One step, two step.

With a water bottle in one hand and eyes seemingly glued onto the wooden tiles, she took one too many great big strides across the practice room. Fervently, she hopes that she does not end up drawing the attention of the other girls she just happened to share the practice room with. The last thing Bitna felt she needed were the pitiful looks she was sure they would throw at her – she didn’t want to lie, she didn’t want to say she was okay. But everyone is deeply engrossed in one thing or another right now, so she manages to slip by relatively unnoticed.

One tight squeeze on the cold and metallic door handle later, she is greeted by the empty hallway stretching out into the dark. It was almost too easy, Bitna actually felt stupid. Bitna quietly closes the door behind her. Her breathing slows and deepens, and she can almost feel her lungs thanking her for oxygen she didn’t knew she was depriving herself of. Her head feels clearer: less like a scene from the of a war film – chaotic and messy. Bitna feels less claustrophobic, and all she did was close a door.

At 11 in the night, Seoul has slowed to a stillness. But in SM, the lights are dull – but still on. The hallways of SM’s training studios were quiet though, so one can probably hear the echoing of feet from five studios away. Right now, everyone was busy with their respective lessons. From the flickering of the dusty fluorescent lights over her head to the bass beats of the songs leaking out from under the cracks of the wooden door, Bitna finds herself relishing in the white noise at a tiny spot.

She didn’t know how she ended up leaning against the dusty walls of an old, dusting stairwell but she did. Bitna was trying to look for the toilet. There was actually a toilet at the other end, only a few steps away but she had wanted to prolong her trip just a little longer.
 

“is this a joke to you?”

She tries hard not to think about anything, especially not this. She tries hard not to think about what happened merely less than an hour ago. But she couldn’t help it. With a sickening lurch in her stomach, Bitna quietly runs through the song number and choreography over in her head – repeating everything that happened quietly. Was her movements not fluid enough? Did she choose something too soft? Was she just too soft?

“I really don’t think you are trying hard enough,”

Bitna tries hard not to think about the faceless staff member, the female with short curls as hairs. Wearing a stern expression on her face, holding onto a blue clipboard and a ballpoint pen, she looked quite harsh. Bitna would even go one step further, she seemed to have eyes that seem to pierce right through her. By the time she was done commenting on everyone down the line, the air in the room was heavy.

Criticisms seem to weight down on her hard. Bitna’s evaluation hadn’t ended well – none of them had made the cut, actually. Some of them had done well fairly well in her opinion – the vocalists had hit the notes they were supposed to hit and most of their voices were stable. But for some reason, she wasn’t satisfied. They weren’t good enough, they weren’t impressive enough – and they know that she knew.

Bitna remembers how her head hung so low, her neck actually felt sore from meeting eyes with the wood-covered ground from under her feet. Bitna feels as if she had regressed back to her childhood years, caught red-handed for drawing on the walls of her kindergarten with crayons.

Maybe, she thought, she wasn’t wrong.

“what are you doing here?” She looks up at the owner of the voice. Phoebe and her exchanged a friendly smile, before Phoebe plopped down beside her. She thinks about the other girls in the training room – and the girl beside her. She thought about laughing in between dance sessions. She was never part of the inside joke. She thought about the late night talks, exchanging nothings. Her nights used to be a lonely cycle of home and training and the 30 minutes food break where they would sit in a circle, eating nothing but salad. She used to sit slightly out of the circle; a disconnection as the others mingled and chat.

She cracks a half smile.