Four hours of sleep was too little; never in my life had I ever gone with less than eight. But mercilessly, Gyeong expected me up and ready before 5:00 a.m. The perpetually grumpy lady waited at the entrance of the dorms, and so did all the other rookies. But there were familiar faces as well. I recognized the perky Sulli from f(x), the charismatic Sehun from Exo, and even the pseudo-angry rookie from last night. Artists, rookies and experienced idols alike, were all congregated in front of a middle aged man and woman. They both wore calm, yet stern expressions as they eyed each one of us.

"Good, you're finally here. Get in the girl's line," Gyeong ordered, gesturing at the growing queue that s around the room in a number of loops.

"104, three pound loss," the middle aged woman called. It was to no one in particular, rather, everyone in the room. Failing to notice it before, I could now very clearly see a weight scale in front of the line. The girls who just got off smiled in triumph as she returned to her girl group members.

"95, five pound loss," the lady called again. This time, a petite young girl stomped her feet, clearly unsatisfied with her progress. Already stick thin, I couldn't imagine what else would satisfy her.

I myself, was 5'5'' and weighed 120 pounds. My parents never considered me anything else but the ideal weight to weight ratio every girl would desire.

"It's only important to be healthy and to love yourself," Mom always told me. I was beautiful to them, their kind of beautiful.

"Please take off your shoes," the lady said, impatiently tapping the screen of her tablet. The line had finally run its course, but no one had gone anywhere. I felt the weight of hundreds of thousands of eyes eagerly awaiting the three digits that will be called out. Hundreds of thousands. Millions. Billions. What difference did it make? Thump-thump.

"120 pounds,"

The room held all the supressed emotions and judgments of those billions of minds. The weight of their minds were heavier and more suffocating than if hundreds of stones were crushing my chest. Thousands of needles poked my heart, and merciless hands clenched my throat. Thump-thump. Clench. I forced myself to draw a sharp breath.

It was all coming back.

*                                        *                                         *

My day followed as the "not-so-typical" life of a rookie. Gyeong led me to schedule after schedule with only a break for lunch. I was now forced to follow a strict dieting plan comprised of every food there was. Except sweets, any and all meat, foods with high sodium concentrations, multi grains, high-fat foods, and everything delicious. Consuming more than 1400 calories under 24 hours was heavily frowned upon, and I needed a minimum of three hours of exercise in a day. On only the second day of my new life, fatigue and hunder had been added to my growing list of problems.

Taeyong's pov:

Manager-nim released us for the rest of the day, suggesting we rest up well. The members were in their usual perky moods despite the lond and exhausting schedule from prior.

"Can you believe the concert is next week? It's good that Manager-nim is giving us a break, because next week we're definitely not getting one," Ten sighed, tossing on his coat.

"Yeah, I feel bad for the rookies that just got recruited. They must be going throught Hell," Taeil laughed.

"Speaking of rookies, did you see 120 girl? The other rookies have a walk in the park compared to her. I'm sure everything's coming as a shock after moving from the States to Seoul in such as short perod of time," Ten said.

Artists aren't supposed to make remarks about each other, but everyone this morning was very clearly supressing expressions of surprise, amusement, and even scorn. Many of the other rookies especially held disdain for the poor girl. As SM's new "it" girl, she is practically flawless in all the aspects that mattered. Now that they had found a grey stain on her white dress, this opportunity wasn't going to be wasted. They'll tear the rest of her dress apart till theres nothing left but flesh and bone. 

"I heard her audtion was the best Mr. SM had ever seen, even topping Jessica-noona's," Mark pipped up from the recording room.

"All the more reason people will be trying to claw her down from SM's shining pedestal," Jaehyun commented, looking at me strangely.

"You've been awfully quiet since we started talking about her," Jaehyun observed. At this, all the other members turned to stare at me.

"Ah, yeah. I pity her. But then again, the kpop industry is all about competition. If she can't handle it, she should quit right now. Although, it'd be unfortunate to see such talent wasted," I said, leveling my gaze to Jaehyun's.

"Have you seen...this talent that even Mr. SM concedes is the best?" he asked, eyes shining as his lips curled into a mischeivous smile.

"No-"

"Then you just think she's hot?" Jaehyun said, his smile spreading even wider by the second. The other members whooped and made a collective 'awwww' noise. Warmth overwhelmed cheeks already flushed from recording, which only resulted in louder cries.

Dohyun finally relieved me from my embarrasment by suggesting to go out and eat. It was only 5:00 p.m., but that was the normal time for us idols to eat dinner.

"What do you guys want to eat?" Dohyun asked as we made our way out. Their conversation blurred into undecipherable gibberish as my attention was still heavily focused on the girl. 

It was a quiet day as everyone else in the company was resting up and preparing themselves for the concert. But unfortunately for that girl, her manager was undoubtly still pushing her onto the brink of insanity. I knew her manager. Gyeong had previously been assigned to another rookie by the name of Song Seoyeon. No one saw much of Seoyeon after she was taken under Gyeong's wing. Four months after entering the company, Seoyeon was found to have committed suicide in the bathroom of her dorm. The note she left indicated that she would've killed herself earlier if Gyeong wasn't constantly monitoring her every move.

The silence was broken when we all heard noise coming from room 108, catching all of us off guard.

"I'm tired. It's only been a week and all the other rookies have just began practicing yesterday. Can't I have a break?" a girl's voice pleaded.

We peaked inside the room to find a girl sitting on the ground, trying her best to meet Gyeong's harsh glare. The girl breathed heavily, only managing to keep herself upright by leaning forward on both arms. It was her.

"And I've told you before. You're not like the other rookies, so you can't train or practice at their pace either. Stand up," Gyeong ordered. Struggling to stand, the girl forced herself up onto trembling legs.

"Hey guys, I'll catch up with you all later," I said, stepping into the room.