It was finally time for Seventeen and I to start practicing as now a fourteen-member group. According to the manager Woozi had begun working on the new song for the comeback that was going to happen sometime later this year. For now though we were to be preparing for a music festival for new K-pop groups. Seventeen was to perform, as well as groups like Gfriend, Oh My Girl, Monsta X, and Lovelyz.

            “So this is going to be the first performance you’ll be doing as a fourteen-member group,” manager hyung said looking at us. We were seated down in the practice room for the meeting that was called by the manager. “And I’m also hear to tell you that the higher ups at Pledis have finally come to a decision about which unit team to put Skyler in.”

            I widened my eyes suddenly paying more attention to what manager hyung was saying. It had been about over two weeks since I had signed the contract to become a trainee and future member of Seventeen. And this was the first time I had gotten news about what unit team I would be placed in. this was exciting news.

            “Skyler this is big news,” Joshua said placing a hand on my shoulder smiling at me. “We’ll finally know which team your going to be on. This is exciting!”

            “Yeah,” I said nodding my head smiling back. “I can’t believe its time for me to know where I am going to be placed.”

            “Anyways,” manager hyung said clearing his throat. “They’ve called be earlier this morning and called this meeting to tell you all the news. So Skyler after the broadcast you did with Seungkwan, Seokmin, and Soonyoung they finally came to a conclusion.”

            “Hyung tell us already!” Soonyoung exclaimed looking up at the manager. “Which group is Skyler hyung being placed into?” Manager hyung laughed before scanning his eyes at all of us.

            “Skyler you will be joining the vocal unit!” manager hyung said clapping his hands. “After you’re singing you did on the broadcast it was pretty much unanimous that you’d join them as a main vocalist for the group. Making it a total of six main vocalists. And with that its time to start practicing for the upcoming rookie show performance. You’re going to be performing Adore U, Woozi has some news about that and you’ll be re-recording the song today okay? So let’s get to the studio.”

            Manager hyung clapped his hands signaling the end of the meeting, as we had to leave the practice room to head to the recording studio. We left the dorm building heading into the company vans to head off to the studio.

            “Are you excited to be recording with us?” Joshua asked as we were driving through the streets to get onto the freeway. It was going to take about an hour to get to the studio since the traffic in Seoul was pretty bad at this hour. “This is like becoming more official that you’re a part of us.”

            “I am excited,” I said nodding my head. “This is going to be my first time recording anything in a studio. I hope that I am able to do a good job with it.” Joshua patted me on the shoulder, squeezing my hand lightly making me look at him.

            “You’re going to do so good,” Joshua said. “I can feel it.” Mingyu turned around from the seat in front of us to look at the two of us with a big smile.

            “Yeah Skyler hyung,” Mingyu said. “You’re going to kill it at the recording session.” I was a little nervous but I was mainly excited. I’d never done anything like this in my life and everything was starting to move so fast. We were going to be performing the new version of Adore U in about a week.

            “We should probably rest up,” Joshua said taking out his headphones, putting one in his ear. “That way we can be rested for the recording when we get there.” He gently put the other headphone piece into my ear before turning on some mellow sounding acoustic music before closing his eyes leaning his head back against the seat. I listened to the music letting the soft melodies fill my head, feeling my blinking becoming slower until I felt sleep overtaking me as well.

            “Skyler wake up,” a voice next to me said in the midst of my sleep. “We’re at the studio.” I felt a hand on my leg squeezing it to wake me up. I slowly opened my eyes blinking before noticing my head was at a slant. “We’re here.”

            I finally registered that it was Joshua and he was waking me up. I looked at him before releasing my head was rested on his shoulder. He smiled at me before I got out of my seat and out of the van. We went inside the studio heading straight to the recording area.

            “Alright,” Woozi said opening his backpack. “I have already printed out the lyrics to Adore U.” He handed out the lyrics to the song to each of us. “Your parts are already highlighted and everything. Most of your parts are the same, although some of your lines were given to Skyler.”

            Taking the paper of the lyrics I looked down at my highlighted parts seeing that I was now singing Seokmin’s part of the first verse as well as Jeonghan’s part in the second chorus, and my last part being Seokmin’s line in the bridge.

            “Wow Skyler hyung,” Seokmin said nudging me from behind. “I see you just taking all of my lines.” He grinned at me in a playful manner as I smiled back at him. I scanned through the rest of the lyrics frowning a little when I saw Joshua still only had that one line that came after Jun and Minghao’s parts.

            “It’s okay,” Joshua said whispering in my ear. “I’m used to it.” He shrugged a little keeping his hand on my shoulder as Woozi set about setting everything up for the recording.

            “Any questions?” Woozi asked as the other staff finally took their places behind the panel of equipment. He looked at all of us, scanning the room. I tapped my foot on the ground in thought. I wanted to tell him it wasn’t fair Joshua sand so little. It just wasn’t right since he was on the vocal team. “No, then let’s.” I took a deep breath before raising my hand. “Skyler hyung?”

