A/N1: This was the first "chapter" in this fic collection before but I changed its placement cause the story I recently made was an actual one-shot and this was not. So if you're a subscriber and you got notified that there's a new chapter but you're shocked that it's the same story, please go to the page before this.

A/N2: This will be a love triangle between YB, GD, and Ri. It will be Ri-centric. The GdYb part will be purely platonic so if that's what you're looking for, Mianhe. I'll go to the story now. See you at the end of the first chapter! :) 

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It was exactly 2 weeks ago when my nightmare began. It was such a normal day that I never could have believed it could change anything.

Youngbae and I had just finished our 3-hour dancing lesson.  Physically tired and weary, all that we could do was drag ourselves to our shared dormitory and plop ourselves down the old and dusty sofa we had. It was our daily routine: go home after practice, lie down on the couch, and try to distract our minds from feeling the aches and pains in our bodies by watching whatever is on the television. We then sat on opposite sides of the couch so we could maximize the space and feel as comfortable as possible. No words were needed to be spoken as each of us had already claimed our spots years ago. When I was finally able to stretch out on my side of the couch and was beginning to find a comfortable position, I suddenly felt a tap on my shoulder.

“Let’s play rock, paper, scissors to see who’ll have to open the tv”, Youngbae said when I finally turned my head to look at him.

“Stupid remote for being broken”, I muttered, as I shifted my body to now face him.

“Stupid you for having broken it in the first place”, Youngbae teases. “Let’s now play!”

I nodded and the game started. Of course I lost. I should have known, I never win against Youngbae anyway.

I clicked the power button on and rushed back to my seat, feeling relieved when I could lift my legs against the table again.

“You just have to endure whatever is on. I won’t stand up again! I’m so ing tired. That move that hyung taught today made my legs have the consistency of jelly”, I pleaded with Youngbae.

He nodded at me, possibly understanding completely just how I felt. He looked knackered too.  

Unfortunately, the television was blaring out a trashy survival show where kids almost our age competed to become the next Shinee. Such a stupid idea. But then there were lots of stupidity in the world.

“Jiyong!”, Youngbae whined. “We just spent our entire day singing and dancing. Can you please turn it to something else? I’m so sick of hearing songs!”

“I completely understand how you feel” I said to Youngbae, “But I’m so tired. Just endure it please. I feel like if I’d get up, I’d collapse. Plus, we might get tips on how to act, sing, and dance from the judge’s comments anyway”.

“No wonder you’re YG’s favorite”, Youngbae said half-joking and half-disgusted. “Your mind is always on work mode. You don’t even know how to completely relax.”

I had no answer to that nor would I have answered even if I did. It was a sore topic with me, being YG’s favorite. True, I had the most chance of debuting, but it also meant I had the most pressure on me. I just kept my eyes trained on the television. Youngbae knew me enough by now to not be offended by my silence.

After showing the behind the scenes shoot for that week’s task, the contestants now finally had to present their prepared song and dance number in front of the judges. We critiqued each and everyone of them, having fun in hashing out harsh judgments to people who will never know nor hear us. It was a way of relieving stress anyway, being on the other side of evaluations. Even if it wasn’t real, at least we could pretend to be better than these unknown people even just for a little while.

I was almost sad to see it come to an end, I was having so much fun. By now, only one boy was left to perform. I started to observe him, judging everything he did, from his looks, which were too boyish for my liking, the way he carried himself, which was awkward, and his outfit, which was horrendous. When he started his song, I had already dished out everything that I thought was wrong with him, but Youngbae was strangely silent, so I looked over at him. He was looking intently at the television like his life depended on it, eyebrows furrowed, jaw clenched. He looked as though he was lost in his own world.

“Youngbae-ah”, I called him. “What’s wrong?”

He then looked up at me as though I shocked him. He blinked furiously, seeming to come out of a stupor.

“I think I know that kid. I’m sure I’ve seen him before. I just don’t remember where”, he says, frustration etched into every word he said.

I shrugged, deeming it not important, and continued giving my critique on the fact that the kid’s voice was too soft and how it was obvious that he had no control over his vocals. I continued until he sang his last note, even mocking the kid’s slight accent when he pronounced several words. Youngbae seemingly was ignoring me, not even acknowledging anything I have said. I guess he was still bothered about the kid’s identity.

It was only when the kid started dancing that I finally heard a sound come out from Youngbae’s mouth.

“I remember now!” he exclaimed, almost shouting in happiness as he finally figured it out. “I competed against him before in a dance competition in Gwangju. Their group kicked my group’s .”

