Akie and the other girls begged me to go back to the dorm with them, but I wanted to go with Nick to the airport. Manager said that she’d drop me off after dropping the Cologne oppas off at Incheon Airport. In the car, everyone was asleep except for me, Nick, and Hyunsu. Hyunsu was listening to his iPod. He just made faces at us as we cuddled in the car. Nick kissed my neck a played with my fingers. Whenever Manager turned around, we pretended like we weren’t doing anything. If we let Manager know about our relationship, then the president will surely know in a matter of seconds. Whenever she went back to focusing on the road, he kept psyching me out about the bet.

“President-hyung is a nice man, but he’s unpredictable. Sometimes when we tell him about our relationships, he’s extremely happy, but other times, he’s extremely angry. So you should be either really excited or really scared.” Nick said quietly chuckling.

“You’re the one who should be scared, baby.” I said, sticking out my tongue. “Akie keeps us all in check. You know her, we’ll probably be done two days ahead of schedule.” Nick laughed at my remark.

“I do know her, but you don’t know Hyunsu and HyunJae. Those two are hardcore about music. You know, of course we all are, but they’re the only ones without other schedules. They focus all their time and energy on music, unless President-hyung books us on a group thing. Look at him,” He said, pointing to Hyunsu, who took off his headphones when he noticed asking, “What?”

“He’s probably arranging a new song as we speak.” Nick continued.

“He’s right.” Hyunsu replied before putting his headphones back on.

            As we approached the airport, Nick’s grasp on my hand got tighter. I smiled. I squeezed his hand in response. The car stopped and Manager woke up the boys. I wasn’t allowed to get out of the car and see them go in order to avoid any more scandals. Everyone got out of the car except for Nick and I. The guys got their bags from the car and Manager went inside first to scope the place for fans.

“I’ll see you in 8 days.” Nick said, still holding my hand.

“Make it a week.” I joked. My head rested on his shoulder, his head on top of mine. I didn’t want to look up at him, because if I did, it would make me realize that he was actually leaving.

“Done.” He joked back.

The guys were waiting for Nick on the outside. He made a hand gesture telling them to turn around, they did so.

“Look at me.” Nick said. I was scared. I didn’t want to. Taking a deep breath, I did as he told me to. Our eyes met, but I didn’t know what to do them. As cliché as it sounds, I lost myself in his eyes. As soon as I looked into them, the memories of our time together in these 2 months; even though it’s on been this short time, I was going to really miss him.

“Are you going to miss me?” Nick asked me tauntingly.

“No.” I replied. I hugged him tighter. “Of course I’m going to miss you.”

“Don’t. Okay? While I’m gone, don’t call me, don’t message me, or anyone in Cologne. Don’t even think about me.” I was confused about what he was saying. Was he about to break up with me? A just hugged him even tighter, not wanting to let go.

“I’m actually hoping that you win the bet. While I’m gone, don’t let my absence distract you from your work… from your dream. Okay?”

I nodded because I knew that a tear would escape my eye if I opened my mouth. Again I was looking down instead of facing him.

“Promise me. Okay? Look at my face and promise.”

I brought my face up to meet his eyes.

“I promise.”

Before my mouth even closed, Nick had pulled me into a kiss. I had been avoiding it this whole time with the excuse that it wasn’t the right moment, and he had accepted and respected that. But now, it was the right moment.

            I laughed as I watched Nick run to catch up with Manager and the others. He struggled with his huge luggage to catch up. Each of the guys smiled and laughed at him. Jake gave him a playful punch on the shoulder.

***

            Waking up in the morning was a pain. To be ready and there on time, Akie woke us up at 5. I put on my clothes, then hid on the couch and fell asleep. They woke me up at around 6:45 when we were going out the door. We ran to the company building and took the elevator to the practice room. Just from the running, I thought I was gonna pass out. We arrived at the practice room 8 minutes early. I laid on the floor out of breath. As my chest rose and fell with my breath, I closed my eyes to get at least 5 minutes of rest. I was interrupted by the leader laughing in my face.

