"that's all we're going to go over for now!" their dance instructor called, wiping her sweat from her face. their instructor grabbed her bag and headed for the door. "bye girls!" she called, before exiting the room. a chorus of goodbyes fromthe girls as a reply.

if one would look at the girls right at that moment, well a regular person would be shocked. it was quite a sight, after all. fifteen more or less teenagers covered in sweat, and panting like they've just completed a marathon. but this was sm, and this kind of thing is normal, especially to trainees. 

variations of "i'm tired!" complaintslittered the room. as lexie trudged over to her bag to get a towel to wipe all the sweat from her body, she looked at the younger contestants looking so tired and down, and a sudden surge of responsibility and determination surged through her. 

"hey kids," she said softly. "you want to go out and eat?"

the younger girls stopped to look at her. sooyun, who was lying on the floor with her eyes closed, poked open an eye to look at the eldest girl questioningly. 

"kids?" she questioned the older girl. "are you like our mom now?" the occupants of the room burst into laughter. lexie was completely flustered, but she didn't let it show to the girls and laughed along. to be honest, lexie had a tendency to call people younger than her 'kids'. even in their old dormitory, she called annie, rian, and maddie kids, something the aforementioned roommates about.

"huh, maybe i am," lexie said. the next thing she said caused more laughter in the practice room. "alright kids, all of you should go and wash up! eomma's taking you to go eat!"

—

as they walked to one of the nearer restaurants from the sm building, lexie noted with a hint of satisfaction that the girls were much more comfortable with each other. everyone was chatting with each other, including katsumi, who had some sort of indepent streak which made her seem a bit of a loner in the first few meetings. now she was happily chatting with the rest of the girls, even cracking a few dorky jokes herself.

lexie also noted that the eldest japanese girl has taken a liking to the ever polite maknae. rian was not exactly an easy person to befriend. the maknae was sort of a complicated character, and would often shy away from people. maybe it's because they sort of had a similar personalities.

and then there was minyoung, the bubbly and cutesy second maknae. she was probably instrumental in katsumi climbing out of her shell. minyoung was katsumi's roommates, so minyoung probably chatted with kastumi until she finally came out of her initial shyness. it was hard not to be friendly towards the '00 liner because she was just bright and bubbly. who wouldn't want to be with her?

lexie shifted her sights to a little to the left, and she saw natalie, jisoo, julia, and miyeon. it enthralled her that such an assortment of people would interact so well with each other. the four of them didn't know each other prior to the competition, but once they met each other, they sort of "clicked". natalie, jisoo, and julia had sort of similar personalities so it was no surprise that they became great friends with each other, but the person who surprised her the most out of the group was miyeon. she looked like someone who was shy and introverted, so lexie didn't expect her to be with people with more charismatic personalities, but miyeon was the equalizer of the group. she toned down the girls' personalities and that made the four of them perfect for each other.

lexies eyes landed on the pair in front of the group. jooyoung and sora. like miyeon, julia, natalie, and jisoo, jooyoung and sora seemed to have suddenly clicked with each other. lexie noticed their relationship blossom right in front of her on the van they took to get to their new dorms a few days prior. one moment, they didn't know each other, the other it seemed like they've known each other since birth. it was fascinating really. it was like they were soulmates, in a non-romantic sense. like they knew each other in a past life or something. also, the two of them seem to have a habit of bickering like mother and daughter. it wasn't anything bad, but they just seem to do it naturally. they weren't doing it at the moment, and jooyoung just has her head rested on sora's shoulder as they talk calmly.

the pair next to them, however, were anything but calm. it was annie and sooyun. lexie was good friends with both the girls, so she had introduced them to each other before. they were basically the sameage, and they actually work well together, but gosh they would not stop aguing. lexie herself doesn't know why they wouldn't stop disagreeing with each other because she knows that the two girls were actually in great terms. they basically had the same personality as well, so lexie didn't understand why they can't seem to agree. at the moment they were arguing about pianos vs keyboards. like what? lexie can't even begin to understand what the heck they were talking about.

then there was yejin and maddie. they were chatting animatedly about flying elephants with big ears or something. yejin, bless her, the girl was basically a ball of energy. she was really energetic and bright. so bright in fact, she actually brought her normally shy sister out of her shell. yejin was talking so fast, lexie didn't know if her sister, who wasn't that fluent in korean, understood the energetic girl. though judging by maddie's bright expression, it seemed that both of them were doing well.

"why are you hanging all the way back here?" a voice snapped lexie out of her reverie. lexie looked at the source of the voice and smiled.

"ah~ the man of the hour," lexie said, throwing her arm around yongil's waist since she can't throw her arm around yongil's shoulders without it looking too awkward. it's because of that darned height difference. 

it's not her fault that she was 9 centimeters shorter than yongil. (yes, she measured.)
 

A/N:  hey y'all! Updaterino time! sorry for missingan update last week!! and omg! thank you for the votes! it really did help! the one with the most votes as of the moment i'm writing this is the bonding time one, so i did one on the girls bonding. next chapter might be something about bonding again because, tbh this is really not an exact "bonding" moment. it's more like describing how the relationship of the girls' progressed.

© CHRYSALIS LAYOUTS 2015