Hearing that, I started to really observe and not just critique the kid. True enough, he was a very good dancer. His movements were very fluid and looked effortless. The choreography he did was very complicated, something I still couldn’t do yet, despite my years of dance training. His timing was impeccable, as though the beat of the song followed his movements, instead of the other way around. If he lacked stage presence when he was singing, he more than made up for it now that he was dancing. He completely owned the stage, and I could feel the force of his dancing even from beyond the television screen. His expressions too were very on point; his eyes looking out into the audience as though daring them to fight  a battle with him. I was fascinated by his every movement and expression, and drawn by his intensity. Everything he did left me wanting more and more, yet he continued to deliver satisfaction each time.

“He’s good isn’t he?”, said Youngbae, breaking my concentration.

I hastened to control my features, acting as though I was unimpressed.

“Hmmm. He is.”, I agreed, trying my best to tone down my admiration for the superb dancing I just saw. “But it’s actually that choreography that makes him shine. He’s good at dancing but not enough to be fantastic if the choreography ”.

“I actually remember talking to one of his teammates during that Gwangju competition. Apparently he’s their group’s Maknae. But he was the leader and the main choreographer too. So I think what he’s showing there is his own choreography. It’s killer right? When we competed against them, they did this sort of dragon dance that was made hiphop. It was awesome. Their movements and placements were really good. When they performed, they had the loudest cheer that night. There was no contest from the start”, said Youngbae, his voice filled with envy with a tinge of smugness.

“Hmmm. If it’s his choreography, I guess he’s good at that then”, I concede, hiding my awe at the fact that he was the Maknae yet the leader at the same time. The two persona in one person just sounded so weird. He must be really good then, to get his hyungs to follow him.  Youngbae’s words made me more curious about the boy. Perhaps I’ll continue watching this show to see whether the kid will survive.

The kid finally finished his dance piece with a flourish to loud cheers from the crowd. He then smiled, losing the intensity he had while dancing, returning to being just a kid from the imposing figure he showed earlier.

He was then led to the center of the stage to receive the (official) critiques of the judges. They all had the same opinion as me about his singing, it was still really lacking, but there was potential there. The judges all praised him for dancing. That too came as no surprise to me.

The kid started to move away when a judge stopped him. He didn’t do this with any of the contestants before, so I awaited with bated breath, trying to guess the possible reason for this.

“Before Lee Seunghyun goes, I’d like for the audience to see a clip. Roll it please!”, said the judge.

A video then starts playing, showing the contestants at the dance studio, practicing hard for the group dance they must have performed before we started watching. The camera then pans to a corner where a kid is lying down on the floor, his knapsack at his head like a pillow, and a water bottle clutched by him near his chest. The cameraman zooms in on the kid’s face, and Youngbae and I both gasp at the same time when we realize that it was the kid, named Seunghyun apparently, who was caught sleeping. We both knew it meant trouble. Sleeping during practice was almost a mortal sin at YG, denoting laziness or unwillingness to learn. In YG, only Sajangnim or our trainers could scold us, yet Youngbae and I were scared enough to never have tested their patience. Our lives and futures were in their hands, why the hell would we anger them? However, this kid has it much much worse. Hewill be judged not just by the judges in this show, but by the entire nation. Every wrong thing he did was available for the public to pick on. I was torn between feeling sympathy for the kid and feeling disbelief at his stupidity in failing to conform with what was expected of him.

The video then stops and the judge’s face returns to half of the screen. The other half featured Seunghyun’s face. He was poker-faced, neither smiling nor looking guilty. But his eyes was as fiery as when he performed, perhaps reflecting anger at what was happening. I wouldn’t really know. I didn’t know him and he seems hard to read. I’m usually good at gauging people’s expressions, but he was good at keeping  his emotions in. He kept his head high up, something I would never have done if I were caught in his situation, almost as though daring people to scold him. I was a bit irritated with that. He had  no humility whatsoever. All my sympathy at the humiliation he was going to get was now gone at this point.

“How can you sleep when everyone else was hard at work? Do you even really want to be part of the next Shinhwa? How can you say that when you were being lazy?!? You don’t deserve this spot if you’re not going to work hard. Explain yourself Seunghyun!”, the judge shouted at him.

Seunghyun didn’t even flinch at the judge’s words or tone. I would have. The judge was really angry. His nose was flaring, his shoulders tense, he was beet red in the face, and his spit flew out of his mouth after almost every word he said.

My mind was distracted from my assessment of the judge’s almost comical anger when Seunghyun finally replied.

