The stage looked nothing like I remembered.
LED panels stretched across the back wall, shifting between silver and pale blue. Overhead lights hung in unfamiliar configurations.
Even the elevated platforms had been angled differently to accommodate the camera crane.
I stood at the entrance beside seven trainees who seemed perfectly comfortable with the changes.
I wasn't.
Coach Miyeon waited near center stage with the stage manager, whose headset was already active.
"Vocal Team," she called. "Final technical walkthrough. We're checking movements and selected cues, not performing the entire song. Save your voices."
We filed onto the polished floor. Yuhyun quietly took his bridge position, giving me a familiar reference point.
Woobin appeared beside me.
"You studied the diagrams?"
"Several times."
"Then you know where you're going."
I examined the platform, the camera crane, and the unfamiliar strip of tape between them.
"In theory."
"Theory is an important foundation."
