8 Show Your Case Part 3

"Did… that just happen?" I heard one of the people comment right below the stage.

We just finished performing to Shinee's Everybody but there was just silence.

After what felt like forever, the audience roared and erupted in cheers and applause.

"Phew…" I heard Zee sigh in relief.

"I thought they hated us. I would have ran away and wouldn't bother waiting for the comments." Yo Chul said as he tried to catch his breath.

We formed a line and bowed to the audience and they cheered once more.

Since I was the unannounced and unofficial leader of the group, I ended up being the spokesperson for the group that's why I had to stand at the end of the line.

Taeyeon-sunbaenim went up on the stage without G-Dragon-sunbaenim and started approaching me. "Wow! Group B of JYP Entertainment ladies and gentlemen!"

The crowd erupted in to cheers once more.

Once the crowd quieted down she continued to speak, "Wow! It didn't feel like a trainee's showcase but of a debuting idol group." The crowd clapped and made some noise from Taeyeon-sunbaenim's comment. "I'm still having goosebumps from it. Sajang-nim, what are your thoughts?"

It was time for the CEO's comments.

We knew that there was no competition in this TV show, they would just want to bring out the best out of every trainee. The real competition starts once they debut.

Why?

Because many trainees might have fans before debut, but they would begin to lose them once they did debut. So there wasn't any guarantee that if you were a crowd favorite now, it would remain the same once you debut.

"For me it wasn't like a performance of a debuting team…" SM's CEO said.

The crowd were stunned by that comment and begun booing. We were also shocked by the comment itself.

"Wait… you guys didn't even let me finish." The crowd began to quiet down to give the CEO a chance to speak. The CEO then continued to say, "It didn't feel like a debuting team's performance because it felt like a comeback performance of an iconic idol group."

The crowd went crazy after that comment that it took a while before they settled down.

"I truly agree with that! Can we have comments from the other CEOs?" Taeyeon-sunbaenim asked.

YG's CEO just shook his head while clapping at us which the made the crowd go along. "What genre or style of music was that?" The CEO of Pledis started asking.

JYP PD-nim picked up his mic and answered for us, "When we were recording this song, JayB-ssi called this genre… EDM with a tinge of R&B…"

"So it really is a new style? Who is JayB-ssi?" Big Hit's CEO asked.

I stepped forward and raised my hand. I smiled at my "former" CEO. He was still the same as ever.

"Waa… How in the world did you do it?" YG's CEO asked.

I slowly lifted my mic and smiled but it earned the scream from many girls from the crowd that I ended up putting it back down. I waited for them to quiet down before replying, "I actually played with the mixer and controls to see how it went. And that's how I found this kind of music. The members actually helped."

The CEOs then turned to the other members who were shaking their heads and were making hand gestures that they had no part in it.

This earned a laugh from the audience and from the CEOs.

"Aey… you're lying." YG's CEO joked.

The crowd laughed at that comment.

"There's nothing much more to say, right?" SM's CEO turned to each of the other CEOs and got a nod. "Well then, you can head back to your dressing rooms and wait for the results. Great job boys." He continued.

The crowd cheered one more time as we bowed and headed towards our dressing rooms.

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As we entered our dressing rooms, we heard cheers and claps from our managers, stylists and make-up artists.

After we all entered the room, I stepped forward and thanked them on behalf of the group. All of us shook their hands and thanked them for all the hard work.

It was really a heart-warming scene. Except for Dominic collapsing on one of the couches after shaking hands with everyone. He immediately went to sleep.

We have been sleepless the past few weeks after all.

The rest of us switched to our finale clothes while the rest had their make-up retouched.

Yo Chul and Zee were both playing a game on their phones on one corner of the room.

I knew that they were just trying to calm themselves. Everyone was practically nervous.

Most of us were just pretending to be okay when we actually weren't.

"You nervous too?" I was sitting on the floor when Jiwoo and Jeon Do sat beside me.

"You have no idea." I replied.

They both smiled at me. It made me feel grateful that I have these guys to share the burden with. I practically had no one when I was a producer back in the previous world.

"Well hyung… for me, it doesn't really matter if we debut later on. I'm just glad that I got to do this with you guys." Jinwoo said as he leaned his head on my shoulder.

"Thanks for everything guys…" I was about to tear up as I said that.

"No, dude. Thank you…" Dom decided to join us as he sat beside Jeon Do.

Jinwoo's words struck me. As long as we get to do this together, it would be fine.

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"Welcome back to Show Your Case!" G-Dragon-sunbaenim and Taeyeon-sunbaenim both said.

We were still in our dressing rooms and were watching from the TV that the studio provided.

There were cameras in the room to see the trainee's reaction. In the final part of the segment, the trainee's remain in their dressing rooms while the results are announced.