            “This isn’t so much of a question on the parts I am to be singing,” I said lowering my hand. I felt a little self-conscious since everyone turned to focus their attention on me. “But um regarding Joshua’s one part before Mingyu and Wonwoo’s rap, is it possible to give him more lines. I know he doesn’t sing any other lines in the original version but since we’re re-recording it, don’t you think he can sing more. He’s part of the vocal team and he gets barely any singing time.”

            Joshua widened his eyes looking at me with a slightly embarrassed expression. I smiled weakly since I didn’t want to make him uncomfortable but inside of me I was just dying to express how this wasn’t right. At the end of the day I’d feel rotten if I didn’t speak up about it when I had the chance, so I took it into my own hands.

            “Where would you suggest giving him more lines?” Woozi asked looking at me before looking at the lyrics. “I’ll listen to your suggestion.”

            “I mean I like your voice,” I said quickly. “Don’t get me wrong but maybe when you sing the akkinda parts after the chorus you could give them to Joshua, I know it’s not a tone of extra parts but it’s still something and then we can hear his voice more throughout the song. That’s all I suggest.”

            I bit my lip in anticipation as Woozi continued to look over the lyrics of the song not saying anything. The room was so quiet I swear you could hear a pin drop on the floor and this floor was carpet. I looked around seeing Jeonghan nod his head at me silently agreeing with me. I felt a hand touch my own looking to see who it belonged to, before it wrapped its fingers around mine, realizing it was Joshua’s hand.

            “Okay,” Woozi said after a while. “We can give all the akkinda parts which there are six of them to Joshua. So those are your parts now aside from your original part. Let’s begin recording everything then. We’ll start with the performance team.” The performance team headed into the recording booth as the rest of us left the recording studio to wait in the lobby area where we could talk without disrupting anything.

            “I can’t believe you got Woozi to agree to the part change,” Seungcheol said smiling at me. “He must really value your opinion, since he’s never changed line distribution like this before.”

            “But I’m glad,” Jeonghan said looking over at me. “Because I completely agree with what you said about Joshua’s lines in the song.”

            “Me too,” Seungkwan said nodding his head. “Now Joshua will have more lines in the song and everything. But I wonder if now we’ll have to learn the dance again to make sure Joshua is center when he gets to sing the new parts.”

            “I’m sure Soonyoung hyung will fix it and think of something,” Vernon said. “He’s probably thinking of it right now in the recording.” Joshua came in from the bathroom holding a bottle of water standing in front of me.

            “Skyler,” Joshua said. “Can we go talk for a minute?” I nodded standing up excusing myself as I followed Joshua out of the lobby to talk in the hallway away from everyone else.

            “What’s up?” I asked looking at him as I leaned on the wall looking across from him.

            “Thanks,” Joshua said smiling at me. “I’m really happy that you got me to sing extra lines in the song. I really appreciate it.” He grabbed my hands pulling me into a hug. “I don’t know how I could ever thank you.”

            “You don’t have to,” I said quietly as I hugged him back. I smiled smelling the faint scent of raspberry coming from his hair. “I just did what I thought was right. We had the change to change the song and I spoke up on it.”

            “What would I do without you?” Joshua asked looking at me. “I feel like since you’ve come to Korea you’ve been nothing but good and bring good luck to me and to Seventeen. You’re like a good sign.”

            “I highly doubt that,” I said laughing a little bit. I broke eye contact with him, blushing a little bit. I didn’t realize how much his eyes staring into mine made me feel weird inside.

            “Still,” Joshua said leaning his face closer to mine. I blinked backing my head away from him. Why was he getting so close to my face? What was he thinking right now? Oh how I wished I could read minds, I needed that power at a time like this.

            “What are you doing?” I asked slowly feeling my head lightly bump onto the wall. “Joshua.” Since my head was against the wall it had nowhere else to go as Joshua leaned his face back closer to mine.

            Joshua just shrugged his shoulders as he smiled at me. His eyes crinkled up cutely into crescents as he cupped my cheek with his hand. I felt my breath get caught in the back of my throat, this wasn’t happening. Joshua was clearly not gay like I was. This wasn’t him acting rationally.

            “Josh,” I said before getting cut off by Joshua’s finger. He slowly removed his finger from my lip running it along my bottom lip before he replaced his finger with his lips pressing them up against mine.

            I closed my eyes as his lips slowly moved against mine. I felt my breath getting caught in me. I tried to remind myself to breath but it was seriously too hard to do. My heartbeat had increased and felt like it was going to rip out of my chest. This couldn’t be happening.

I had to stop him… Dammit I didn’t want to but I had to, it was the right thing to do. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt just a little bit to kiss him back though. That’s exactly what I did, I pushed my lips back against his for the all of like two seconds before pushing him away from me.