“I told you to come home with us.” Akie lectured.

“Mai, if you really want to be Nick on this bet, then you have to be at your best performing level. We’re not even debuted and you’re pressuring us to beat one of Diamond’s most successful boy groups.” I was starting to regret telling them about the bet if Akie was going to use it to lecture me.

“Luckily, you girls have me leading you. From now until our debut, you are going to hate me, but I’m only doing it because I love you.” Akie said. She went around and gave each of us a big hug. I was surprised. That was the first time that she had ever said that.

            At the exact moment that the clock struck 7am, our vocal teacher walked in.

“Key-oppa!” The others yelled as they got up to greet him. I rose to greet him too, but not as excitedly as them.

“Yes, yes, girls. Calm down. Who else did you expect other than the great Hiroki Kunisaki?” The man said. He looked at me. “Ah, this must be the new meat?”

He came over to greet me. “Hello, I’m Hiroki Kunisaki, otherwise known as Key, the vocal instructor of Diamond Entertainment. I’ve worked here since the start of the business, teaching everyone from SML4 to Aqua, and now you girls. And before you ask, I had this nickname since before SHINee’s Key was even born.” He laughed. I did a deep bow and introduced myself.

“Hello, I’m…” He interrupted me.

“I know who you are.” He answered me. Okay then…

“Anyways, let’s get started with learning your title song. This is the first step in anyone’s debut. I assume you all can read music, correct?” He asked us. We all nodded in response.

“I’ll start by telling you about the song. It’s called High Voltage. Since he was a singer before creating Diamond Entertainment, the President Jun-young promised himself that he’ll never debut a group with a ballad. Thus, all of Diamond’s debut songs have been feel-good songs. The song will be really pop-ish, like a song you’d hear in a club. The song describes a love situation that is dangerous. Now that you know more about the song, let’s really get started.”

            He passed out the music sheets and we began dividing the parts. As we practiced, we used the already arranged music as it played on his MP3 player. We followed typical pattern of dividing the song: Mei-lein, the third best voice started the song, Akie & Tola sang the first verse, me and Akie shared the chorus, Me & Mei-lein shared the second verse, Tola sang the bridge, which then led to Chai’s rap, not forgetting the choruses in between. We spend the entire practice just learning out parts. We still didn’t have it completely down by lunch time. When it was time for lunch, teacher Key dismissed us.

“Good job today girls, see you tomorrow.” He said. Akie rushed us to lunch.

“Eat quickly, we need to get this song down before dance practice, that way, we’ll be able to learn the dance to the title song. By tomorrow, we can have the title song preparations down and we might be able to shoot the music video on Wednesday. That way, we can have from Thursday on learning the other songs so we can record them. Anyways, I feel like President is punishing us by giving us the same lunch hour as the trainees.” Akie lectured as we were in the lunch line.

“Already getting cocky, huh, unnie?” A voice that I didn’t recognize said from behind us. We all turned around.

            Chai and Akie’s faces lit up. They left their trays on the counter and pounced to give the owner of the voice a hug. The girl looked a little younger than us. They invited her to sit and eat with us. We got our food and went to a table.

“You guys, this is Ji-nae, one of the trainees that Akie and I trained with prior to our debut preparations.” Chai told us.

            Since Tola was picked from JYP Entertainment and Mei-lein was from SM, they don’t know any of the trainees here.

“She was almost the main singer instead of me.” Akie said. “Before Mai came.”

“Stop it, unnie, you’re making me blush.” The girl said.

“It’s true though, Ji-nae-yah, if you weren’t so young, the President would have taken a lot longer to decide the members.” Chai agreed.

“When he decides to make another girl group, we know who’s gonna be the main singer.” Akie went on.

            As we were instructed, we quickly finished our lunches. Ironically, Akie was the last one to finish since she was so bust talking to Ji-nae.

“Sorry, Ji-nae-yah, we have to go. We’re doing our debut preparations, and boy do we have to prepare.” Akie explained to her.

