A/N: Hello~ Hello! I'm finally posting up a chapter, sorry for the late update. Been travelling and haven't got the time to post it up ^^" So sorry~ Hope you guys enjoy this chapter. I'm not really confident bout it tho - I think it's too boring BUT I hope you enjoy it anyway! Sooooo~ comment and subscribe; let me know what you guys think about it. Comments fires up my will to write! To those who commented and subscribed, THANK YOU SO MUCH! You guys made my day! =D So, onto the story, ENJOY~ 

April 3^th,2009

SM Entertainment Building

Lee Soo Man’s Office

            ‘Omo, it’s him!!!’ Chanyeol’s inner voice screamed and a soft gasp accompanied his widened eyes. The one that just entered the room also looked surprised and his eyes stayed stuck onto Chanyeol’s face. This made Chanyeol squirmed and his eyes squinted hard onto the carpeted floor. As if, there was something very intriguing with the dull grey cover. Besides, what else could be more interesting than the newcomer’s handsome face?

 Just a few minutes ago, Chanyeol along with Joonmyun and Jongin were summoned by the big boss. Yes, he heard the rumours and he’d been praying non-stop for a blessing from the heavens that he would be debuting soon. He was ecstatic – the possibility of any other news never occurred. Entering Soo Man’s waiting room, the other two hurried off to the toilet as Jongin was feeling slightly sick and the responsible Joonmyun accompanied him. There was no one around inside the vast space when they arrived.

Now, it was just Chanyeol alone – or so he thought.

Until the other guy came in….

Shaking out of his stupor and trying to be a good person (which he already was), Chanyeol bowed to the handsome ‘creature’.

“Annyeonghaseyo,” he greeted and smiled.

“Ah, annyeonghaseyo,” he bowed back.

Then, it was awkward. None of them had anything to say.

Slowly, the tall guy walked towards Chanyeol and stood next to him. With the close proximity, Chanyeol couldn’t help but blush. He tried to hide his pink cheeks by looking in the other direction – unfortunately, it was the mirror wall. Chanyeol could see his red face and the stare the other boy gave him through the mirror. Panicked, Chanyeol swivelled his face in the other direction and he miscalculated.

Miscalculated the distance between him and the other.

Nose to nose.

Breathing mingled.

Eyes staring into one another’s.

Yelping, Chanyeol scrambled backwards, stumbling on his footing and he felt his body going down to say hello to the floor. Instinctively, the fragile boy closed his eyes and resigned to falling.

Everything happened so fast. One moment he was falling, next he was in a tight embrace. He felt he was in an embrace. He felt heat radiating off from his captor; soothing his always chilled body. He heard soft, timed breathing – touching his temple and he yearned to be close. In that moment, Chanyeol was lost in a fluffy warm land.

“Ah, you okay?”

By reflex, Chanyeol pushed the arms around him away and created a distance between them. This man was a stranger.

“A-ah, n-nae,” he began then added strongly, “I’m okay, thanks.”

The man nodded, “Pleasure.”

“So, uh, nice to meet you,” Chanyeol said. He would trade the silence with anything. Anything – as long as it was not awkward.

The man chuckled. The rich and deep voice resonated across the spacious room. Easily, Chanyeol flushed again.

“Nice to meet you too –again,” the tall man said.

“I’m Park Chanyeol”

“Yi Fan…Wu Yi Fan,” the handsome face had finally a name. A name immediately imprinted onto Chanyeol’s brain.

“Yi Fan,” Chanyeol tested the name, “Your name doesn’t sound Korean…”

“Yeah, I’m Chinese”

Chanyeol’s doe eyes widened disbelievingly, “But your Korean’s so good! It sounds better than mine!”

Yi Fan laughed. “My mama’s been teaching me languages since little for all intent and purposes so it’s kinda like a second language to me.”

Chanyeol nodded. His head bobbed up and down in a childish manner – satisfied with Yi Fan’s explanation. Somehow, Yi Fan found it adorable.

“So, you’re called here too?” Yi Fan asked.

“Yeah, me and 2 of my friends…speaking of them, they should be back by now,” Chanyeol replied. His mouth puckered into a dissatisfied frown; eyebrows the same.

“Where did they go?”

“To the toilet, Jongin suddenly felt sick. Told him those banana milks he’s been drinking every hour are bad! But did he listen to me? No~! Did he even once pay attention to me? No~,” Chanyeol crossed his arms and rolled his eyes.

An outburst of laughter escaped Yi Fan’s light pink lips. His straight pearly whites showed when his lips were upturned. Hearing this, Chanyeol became embarrassed and scratched his earlobe.

“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t be blabbering bout all this things to you,” he smiled sheepishly.

“I don’t mind,” Yi Fan said coolly. In fact, he enjoyed watching the multiple facial expressions dancing across the boy’s innocent face. So pure and unconcealed.

There it was again – the charming smile that made Chanyeol’s inside turned into goo and his knees went jell-o.

Oh, snap out of it, Park Chanyeol!

“How old are you, Yi Fan-sshi?” Chanyeol had to ask. It would be rude if he just called the other by his name. His mother always taught him to respect others – be it someone older or younger than him.

“I’m 18, you?”

“16, so if I call you hyung, is that alright?”

“Hahaha, yeah, I don’t mind actually”

“Well, Yi Fan hyung it is,” Chanyeol said brightly. They continued to trade small chatters.

Just then, in walked Baekhyun and 4 other people whom Chanyeol didn’t know. He did see them occasionally in the building but never once had Chanyeol talked to any of them. Baekhyun immediately flashed his million-dollar rabbit smile and walked his way happily towards Chanyeol.

“Yo!” he greeted. His mouth formed a slanting ‘o’. His hand mock punched Chanyeol’s thin shoulder.

