Gong Minzy sat in front of the TV, legs in butterfly position, and made herself comfortable. Her favorite variety show, “Dancing Idol” was airing a new episode tonight and she’d set all of her work aside to watch it. No way was she going to miss the finale; she’d invested too much time, besides, what would her friends say when she showed up tomorrow and couldn’t talk to them about the show? No, she would not do that to herself.

          “Hey, Minzy-ah, open the door!” The girl turned around to face the door, confused as she hadn’t invited anyone over. Nonetheless, she wasn’t surprised when she saw who it was: her best friend Dara.

          “You could’ve called,” The short haired girl scolded, letting her friend inside anyways. It was a useless comment to say, Dara would’ve never called, she wasn’t that type of person. Not that her unexpected arrivals were bad things, and the two girls had known each other long enough that formalities didn’t even matter anymore.

          Dara trotted in, carrying a heavy-looking plastic bag with her, “Yeah, or I couldn’t have brought you any fried chicken and then where would we be?” She handed the take-out over to the host, and motioned her to the kitchen. Minzy rolled her eyes, but followed her unnie’s orders and went to prepare the food.

          “Don’t you dare start the show without me!” Minzy called. The girl quickly readied the food, making sure to leave a little for her parents when they got back. Both of them worked and would often stay out until after their daughter went to bed. This was probably why Dara was always the one to come over. Unlike Minzy, Dara’s parents were always around which was honestly kind of ridiculous in this day and age. She was going to college for god’s sake; at least they could’ve given her some freedom. At least that’s how Minzy saw it. The younger girl shook her head at her own thoughts. It wasn’t her place to be judging people, especially not nice people like the Park family. She grabbed the two plates of chicken and brought them into the living room when she was shocked to see the TV on and running. “Unnie, I told you not to start it without me!” the girl whined, sitting down with an angry thud.

          Dara seemed engrossed in the show but still managed to mumble out, “No, it’s not the show, it’s a news bulletin. Some girl has been found dead, can you believe it?” Dara reached for the remote, but Minzy stopped her.

          “Oh my god, I think I know her!” the younger gasped. The screen was riddled with pictures of a girl, her skin an eerie green and her eyes still wide open. How long had she been like that? Her skin looked as if it had already begun decomposing, Minzy couldn’t help but gag a little. What was even scarier than the death was how familiar the girl looked.

          Dara shot her head around, eyeing her friend suspiciously, “There’s no way you could’ve known her, and they say she was a foreigner, came to Korea on an exchange student program.”

          “No,” Minzy insisted, she realized she was being a little rude but she couldn’t help it, “No, I know I’ve seen her before…” suddenly it hit her, “Omo, she was Beom Min’s exchange student! I-I remember her from when I went over to her house. The girl was only here for a month, who could’ve wanted her dead?”

          “Maybe it was just a hate crime,” Dara said, almost shrugging off the incident, “Like the killers were racist or something.” She lightly punched her dongsaeng’s arm, “Hey, it’s nothing to get worked up about. It would never happen to you.”

          “I-I guess,” Minzy sighed, clutching her knees to her chest. She pushed her plate away, no longer feeling all that hungry.

          The elder girl wrapped her arms around her friend and hugged her tight. “Oh look the show’s starting,” she grinned cheerily, pointing to the screen, “Ah I sure hope the Seungri boy wins, he’s my favorite. Who’s you’re favorite?” She wanted to change the subject, the look on the other girl’s face made her a little nervous, but mostly she wanted to make sure her friend was okay.

          Minzy didn’t really want to watch anymore. There was a sick feeling in her stomach. It was as if that girl was a sign of something more to come. She couldn’t shake the feeling no matter how hard she wanted to. Still, there was no point in dwelling on the matter. Her best friend was here and they were going to watch her most favorite show and it was going to be okay. “Y-yeah,” she managed to choke out, “Me too.”

---

          The lights blinded him, his feet were aching, cameras were coming from every angle, but he kept going. There was no way he was going to mess this up, he had to win. Seungri raised his hand, ready to execute the next move. A camera came at him from his left and he shot around to give it a huge smile. “Work up the fan service,” he reminded himself, searching for the next camera to harass, “The fans love the eye contact. Show them what you’ve got!” The music picked up, and so did Seungri’s confidence. The boy moved in perfect motion with the beat. He had to get everything right, he had to win.

          The end was approaching; Seungri could feel it in the beat. He had been practicing the final move, a backflip, but he was so unprepared. He had only had two weeks to prepare the dance, in addition to other promotions for the show and his daily life. Nevertheless, the dancer knew that if he could achieve this, he would win the competition. Winning Dancing Idol was step number one in his plan to stardom. He had dreamed of this day since he was a little boy, and now it was finally here.

