CH 7: August 13, 2012

“Johnny!” I screeched, whipping around to yell at him. “Stop, you hood !” He burst into laughter, doubling over as he did. 

The mushroom-haired giant was repeatedly pushing his bare foot into my side. It didn't hurt or anything, it was simply one of his and Mark’s newest attempts to annoy me. 

I was sitting on the bare wood floor of the dance practice room, where the rest of the level 6 trainees were. 

I had blossomed, climbing up the trainee ladder quickly. After a month of vocal training, I secured myself at a level 6 for singing. Dancing took some more time. I had just recently joined my friends in their class. 

None of this had been easy. Though I was used to sleeping three to four hours a night, I wasn't used to dancing for two hours a day. Sure, I went to practice everyday, but our practice was basically 30 minutes of us practicing, then another 30 of us talking smack about different teams. 

I had moved up for acting quickly as well. I was, after all, a member of the Ridgeview High Thespian Honor Society. You can imagine me flipping my hair dramatically as I did this; I did so as I told a laughing Yuta. 

“It's so easy to annoy you, L noona,” Mark giggled. 

“Annoying people isn't something to be proud of,” I scolded. “And don't call me L.”

“Sorry,” he dragged out. I rolled my eyes and turned to Emika. 

“How much time do we have left?”

The Japanese girl squinted her eyes and looked at her watch. 

“Two minutes,” she announced. Her long eyelashes nearly touched her eyebrows as she blinked at me. 

“Okie dokie,” I sang. We hadn't been doing anything for, like, 15 minutes. Our dance coach had been pulled out by a rep. It looked quite hush hush. She hadn't been back since. 

I spread my legs out, one of them landing on top of Emika’s own. I dropped onto my back, my eyes meeting Johnny’s, who was sitting Indian-style directly behind me. 

“Can we just go to lunch? We're not doing anything,” I complained. 

“Younghee-nim would rage,” he commented. “Even if she didn't know, she would know.” I let out a distorted sound from the back of my throat. 

“A minute left!” Emika announced. I sat up, letting out a sigh. 

“I'm real hungry.” 

“You've been saying that for the past 15 minutes,” Ten remarked as he left his cult to join ours. 

“How would you know?” I snapped at him. “You've been with your little friends for that time, traitor!”

“They're your friends, too!” I rolled my eyes. 

There were some 50 trainee. Since we were all divided up into levels, there were maybe 10-15 in each class. There were only 9 in my singing class. Most of us knew each other or of each other. Me, being, well me, tried to talk to everyone. I did, unless they specifically didn't want to associate with me. 

Of course, like any other class or school or whatever, there were cliques. There was the ones who weren't really talented, then the gorgeous ones, the popular ones, the ones who were super focused, etc etc.  

There were people who confined themselves to one group, people who were a mixture of them, and people who didn't fit into those categories or didn't want to. I was probably one of the mixtures. 

Emika got up and stretched, resembling a cat. Her long septum scrunched up as she did. 

“Time, let's go,” she groaned. I let out a celebratory ‘yay’ as I hoisted myself up. 

The 12 trainees flooded out of the room. I linked my arm with Emika’s as