5 days before Episode 7 aired.
I had nothing to do.
Normally, I would’ve gone to the company to practice with the unnies, but the team leader insisted that resting was important too and told me to just take it easy. So I was stuck at home with no choice.
In the end, my vacation routine ended up similar to my pre-trainee days.
Stretching, piano, exercise, singing.
And finally, teaching Doa some studying or piano, or rolling around in bed together.
But even after doing all that, I still had too much time on my hands. I couldn’t stand the boredom and ended up picking up my phone.
*Sigh... I guess I’ll just look.*
I searched my name, and up came posts from various communities.
[Concept) 'Jeodol 3' tops buzzworthy charts for 4 weeks straight, 8 in top 10]
[Witness account of Jeodol 3 contestant Lee Dohee being cute LOLLL]
[Jeodol 3 contestant with insane specsㄷㄷ]
[Dohee's 2nd place acceptance speech, aegyo LOL]
[How could you not pick such a cute baby rabbit🐰?]
.
.
.
[Dohee is so cuteㅠㅠㅠ]
[Devotedly steamed Dohee gif.gif]
[Delving) Behind-the-scenes Dohee gif]
A repeating cycle of posts that were thrilling yet depressing.
Not even a sweet-and-salty pattern.
I felt like I understood what causes bipolar disorder.
Still, aside from a few dark past moments and a few posts cursing me out for no reason, I couldn’t help but smile.
But my eyes inevitably drifted to the few hate posts.
—Why on earth would such a young kid do that? Making such provocative expressions is really harmful to children.
—Obviously plastic surgery LOL The agency that made her get surgery at that age is impressive LOL What are the parents even doing? Aren’t they sorry for their kid? Basically using their child as a cash cow LOL
—Forced aegyo LOL It’s so obvious, really.
Well, the last one is right.
I don’t want to act cute either, damn it.
And this time, I discovered there was a whole separate community dedicated to me.
[Lee Dohee Gallery]
It was bewildering at first, but seeing posts that mentioned only me, filled with favorable reactions and not a single malicious comment, lifted my spirits a little after feeling down from the hate.
However, being that kind of community, many posts were niche content that didn’t show up on search engines.
Photos taken of me at the press conference, fan art, gifs of me from the broadcasts so far, articles, and so on.
Among them, a few posts caught my eye.
[Dohee studying in the classroom]
(Photo)
Studying this hard, how could she NOT be good at it!
Our baby is such a geniusㅠㅠ
—LOL a baby who studies hard too LOL so cute
—Totally a baby, damn so adorable
—So cute though
—She was totally a baby just a year ago LOL
[Dohee's 6th grade field trip talent show LOL]
(YouTube video)
LOLL the MC kept forcing her to do it
—LOLL even when forced, her dance lines are different LOL
—For real, she doesn’t even dance intensely but she stands out and hits every beat without any flashy moves. She’s a god baby.
—Thanks to the MC we got a great video LOL Dohee seems like she didn’t want to do it LOLLL
—But even with the shattering audio quality she sings so wellㄷㄷ... her tone is so good?
└Tone quality forced hate is overboard, fr
[Dohee reading a book in the reading club]
(Photo)
└Brains and beauty, I can’t LOLLLL
└Even just reading a book is like a photo shoot LOL so adorable
└Wow, but is it okay for a middle schooler to be this pretty?
I guess some old friends I couldn’t identify had already been spreading my videos and photos...
But that last photo of me reading a book—I knew exactly who posted that.
I called Sohee right away.
[Oh! It’s Dohee! Dohee-ya~ I missed you!~]
“Cut the crap. Did you upload my photo?”
[Gasp.]
What do you mean, gasp.
Look at this kid getting shameless.
***
Episode 7 airdate.
Hana unnie said the team should get together and watch Episode 7 as a group.
Fortunately, I managed to escape using the excuse that I was only fifteen and the air time was 11 PM.
[Hana unnie: Ok but if we end up on the same team later, double the practice.]
It was a pretty threatening message, but it was probably Hana unnie’s own sense of humor.
At least, I’d like to think so...
Anyway, it was a rare chance to lie on the sofa at home and watch comfortably.
“Let go of me!”
Thanks to that, I could hug and squish Doa.
Doa whined that it was uncomfortable, but the smell of Doa’s scalp was my drug.
“Oh my, our daughter, what’s this? Not watching in your room?”
Mom said teasingly as she cut me some Korean melon.
