I am a Pioneer

Kyu-Bong Shocks Us All

The final performance was Kyu-Bong. His confidence has grown in the last few challenges and he swaggers up and to the middle of the stage. He grabs the microphone off the stand and begins the song. Using the momentum from my performance he easily controls the crowd. He is performing a censored Straight Out of Compton by N.W.A. As he performs, he is using the energy of the crowd. His aura alone is dominating the stage. As he moves around his gestures have everyone hypnotised. Even JYP can't tear his eyes away. The energy and power in his rap lines are insane. He's like a completely different person than he was before. As I watch, I can't help but move along with him and hum along to the lyrics. Everyone else in the waiting room is doing the same. This is crazy. What happened to Kyu-Bong? I wonder as I look around to see the others all moving to the beat with their gazes fixated on the screen showing Kyu-Bong. Very soon his performance ends. The room is silent for a few moments until finally, someone begins to clap. Soon the rest of the crowd is cheering and giving him a standing ovation. JYP is smiling wide and clapping. Even us in the back can't help but smile and clap. We've already accepted defeat after that performance.

Very soon we are all back up on stage to receive the results. no one will be eliminated this time around, but the rankings in both popularity and performance will be revealed. JYP provides comments for all of us. He commends Me, Hayashi and Akira for our performances. Finally, it's Kyu-Bong's turn for feedback. "As for Kyu-Bong. Can I just ask what you had for breakfast this morning? You seemed like a completely different person on stage today. Although you stuck with rap again, this time you didn't just rap. You performed. Your presence on stage was absolutely dominant. Your aura was strong and confident. Every single movement, facial expression and gesture was controlled and alluring. You had the audience following your every move. You fed off of their energy and momentum perfectly. This is the best performance I have seen from you to date. Well done, you deserve a lot of praise for your hard work and talent" JYP finishes. We are all shocked at the amount of positive feedback. I don't think I heard anything negative at all.

"Ok, no I will announce the results!" JYP calls. It takes about 5 minutes, but in the end, the results of the popular and performance voting look like this:

Performance:

8th: Nam Youngjae

7th: Sim Hyun-Shik

6th: Ra Chan-wook

5th: Hayashi Roh

4th: DongBang Kyong

3rd: Akizuki Akira

2nd: Chu Jin-Ho

1st: Sim Kyu-Bong

Popularity Ranking:

8th: Ra Chan-wook

7th: Nam Youngjae

6th: Sim Hyun-Shik

5th: Akizuki Akira

4th: DongBang Kyong

3rd: Sim Kyu-Bong

2nd: Hayashi Roh

1st: Chu Jin-Ho

With the ratings revealed, Kyu-Bong was staggered. He had placed first in a solo challenge for the first time, and increased in popularity from pretty much the bottom, to third in one go. We were all happy for him and congratulated him on his amazing performance. Soon after that we returned to our dorms and had a rest for the day. The next day I went out to hang out with the girls from TWICE and DongBang and Younjae. We had decided to hang out at Seongsang park for a picnic. While there we played around with frisbees, had lunch and chatted. We interacted with a few other people, especially their dogs, and talked about the show to the girls who weren't able to be at our last performance and had to watch it on tv. There were a couple of times when I felt like someone was watching me, but every time I turned towards the place where I was getting the feeling from there was never anyone there. I did notice a group of what seemed like female trainees from a different company that was at the park. I think they might have recognised me, DongBang and Youngjae as they glanced over a couple of times and discussed something with their group. but they maintained their distance and left not long after.

Following the picnic, Youngjae, DongBang and I all went back to the dorms to hang out with the others. We had a scheduled recording session to attend to where we would be competing in some mini-games like Mafia and uno. It was a fairly easy session for us but would provide some entertainment for viewers. Especially when we had to play games like two truths one lie and the whisper game. We had quite a few laughs out of it and created some memorable quotes and moments that won't leave the fans' and viewers' heads any time soon. Finally, the social media craze over my identity reveal had calmed down, and some normality had been restored. JYPE's stocks had stabilised and risen again thanks to the show's continuation and the new comeback from GOT7. Not to mention the debut of a new group, BTS had also taken over the headlines.

The few days after that were fairly relaxed as we were able to rest and recover. But eventually, the last couple of challenges would arrive, and we would have to begin working hard again. This time, however. I was excited as we were close to finalising the debut group, but I was also nervous. I had made some good friends out of this group of trainees, and ultimately, some of them won't make it into the group.