Chanyeol uttered a ‘hey’ and gave Baekhyun a smile. He heard some conversation and swirled his head to see that Yi Fan was talking animatedly with the 4 newcomers by the door. He didn’t even realise Yi Fan had moved.

Chanyeol couldn’t make out what they were saying but he caught the foreign language they used – Mandarin. There was occasional English uttered by one of them and Chanyeol was amazed when he heard the same tongue was used by Yi Fan. He was fluent in English? To the 16-year-old, that was pretty awesome.  

So,they’re his friends.

As if sensing Chanyeol’s longing gaze at him, Yi Fan turned his head and caught the boy red-handed in his ogling. Feeling bashful, Chanyeol could only offer a smile. With a smile lingering on his face, Yi Fan steered his friends towards the now nervous boy. Baekhyun at his side only gave a curious look.

“Chanyeol-ah,” Yi Fan called to the now extremely shy boy who ducked his head low.

“N-nae,” Chanyeol stammered.

Yi Fan snickered. Where did the blabbering cutie went off to?

“These are my friends. They train together with me. Tao, Lu Han, Yi Xing and Xiu Min,” he gestured to each one of them.

A chorus of ‘annyeonghaseyo’ were exchanged between them.

“This is my friend, Baekhyun,” Chanyeol spoke and pointed and thumb at the grinning kid. “Be careful though, he’s uncontrollable,” Chanyeol stage whispered.

This earned a pout from Baekhyun and guffaws from Yi Fan’s friends. Chanyeol found it relieving that these people were friendly, even if one of them looked like a serial killer with his intense glare.

16 minutes later…

The waiting room was packed with 9 people – all male. Some were acquaintance of Chanyeol while some were new faces that he swore he’d never seen before. Maybe they were just new trainees or probably the people using the farthest studio room from his – that explained why he never met them before. Besides, he was naturally an introvert. Only his big desire to become a singer made him determined to be in a music industry. Jongin had come back, all cheery with a disgruntled Joonmyun on his heels.

Seeing the crowd made Chanyeol’s tummy twisted and he was overcame with anxiety. Jongin was busy talking to Jongmyun and Baekhyun.

Questions ran around his mind. Why were they called here? What was going to happen to them? Were they going to be kicked out of SM? Were they possibly going to debut? Why were there so many people?

Chanyeol was close to hyperventilating.

“Hey, you alright there?” Yi Fan’s question miraculously managed to pull his emotions together. Yi Fan’s warm large hand on his shoulder provided serenity to the pale boy. Yi Fan never really left the boy’s side – he felt compelled to stay.

“Yeah, peachy”

Just then, the double doors opened again and dread filled Park Chanyeol.

Lee Soo-Man walked in – mighty, proud and cold.

As soon as his ominous figure walked into his office, his secretary called all of them to follow. No one really liked being called into the big boss’s office. It was rare to hear something good out of it.

Chanyeol couldn’t help but stand closer to Yi Fan in search for comfort.

“Come closer, boys,” Soo-Man’s voice boomed and bounced off the walls.

Chanyeol was frightened just by those words.

“Let’s skip the niceties and let’s go straight to the point, shall we?” Even if his words were phrased like a question, it was undeniable that his words were the law – no ‘buts’; no ‘ifs’. The boys were quiet and Lee Soo-Man took it as a yes.

“I’m going to make all of you debut – as a group”

With that, noises suddenly erupted. Wild, happy.  

Yi Fan could not believe his ears. He was debuting? Wow, he was lost for words. His mind deciphered all the sounds of rejoice from the people in the vicinity but he stood there unable to let it all out.

A subtle sniffle made him spun his head to his right. The boy was brushing his white sleeve under his eyes.

That was the first time Wu Yi Fan saw Park Chanyeol cried.

The boy tried to hide it but his tears kept streaming down his creamy cheeks and his mouth curved into a grateful smile. He gave Yi Fan a brightest smile that Yi Fan unconsciously returned.

“We’re going to debut, hyung!”

“I know”

“I’m so happy!”

“I know”

“Attention, all of you!”

Suddenly, the celebration died down and Soo-Man, sitting majestically on his expensive leather chair, smiled. For a glimpse, Chanyeol thought the man was smiling – warm and fatherly, but in a blink of an eye, it was gone.

“My secretary will brief you and set out the rules and conditions for you boys. These conditions must be obeyed until the day your contract with SM will expire. Are we clear?”

They nodded.

“Now, run along,” Soo-Man dismissed them with a wave of his hand.

“This way, please boys,” the uptight-looking secretary from earlier ushered the boys into another room connected to Soo Man’s office – a meeting hall.

The lady secretary, Sohn Eun-Mi went off passing stapled sets of papers while talking at the same time. Some listened intently while some were busy reading off the thick bunch of papers full of unneeded and highly useless words. There were probably only 5 pages of importance in the 42-pages booklet.

Chanyeol was totally focused in eating up Sohn Eun-Mi’s ‘brief’ explanations and nodded here and there – accepting everything.

“Here, all of you are officially training until you debut. Starting this very month. When we see you are ready, then you’ll be the new group that SM will produce. Our goal is to make an entirely different kind of music and a group with a fresh concept – original, otherworldly. Remember that!”

“Your training will involve lots of vocal exercises and when we found the part that matches your voice, we’ll group you together. Understand?”

“We might put other trainees in for the debut or pull out someone. So, we expect you all to be extremely hard-working. No slacking off if you want to debut!”

“Understand?”

A collective ‘yes’ answered the stern secretary.

“Crystal…” Chanyeol whispered. He couldn’t believe it. He was debuting soon. His dream was finally within his reach. His mother would be full of pride.

9 months later...