“Joshua,” I said touching my mouth feeling very hot and flustered. “We shouldn’t and can’t be doing something like this.” I couldn’t even meet his eyes since he was looking just as shocked as I was. I shook my head before running down the hallway to avoid being near him.

********

            After that day at the recording studio I felt super awkward to be alone with Joshua. I couldn’t just forget that his lips had done a little dance with my lips, even if it only lasted a few seconds.

            It’d been a few days after we had finished recording the new version of Adore U. We were on break right now for the time being so Soonyoung could work out re-arranging the choreography to work in Joshua’s part. I had made sure I was always with Jeonghan and avoided Joshua at all costs.

            I was not ready at all to talk about what had happened between us. I knew some of the other members knew something was going on between us because it wasn’t just me being distant. Joshua was pretty quiet around me and wouldn’t look at me. There was just an air of awkward surrounding us, you’d have to be pretty stupid to not sense the awkwardness between us.

            “Okay,” Wonwoo said sitting down on Jeonghan’s bed looking at me. “I’m not stupid what is going between you and Joshua? Ever since the recording day the two of you have been nothing but weird with each other.”

            “Close the door first,” I said. “I don’t want anyone to walk in if I tell you this since it has to do with me being you know what.” Wonwoo nodded his head before heading to the door closing it and locking it.

            “All right,” Wonwoo said to me. “Now spill the details since the two of you have not hung out and we have a rare graced period of free time before we have to get to work to prepare for the concert.”

            “Well you know that I got Woozi to give him more lines,” I said as Wonwoo nodded waiting for me to continue. “And you also saw that we went into the hallway to talk and during that talk he may have kissed me. And I may have kissed him back before running away.”

            I let out a shaky breath as Wonwoo processed everything I had just said. Not that I really went into great detail about what happened, I was sure from what I did tell him he got the idea now why Joshua and I were being so awkward with each other. I looked up at him trying to read his facial expressions but coming up with nothing.

            “Did you slip in the tongue?” Wonwoo finally asked breaking the silence. I furrowed my eyebrows before breaking out into laughter as he cracked a small smile on his lips.

            “No unfortunately I pushed him away before that happened,” I answered back as we both laughed at each other. “What do I do Wonwoo?” I asked cupping my cheeks. “This whole situation is just weird. I got kissed by someone who’s supposed to be straight.”

            “I don’t know Skyler hyung,” Wonwoo said shrugging his shoulders. “I’ve never been kissed by anyone that I like before. But you don’t even know if you like Joshua hyung like that. Or do you? What do you really think of American hyung?”

            “Oh ,” I said. What did I really feel for Joshua? I was cool with just being friends with him. I came to Korea on the assumption all of the Seventeen members were straight and that included Joshua. He was the most religious and I was sure him kissing me went against everything he believed in and who he was. “I don’t know how I feel about Joshua at the moment. We’re just friends I guess and nothing more.”

            “Would you want to be something more?” Wonwoo asked raising his eyebrows at me. “If given the chance would you want to be in a relationship with Joshua hyung?”

            “Of course I would,” I answered right away. I guess I didn’t really need to think about that question. “But enough about me, would you date Mingyu if you had the chance to?” I raised my eyebrows back at Wonwoo waiting for his answer.

            “If we weren’t idols I would,” Wonwoo answered after a while. “If we were friends or we met sometime in our life I would probably still feel the same way I feel about him now. But I can’t do nothing about it.”

            “You wouldn’t even confess your feelings to him?” I asked lying down on the bed running my hands through my hair. “Even if you two are part of Seventeen.”

            “Damn,” Wonwoo said. “If I did and it turned out bad which it probably will it’ll make everything awkward and then what if it rips a hole in the friendship. Then what the hell would I do? I can’t jeopardize everything we’ve built to get to this point. Seventeen is our dream, I didn’t expect to grow these feelings. I didn’t want to fall for a guy, let alone one in my group. Everyone expects me to marry a girl in the future, but here I am growing stronger and stronger feelings for Mingyu.”

            “This freaking ,” I said pulling Wonwoo down to lie next to me. “But if I were you regardless one day I would tell Mingyu how you feel. I don’t know anything about relationships but in a group or not I’d tell him. Not now, but sometime in the future.”

            “I guess that’s a point,” Wonwoo said smiling a little. “I’ll feel the need to tell him how I feel eventually. Because I can’t keep being me if I don’t come clean with everything.” He sighed poking my cheek. “Everything is too confusing for the both of us. But me telling Mingyu anything won’t happen until the late late future, this awkwardness with Joshua is right now.”

            “Yeah I know,” I said grabbing his finger. “I’ll just have to man up and talk to him about it. Hopefully he’ll want to talk about all of this like I do. We can’t continue to be so awkward.”

OMG how can I end the chapter like that? Joshua kissed Skyler?! What?! Everything will be resolved in the new chapter! And I had to throw in some Wonwoo at the end letting you all see more of how deep his feelings for Mingyu are. I hope you guys liked it and I will see you all soon~~