          “One, two, three, four,” he counted in his head, getting into position for his grand finale, “five, six, seven, EIGHT!” Seungri propelled himself up in the air. Everything slowed down, it seemed like the moment could last forever. Seungri pulled his body forward, forcing it to spin in midair. He was going to do it; he was going to make the landing! The boy could feel his excitement boil up inside him, this was it, this was his ticket to fame. No wait—the ground was approaching too fast! He wasn’t in the right position yet! The frantic dancer pushed himself, willed his body to turn just a little more. The crowd was eerily quiet, like the quiet before a storm. It was over, he was over.

          There was a loud thud, like a cannon shooting, it filled the whole room and left a ringing in the boy’s ear. He heard a distant scream and it took him so long to figure out it was coming from him. The crowd was so silent, why were they so quiet? Couldn’t they see him? Didn’t they realize what had just happened? Where was everybody?! He needed help!

          Seungri tried pulling himself up but a sharp pain rang through his body. He let out another pain-riddled scream. It seemed like hours before anyone came to help him. There was a man holding him, but he couldn’t remember his name. Then suddenly everything hit him all at once. The reminder of his failure filled in his lungs. He began crying, not being able to control his emotions. The boy looked up at the man, who he deciphered to be the host Lee Tae Eul. “T-tae Eul-ssi,” he croaked out, “Tae Eul-ssi am I disqualified…?”

          Tae Eul looked back at the boy, “N-no, of course not. No, I’ll talk to the PD okay? We’ll work it out.” He didn’t know what else to say. How could a boy as young as Seungri be so determined that all he cared about was winning the competition even when badly injured?

          Seungri was rushed to the hospital, but the entire time all he could think about was how badly he’d disrupted his path to fame. Maybe it was a minor sprain, nothing that wouldn’t impair his dancing. He wanted to go back to the competition, to tell everyone he was fine and he could accept his rightful award. What were they doing now? Who was going to win?

---

          Dara stood outside Minzy’s house, kicking around the dirt at her feet. She should’ve been walking home, it was getting kind of late, but she couldn’t get herself to move. After watching the terrifying ending to her favorite dancer, Seungri’s dance, her friend and she had agreed to retire for the night. Minzy could barely even concentrate on the show after the news broadcast had scared her so much. It should’ve scared her too and Dara knew this, but there was little that terrified her these days.

          Perhaps a few years ago, when she was more naive, less experienced, it would’ve rattled her like it did her younger friend. After what had happened all those years ago, Dara learned to be tougher. Still, there was something about that dead girl that seemed so familiar? No, not familiar, but oddly like a déjà vu sort of feeling. She couldn’t explain it, it’s not like she’d witnessed any other corpses in person. That body just had some aura about it; it reminded her of that time in her life those years ago.

          Suddenly it was spring again, the flowers in full bloom and the air so pure. Dara had been feeling especially giddy that day and decided to buy flowers for her friends. She entered the small flower shop looking around carefully. A particular bouquet of pink roses appealed to her most and she admired them closely.

          “Do you like those flowers, miss? I can wrap them up for you,” the girl smiled at her from behind the roses. Dara could never forget her face, she was so beautiful. Her hair rested in perfect blonde waves on her shoulders and her dark eyes were lined with winged black liner. Everything about her exuded confidence, yet she still looked so humble.

          Dara nodded, it was all she could manage in response. The girl let out a giggle and began wrapping the flowers, arranging them neatly and tying a big pink bow around the stems. Eventually Dara loosened up and actually conversed with the girl. She could never remember what about, but she recalled that they talked for quite some time even after Dara had paid for her flowers. Before leaving they exchanged their names and numbers. Her name still made her heart flutter, Lee Chaerin.

          The girl shook her head, trying to shoo the memories away. There was too much hurt laced in with them now, and she didn’t want to put herself through that. Instead she forced her feet to move, and began her long walk home.

A/N: Oh wow so sorry about taking so very long to finally upload... I wrote this like a week ago but never got around to uploading because I got too lazy to edit it. Fear not, it's been brushed up (though there might still be some errors).

Here you are, a chapter actually pertaining to some main characters and some plot oh(how) gee! I'm sorry that was a terrible excuse for that pun, please ignore it... Anyways, yeah, slowly getting into the meat of this whole endevor. I'm still debating on when to introduce some characters so there's a possibility they will all be introduced soon, or the majority of them at least.

Comments and critiques are so very appreciated as are subscribes and all the other virtual compliments you can send this way. Have a good night everyone~