Top Girl Group Scenario Rewritten with My Own Hands - Chapter 9

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 9
Did I say “sometime” last time?
I need to correct that. Not sometime—from the very first week of training. And not just once, but several times over.
“Are you struggling?”
“Well… yeah, quite a bit.”
“See? I told you your stamina isn’t that good.”
“I’d complain, but I’m too exhausted to even argue. Just… leave me alone.”
“That’s why you should exercise regularly.”
“With the University Entrance Exam? When would I have time to work out…”
She’s laughing far too hard about this. Ugh.
Since I started exercising this week, Go Hyun-seo’s pointless worry has mostly faded. Which is a relief, but…
Of course, I’m exhausted. Very exhausted. Even after resting well on the weekend, my stamina feels depleted the moment I start exercising.
Do I really have to go back to practice after this? It feels like such a lie.
“Aren’t you going to practice? We need to eat now or we’ll be late.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.”
How am I supposed to eat after such intense exercise? This girl has zero concept of mercy.
Honestly, I’d rather skip dinner and rest.
‘Skipping dinner is only for dieting.’
‘Can’t you just give me a break?’
‘Eat something light at least. If you don’t eat anything, your stamina won’t improve.’
‘… Fine, I get it.’
Just days ago, a new lecture about not skipping dinner after exercise was about to start, so I have no choice.
Friday afternoon, July third week, 6:30 PM—Go Hyun-seo and I split a Sandwich and headed back to the Company Building together.
At seven, we were scheduled to hold a group practice session for the Monthly Evaluation.
This is truly a disaster I brought upon myself.
Both the exercise and the “Never Give Up” choreography.
***
“You know Jae-yi’s intro here?”
“Is something wrong with it?”
“No, not wrong. But I think we could bring it out more.”
Honestly, I’m far better suited to directing than performing.
I don’t trust myself to be a good performer who takes direction, and I don’t want to be one either.
I’m not even qualified as a performer to begin with.
“The first phrase is fine. But the next one feels flat. Visually it’s so pretty and dynamic, but…”
“Mm…”
“No, I don’t mean it badly. The senior members have always sung it cleanly… It’s just that Jae-yi has this really flashy quality, so by comparison the vocal part feels a bit plain? It’s a balance issue.”
I’m confident in bringing out other people’s strengths. I have decent eyes and ears, and I actually tend to catch these things well.
I’m good at quickly identifying what the problem is—what’s causing it to look or sound this way. That’s what I mean.
“I think keeping the gestures would look prettier, actually.”
“I agree. The vocal part sounds flat, so emphasizing the sense of rhythm might help?”
“How so?”
“Let’s bring it forward a bit. It’s 4/4 time, so… can you read Sheet Music?”
“Yeah. I used to play piano!”
“Okay, then… the beat pattern here is like this. Quarter note, two eighth notes, half note. And there’s one more quarter note before this measure.”
This Mini Whiteboard is so useful. I can sketch out Sheet Music on the spot.
The team lead said the smaller whiteboard wasn’t being used in the conference room anyway and just to keep it in the practice studio—and I’m getting good use out of it.
“Oh, isn’t that the same measure?”
“No. It’s carried over from the last beat of the previous measure. So ‘fierce waves and wind’—take the ‘wave’ as an eighth note, change the ‘wind’ that was originally an eighth note into a quarter note. The entrance stays the same, but this rhythm goes from dum-dum-duh-duh-duh-uh to dum-duh-dum-dum-duh-uh.”
After hearing me out, Hyun Jae-yi murmured through the same measure a few times, then nodded as if she understood.
“When you do it this way, the pronunciation shifts from ‘wave’ to something closer to ‘waave,’ right? Then naturally the ‘wind’ that follows should move from a ‘wuh-wind’ sound to something closer to the ‘wind’ pronunciation. That makes the sound and articulation more dynamic. Does that make sense?”
“Yes! It’s not some crazy complex rhythm. I can do it.”
“Okay. Then let’s try it this way when we sync up later.”
“Yes!”
It’s a relief that Hyun Jae-yi catches on quickly. Since she’s so eye-catching, just filling in her vocals a bit more will immediately boost the overall performance quality.
The problem is…
“Oh… this part still isn’t right.”
