43 Imitating Outsider's style

The next day morning;

Yawning continuously, Jun left the dorm. As he entered their training room, Jun didn't see anyone else. "Looks like everybody is going to get late." Jun then lie on the floor and closed his eyes to take a short nap.

After a while, he heard the voices of girls giggling from nearby. Instantly, he opened his eyes to find Eunbin and Soeun sitting in the corner and whispering between themselves.

Misunderstanding that they are talking about him, Jun immediately woke up and sat on the floor.

"Annyeonghaseyo" Soeun was the first one to greet him. Followed by her, Eunbin shyly greeted him. Returning the greetings, Jun rests his back against the wall before looking at the time. "It's already 6:30…"

Jun then glanced at the two of them who are busy whispering to each other about something.

He hesitated for a few seconds before clearing his throat, "Um… Excuse me… Any of you know when Yuna-ssi will usually come to the training room for practice?"

Looking at the time, Soeun said, "Normally, she arrives around 7."

Thanking them, Jun lies down in the corner and took a small nap until he felt someone shaking his shoulder.

As he opened his eyes, he found 18-year-old In Sang-kyu, who was performing dance in the mixed-duo category with Park Jiyoon, Yuju's roommate. "Sung-Jun-ssi…"

He gestured with his eyes towards his front. Jun then turned his head and saw Yuju and Jiyoon were standing together while staring at him. Yuju thought that Jun might have been working hard until the late-night because of his terrible rapping skills. If one doesn't have enough talent, they would have to replace it with hard work.

Meanwhile, Jiyoon was smiling, thinking Jun looked cute while he was sleeping.

If not for the fact that mobile phones aren't allowed in the training rooms and need to be submitted at the reception desk, she would have probably taken a picture in secret.

Jun slowly stood up on his feet as he greeted her with a slight bow. "Annyeonghaseyo…"

As both of them returned his greetings, Jun looked at Yuju, "One minute. Let me go and wash my face…"

Yuju nodded in response.

Jun returned after a few minutes with a bright look. There's no trace of drowsiness or so whatever. He wanted to show the result of his hard work to Yuju, right away.

As they sit in the corner, she then asked, "So, what did you decide? Are we going with the original or are you recompose it?"

She was fine with either way. Yuju didn't have much ambition. As long as she can get into the next round, she's fine with it. In her view, as long as she does her part perfectly, she will at least get a safe score regardless of how the team performs. So, she was a bit chill about it.

Upon hearing the expected question, Jun shook his head, "Not much. We will keep it original. However, for the rap parts, I will have to change the tempo a little bit. It was too slow for me. According to my calculations, the overall time of the song will be reduced by a few seconds. So, we will have to shorten the music…"

"Eh? Too slow?" Yuju stared at him in silence for a few seconds while blinking her eyes in disbelief. A day ago, Jun wasn't even able to catch up to the original tempo. Now he's complaining that it's too slow.

Jun also expected such a reaction from her.

After practicing for 2 hours last night, he already remembered the lyrics. Still, he opened the lyrics sheet on purpose.

At early in the morning, when Jun left the dorm, on the way, he pondered for a long time about what to do.

Since he already decided to activate the Rap God skill during the evaluation to get a high score, he wondered whether he should just pose as the skillful rapper from the start or he should pose as a person who can improve very fast.

Then, as he thought of the previous day, Jun immediately chose the second option. He can afford to make Yuju think that he fooled around but he can't do the same with YG.

With his current rapping skill at 4.1 points and Vocals at 8.4, Jun felt like he will not face any issue even in practice sessions.

"Why baby mwoga munjeya baby"

(why baby, what's wrong baby)

The first line itself made Yuju flinch in surprise. It's just the first with only five words but she felt the difference between this line and the one previous day, although she wasn't able to put her finger on what had changed. Her intuition told her that Jun must have been improved with hours of practice until late at night.

However, it can't be confirmed with a simple line. So, she played along to see how he will sing the rest of the song.

"I know that you hate me

I'm sad, why can't you understand me?

You don't understand, I like you…"

Jun's part then contains usual vocals in a fast tempo. He did perfectly as expected.

The next part is where the rap comes in. It started with her. She did well while reading the lyrics sheet as she still wasn't confident to pull off all the lyrics on her own yet.

After her part is over, she then curiously looked at Jun who was about to sing the rap parts that were kind of a nightmare to him, the previous day.

However, the moment Jun opened his mouth, she fell into a daze.

"Neoe daehan geon sasohan geotdo

Gieokhae nan mania

Amuri nappi gureodo

Neon naege i sungan manhwaya

Sunjeongmanhwaya juingongeun maennal maennal

Ireoke bammada gidohae"

He sang it so fast, maintaining a certain rhythm that she couldn't help but get surprised.

It was supposed to be a 9-second continuous rap. However, he managed to sing it in little more than 6 seconds. She felt as if she was watching the video 1.5x faster.

If not for the fact that Jun messed up the rhythm for once in the middle, she felt like he would have completed it in even five seconds.

Even though it appeared as if it is a slower version of Outsider's style, Jun was still satisfied with the progress.

A few seconds passed away and Yuju was still staring at Jun in surprise. She felt like Jun had improved a lot compared to the day before.

"Um… Yuna-ssi..." Jun called her twice as she forgot to sing her next part.

"Ah, yes. I'm sorry." She continued to sing.