Soulmates - Cai Bing

14. First Day Back

You arrived at the dorms full of excitement. It's been a long time since you last saw the girls and you were just excited for filming to begin.

The filming days were always long but you didn't mind it because you loved spending time with the girls.

You and the masters arrived slightly earlier than the mid-checkup. You guys had to film some confessionals about picking the planet pass recipients for the first elimination round episode that would be airing this coming Friday.

Once all the masters were doing filming their parts, the staff notified you that it was time to head to the mid-checkup. The staff also told you that you would be evaluating the performances of the teams of three and the teams of nine.

You already had your makeup touched up in the waiting room so you took one last glance at yourself before you headed out.

You walked into the room and you saw about 20 girls wearing blue shirts. You smiled and bowed to them. Your eyes glanced over the group and they fell on Jiwon sitting in the back row.

You two were smiling at each other before the door opened once more and the rest of the masters came inside.

You took your seat between Juhee and Tiffany as Tiffany announced that Woo Wonjae would be joining.

After some initial introductions, it was time for the mid-checkup to begin.

The "We Are" team was up first. You and Juhee couldn't help but laugh at how nervous and timid they looked compared to their usual cheerful selves.

The music began and Wen Zhe starts rapping. Subconsciously, you begin nodding your head to the beat.

Your smile grows when the performing girls looked at each other for comfort and reassurance. For their first time writing rap, they had some really good and meaningful lyrics.

When it was time for you to give them feedback, you said, "I liked how your confidence and your performance got better after you looked at one another and that helped you to gain more courage. I want you guys to perform with more confidence, you can do it! You are good at rapping, you guys just need to believe that yourselves. Hwaiting!"

The other masters nodded along with you.

When it was time to give feedback for the "No Excuses" team, you suggested for them to focus on their acting and incorporate fun elements into their performance.

For "All About You", Xingqiao got scolded for laughing while performing. Miu also got some criticism for being unstable. As always, Yeyoung blew you away with her vocals. You really liked their arrangement of the song, they just had to keep practising to avoid those mistakes in the final performance.

For "VVS", their version of the trendy rap song was just too cute. You and the masters could not hold back your smiles and laughs. Unfortunately, they were quite heavily criticized. Master Wonjae called it a "nursery rhyme". As cute as they were, you knew that they could not perform this song the way they did in the mid-checkup.

"My House" was another performance that needed a lot of improvement before the final stage. The performance concept needed adjustments but there will still positives to take away from that evaluation stage.

"Youngeun-ie, you're a great singer. We already know what a good dancer you are, so you made a really good choice picking the vocal position for this mission" you said.

The other masters agreed with you and began complimenting Youngeun too. You felt that she must've been under a lot of pressure since she broke into tears. It always hurt you to see the trainees cry.