He smirked while saying: “All of us fell asleep. It was just edited to make it look like I was the only one sleeping”. He then left before anyone could stop him. The camera then returned to the judge apparently ranting to his co-judges. But there was no sound and the credits had already started to roll.

“Well… That was dramatic”, said Youngbae after a while.

“Thank god he’s not one of our trainees though. I wouldn’t know what to do with a kid that disrespectful.  I mean come on, imagine if he were one of the trainees hyung-nim asked us to look after. I think he’ll talk back to us and disobey us all the time. He smirked at that judge! Isn’t that judge an executive producer of that show’s station? If he does that to somebody who literally has power over him, imagine what he’d do to his co-trainees. He’s arrogant! He’s not even that good. Sure he has good choreography skills, but it’s not enough for him to make it big. And –“, my rant was cut off by Youngbae when he suddenly patted my head.

“Why’d you cut me off?!?” I glared at him as he laughed while continuing to pat me.

“He reminds me of you actually when I first met you. You were as arrogant as he was. Flaunting being the only one of us trainees to be personally scouted by Yang Hyun-suk. Demanding that we follow you, and correcting our each and every movement, only for us to later find out that you started training just one month ahead of the rest of us. No wonder it’s now only us and Park Bom who are still here from our batch of trainees. You treat her well cause she’s a girl and you’re a flirt. And I eventually got to know you behind your vanity and pigheadedness. The rest might have gotten sick and tired of you. Although I have to concede that  your arrogance diminished a lot after a few years so you’re akin to a human now”, he says, trying not to laugh while talking.

I honestly didn’t know what to say to that. Everything he said was true. I really thought I was better than everyone else back then. I was a child celebrity. Although SM let me go because I didn’t fit in with their standard in looks, they still admitted that I was more talented than those they did keep in their company. The knowledge that I was gifted was what kept me going to enable me to move on from that rejection. The fact that I was personally scouted by Yang Hyunsuk of Seo Taiji and the Boys, who then pleaded with me to start training with him, embedded that belief in the superiority of my talents in my mind. It took many criticisms for me to realize though that raw talent was not enough. It had to be developed and polished so I could reach my full potential. It humbled me to know that I had much more training and experiences to go through before I could even be deemed worthy to debut. It also became clearer to me just how much I was still unprepared when Youngbae was able to catch up to my level after just a few months. It also helps that Sajangnim constantly shows me the areas where I should still improve. Maybe it will come to the point that that kid Seunghyun might debut first than me, seeing as he at least had exposure to the public right now. With that in mind, my irritation with the kid grew. Just the possibility of that irked me so much that I exclaimed: “I wasn’t as bad as he is!”.

Youngbae laughed some more and said: “No. You were definitely worse!”.

“How come?”, I said indignant, finally losing my patience. Maybe it was the stress of the week, or maybe I just kept it inside for too long, but words I didn’t even know I was thinking started spewing out of my mouth as I half-shouted them to a startled Youngbae. “I work very hard. I almost never sleep. I try to compose at least 2 songs a day. I dance until I’m exhausted to the point of almost collapsing. I’m in charge of all the other trainees and have to ensure their progress. I have to look out not only for me but also for them. I train before and after school to the point where I have no other friends but my co-trainees. I don’t even get to talk to my family anymore. I missed my mom’s birthday. Do you know how much that pains me? But that kid! What has he sacrificed? He’s done nothing and yet -  “,

I was shocked when Youngbae suddenly hugged me. “I know. I know. I’m sorry” he said. “I was just kidding around. I know better than anyone that you deserve to debut Jiyong. Okay. I’m really sorry. You’re not bad. I was just teasing okay. You deserve everything that you have right now and will have in the future. Okay. Calm down. Please.”

I stop speaking, embarrassed at my break down. When Youngbae finally let go of me, I couldn’t do anything but just stare at the floor. After a while, when I felt calm enough to talk, I looked at Youngbae and grinned sheepishly at him while saying “Sorry”.

Youngbae smiled encouragingly at me. Apparently seeing that I was in a better mood now, he then quipped: “Maybe you’re irked at the kid so much cause you see so much of you in him”.

“Maybe”, I conceded, a way of making peace with myself and with Youngbae. A silent thank you for him taking care of me earlier. “Thank God I don’t have to deal with him though. I’m so happy we don’t know each other”

“Lucky you! But we’ll never know what the future holds”, Youngbae said with a wink, as he stood up, barely missing the pillow case I threw at him when he went running into his own room. I was then left alone with only the still-blaring television as my only remaining companion.

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It was exactly a week later when Sajangnim called both Youngbae and I and instructed us to go to his office.