The producer's reason?

So we could be emotional all we want.

These people like to capture heartbreaks and even overreactions.

"This is the part where I hate the most…" Zhang whispered to the rest of the group while we all nodded in response.

Every year, trainees get cut on live television. This was the cruelest thing that's being done on national TV.

"So right now, we're going to do the cut-down." Taeyeon-sunbaenim said in a serious tone.

"It's still not easy for me to be here for this segment." G-Dragon-sunbaenim sincerely said.

"It never is easy to let go of trainees who have worked hard only to be cut-down." Taeyeon-subaenim assured the crowd that this is part of what it means to be an idol in this world.

With that they began mentioning names of the trainees from the different companies.

The people mentioned were shown on the screen. We could see the members hugging the person as the person broke down in tears.

I couldn't take it anymore and just lowered my head. This was brutal. But for now, there's nothing that I could do. This was not under any of the 5 company's jurisdiction since it is MNET's show.

I'll let this go for now. When the time comes, I'll do something about it.

Based on the performances, I'm predicting that 90% of the names that will be mentioned will be "Bought Off" by other companies. Especially the big three companies: JYP Entertainment, YG Entertainment, and SM Entertainment.

There were rumors that this year has got to be the best one yet so I'm confident that the trainees that are cut-off will be given a new contract from a different company.

"Congratulations to the trainees from YG Entertainment that passed. For those that did not, don't lose hope yet, because we will still have the Buy Off later on." G-dragon-sunbaenim announced.

"That's right. Now, let's proceed to JYP Entertainment's trainees." Taeyeon-sunbaenim said.

We held hands as we waited for the results.

You might think that all of us passed, but I still wasn't sure myself.

2 years ago, there was a team who didn't get a single negative comment from the CEOs and the performance was really almost perfect. Yet during the deliberation, more than half of the members from that group got cut off.

We don't really know why that happened. Even the people were shocked.

The trainees themselves got the worst out of it. One of them even fainted.

That's why we can never be sure.

I closed my eyes as we waited.

The emcees started calling out names from the female groups. There were a lot of them actually. After what seemed like the longest 2 minutes of my life, it was now our turn.

PD-nim was not speaking yet. He was hesitating a lot.

"From the male groups… Group A… and B…" PD-nim was about to announce.

What?

He's going to announce someone from our group too?

"Both of you did well…" He added.

Aaaah! I nearly died!

He almost gave me a heart attack!

"But there is one group that didn't quite make my cut." PD-nim said.

Man… the suspense is killing me!

Wait… what?

A whole group would be cut-off?

This is bad!

"This going to be difficult… but… Group B…" He continued.

Ha… I guess it wasn't meant to be for all of us.

Well it was fun 'til it lasted.

Just get it over with PD-nim…

He then smiled at us and said, "You will be debuting soon. Congratulations."

Did I just hear it right? I could not hear it properly as the crowd drowned out PD-nim's voice.

"We did it Jay! We're debuting!" Matt yelled at me while shaking me.

Is this a dream? Am I really going to debut soon?

Someone hugged me from behind who was really crying, "Waaaah! Hyung! Thank you for letting me be a part of this group! Waaaa! I love you guys!" Zhang hugged me from behind.

I didn't notice that there were tears running down my face. The rest of the members joined in and tightly hugged one another.

This is it…

My shot to stardom…

We were prodigies. Achieving something that we were not good at, and to do it together, really made this special.

PD-nim announced that he won't be cutting anyone from the other male group since it would be a waste of talent.

I also sort of knew it. Since the other 9-member group were the members of Stray Kids in my previous world. Younger and livelier at that.

This is also one of the reasons why I doubted that we would be debuting.

The emcees continued the program as we huddled together and we complemented and comforted each other.

"I'm sure everyone worked hard to get to this point. So trainees, don't worry. There is still hope for you. Because now we'll start… the Buy Off!" G-Dragon-sunbaenim said.

Then the "Buy Off" started.

It's a segment where the different companies start giving out contracts to the trainees that were cut off. It would give them a chance to be a trainee again in a different company and even have the chance to debut.

It was still better than not being able to train anymore. Some trainees that were cut off were asked to re-sign a contract if they choose to stay in the company, but they will be considered as beginner trainees which had the worst privileges in the company.

After the Buy Off segment. We had a short break and were asked to head to the stage.

We quickly did our retouches since most of our tears and sweat ruined our make-up. After which we headed straight for the stage.

"JayB! Over here!" Joy called and was waving at me asking me to come over.

I smiled and went over to where she and her members were. She introduced me to her members and we congratulated each other and had small talk.

"I heard about what you did for our team 2 years ago." Irene said.