“Where? Oh, the Dance Break.”
“Yeah. The timing’s slipping, and you keep missing moves one at a time.”
“Hey, it’s fine. If it were perfect, we’d already have debuted, wouldn’t we?”
“That’s a fair point, but… it still bothers me.”
“Huh?”
“It bothers me. It bothers *me*.”
That’s right. The problem is me.
The system won’t give me quest points to level up rapidly, so I can only keep up with the choreography using my own ability.
I’ve never liked the word “good enough.”
That’s just how my nature is.
If I see rough edges on music released under my name, I know I’ll hate it. And if I compromise with laziness when I could do better, I’ll regret it forever.
Because of that, in my past life I don’t think I ever actually took a proper vacation. Finances played a role, but the biggest problem was this personality of mine—it consumed all my time.
That said, I’ve never really disliked my own nature. It made sense that I worked that hard because I loved what I did.
But I realized I could never be a performer because of it.
A performer—someone who takes the stage or sings directly—needs to know how to compromise.
Can someone who demands their live performance match their recorded version, who gets stressed over small mistakes, truly become a good singer? I don’t think so.
In my case, my nature makes it impossible to be a good singer even if I wanted to.
If I’d chosen to be a singer-songwriter in my past life, I’d have been incredibly stressed with every single performance.
I’m most comfortable with recorded music that meets my standards. But live performance—where mistakes can happen regardless of how much you practice, depending on your condition—doesn’t suit me.
Think about it. Even as a singer who only sang, I’d have been under enormous stress.
But idols don’t just sing. They dance, they perform in variety shows, and physical appearance management is essential.
This Monthly Evaluation itself obviously includes dancing.
No matter how I think about it, the system seems to have made a mistake in judgment. How am I supposed to be an idol with a personality like this?
I was understanding my nature well and living appropriately for my role, and suddenly I’m told to be an idol of all things?
“Ugh.”
“Ow! Stop it, Kang Su-ah.”
“Your shoulders are incredibly tense, customer.”
“It hurts—ow!”
“And you’ve only been dancing for less than a month. You need to relax your shoulders and walk around more.”
“I know, I know…”
It hurts. Kang Su-ah is suddenly pressing hard into my shoulders—why does she have such strong hands?
Of course I know about beginner’s limitations. I’m aware that despite being a newcomer, I’m pushing myself hard to show something like a “one-month miracle.”
For one month of practice, as Kang Su-ah said.
“But after debut, the audience won’t consider how much we’ve trained, right? They’ll just judge us as we are.”
“Wow… that’s true, but. Jeon, you’re really relentless.”
“Yeah, I hear that every time we rehearse together…”
“I’ve heard from the kids who rehearsed with you that you’re that relentless type who can’t stand unbalanced sound.”
“They know how to do at least that much. It’s their Major.”
“But to have such a high cutoff line for your own work too…”
“If I just did things roughly and only demanded the others, wouldn’t people call me worse than relentless?”
“True. But you’re not even a professional dancer…”
“It won’t be a valid excuse after we debut anyway. And honestly, it’s just my personality.”
“Ugh, I shouldn’t say anything. Anyway, take it easy, you… this friend. The iPad’s gonna crack from the intensity in your eyes.”
“You were about to call me that word, weren’t you?”
“Gotta respect my effort to use polite language.”
Despite myself, I laughed at Kang Su-ah’s shameless tone. The point was that I’d try my best within what I could do—hopefully she caught that.
“But friend, our Dance Break can never be perfectly synchronized anyway.”
“What are you getting at?”
“I’m in a similar situation to you…”
Oh.
I was so focused on monitoring the Dance Break that I didn’t notice until now, but thinking about it, Kang Su-ah doesn’t seem to be keeping up with the Dance Break very well either.
“I’m pretty sure neither of us will be able to follow this short Dance Break by Wednesday.”
“That’s a fair assessment. But it’s kind of frustrating to hear.”
“No, listen. Let’s just do what we’re good at.”
What we’re good at?
When I tilted my head slightly, Kang Su-ah whispered like she was sharing a secret operation.
“Step to the side if we can’t nail it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s add a new Ad-lib section! In the Dance Break part!”
“…? Tell me more.”
My mind, which I’d let go idle thinking she was joking around, started churning again at her words.
