His debut was nearing, and he was determined to do better than his best. 110% wasn’t enough, and it never would be enough; 150% might be a starting point, but he’d need to go higher. And this wasn’t just his personal decision, no. Management had said he needed to work harder than ever.

This wasn’t anything he’d planned. He would have never actually agreed to this, but the circumstances urged him on and he complied. He was under a contract and it wasn’t like he’d turn down such an amazing opportunity. His friends would kill for the opportunity or anything even remotely close to it. At least now he could tell them with certainty they should never, ever take an opportunity like the one he had.

“Park Yeji,” —said young man spoke aloud to himself as he rested on the heavenly cool floor— “don’t you dare give up before it’s really even started.”

With those words he forced himself up from the floor and turned the music on. What was this, the fifth dance he’d learned in two weeks? The simple thought made his legs tremble with exhaustion but he needed to push those thoughts away, and push himself to continue on.

The music echoed in the dance studio, and the tired young man was only vaguely aware of it as he went through the chorus of the dance yet again. His future group mates would be coming soon to get some late-night practice, and Yeji would’ve shuddered at the thought of them seeing him the way he was—a sweaty, panting, panda-eyed mess—if he wasn’t too busy dancing.  When the chorus ended Yeji pressed a button on the remote and none-too-gracefully collapsed onto the floor once again. His water was all the way on the other side of the room, and he didn’t feel like moving. A few minutes wouldn’t hurt, right? Yeji sighed and stretched out on the floor, putting his hands behind his head and dozing off.

The sweet relief was short-lived. He awoke with a start at the feeling of his air supply being cut off, and couldn’t hold back a groan as his head collided with another.  He opened his eyes and was greeted by a sparkling eyed Changhyun. Of course, the one person Yeji couldn’t resist. Changhyun backed away so Yeji could sit up without hitting his head this time.

“Doing something like that to your hyung…” Yeji said, narrowing his eyes in what could be perceived as a poorly done glare. In a sudden movement he reached his arms out and began to tickle Changhyun’s sides; with a childish squeal the younger boy scrambled to hide behind Daniel.

“He made me do it!” Changhyun exclaimed and pushed Daniel forward a bit.

“Did not! It was Chanhee hyung’s idea!” Daniel said shrilly.

“It wasn’t my idea,” Chanhee shot back. “Minsoo hyung told me about it—I just told you.”

“Byunghun-ah whispered it to me as soon as he saw Yeji,” Minsoo said with a shrug.

Everyone turned to look at Byunghun. He blinked innocently and shook his head, holding his hands up. “Don’t look at me, I have no clue what’s happening right now.”

Yeji sighed and stood up. “Always the quiet ones, isn’t it…” he mused. He crossed the room and grabbed his water, then raised a hand in farewell and headed to the door. Before leaving he grabbed a hat that was hanging from a hook on the door and placed it on his head.

Stepping out in the hallway, he let out a long breath and began the walk down the long hallway. His body ached and the thought of sitting on the bus for half an hour just made his head start throbbing again.

***

A few weeks later, Yeji found himself staying late yet again. By then his hair had grown to a length management rather liked, but Yeji wasn’t very fond of it. The hair was far longer than he’d ever had it before, down to just about his shoulders and very Daniel-reminiscent.

By now his body had gotten used to the constant workouts and he could stand straight after a few hours of practice, his legs not wobbling even a bit. Of course, he couldn’t keep himself from growing hot as practice went on, and by the time the newly installed clock on the wall read 11:30 PM in bright red letters, he looked as if he’d just stepped out of a sauna. Yeji took a hair tie from his wrist and put his hair up in a messy ponytail, then took off his shirt and threw it into a corner. I’ll really have to wash my clothes tonight, he thought. But would the laundry room even be open by the time I got back?  He continued to ponder on what he was going to do about his smelly clothes as he the music and started running through the dance again. There were plenty of mistakes during the run-through and Yeji knew he had to get this dance down by Friday, because then he’d have to learn the choreography to the new songs.

“Two weeks,” he murmured to himself as he wiped some sweat from his forehead.

There were only two more weeks until he was officially announced. Two more weeks until the world finally knew about Park Yeji. His legs wobbled a bit.

Sighing, Yeji looked up into the mirror, studying his tired, sweaty face, when something caught his eye. Standing by the door were two very familiar people. And was that a camera with them? Were they seriously going to film like this this and put it up onto the internet for all to see? Was that how they were going to introduce him? The thought of that terrified Yeji and he lunged for his shirt, not caring that it smelled horrible and there were some obvious sweat stains on the back of his shirt.

“Don’t film me!” he then cried out, pointing a finger at the camera and backing up until he walked into the mirror. “I look like a mess!”

The two people rushed forward, and the red light on the camera blinked menacingly.

“You look like a hard worker,” one of them crooned, his eyes sparkling with that familiar glint of mischief.

“And you smell like one too,” the other said, his handsome face scrunched up even though the camera wasn’t on him. “How long have you been here?”

“Four hours.” Yeji walked behind the camera to slap Jonghyun’s head. “And don’t give me that look—you smell the same after only half an hour.”

“I do not!” the handsome maknae protested.

“You kinda do,” Changhyun said, turning the camera on the arguing hyung and makane. “Like, even worse than Ji hyung.”

Ji. Yeji had forgotten that was to be his stage name, since Yeji was too feminine, and not to mention everybody else had stage names and it’d just be odd if he didn’t. He was worried people might think he was possibly just copying G Dragon’s name, but management said he’d be fine. Hopefully they were right.

“Hyung! What are you doing?” Changhyun asked, zooming in on Yeji’s blank face as Jonghyun poked his cheek.

“Hm? Oh,” Yeji cleared his throat and shrugged. “I was thinking. Sorry.”

Jonghyun clicked his tongue. “You can’t start daydreaming in the middle of an interview, hyung.”

“Shut up,” Yeji said, hitting Jonghyun over the head again, although despite his angry response he still couldn’t help but smile.

“The interviewer probably wouldn’t like being slapped either,” the maknae said. He side-stepped away from Yeji’s incoming hand, narrowly missing another slap to the head with practiced ease.

“I said shut up!” Yeji yelled.

“Make me!” Jonghyun shouted back.

The two were too caught up in their fake fight to notice that Changhyun had turned the camera on himself and had started rambling away about Yeji, including things like what he was going to be in the group (“the ‘triple threat’, although he’s really only going to be singing”), his real name (“Yeji! Did you expect me to say his last name too?”), age (“twenty years old and only a month younger than Byunghun hyung”), and when he was going to be joining the group (“technically… he already has joined, but he won’t be promoting with us until we release our first album”). Finally Changhyun stopped going on about his “favorite hyung” (everybody really knew his favorite hyung was actually Minsoo) and turned the camera back to the two fighting members.

By then the fake fight had escalated to the point that the two were in each other’s faces and spouting insults. Changhyun, being the dense person he was, was having trouble figuring out if the fight was real or not. When Yeji suddenly shouted “I’M GOING TO KILL YOU!” and chased a cackling Jonghyun out of the dance studio, Changhyun decided the fight was definitely fake.

He turned the camera back to himself and gave it a small smile and nod. “They’re really good actors, huh?” he asked. His face lit up with laughter and he bid the camera a giddy goodbye, and then turned it off it slipped it into his jacket pocket.

Now where did those two run off to? he wondered as he jogged out of the dance studio.

A/N: uhm... hi there. <": i was actually kinda iffy on posting this story because... well, this is kind of a cliche story, but my noona said it was good so far so i was like, well okay then, guess i'll post it. lol. \o/