I Love You 3000 (Y.Jw)

Chapter 20

"DNA Unit to the stage."

I stood up with the four boys in my unit and we all stepped into the egg as it began turning, while watching the other boys cheer for us. We all lined up on stage in front of the producers and introduced ourselves as we had planned before being told to standby. I took a deep breath as I stood in my position, ready to give it my all out on stage, remembering all the details we had went over in the past week.

During our performance we did our utmost best in what we could, and performed to our best ability, as we always would. In the end we got some okay feedback and were told to sit and wait as the other units got out to perform. For this test there had been set up small seating areas for us, so we could sit and watch each other real time, and not just over the screen in I-land, and it was nice for a change. I had definitely been happy with us being the first ones, so we could watch the other units in real time.

After us it was the 'I Need U' unit. They all stepped up on stage in their color coded outfits and introduced themselves, they all looked quite cute with their white and blush colored clothes. I absolutely loved their stage, to say the least, they were amazing and all fit the song perfectly, if you ask me. However the producers didn't seem to impressed, I had a hard time to see why, but apparently it was all about the feeling of the song and the embodiment of it.

"For me, Jungwon was the one who was closest to show the right emotion for this stage. He really seemed to be longing after something," Sungdeuk pointed out and the other producers nodded before Shihyuk picked up the microphone with a wide grin on his face.

"Jungwon... I heard a small bird sing to me," he started off making Jungwon's ears immediately turn a very deep shade of red, "you had been asking the older boys in I-land whether or not it would be okay for you to date," at that statement all of the boys let out small laughs as Jungwon's ears just turned another deeper shade of red, if that were even possible, as he lifted his hands to his face as an attempt to hide himself, "and I do intend on answering your question right now, but I do have to admit that initially I wanted to say no, due to how your focus should stay on debuting right now," Shihyuk commented making Jungwon nod and slowly and not so calmly recollecting himself, "but since I do know who you have in mind, and the company doesn't have a direct dating ban," once again most of the boys let out small laughs at him and I immediately felt Niki hide his face in my shoulder making me let out a small laugh as well before patting his head, it seemed like he was getting second hand embarrassment, which was quite understandable, "and I've seen how you interact around one another, I feel that it would be wrong of me to deny you that. So for once, I'm gonna say that young love is very important in this one. You can date whoever you wish to, but do keep in mind that she has to be okay with it as well," with that Jungwon nodded in determination as his only reply, "but that doesn't mean you should stop showing a longing emotion on stage."

"Of course," Jungwon bowed to Shihyuk before they all got to take their seats, whilst Shihyuk let out a small laugh at the younger boy, whose ears still was a faint color of red.

After that unit it were the 'Fake Love' unit, who ended up doing much better than they had made it sound like and what they had done at the mid-point evaluation. They had gotten the highest score of the day, so neither of the four in the 'Fake Love' unit could get eliminated. So once it was all finished we all lined up on stage to hear the scores of each individual person in each team.  They started by showing the 'Fake Love' unit's places since they couldn't get eliminated. Of course Heeseung was the first place, that couldn't be a surprise to anyone, but Taki was last place, which meant whoever had ranked 12th would get eliminated instead of him, from there they slowly worked their way down. Sunghoon had placed third and Jungwon had placed second, with quite close scores.

"Fourth place, with 79 points, Choi Jiyeon."

I happily bowed, at the sound of hearing how high my score had been, to the producers who all smiled warmly at me before I walked to the egg and it began turning and retrieving me back to I-land along with the 'Fake Love' unit and Jungwon, who all stood waiting on the other side.

"You just climbed nine places," Heeseung said in disbelief as I jumped down the steps in two small jumps.

"Nice to see you too," I commented with sarcasm as Jungwon quickly pulled me into a side hug before anyone else got the chance to greet me.

"But that is insane," he commented once again in bewilderment, almost as if he didn't believe that I actually had managed to place so high.

"Why?" I complained to him, a bit disappointed that he seemed to not think I had deserved that spot.

One by one everyone slowly arrived back, and in the end it was Geonu who got eliminated, as he had placed 12th. I'm not gonna lie it did affect me quite a lot, seeing as he practically was one of the people I was the most comfortable with, along with Jungwon and Sunoo, but what is gonna happen is gonna happen, it's not like I'll never see him again, and this just gave me yet another chance to get close with some of the other boys. By the end of the evening I moved into a new room along with Sunoo and K, who had placed either fifth or sixth.

"How come you place fourth if you got just as many points as Sunghoon hyung?" Sunoo looked at me weirdly as we were unpacking our things in our new room.

"Fake Love won," I reminded him how the point system here worked, "we might get equally as high points, but because he was in the unit that won he placed higher than me."

"Ah... I wanted a day off too," Sunoo quietly muttered the last part. It was true that the three that had placed the highest were allowed to get a day off in the middle of the next test. We all envied them, but we all accepted it as well, they did work hard to deserve that, so everyone understood why they had been given that small prize.

"Ah... Sunoo!" I cooed at him before walking over and wrapping my arms around him tightly, as he looked to be all sulky and sad, "I promise you that you will at some point soon be given the benefit of being in top three. Okay?"

"You think so?" he questioned and I happily nodded at him, he was gonna get a benefit of a first place at some point, cross my heart and hope to die.

"I know so," I assured him with a bright smile which made him let out a small smile as well, "in one of these tests you'll be placed first with no doubt."

"Ah... I don't think so," he shook his head as I released him from my hug and looked at him with no smile on my face anymore.

"Kim Sunoo! Don't you dare doubt yourself at any point!" I warned him, earning a small laugh from him, "I mean it!"

"Wah, you two are so loud," K commented at us, to be honest he had been so quiet I had completely forgotten he was there, "how am I gonna survive this week?"

"Quite easy actually... continue to breathe," I reminded him making him let out a small laugh at me as he rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"Ji!" a whiny Jungwon entered the room as he walked over and plopped down on Sunoo's bed right on my other side of where Sunoo sat.

"Yah!" Sunoo exclaimed loudly, just to be ignored by the younger boy who seemed to not hear him at all.

"What is it?" I questioned as Jungwon sat all pouty on the bed beside me, completely ignoring the complaints coming from Sunoo.

"Sunghoon and Heeseung hyung are mean to me," he complained at me, earning himself a small laugh from everyone in the room.

"What are they doing?" I questioned him, trying to suppress my laugh a bit more.

"They're teasing me," he sighed deeply at me.

"About what?" I accidentally let out a small laugh this just ended up in Jungwon yelling out loudly before falling back onto the bed and sighing as he closed his eyes tightly.

"Ah... I know," Sunoo realized with a small laugh at the younger boy, "come on Jungwon, I'll help you."

I watched as the two boys left the room, one more pouty than usual, while the other was grinning widely compared to how moody he had been just moments ago, about not getting a day off.