Fourth Teaser: Rising Stars (part one)

It was complete silence in the training room as Lali was sitting on the floor in a meditation position. She was carefully watching her breathing, making sure her stomach followed the right pattern. The singing instructor has been very clear; she had to get better control of her voice. Apparently, it all came down to her diaphragm and breathing capacity. Breathe in. Breathe out. Brea…

Her bubble of calm was suddenly popped as a man barged in the room. He instantly stopped when he saw her. Lali looked at her dance instructor, who, despite having such a coveted position, was only 23 years old, which was only one more than herself.

 “I didn’t see you there…” MinSeok stated blandly, still surprised.

“Obviously,” Lali sharply retorted, earning herself an incredulous raised-browed expression from the older guy. Realizing what she had just said and the way she said it, Lali blinked a few times before shrugging it off.

“Whatever,” MinSeok said, discarding the previous matter. “I was actually looking for someone. I thought she was dancing. Maybe in another room…”

“Who is it?”

“Im MiHyun, she’s a trainee. You should watch out because she might be at your level. Maybe even better…”

“Never heard of her before,” Lali said with fiery eyes, not liking what he was insinuating.

 “Lal,” said MinSeok with a huge grin, “Play nice!”

Her lips stretch into a sweet smile. “I’m always nice. But how complicated is it to call me by my name? It’s only one more letter!”

MinSeok rolled his eyes. “How come so many girls here at Frost are rude little brats with too much attitude? Why can’t you be more like Jun: cute and bubbly.”

Lali raised an incredulous brow before bursting out laughing. “You’re such an hypocrite! I know perfectly well what kind of women you like… So far, I haven’t told her. But she must be blind for not noticing how you treat her so differently.”

“Blind or too infatuated with another… Aish!” He said while running his hand through his hair, messing it up. “If you weren’t my most talented student…”

He stepped back, exiting the room before closing the door. Lali let a little side smirk creep up her face as she closed her eyes and went on with her breathing exercises. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in…

★     ☆     ★ ★     ☆     ★ ★     ☆     ★

It turned out Mihyun was indeed practicing her dance moves. But before MinSeok burst in another training room, he prudently looked through the window first. Good thing, as he was surprised to see Mihyun wasn’t alone. Knowing her to not exactly be the kind to go toward strangers, MinSeok could only contain his surprise when he saw who exactly surrounded her. They all were pretty good dancers. In fact, had he tried to gather the best dancers out of the trainees, he couldn’t have done better. There was JaeLyn, who was usually quite shy, Jina, Baekhui and Woobin who were approximately at the same level. MinSeok also remarked YeonJoo, who despite not being the best could still hold her fair share of compliments. At that moment, MinSeok felt the Spartan Coach in himself awakening and he noticed how Jina was lagging a little, Woobin’s moves lack dynamism and JaeLyn’s had too much amplitude, Baekhui lacked stamina and YeonJoo’s moves felt uncertain, as if she wasn’t sure of the choreography. His whole body itched with the desire to just go over them and yell at them until they all got it right. He rubbed his toes together inside his socks, before shrugging and entering the practice room, head on.

Trainees were surprised for sure as he had suddenly appeared, yelling pieces of advice. Jina immediately jumped to the CD player, turning it off, while all the other girls got into a row that seemed weirdly militaristic.

Mihyun’s eyes widened, as it wasn’t what she had planned at the beginning. In fact, she thought she was going to be alone. But, just as she was raging against her lack of hairstyle and rampaging through her hair with a comb, JaeLyn had suddenly appeared, offering to help her. Of course, Mihyun had accepted and JaeLyn had styled her shoulder-length blond locks into a very cute side updo that seemed awfully complicated as it included braids and whatnot.

They had exited the locker-room, talking, and had discovered they both planned to go practice dancing. It was only natural that they would go together. They had found out that someone already occupied one of the rooms. Judging from the fact that her face was placarded all around the building, Mihyun knew she was Lali, a senior, but, above all, a debuted artist. She just didn’t feel like going over to ask her to move so JaeLyn and herself just moved over to the next room, lucky number be damned. It wasn’t that bad if they couldn’t have the number one room. It didn’t mean they weren’t good enough, right?

So here they were, practicing with a handful of other trainees, probably all competing to be in the new girl group. It was just weird… At least, she could improve.

Soon, JaeLyn excused herself. She had promised a friend she would practice singing with her. MinSeok agreed to let her go, under the jealous eye of YeonJoo, since she had seemed to master the choreography.