Upon arriving at the 7^th floor of the YG building, I noticed a lone figure on the edge of the waiting room. Whoever this person was, he had his back to us. We couldn’t even see his body shape because he was wearing an over-sized hoodie. But from his height, I could guess that he was just a teenager like us. I was really curios as to who this person was though. Nobody can come up here to talk to Sajangnim unless you were an artist or he requested you to meet with him. The auditions for the new batch of trainees were already done a month ago and there were only 2 people who auditioned who were accepted: a certain Daesung and a Hyunseung. But we have already met them last week, so it was really unusual for someone to be up here today.

My confusion was driven out my mind when the automatic doors of Sajangnim’s office suddenly opened up and I could see him beckoning us to step forward.

I could feel Youngbae trembling beside me. And I completely understand how he felt although it may look like I’m handling it better than him. I may be Yang Hyunsuk’s favorite, but he still intimidated me a lot. He is scant with his praises yet generous with his criticisms, even, and maybe especially, with me. I could hear my heart palpitating as my mind hastily looked back at the past few weeks of my life, trying to recall whatever wrong I did that would warrant a scolding from him.

Upon reaching the seats in front of him, I discerned that YG was smiling. I sighed in relief as I think of it as a sign of his good mood. But with Sajangnim, one can’t really be sure. He beckoned us to sit in the chairs, and we did. Seconds passed and Youngbae and I just kept looking at each other as Sajangnim browsed through a document.

After a while, he finally acknowledged our presence again as he put the document down. From what I could see from the quick glimpse I did, it looked like a trainee data-sheet. Youngbae and I had those too and it was in there that information about our lives and our progress in our lessons, were recorded. But it was only one trainee data-sheet though, so I couldn’t understand why both Youngbae and I had to be here if he was to talk to us about our shortcomings. Those were usually one-on-one conversations with Yang Hyunsuk.

YG suddenly spoke and I had to put all my efforts into stopping my train of thoughts and concentrate on what he was saying.

“ – end of auditions was last month. And Daesung and Hyunseung will be put under your care after the trainers decide that they have already mastered the basics. However, I scouted someone recently and he’s had prior training already so he’s already good with the basics. I’m putting him directly under both of your care and he’ll have the same training schedule as you both do. Help him out to better himself. I shall hold you both responsible for his progress.”

“Wait! You scouted someone else?”, I couldn’t help but exclaim as I was in shock. Yang Hyunsuk almost never scouted people. I was the last trainee to have been personally scouted by him. Everyone else auditioned. This person must have been special.

“I have plans for your future which I will tell you about soon. But I think he’ll be a perfect addition to what I’m planning. True, he still has so much to improve in his singing, but his dancing and choreography skills are very good. He will contribute a lot to this company”, Sajangnim explains.

Youngbae and I both just nod because honestly, what else can we do? It was Sajangnim who decided everything. We both don’t have a say in even our own food, even if we were the most senior trainees here in this company.

“Come in now”, Sajangnim says over the intercom. As soon as he said those words, my heart started pumping faster, seemingly excited at the prospect of meeting this apparently talented person.

I could hear the automatic doors open once again, and an instant later felt the wind caressing the hairs on the back of my neck. I slowly turned around to face my new co-trainee.

He walked in fast, apparently at ease and confident. But the tenseness of his shoulder betrayed the nerves he must be feeling. As he approached us, his hoodie dropped from his head, finally exposing his face.

In shock, I shouted: “You!” as he looked at me in utter confusion. Everything seemed to be at a standstill as my mind tried to process what it was seeing. Apparently, the kid was our new co-trainee.

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A/N 2:

Is it weird that it's supposed to be a collection of one-shots but the first chapter is part of a multi-chapter fic? I'm sorry if it is. If you want, I can put this in another story, but I really felt bad for not putting anything up in this collection yet. I was actually planning a sweet fluff for the first chapter and I have half of it done, but my writing muse left me half-way through. This was a story that came rushing to me after I saw a gif of Youngbae ignoring Jiyong's high-five to high-five with Ri. And the story just blossomed in my mind to the point that I couldn't concentrate in my school work. So I wrote it down to finally be rid of it. The flow of the story is already planned out (that's how inspired I was to write this). But I've spent almost 3 hours writing this already and I'm really sleepy. So I'll continue this some other time. Comment what you think about it, and if you want it to be continued here or as a solo fic? Thank you for reading. <3

P.s.: I know Jiyong is kinda mean here, but it's intentional, so please don't hate him (and Ri too. :D ). This was set pre-debut when he and YB were around 16 and Seungri was just 14 (international age). Teenagers are usually mean to each other, neh? :)