" ᴄʜᴀꜱᴇ ʏᴏᴜʀ ꜱᴛᴀʀꜱ ꜰᴏᴏʟ, ʟɪꜰᴇ ɪꜱ ᴛᴏᴏ ꜱʜᴏʀᴛ. "
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
╔═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╗
Episode 8 part 2
╚═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╝
The next day came quickly, a bit too quickly for Raina's liking. She, along with Jake, Jungwon, Daniel and Geonu were once again in the 2nd-floor practice room going over the choreography and vocals. Raina had made the group perform the same vocal stability exercise Rain had used on them and she noticed they had all remained decently stable.
"Good work guys. You're all doing well so far." Raina praised, causing the boys to silently beam. It was rare for Raina to praise or compliment anyone so when she did, she means it. Raina was taught from a young age that if you get praised too often you start to get lazy, thinking that you're better therefore you don't work as hard. Raina believed that praises and words of recognition are earned, not given. A lesson she had learnt from her ballroom teacher back in New Zealand.
A little while later, every I-LANDER had gathered in the 1st-floor practice room to be observed by Sung Deuk and Pdogg. Raina stood between Geonu and Daniel, as everyone greeted Sung Deuk and Pdogg.
"Is your practice going well?" Sung Deuk asked. Everyone nodded and answered him causing both older men to nod.
"If you get eliminated this time, you're going straight home. So midpoint evaluations will be even more strict and be more strict in training." Raina expected nothing less so she didn't look as worried or concerned as the others did, although Raina did have an extremely good poker face. So even if she was worried or nervous no one knew.
"You all have leaders right? Taki, K and Jungwon." The three males nodded. Yesterday after practice, Raina had taken Jungwon aside and talked to him about giving him the opportunity of being the leader for the I NEED U unit. At first, he was extremely hesitant, afraid of screwing up but Raina had the utmost faith in him and told him she would still be there to aid him along. With Raina's offered guidance Jungwon agreed.
"Are the leaders doing well?" Sung Deuk asked the three. He noticed Taki being hesitant in answering, so did Raina, especially after her talk with Heeseung last night.
"DNA team already has talented members so we're practising individually," K informed Sung Deuk. Raina had noticed the tensions between K and Ni-ki as they walked into the room but knew nothing beyond that. But it wasn't hard to tell that they had a disagreement about something, especially when K merely walked past Raina without a word. Which did hurt her for a slight moment, but that feeling left just as fast as it came.
"There are two rap parts and three vocal parts and Jake and Raina know how to rap. It seems that the parts are properly distributed so I think the song suits us well." Jungwon responded. Raina nodded her head slightly. When deciding on parts Raina suggested Daniel should take one of the rap parts, as she knew he was interested in rap. But the younger boy declined and suggested she should do it instead.
"What about you, Taki?" This was the part Raina was not looking forward to.
"Ah yes. I've never been a leader before. There have been challenging parts, but it's going well thanks to Heeseung and Sunghoon's help." Taki nervously said and Raina felt a tug of relief that Heeseung had taken her advice and helped guide Taki.
"Which team do you feel most threatened by?" This was pretty much a no brainer in Raina's opinion. She glanced to her left and caught Jay's eyes, although Raina herself did not feel threatened by them. Realistically, the DNA team was the strongest out of the three units.
"These two teams don't feel very threatened by 'I NEED U' team. What do you think about that?" Sung Deuk asked. This broke Raina out of thoughts and she turned to Jungwon who had glanced at her. Raina smiled at him and nodded her head as she looked at Sung Deuk.
"It gives us more of a reason to prove them wrong and go beyond their expectations of us. So we're practising hard to show them just that." Raina said firmly. Her determination caused Sung Deuk to suppress a smirk, however, Jay and Heeseung could not suppress the small barely noticeable smirk that made its way on their plush lips. Raina's constant determination and drive to prove others wrong was one of the many traits they admired and adored about her.
"Okay so the most threatening, DNA team, should we start your midpoint evaluation?" Sung Deuk said and soon the DNA began their performance. Raina studied their performance, they were in sync, their lines were even and in place. Their movements were powerful and precise, and their facial expressions were good. However, it was lacking, there was no flair to their performance something she didn't expect them to be lacking in. And Raina didn't seem to be the only one to notice this, because when their performance ended Sung Deuk released a disappointed sigh.
"It was whatever, to be honest." Ouch. Raina thought was she internally grimaced.
"They think you're the best in this competition, but I don't think you guys need to think of them like that. I don't think things will be easy for you guys."
Double ouch. Raina thought once again, her face remaining emotionless as she listened to the feedback.
"Next is FAKE LOVE this team has three members with the badge. I look forward to it." Sung Deuk expressed. The FAKE LOVE unit then began their performance, Raina once again studied their performance and noticed Taki was falling behind, he was either completing the moves too early or too late. Their facial expressions remained the same throughout the performance, their vocals wavered throughout the song. Once again Sung Deuk looked utterly disappointed and it caused Raina to shift in her spot slightly.
