EXO’s Lay Zhang Yixing would be judging the South Section, the North Section would be judged by an actor by the name of Wallace Chung, whom Jin Young was not very familiar with. Then East would be under a young lad by the name of Wang Yibo, who Jin Young seemed to have vaguely heard of his name before, and West would be judged by Jackson.
After the announcement, everyone split up accordingly to head to their section’s designated area. Jin Young was impressed with all the details of the set up, as it seemed that the four corners of the set were designed according to each captain’s perceived personality.
Of course, prior to this, there was actually a preliminary audition that was not recorded. Invited contestants like Jin Young, would be able to skip that stage. He roughly heard from others that it took the staff almost two weeks to narrow down thousands of applicants to the current hundreds of contestants. And in this recorded audition, the group will be further reduced to the top hundred.
Lay kicked off the audition by calling name after name on the list. Contestants could showcase their own choreography or freestyle on the spot. Hours into the audition, people who have yet to have their turn started to lose their energy from all that waiting, so Lay decided to hype things up by calling contestants out for dance battles. He figured this would be another effective method in judging the contestants’ skills, and excite the crowd at the same time, killing two birds with one stone.
As the audition continued to drag on, not just people in the South Section, but all the captains, contestants in every section, even the production staff were beginning to wear out. Finally, Jin Young’s name was called, so stepped up from amongst the crowd to stand in front of Lay. The crowd roared given that a famous celebrity was right in front of their eyes. High pitched squeals and excited gasps could be heard.
“Whenever you are ready.” Lay told Jin Young in Korean. Jin Young gave Lay a slight smile and took two steps back, then he lowered his head and closed his eyes. He inhaled and exhaled deeply, before he displayed a thumbs up sign with his hand to the staff as a signal to them that he was ready.
“Cue!” And the intro to Jackson’s 100 Ways began to play.
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The crowd got even more excited upon hearing Jin Young’s song choice. People from other sections started to get curious on what was happening in the South Section. Even other captains themselves began to wonder. Jackson, on the other hand, could easily recognise his own song, anytime, anywhere. The edges of his lips curled upwards then he halted the progress on his side in order to sneak over to Lay’s side to take a peek on the contestant who was auditioning using his song.
Jin Young looked up slowly, hitting the first beat, as he followed the pace of the music. Then he spread his hands wide and curled them inwards, at the same time, his legs were doing a different set of complicated movements on their own. As the song continued to play, everyone realised that it was a remix version, Jin Young had added more bass to the original and sped up certain parts.
Jackson crept up behind Lay, all excited to check out the dancer’s choreography to his song. But his face fell the moment he saw that familiar countenance. He froze on the spot, a thousand thoughts went through his head.
“What is he doing here?” Was one of them.
At one point, their eyes locked for a second. Jackson could feel anger boiling up inside of him whereas a jolt of electricity went through Jin Young’s body, intensifying his movements. Jin Young smirked but restored his calm the very next second.
“Focus Jin Young ah.” He reminded himself.
Jin Young’s movements were fluid, the transition from one step to another was smooth. His actions were grateful enough to flow with the melody but still had sharpness to hit the beats.
“Watch me, Jackson.” Jin Young tried to send him the message via his eyes to Jackson when their eyes met again. Jackson was dumbfounded, he still did not move an inch. As much as he hated this person, at the same time, he was drawn to him, like a moth to a flame.
Nearing the end of the song, the pace slowed down and it transited to Ed Sheeran’s I See Fire. Two counts of eight of melody played and then there was no more music, only Ed Sheeren’s voice could be heard singing “keep careful watch of my brothers’ souls”. The choreography ended and there were two seconds of silence before everyone broke out of the dance’s charm, as they cheered and clapped for the performer.
Jin Young was panting, beads of sweat rolled down the sides of his face. There were excited murmurings from the onlookers, all of them saying how they got goosebumps from watching the piece. Jin Young’s heart sank a little as he watched Jackson walk away. He was already expecting this, but it still hurts.
“I will let you walk away from me for now, Jackson, but you should know that you are the inspiration for my choreography and in my life.” Jin Young said in his heart.