OST 4

It had only been the second week, but Jiyeon already felt like giving up. Like Hyejin had warned her, she had the toughest training among all trainees. She even got a personal lesson just so to make her work hard and not lag off. It was not time for her to have free time to play around. For instance, she only got to know a few trainees among many other trainees which included the group of preparing-to-debut girls and perhaps only one or two consisted of male trainees.

When her choreography trainer gave a break, she wanted to use her cell phone to contact her only sister, Jiae but later was taken by Lee Mijoo. “I have been watching you for a while and see your dancing still needs a lot of improvement. So cell phone or any electronic devices except for mp3 player are prohibited for you for the whole week!” Jiyeon was warned and her cell phone was confiscated.

It was no joke, Mijoo was seriously watching her the whole time that Jiyeon felt it was creepy. She didn’t understand why she needed to work harder than anyone else. What was the company striving in hopes of her present, honestly? She wanted to ask but nobody gave her the precise answer.

‘You’re different.’

‘You’re a new risky project to the company.’

‘The company put a lot of hopes on you!’

Those were among the common answers she received from her new made friends, Hyojung and the gang. When she wanted to dig the real answer from Mijoo who constantly watched over her dance training, she was totally ignored and told – “Just focus on your training!”

Even the kind and soft-hearted Jisoo couldn’t help the puzzle that had been circling in her mind. “It’s a secret!” Jiyeon wanted to meet CEO-nim but the latter was nowhere to be found or Jiyeon predicted precisely, Lee Soojung was avoiding from seeing her.

The pressure from constant training made her stressed and was affecting her body to falling sick. Luckily she was allowed to rest in her bed in the shared dorm with Yubin. The younger girl took good care of her while she sneezed from catching cold a lot.”Unnie, your cold is quite bad!” said Yubin in worry. Jiyeon gave her a small smile of reassurance.

“I’m old, Yubin,” remarked Jiyeon in response. Yubin snorted at the sick trainee. “What’s so old about 26?!”

“I already passed half-fifty. I’m old!”

The two trainees laughed at Jiyeon’s constant claiming about herself being old. Whatever it was, Jiyeon’s condition worried Yubin. The younger trainee decided to call the management team to ask of their favor to send Jiyeon to clinic in hopes for the older girl’s fast recovery. Turning up at the dorm’s doorstep after her phone call was Jisoo to take Jiyeon to the clinic!

“How was she?” Jisoo asked in concern. It was supposed to be one of the assigned managers who would take Jiyeon to the clinic but remembering Jiyeon’s special admission in the company, Jisoo volunteered instead. “Not good,” Yubin responded and led Jisoo the way to where Jiyeon was lying down for some rest with sweats covered her face.

“Her condition looked bad. I’ll take her to the clinic and will look after her afterwards. You should go for your practice!” commanded Jisoo to the young girl and Yubin nodded obediently. Jisoo then quickly lifted Jiyeon up and wrapped Jiyeon’s hand around her shoulder. Luckily the new trainee was as light as a feather, thus Jisoo easily reached to her car while dragging Jiyeon with her.

On her way driving to take Jiyeon to get treatment, the sick girl weakly turned to Jisoo. “Where are we going?” Jisoo felt her heart melted at Jiyeon’s weak voice asked her. “We’re heading to Seoul University Hospital. We’re almost there!”

“Hospital? Why so sudden?”

“I’m afraid you’ll get really bad fatigue. You still have a lot to practice!”

Jiyeon was upset that even the kind and soft-looking Jisoo was being hard on her and her training. Even her bad health condition was taken into matter seriously for future practice’s sake. A lone tear subconsciously escaped from Jiyeon’s left eye at the upsetting thought.

Jisoo who secretly understood Jiyeon’s feelings felt bad for not being a help. “This is for your own best, Jiyeon. We’re doing this for the sake of you!”

Jiyeon was sicker because of the constant saying again. She suddenly hated to be special in people’s eyes. She wanted to be normal.