Honestly, I think the Dance Break would look much prettier with Kang Su-ah and me out of it. If we could just step aside naturally beforehand, that’d be ideal.
If it could work.
If it could really work!
***
“So you two would just step to the side here?”
“Yeah. Listen to this section—there’s a humming line laid down in the backing track, right? We layer an Ad-lib part along that humming line, step to the side, and we solve the Dance Break problem plus make the energy stronger.”
Maybe because she’s studied music, Kang Su-ah clearly has a basic ear for listening and a sense for arrangement.
While I was so focused on keeping up with the Dance Break, she caught something I never would have thought of.
Strictly speaking, what Kang Su-ah mentioned isn’t actually a humming line—it’s a Vocal Chops sample source.
You know how it is. It sounds like a human voice, and you’d think it’d have to be recorded individually, but it’s one of those heavily processed, voice-modulated sound effects. That’s what Vocal Chops is.
Since this is normally treated as a sample track rather than a vocal line, I’d never even considered it.
“Never Give Up” has a short Dance Break right after the second chorus, and then the bridge raises the key by a half step.
The energy that was already building gets explosive, you could say—a surging, overwhelming feeling. Something like that.
After the Dance Break, it becomes almost a Vocal Showcase quality feel… which is honestly why the Dance Break felt even more daunting.
So what this means is the Dance Break is a Buildup.
The section that stacks and rises so the energy explosion that follows doesn’t land awkwardly.
While the electric guitar surges flashily overhead, a soft “woo—” sound hums underneath. Kang Su-ah was suggesting we catch that and use it.
“Isn’t that too high? You two will be singing most of the rest…”
“It’s not high. If we layer the Ad-lib line as-is, the highest note is E-flat, I think?”
“Yeah, E-flat sounds right. And anyway, if we’re singing that final Ad-lib the same way, it goes up to F-sharp anyway, so…”
“I’m amazed at the seniors who say that’s not a high note.”
Isn’t that a vocal range we’re singing anyway? When Kang Su-ah shrugged, Hyun Jae-yi stared at us like she found it fascinating.
Well, from our perspective, you seem even more fascinating.
“Honestly, between nailing the Dance Break details and adding this Ad-lib line, I’m leaning toward the Ad-lib side. In terms of overall polish, it just looks better if we step out of the Dance Break.”
The others, who looked uncertain when Kang Su-ah spoke, nod in understanding once I voice my agreement, as if thinking ‘oh, she must have a plan.’
Really, Lee Han-byul’s publicly recognized mental age is kindergarten. She’s definitely losing my trust smoothly. Tone down the jokes, will you.
“But if we do this, I and Su-ah have to step to the side right after verse two, so the Stage Movement would mean someone else needs to sing the last measure of the second chorus, not me.”
It’s not an exceptionally difficult part, but it’s where the song really starts to build, so the pitch is high and requires more careful singing.
Honestly, I’d already decided who would take this part the moment we started planning the Ad-lib exit.
“Han-byul, would you do this part?”
“Me…?!”
“I think it’d suit you well. I’d really like it if Han-byul did it. What do you think?”
In my larger vision, Lee Han-byul will be the voice that carries Everglitter’s identity. Every group has a signature voice people remember, right? That kind of role.
Lee Han-byul needs to be capable of handling important parts with her own unique, distinct vocal tone.
Since I’m going to give her this kind of part often anyway, trying it now is fine too. There’s still enough time, and it’s definitely doable.
When an opportunity comes to help someone grow, a good producer shouldn’t miss it!
…It’s absolutely not an excuse to avoid the Dance Break, truly.
Rewriting the Top Girl Group Scenario With My Own Hands
Author
: Nam Seo-rang
Production Date
: January 5, 2026
Publisher
: Aces Media Co., Ltd.
Editor
: Aces Media Editorial Team
Address
: 4F, Urban Bench Building, 325 Teheran-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea
Email
: [email protected]
※ This work is published by Aces Media Co., Ltd. under contract with the copyright holder,
and the contents may not be used in any form or by any means without permission from the company and the author.
This e-book is protected by copyright law, and unauthorized reprinting or reproduction may result in legal liability.
UCI
: G720:N+A129-20260102083.0009

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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