that I can"t give you,
You probably have the whole world" - Jun
"I"ll only know of you even if my breath ends
Cause you are the one (English)
I won"t go through the ordeal of not having you again
So you"ll able to rest in my embrace" - all
"Rescue me... yeah... woo~ yeah" - Hyonu
As they continue their performance, most of the trainees lightly nodding their heads, going with the flow of the song while the coaches can"t help but nodded in satisfaction, especially Jun"s part with high notes, where he didn"t even need to stand in the center position to gather the judges" attention with his charming voice. Since the dance is pretty much simple and consistent, Minsu wasn"t able to shine much whereas Hyonu shined in the rapping part as most of the coaches felt his voice was perfect for it.
After their performance is finished, the trainees lightly clapped and the judges noted down the scores. Two minutes later after taking rest to slow their breaths, Minsu stepped forward and introduced himself.
"I"m Kang Minsu, my position is the main dancer, as well as a rapper. I would like to perform a dance." As the Chairman and the others nodded, his choice of music began to play, just like everyone submitted theirs two days ago. He began to dance his specialty, Hip hop. After he finished his performance, as Jun expected, a Judge asked, "I heard that you can also do Krumping. Show us."
As a piece of random electrifying music started playing, Minsu also danced for a minute before they stopped it. Looking at his performance, all the trainees sitting were shocked as they thought his level is way in the upper levels. Even Jun thought Minsu"s dance talent must be at least 9 for sure. Three more trainees later, Jun"s turn came up and he stepped forward and bowed to the judges and greeted them, without showing any kind of nervousness.