“Don’t worry, in this business, I understand, unnie. Don’t let me get in the way.” She cutely smiled.

            We left her then went into one of the trainee practice rooms. They were all unoccupied during the trainee lunch hour. With the song sheets we were given and our own voices, we started learning our parts; Akie acted as our voice coach, since she has been in the business the longest and was the only one who knew her part fully. With such a good leader, of course we had learned the song by dance class at 12. We practiced our harmonies in the hall way and in the elevator, even as we waited for our teacher. Two minutes before 12, the girls started telling me about our dance instructor.

“His name is Jyunsung Im. He’s been the dance instructor and part choreographer just as long as Key-oppa.” Chai explained.

            Even though Mei and Tola hadn’t been with Diamond very long, they knew him from the pre-debut training they had before I came. He entered the room and again we all got up to greet him. After exchanging bows, he introduced himself to me, then we started practice.

            Since we had already learned the title song, we were then tasked with learning the dance for it. This dance we would use to film the music video and use on stage during promotions for our debut.

Teacher Im began speaking. “Let’s start with announcing your dance partners for your debut promotions. The shark for advertising that the president is, he has chosen 5 of your male sunbae who are not currently promoting to be your partners. He’s always doing this kind of thing as kind of like free publicity, especially with debuts. You see I remember a time when…”

“Just get on with it, hyung.” A familiar voice shouted from outside the door. Everyone laughed.

Mei-lein, who was next to me, whispered into my ear. “Jyunsung-oppa is known to go on and on with his stories.

He fixed his collar and cleared his throat.

“First off is a member of Diamond’s newest boy group, the lead dancer of Aqua, Justin!” Teacher Im overdramatically introduced him. We all clapped sarcastically.

“Next, Diamond Entertainment’s dancing jewel, our secret weapon on the dance floor, 29Bass’s main dancer, Green.” Mei-lein almost fainted at the sight of him. I remember her talking about him when we first entered the dorm. He is her all time idol of dancing.

“Third, the skilled main vocalist and sub-dancer of Aqua, Hiroshi!” Akie smiled to herself. With Justin and Hiroshi already announced, we knew all too well who would be the next one guy to be announced.

“Next, the leader and main dancer of one of the previously mentioned groups, JD!!”  We were right. He walked into the room and gave us a casual salute. Haha, what a dude.

“Last and definitely not least, the lead dancer and visual of 29Bass, Chungho!”

            The president tasked me with picking the pairs,” Teach Im said. We all sighed. “…but I know how you all get in situations like this, so I’m just going to let you all decide for yourselves.” Everyone in the room perked up. “But there’s one catch.” He began again. This caused us all to sigh again. “The girls will pick the guys in order of age.” That wasn’t too bad. We got to picking. Akie of course went first. I guessed that she’d either pick Hiroshi or Green. If she chose Hiroshi, at least they’d be comfortable together and she’d have a great time, but Akie is competitive, of course she’d want to be with the best dancer, Green.

“Chungho-oppa.” Akie said, leaving us all curious.

Next was Mei-lein. There was no competition who she would choose; we all guessed that she’d choose her all time dancing idol. She indeed chose Green.

            I didn’t know who Chai would choose. She looked at Akie for an answer. I saw a name to Chai. “I choose Justin.” She decided. Tola took no time at all in her decision, she chose Hiroshi, leaving me with Jaehyo.

“Aw, and the maknae gets stuck with JD-sshi. How’s it feel to be picked last, dude?” He asked, taunting Jaehyo. Jae shrugged in response.

“Now let’s get this party started.” Teacher Im said with excitement.

Jaehyo walked over to me. “And we’re partnered again. Is it me or is this fate?”

“It’s you.” I replied. He bit his lip as I walked away from him. Teacher Im gave us our places. Each pairing was assigned a different position to start with. With my luck, me and JD were stuck in an awkward position. He stood behind me, holding me in an embrace as I looked up to face him. I felt extremely awkward, but he didn’t seem to mind.

