Location: Kazakhstan desert

“Ranger in position, over.” The static-filled transmission sounded across their earpieces. 

Luhan’s eyes didn’t stray from the targets, but he mentally noted Sehun’s efficiency with satisfaction. Through binoculars, he watched as a small group of shadowy figures skittered across the barren terrain. 

“More Desert Howlers,” came Minseok’s voice over the intercom, with poorly veiled boredom. “We should’ve guessed as much.” 

“These guys are dumb A F.” Jongin’s smirk could be clearly heard in his hushed tones. “I’m close enough to take them out and they haven’t noticed a thing. Permission to engage?” 

“You’re dumb as for saying out the acronym.” 

“Oi respect your elders.” 

"You're literally less than three months older-"

Tuning out his two youngest team members, Luhan glanced skyward and assessed the weather conditions, noting the heavy clouds that were blocking the moon from view. He was about to speak when another chirpy voice cut in, “You know, with the frequency these things show up, you’d think someone was breeding them. Nightcrawler, can you try to get a little closer? I want to check out their snout muzzles.” 

“Breeding them for what?” A different, deeper voice grumbled. “They’re consistently useless every time we’ve run into them – aye Nightcrawl, you got sand on the camera lenses!” 

Before the engineer and the technician could speak again, Luhan quickly interjected in a low voice, “Nightcrawler, permission denied. Let Headlamp and Blowtorch finish their examinations first." 

“From my initial observation of the screenshots, it looks like the weight they’re putting on their hind legs may have altered slightly. Spine elongation is a possibility.” A third voice belonging back on station joined in. 

“Whatever Groot, they’re still Desert Howlers. And…it looks like they still have the same blinking green light on the muzzle lock too, which means we can’t remove it.” Baekhyun clucked in annoyance. “Ops Team, feel free to continue elimination, we’ll keep the analysis going back here. Targets are unarmed anyhow.” 

Mentally confirming for the last time that he counted six Desert Howlers in total, Luhan spoke into his transmitter, “Jack Frost, Nightcrawler, engage targets. Is backup required?”  

Jongin huffed dramatically, “Nine Tails, your doubt in our abilities pains me.” 

Their Second in Command stayed silent, watching tersely as a blur of black suddenly appeared amidst the Howlers, startling the creatures to a halt. The blur seemingly engulfed the front two and with two flashes of silver, they were down. This broke the rest of the Howlers into a frenzy, squealing in terror as they fought their way to escape in different directions. The black mist then dissipated just in time to make way for four blades of ice that sliced through the air and swept through the running targets, replacing animalistic yelps with silence and bringing an unprecedented chill to the desert night air. 

Luhan finally set down his binoculars. “Elimination complete. Everyone, back to base.” 

Time: One crazy Saturday night, Year 2013
Location: Sydney, Australia

To: 2013australia @ smtown.com
From: natashanararyu0123 @ gmail.com

Hiya SM TOWN!

This is my application to your auditions this year, hope I’m doing it right. I absolutely love your stuff and it’d be a dream come true to join your team :)

Below are my deets:

Name: Nara Ryu
D.O.B: 23 January 1995
Age: 18
Nationality: Australian
Ethnicity: Korean-Chinese, or is it Chinese-Korean?
Height: 171cm
Talents: K-pop dancing, singing, mimicking Pikachu speech
Hobbies: translating Asian dramas on Viki.com, wasting life away on FB, impatiently waiting for the Avengers 2, watching anime, cutting onions
Additional comments: I’m a Korean-Chinese born and raised in Australia with traditional family values (typical super strict parents yo). I’m fluent in English, Korean and Chinese. I’m currently a uni student living out on my own…wait is that relevant? Most importantly, I love love love K-pop, I’ve even learnt dancing from Youtube tutorials because of my love of K-pop, like do you get me? I guess you could say I’m in touch with both Asian and Western culture so that should also be a plus in that I can do promotions for your company and whatever girl group you put me in ahahaa…ahaha…<3

Oh, I’ve also travelled to Korea a few times but never got to see Exo (my babies) in person which is something I’m totally devastated about so hopefully that can be changed in the near future ;D

Thanks~~

Warmest Regardssss

Nara R.

Ps: It ballz that you barely ever come to Australia for your Global Auditions.

“There! I clicked sent! I’ve done it! Are you proud?” Nara drawled as she slid sideways off the chair, face flushed and eyes half-lidded. Dani, her roommate-slash-best friend, rushed to catch her before she landed head first on the floor. 

“Oh my God, Nara!” She scolded, trying to upright the flailing girl. “Sent what? What did you manage in the ten minutes I was away, protecting my Triple Choc cookie dough from Aaron’s puke? I friggin hate being the responsible, sober friend.” 

“I’ve never felt so happy, this is great!” Nara giggled, making fluttering motions with her hands, completely ignoring Dani’s distress. 

“That’s because you’re totally faced you idiot. I should’ve known those last two bottles of soju were a bad idea…” Dani’s eyebrows furrowed as she trailed off mumbling. Checking the screen she noticed a new addition in the ‘Sent’ folder of Nara’s email account. Her eyes widened comically.  