"This team is horrible. It was awful. It's so visible how unready you are. I could tell from your facial expressions, you're expressions are just not there. What are you trying to show? What are you trying to convey? I didn't feel anything. I couldn't focus." Sung Deuk disappointedly expressed. Raina reminded stoic and kept her eyes focus forward, as much as it hurt her heart to listen to Sung Deuk's harsh criticism towards her friends and see their reactions. It was something that needed to be done. They need to know where they fucked up so they can better prepare themselves for the real deal.
"And Taki. You did the worst here. You're the only one without a badge and you're their leader. I can tell you don't have confidence, you can't catch up with their energy, you can't follow the beat, can't follow the moves. You'll never get a badge like this, Taki." Raina's hands clenched at the criticism and willed herself not to look at Taki, knowing his reaction would hurt her. As mean and as harsh as Sung Deuk's words were Taki needed to hear them. But that didn't stop his words from hurting the young boy any less.
Soon enough the midpoint evaluations were over and the 13 I-LANDER's gathered around. Cheering each other up from the harsh midpoint evaluation, Raina stood next to Heeseung and rubbed his shoulder with an encouraging smile. Knowing the feedback affect him more than he let on, Raina spotted Taki disconnected from the group with his head bowed down in shame. She softly nudged Heeseung causing him to look at her, Raina softly nudged her head in Taki's direction who was currently being comforted by Hanbin.
"Go talk to him." She muttered quietly. Heeseung looked back at her.
"Are you sure you shouldn't be the one to talk to him?" He asked, knowing how close of a relationship Raina and Taki have. But Raina shook her head, she can talk to him later but right now Heeseung was the one Taki needed. Heeseung sighed but nodded before making his way to the upset boy.
Raina stayed in the practice room with the others. She noticed Ni-ki alone and quieter than she had ever seen him, so the young female made her way and sat next to the young boy. Ni-ki looked to his side to see Raina staring at him with soft eyes.
"What happened between you and K?" She asked, not bothering to beat around the bush since she knew that was the reason for his change in attitude. Ni-ki sighed and looked towards the older Japanese male.
"I made in ad-lib within the choreography without discussing it and K got mad. I thought it would benefit me in rankings, I'm sitting at 6th noona, I need to do something to raise my ranking or else I could be the next to get eliminated." Ni-ki expressed frustrated and scared. Raina was silent for a moment, and Ni-ki braced himself to receive the same lecture from her as he did from K.
"I don't blame you." Raina finally said. Ni-ki looked at Raina with surprise evident on his face, causing her to smile slightly.
"I get it, I really do Ni-ki. Because at the end of the day, this is a survival show, it's expected for us to worry more about our individual rankings. Our dreams and future are on the line." Raina started before turning her whole body to face Ni-ki making sure his attention was on her.
"But let me ask you this. What is the point of debuting in a group, when you are not willing to communicate like one? I don't think K was particularly angry because you added an ad-lib. But because you never discussed it with him or anyone." Raina continued, her eyes not straying away from Ni-ki's. She wanted him to understand that while adding an ad-lib was not a bad decision, not communicating with his members beforehand was where he messed up. Raina place her hand on the young boy's shoulder and smiled at him.
"Next time, if you have an idea, discuss it with them." She said with a small laugh to which Ni-ki nodded and for the first time today, genuinely smiled back to Raina as they both stood up.
"Now go talk to K and fix things," Raina ordered. Ni-ki nodded and walked away from to K, who stood with the others.
Raina made her way from the practice room to her bedroom, wanting a bit of space. It wasn't long after Raina had sat on her bed that Jay, Geonu, K and Jungwon made their way into the room. Jay sat with Raina on her bed while the others sat on Sunoo's and Daniel's
"What about you noona?" Geonu asked, snapping Raina out of her daze. She looked up to see them staring at her.
"Hmm?" Raina hummed confused as to what they were talking about. Jay let out a chuckled.
"What were you doing before becoming a trainee?" Jay asked, she never talked about her life before becoming a trainee so he was curious.
"Ah. Well, I was just your average high school student. But one day, a friend of mine back in New Zealand, who loved Kpop, saw that BigHit was holding global auditions. He told me I should audition, and while I was convinced nothing was going to come of it, I auditioned. And well, the rest is pretty obvious." Raina summarised as she thought about her life back in New Zealand. She began to miss her family and her friends, she wondered where they all were now. Jungwon stared at the older woman with curious eyes.
"Do you ever regret it?" Jungwon asked, knowing that the life of a trainee was far from what fans think. Raina was silent for a moment, sure, it was hard at times. There were some days when Raina wanted to give up, there were days where her thoughts spiralled. Raina looked back at Jungwon with a smile.
"Not for a second." She said, meaning every word. She did not regret becoming a trainee, this is what she wanted to do, this what she wanted to spend the rest of her life doing.
Because nothing worth it in life ever came easy.