            Learning the dance was a lot easier than I thought it would be, with a partner, dancing was a lot easier. Mei-lein smiled the entire time she was with Green. He was known for being extremely charismatic; he was flirting with her the entire time.

            The song starts with a hot club beat, so the dance is pretty sharp. The stage craft for the song is pretty clever; Teacher Im is a creative guy. Whoever is singing is pretty much frozen but with sudden movements that coincide with their words while the other dance in the background. (If you want a visual, you should watch 2PM’s epic live performance for ‘Like A Movie’ on YouTube). After learning the dance, Teacher Im made us sing as we danced, this was a feat that I still needed work on.

            After four hours of dancing, practice ended. Teacher Im dismissed the boys but made us stay. “There is one thing that President forgot to mention.” He told us. “After each dance practice, you will see him for a daily evaluation. Go now up to his office.”

            We did as we were told and met the president in his office. He had acquired another chair, that way three of us could sit down. Me and Akie decided to stand.

“So how did you first day go, girls?” The president asked as he mellowly sat back in his chair.

Our feisty leader wasted no time in answering him. “Well President, we tried out hardest today. We learned the dance and song fully today. Using tomorrow to polish the song in the morning, I think that we’ll be able to record tomorrow evening and record the music video the day after, thus leaving us to record the rest of the mini album before Saturday.” Akie said quickly with one breath. At the end of her rant, she was left breathless.

“I’m sensing that you feel strongly about this, Akie-sshi. I believe you when you say this, but I’ll have to see it first. I’ll extend your singing practice tomorrow in order to fine tune your vocals, then in place of your after practice lessons, you can record. Shooting the music video will take maybe two days, so I suggest that you spend any time you have after the recording of the song to polish your dance. That is if I end up approving your song. Don’t think that just because I want you girl to debut as soon as possible that I will approve you without a second thought. No matter what Diamond is about quality, and I will never give that up. So practice hard and have fun.” He did that thing again, the thing that he’s known for: going from extremely happy and mellow to extremely serious and tough. In a few seconds, he’ll go back to mellow.

“Oh, I’m taking up your break time, I’ll dismiss you girls for today. Make sure not to be late to your lessons.” The president smiled as he rose from his seat and showed us to the door. He waved to us as we walked away then proceeded to close the door and go back to his work.

Not surprisingly, three boys waited for us in the hallway.

“Jae-sshi!” Akie called. She went over to hug him and gave him a noogie. Their relationship was weird to me. She acted more like a hyung to him than a noona. Akie next hugged Hiroshi. Their hug was a split second longer and less violent.

“What about me, Akie-noona?” Justin whined. Akie gave him a hug and a noogie too.

“Do you guys wanna go out to eat or something?” Jae asked us.

“Sorry, boys, but Akie’s got us on a pretty tight leash. We’re not doing anything but practice until we’re done with our debut preparations.” Chai answered back.

Mei-lein added. “Yeah, we’re just heading over to the cafeteria to eat, then we’re going to practice until our lesson time.” She explained.

“Okay, then, we’ll come with you.” Hiroshi suggested.

We all agreed then together went to the cafeteria.

            The boys were surprised at how fast we were choking down our food. We weren’t even talking. Tola was the slowest one, refusing to eat unladylike.

“Slow down and drink some water or you’re going to be seeing that food again in about an hour.” Hiroshi warned us. We heeded his advice and all paused to drink.

            We kept rushing Tola to finish eating, even making her use a fork instead of the chopsticks. When she finally finished, we said goodbye to the guys then headed for the dance practice room. As we opened the door, we noticed some other people in there before us.

“Unnie!” Akie screamed, almost bursting my ear drums. I recognized the four girls in front of me, they were our sunbae, Hanabi.

            The other four of us bowed and greet them. I knew how much Akie adored Sakura.

“How’ve you been doing, girl?” She asked Akie.
“You know, debut preparations. President is planning to debut us as soon as possible.” She explained.

“Oh, I know. We heard about it on the road. Shin emailed me after he and the other oppas got emails about the Trainee Curse that President sent out to every male.