But they gave no avail to that; Jiyeon was still the special one!

*

“Did you visit her yet?”

Myungeun looked up when Sujeong voiced up asking her. “Whom should I visit?”

The two friends together with Yein were in the recording room where Myungeun always recorded her songs at. But they were there to listen to Sujeong’s newly made song which she just finished a few days ago. “Kim Jiyeon!” Yein answered in place of Sujeong.

Myungeun sighed at hearing the name. “I wanted to, but Mijoo unnie insisted I shouldn’t do for the time being. She said she wanted trainee Jiyeon to improve on her training first before I get to meet her.” Sujeong nodded her head at Myungeun’s explanation. “Besides, didn’t she just come out from hospital?”

Yein made an ‘O’ shaped mouth in surprised. “She was in the hospital?”

Sujeong nonchalantly nodded her head. “She was fatigue due to endless training session and was awarded for a day until discharged. Jisoo unnie ensured she got the best of rest while in the hospital!”

She appeared didn’t look mind at all, but the truth was Sujeong’s heart ached a little when she heard from Jisoo that Jiyeon had to stay a night in the ward. She wanted to go visit the trainee but refrained herself because she didn’t want to expose herself just yet. She wanted to remain mystery for a while. But Sujeong did advice older Soojung to go visit Jiyeon at the hospital but the older lady refused to do so. Soojung wasn’t afraid but she didn’t want Jiyeon to feel guilty. Instead she allowed Jiae to go see Jiyeon because the sisters didn’t get to meet each other since Jiyeon moved to Soul Music’s dorm.

 While Sujeong was absorbed on her own thought, Yein took the opportunity to read the lyrics for Sujeong’s new song and later found how familiar it was.

“Sujeong, this looked familiar!” claimed Yein and made her best friend finally conscious. The composer looked confused as Yein kept reading the lyrics. Myungeun beside her raised her eyebrows at Yein. “What is?”

“The lyrics,” Yein said and resumed to read out loud the parts of the context – “The shooting star, it’s telling me; this is the end, I should get ready! Isn’t this what I wrote when we were in school back then?” Yein looked up at Sujeong who looked dumbfounded. She honestly thought Yein had forgotten about that memory and was utterly speechless when her best friend, her one-sided love actually remembered the piece of writing she wrote in high school. Yein looked at the sheet again and read another part of the lyrics – “The letter you wrote me in your ugly handwriting, I still have it. Isn’t this the next part you wrote when you saw how ugly my handwriting was and laughed at it?”

The look on Yein’s face was bright at the thought of her self-written lyrics made used by Sujeong for her next song project. She looked very interested and ecstatic, in contra with Sujeong who was frozen with Yein’s strong memory. “What is this…you guys wrote a song without me before?” Myungeun who felt left out from the conversation pouted and asked her girlfriend! Yein shot her girlfriend a toothy smile.

“No love. We actually wrote this right before you joined us. But Sujeong couldn’t finish the song before and tried to come up with a new one. That’s when she managed to finish her first song, ‘Goodnight Like Yesterday’!”

It was fascinating to Sujeong that Yein actually remembered their memory together before Myungeun joined the pair. Honestly when the trio group started university, Yein’s world had always been about her girlfriend and first love, Myungeun. That was why Sujeong was a bit startled when Yein did remember about the moment when they wrote an unfinished song.

“What makes you want to write this song again?” Yein asked the question at unprepared Sujeong. Myungeun who had been listening to Yein from earlier also looked expectantly at Sujeong. “I uh…ehm…” Sujeong hummed because she honestly had no answer for that. Well, actually she did but it’s supposed to be kept away from both Yein and Myungeun. They shouldn’t know about her true feelings.

“Why are you humming? What are you so pondering about?” Myungeun asked this time, chuckled at how flustered Sujeong looked right now. Sujeong ignored Myungeun while she looked at Yein who’s giving her a stare with her gorgeous eyes again. Sujeong felt like she was hypnotized with those