“I told you. In this episode, I’ll come out looking cool.”
“Our daughter is always cool~”
Dad looked at me like I was a baby and spouted empty words, but today I really wouldn’t be coming out with a cute image.
Finally, the Jeodol logo came on and Episode 7 began, followed by the preview for today’s broadcast.
The stages airing today, including ours, all flashed by in one scene each.
“Unnie!”
My face flashing by for a brief moment.
A breathtaking visual.
Seeing it on screen, everything from the makeup to the hair to the styling was insane.
Damn... so freaking pretty.
“See? Cool, right?”
“Yeah!”
Since Doa doesn’t say things she doesn’t mean, I could trust that.
Meanwhile, on screen, the MC for the second round of evaluations came out, continuing from last week.
[Next stage. Whenever I hear this song, I always go back to that time. It’s a ballad song expressed like a poem!]
“When will you come out, unnie?”
Doa looked up at me with still-large eyes despite wearing glasses.
“Well, probably last?”
Sure enough, after quite some time, our team’s stage came tacked on at the very end.
[Ah, this song! The popular boy group overflowing with a wild, masculine vibe! 2Q’s ‘FATAL’. Let’s meet the members who covered this song. Please come up on stage!]
Since we’d been mentioned as a super team since last week, the viewers’ attention was mostly on our team.
That’s why the PD had placed us near the end of Episode 7 to carry the ratings.
[Hello, we are Femme! Fa! Ta! Le!]
Still an embarrassing introduction today.
At least it was a relief that my suited appearance on screen looked cool.
“Our daughter is so cool~”
Yet Dad’s follow-up remark and tone still made it sound like I was cute.
I guess that’s just what dads do, but somehow it bugged me.
After the team introduction and the MC’s interview.
Finally, the actual practice process came out.
A harmonious team atmosphere with absolutely no crises or problems.
I was curious how they’d edit it.
It was the position assignment scene.
While we smoothly picked our positions without anything special.
[Before we divide vocal parts, shouldn’t we decide on the arrangement concept first? Harang unnie, your rap part is short too, so I think you should pick another part and add it in.]
The moment my eyes met Hana unnie’s, edited in a peculiar composition.
A sudden suggestion could give off the image of a cheeky youngest, but the subsequent scenes were destined to change it into one born from well-grounded confidence.
[Let’s listen to the original song again first, and even if it’s a simple idea, tell us anything that comes to mind.]
And then came my first idea, followed by a string of others.
[How about we do this in an R&B style?]
[Then how about this concept? ... A gentle, subtle sense of seduction.]
[... I want to put in something like shoe sounds. A feeling of approaching.]
[... How about wearing suits with dress shoes too?]
[... We’ll sing standing in front of a standing mic...]
Since it was the second round with twelve teams, each team was allotted around fifteen minutes including the stage.
They could’ve lumped all our ideas together with subtitles, but the broadcast included every one of our conversations.
Aside from being a super team, we had no team story, so the broadcast runtime was heavily skewed toward the production process.
Thanks to that, our image was highlighted beyond super team—as geniuses.
That’s why the scene of me playing the piano on the spot stood out even more.
[What, how are you playing without sheet music? Have you played it before?]
[No, I’m playing it for the first time today.]
[OMG, so you’re playing it right now after hearing it just once?]
[Wow... insane. A genius.]
The cringeworthy subtitles made me a little embarrassed but also smug.
Dad and Mom fussed and cheered beside me.
The subsequent production and practice scenes contained only our triumphant momentum, to the point that it felt like the production crew was blatantly pushing us.
Praise from the music director and arranger in charge, pleased smiles.
Trainers showering us with praise during the mid-evaluation.
They even used footage of us in the dormitory, trying to match harmonies even after turning off the lights and lying in bed, overlaying the image of hardworking geniuses.
The following stage also benefited because the details that came out during production and arrangement were intuitively clear to the viewers, making the stage shine.
A broadcast runtime consisting only of feel-good scenes.
Suddenly, I felt worried.
Jeodol is ultimately a competition program.
They say fame breeds antis, so haters were bound to be created.
The reason I was scared of that might be because I’d only received love in this life.
“Ah, unnie! Stop smelling me!”
I decided to calm down by smelling Doa’s scalp.
But so what if I get hate?
It’s not like I’d be the only one getting it.
Hana, Harang, and Sera unnie will share it with me.
Thinking that made me feel better.