“We were SO SO SO SO SO SO excited when we found out!” Honey yelled. Wow, I always thought that her hyper image was just how she acted in front of the cameras. I noticed Rose sitting on the floor. She seemed to stay true to her ‘calm and collected’ image too.

“Not to be rude or anything, but what are you girls doing here?” Hana asked us. Akie explained to them our situation.

“What are you doing here, unnie?” Mei-lein asked them.

“Hanabi is going to Okinawa for the annual K-Pop Festival in Okinawa. So we’re just brushing up on our Japanese songs.” Sakura replied.

“Well, we will let you get back to that, Minami-unnie.” She said to Sakura as she pushed the rest of us out the door. “We’ll just use the trainee dance rooms, you know, it’s their dinner hour.”

            We left after exchanging good byes then left to a trainee practice room. Akie was super bubbly after seeing her idol. As soon as we got into the room, she made us get straight to business. I decided to do her a favor, so I pulled out my phone.

“I’m sure that I don’t have to tell you girls that after seeing the Hanabi unnies, I’m pumped up and ready to practice. Let’s use the rest of our break time to get this down. Now, let’s do some quick stretches, sing the song once, then we’ll do the dance with the vocals. Let’s practice how we want to play, huh?” Akie said, giving us a pep talk.

We all nodded our heads.

            About five minutes into practicing, there was a knock at the door. Three guys came in to the practice room. They were carrying a paper bag.

“We could use some practice too.” Hiroshi said as he came in.

“What are you guys doing here?” Akie asked Hiroshi, her mood suddenly changing from focused to girly.

Jae answered for him. “Mai texted me asking if we wanted to practice with you. Luckily, she caught us before we left the building.”

            The eight of us began practicing. We traded places, switching off with the guys since Chungho  & Green weren’t there. Whichever two girls weren’t practicing were sitting down and pointing out mistakes or giving advice.

“Let’s. Take. A. Break.” Justin huffed between breaths. The boys were tired out. We did the full dance almost 10 time in a row with no breaks.

“It’s almost time for our lessons. We can just end here today.” Chai pointed out.

We all agreed.

            Inside the paper bag that the boys were carrying as they came in were eight water bottles. They had decided to get them for us when they came up, knowing that we’d need it. Jaehyo passed them out then came to sit next to me on the floor.

“No, scoot away.” I told him. “I probably smell like sweat.” I whined.

“That’s not stink, that’s the smell of success.” Justin said smiling. We all laughed at the incredible cheesiness of the joke.

I got a sudden text on my phone. It was from Manager-unnie.

“Don’t forget your filming today.” It read.

Jaehyo was standing nosily behind me, reading the text.

“Mai, let’s go together. I’ll drive you there. We have to finish our punishment you know.” Jae smirked. His smirk reminded me of Nick, though not half as adorable.

“Okay, thanks, Jae.”

“I’ll wait for you after your lessons. They get done at 8, right?” Jae asked.

I nodded.

            After checking the time, Akie rushed us out of the room to get to the 10^th floor, where practice was. With only one minute to spare, we caught our breath after the run up the stairs. The teacher was already waiting for us. She started speaking as soon as we sat down.

“Welcome to your idol classes.” She said sternly. I recognized her as soon as she spoke, but I could never remember her name. “I’m sure that you all know me, I was an idol myself, in what may be the greatest girl group on earth, until just recently when we disbanded, which you also probably know. I’ve been recruited by Diamond Entertainment to teach you girls how to be an idol from an idol to another. In these classes you will learn…” She began to explain the basics of her class until Akie bravely interrupted her.

“Miss Jung, excuse me.” She interrupted. There, Jung. Jessica Jung, now I remember.

“As an idol, I’m sure that you remember your trainee days, so as a soon-to-be idol dongsaeng to a wise sunbae, may I ask you a question? Feel free to refuse.”

“Sure, go ahead.”

           Akie asked Jessica if we could use one of the two hours we had to practice our performance, then use the other hour for a condensed version of our lessons.