"Ahh… Irene-ssi… it was nothing. You got here on your own. And I hope you could keep my identity a secret." I told her.

"You can drop the formalities and we both know that you did more than that." She chuckled before she continued speaking, "And don't worry your secret is safe with me." She winked.

"You'll do well leading this team, Irene-noona." I told her.

"Huh? Our positions weren't even announced yet. Only we know that. Joy said that you didn't want to be involved with managing this team. So how did you know that I was the leader?" She asked.

I just smiled at her and calmly replied, "Just a hunch."

She laughed at me and said, "Well I know you'll also do well leading your own team."

"We don't even have positions yet. How would you know that I'd end up leading my team?" I asked her.

"Just a hunch." She smirked.

This woman…

She really is prettier this time around.

Our conversation ended after we were told to go up on stage. Everyone who passed and were told that they were going to debut soon were all on stage.

The fans were cheering for their favorite groups. I knew that this would be the beginning of one amazing era.

The program continued as our CEO joined us as they were about to announce to the audience the plans for their trainees like the group name, the target date for their debut and more.

We were chosen to be the last company to do the announcement since we were the only team that was going to debut from our company. The crowd was very excited as we were.

So the first company to announce the results was Pledis Entertainment. The CEO announced the names for the group which was SEVENTEEN for the boy group and PRISTIN for the girl group.

There was no suspense at all for me since I already knew about it.

The company then handed their personalized tokens that was a signature that they were already done being trainees and were on their way to debut. For Pledis, it was their pinky rings.

The groups gave a short speech and were applauded by the audience.

It was the same for the other companies. Big Hit were going to debut Gfriend and BTS and handed out their tokens which is a golden badge with the logo.

We were debuting the same year, huh? I promise I'll still help them out. I'm going to give them their songs and maybe use some of their songs for my group.

What? I need to develop my group as well, right?

Anyway, people will find out about my music producing skills after today. I even had 6 producers approach me earlier.

SM Entertainment was not going to debut their girl group this year but next year which was still fine. I mean they are already receiving their tokens in advance anyway which still makes their debut sort of official.

SM's tokens were personalized microphones for their artists.

The next one to announce was YG which also announced that they will be debuting their trainees next year and 2 years from now. They already announced the group's name which was IKON and were still thinking about a name for their girl group.

That's probably Lisa's group. I'll give them a hint later on.

They got customized watches from Rolex as their tokens and were really happy about it.

Finally, it was our turn.

We slowly moved forward and shook the hand of JYP PD-nim.

"I'm really proud of you boys. No doubt, you really are prodigies." He whispered to us.

Of course, he's not allowed to reveal our identities. But I knew he really wanted to brag about it.

"These are your customized in-ear monitors to symbolize you being officially part of the JYP roster." A couple of staff members went up on stage to give the wireless in-ear monitors.

It was really cool! I'm amazed that this exists at this year. We didn't even have this in the previous world during this time.

We all bowed towards him and sincerely thanked him.

He opened his arms wide signaling us to come and hug him. Although we were his trainees, he was also secretly our uncle. So this was also a proud moment for him.

"So… now for your name." He then continued after breaking the hug.

The audience were very expectant and stayed silent.

"You will be called Alpha. Your name means to dominate. To take the lead. And take supremacy to the next level. That is your name." We already knew our name since he approached us during the break at the back stage and told us about it. He also taught us how to greet the audience.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, the next boy group that will be launched by JYP Entertainment. Boys… introduce yourself." PD-nim announced.

"Yes… 1, 2, 3…" I started. Our greeting was simple but there was a choreography to it. We bump our chest with our fist before forming a claw with our hands that was facing the audience and say, "Take the lead! Hello! We are Alpha!"

"Alpha! Alpha! Alpha!" The audience were chanting our name. It sounded very pleasing to the ears.

After the crowd settled down. JYP PD-nim made another announcement. "Now that the world knows who you are, there's one more thing I need to announce."

There was silence all around as the crowd waited for the announcement.

What else was there to announce?

I looked at the members but they were as clueless as I was.

"The road to your debut… or your demise, starts today." As soon as he said that, some members of the staff from the show went up the stage and started taking away our tokens.

What the hell is going on?

We had no choice as PD-nim told us to just give it up.

Everyone including the audience were confused and were now spouting negative comments.

He then laughed like an evil villain and said, "In order to debut and earn back your tokens. You have to pass a set of trials to see what it means to be an Idol."

It was obvious that we still didn't get what he was saying.

Wasn't today enough?

He then continued, "Starting today, you will be in a reality survival show together with MNET to see whether you have what it takes to debut." He paused for a while before he continued. "Welcome to Project Alpha!"

The boys and I were dumbfounded. "Say what now?!"

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