“Oh , Nara Ryu! The one night you get wasted, you send the world’s most embarrassing K-pop application straight to SM Global?!” 

Sadly though, this description applied not only to the education side of things she’d let slip up, but also her (now partially non-existent) social life. The initial craze of all things PARTAAAY had tided over after the first semester and now she was just content to sit at home and potato her way through life. Gudetama pajamas, boba ice cream and newly updated Kdrama episodes? Comfort for the soul. 

So it was completely unsurprising when Dani demanded invited her to a night out, Nara’s initial response had been "Ughhh…but that means getting up from my couch?" (Actually her very first thought had been ‘Gurl, pls. You really gonna interrupt me during my 5th Exo Showtime re-run?’, ahem).

But then her guilt-tripping side had come up and reminded her of how she’d been pretty much been neglecting her friends for the good part of six weeks. From there, her spontaneous side took over and thought 'C’mon, this’ll be a good chance to let loose a little. You deserve it after that whopping 9000 word essay you just handed in.'

So in the end she agreed to go. And a crazy night out, followed by plenty of soju shots once home, led to… 

“What is it that you love so much about a bunch of dudes wearing five layers of foundation, lip-synching in a box?” Aaron slurred. The Thai-Canadian boy, another one of Nara’s best friends from uni, was directing the question at her while slumped over the arm of the couch. 

Nara let out a dramatic gasp. “Nope nope nope. However much I like you Aaron, I will NOT stand by while you to insult my precious like that.” Nara teetered over to hit her friend with a cushion. 

“No but seriously,” Aaron continued provoking her, dodging her attacks sluggishly, “anyone would look that good with the right amount of guyliner and perfect stage lighting.”  The hip-hop dancer within him propelled him to add, “Plus, it’s not even proper dancing…” 

“Ooh, someone sounds jealous…” Dani sang, raising a manicured eyebrow at the way Aaron was now lazily grabbing Nara’s wrists, trying to stop her ongoing attacks with a giant grin. 

Nara, on the other hand, was absolutely affronted. “That is it. I’m going to go be with my babies, screw you rude people!” She declared at the top of her voice, stomping across the room to her laptop. 

“I need chocolate cookies…” Aaron pouted as he watched her retreating form. 

"You need to go home." Dani shot back. 

He showed no signs of having heard her as he rose from the couch chuckling and attempted to head in the direction of the kitchen. Dani frantically rushed after his stumbling form, yelling "Oh no you don’t!". This left Nara alone in the room with a laptop, a fanatic love for Exo and access to SM Global’s audition website. Henceforth…that wonderful masterpiece of an email to SM Entertainment was born. 

..... 

Yeah. 

So a few weeks later, when Dani invited her out again - this time on a much more meaningful volunteer trip to a small Cambodian village as part of their uni's mission program - Nara’s first response was, unsurprisingly,  "Ughhh…but that means getting up from my couch?". More persuasion from the ever-eloquent Dani soon brought out her spontaneous side which chimed 'You need to start doing something meaningful with life. This could potentially be really fun! Q great opportunity to get out there and experience the world! Fist pump!'  

Then, her responsible side decided to make an appearance and nagged 'But you barely have the money. You really need to save up since you still haven't decided what you're going to do after uni. You've changed your degree twice and you even sent that stupid application to SM Ent, which is pretty good indicator of how much you don't have your life together.'

Well, yes, but this will look awesome on my resume, Nara shot back. She mentally stuck out her tongue. She’d never really gotten along all that well with her responsible side.  

Plus, even if it was true she didn't know what to do with her diploma after graduation, she was at the age to let loose and enjoy life to the fullest wasn’t she? Wasn’t she?!?!  

And that’s how Nara found herself drenched in sweat in the sweltering tropical summer, kicking around a ratty, makeshift soccer ball with a group of local children, and remarkably, having the time of her life. The entire experience had been unexpectedly humbling and indescribably rewarding. 

One miscalculated shuffle from Nara had the ball rolling over to where some male classmates were building a fence around the gardening patch. Aaron made to return it yelling 'incoming!' and kicked with such force that, while showing off his impressive soccer prowess, sent the ball soaring right over their heads and bouncing into the trees of the nearby jungle. 

“Well. .” 

“You’re such a moron!” Nara laughed, “I’ll get it.” 

“I’ll come with!” He called back while jogging over. 

Nara instructed the children to wait for her before she weaved through trees in search of their lost ball with Aaron. After traipsing for a while into the dense flora, the soft sights and warm breeze slowly started to lose their comfort, and despite Aaron’s familiar voice chattering in the background, the further she walked the more she started to grow doubt. The ball hadn’t gone this far had it? Searching a little further, Nara realized the trees and tropical plants had started to look exactly the same. 

Just as she planned to interrupt Aaron to voice her concerns, a flash of movement to her right caught her attention and she saw the retreating profiles of two people in the distance who had just turned the opposite direction. 

Nara felt completely and absolutely insane for thinking it, but in the flash of a second where she'd managed a glimpse of their facial features, she could swear she had seen Kai and Chanyeol of Exo.