“As a previous idol, I know that there is no “condensed version” of preparations you need.” She started, making us all sigh. “However,” She began again, getting our hopes up. “I know that practice makes perfect.”

We rejoiced in the fact that she was allowing us to do it. Akie didn’t think that she’d actually go for it.

“The catch is that I’ll be correcting every mistake you make. I won’t take it easy on you just because you’re young, okay?” Jessica said.

We all nodded.

            As soon as we got to practice, we couldn’t make it 10 seconds without a mistake. She was literally correcting us on anything: lack of sharpness of a move, timing mistakes, not projecting our voices, when she couldn’t understand a word we had just sang. The hour went by slowly, but at the end, we knew the performance inside out.

“Do exactly what you just did now, and the president will approve you all for sure.” Jessica reassured us. “Now it’s time for your lessons.

            The lessons included tips on maintaining an idol image, what to say during interviews, ways to prevent homesickness and other things that idols need to know. She grilled us like a real reporter would during an interview. Of us all, Tola had the worst interview skills. Akie was naturally good at them though. By the end of the two hours, we were really close with Jessica. She gave us all her number and told her to call if we needed anything. People in the business are actually really kind of each other. We exchanged hugs as we left. Though there were so many rumors about Jessica’s bad attitude in the past, I didn’t believe them anymore.

“Are you girls going to be okay without me tonight?” I asked jokingly to my unnies.

“Yeah, we’re just gonna stop by Mr. Pizza on the way home. We’ll get you your usual so you can eat it when you get home.” Tola told me.

“We’ll be asleep by the time you get home though, because we’re all going to sleep early, right girls?” Akie asked us like a dictator.

“Yes, unnie.” They all answered back.

“Good luck, Mai-yah!” Mei-lein said.

“Fighting!” The others followed.

            I walked down the stairs instead of using the elevator for some reason. I wasn’t really looking forward to filming today without Nick. At least when he come back, we’ll be together for the last shooting, and I heard that that one will be a love scene. When I got down there, I noticed Jae’s red car waiting for me. He waved from the inside.

“How was practice, cutie?” JD said as I got into the car.

“Oh shut up.” I said, punching his shoulder.

“What can I say? You look incredibly cute when you’re focused like that.” Jaehyo said chuckling.

“What about you? What’d you do until I got here?” I asked him, trying to change the subject.

“It was only two hours, so I just went to the gym room.” He replied.

“That’s why you smell like dirty gym socks.” I laughed.

“What? No I don’t!” Jaehyo yelled, smelling himself.

“I’m just kidding.” I told him. He wasn’t too pleased. He was pouting like a loser.

            We ended up talking about the dance. He made fun of Hiroshi’s bad dancing skills.

“Mai, can I ask you something?” Jae asked.

“Sure.” I said nodding.

“You know, I’ve known Akie for a long time, and Hiroshi is like my brother…”

His question made me tense up.

“, and I really think that Akie likes him. I mean I would understand if she did, and I was cool with that, but today when she didn’t pick Hiroshi, I was surprised.” Jae continued.
“Well, I don’t know if she does like Hiroshi.” I lied. “But you know her, she’s competitive. Of course she wouldn’t pick the worst dancer.”

“Ah okay.” He said. There was an awkward silent pause.

Trying to break the silence, I just started talking.

“You’re a really good dancer.” I told JD. “I mean I know that you’re Aqua’s main dancer, but you’re really amazing. You picked up the dance steps in only two times. Being partnered with you makes it super easy to make it look good.”

            By this time, we had already parked in today’s on site set’s parking lot. I had kept talking though we were parked. Jaehyo was just looking at me, listening.

“You’re really beautiful, you know that?” Jae said, looking straight at me.

His sudden remark caught me off guard. Like I always do when I’m nervous, I just kept rambling. “Well, I am A-Bomb, visual. I have to be pretty…” I just kept talking, not ever hearing the words coming out of my mouth.

Jae leaned close to me; our faces we centimeters apart. I closed my eyes out half out of instinct of what was coming next and half out of fear of what was coming next.