SM had been preparing for SMTown for a while before I'd even really thought about it. I mean, I knew it was a big deal, but it didn't really mean anything for me, right? I was just a trainee, so while my sunbaes went on the world tour and amazed crowds everywhere, I would be staying in Korea and continuing to train. I wouldn't have anything to do with SMTown, so why even think about it, right?

Wrong.

It was a pretty normal day in early June. I had spent the day, first practicing angry acting in the acting class, using up large amounts of energy for mass screaming and shouting sessions, then working at the SuJu dorm, and it had been one of my weekly shower-cleaning days, so I was tired. 

I met Min Hee in the hallway on the way to the dance practice room for our class, handing her a blue lollipop (Min Hee had a blue raspberry obsession, I'd realized a long time ago. It was the only candy she allowed herself) that I had been given by my acting teacher for doing a good job. She took it, then went through the door.

I saw Kwon Mei first, and complimented her shoes in the best Chinese I could muster. She could speak Korean almost as well as I could by now, but since Henry and Zhou Mi had finally started to take the initiative to teach me Mandarin (Although the lessons were almost always short, completely random, and often confusing), like they'd said they would ages ago, I always tried to practice it with Kwon Mei. She wasn't a bad person, really, and was a really good dancer. But she always felt bad for not having a good singing voice. Honestly, though, her rapping skills were amazing. I've never tried rap; I severely doubt I have any talent for it. Perhaps I was just intimidated to try, when I was surrounded by people who could rap like, REALLY fast, like Eunhyuk-oppa, Henry, and now Kwon Mei.  

She laughed and said that I meant that I liked her shoes, not her feet, and I gave a self-deprecating laugh and admitted that I'd totally messed it up. 

"Hey, Min Hee, what's with the lollipop?!" I heard Ji Yong, one of the guys in our class, call out. 

"I'm practicing one of my favorite songs!" Min Hee shot back, and with just a shared glance, our dance class broke out singing "Dalkhoman Lollipop Oh lollipop Oh lollipop OH!" and somehow it turned into a crazy dance-off, with the rest of us standing in a circle and chanting while we took turns doing really dorky dance moves in the center. 

We had a tendency to do weird stuff like this when Sunsaeng was out of the room. It made us feel comfortable with each other.

I would be next to dance into the circle, and I was getting ready to dance into the circle as if I was dragging myself forward on a rope. But I never got the chance, because Sensei came in at that moment. And he wasn't alone.

The chanting and dancing stopped and the circle broke up almost instantly as first BoA, then both Changmin and Yunho of TVXQ, and, finally, Henry.

What could they be there for? Was SM planning something?"

"As I'm sure you know, kids, Summer SMTown is coming up soon. There's a lot of preparation involved, and practice, so I've got some important news for all of you. You won't be atending this class for several months."

We all bowed to our sunbaes, and then into a semicircle around Sunsaeng.

"The people in charge have decided that, as a test, they're going to let you be the backup dancers for some of the artists in SMTown at Seoul."

There was a simultaneous gasp from all of the trainees in the room, followed by animated chattering as we instantly turned to the people near us and discussed it excitedly. But all sunsaeng had to do was raise an eyebrow and glance at our sunbaes, and we all shut up. 

"Yeah, you'll all be in SMTown. But ONLY in Seoul. You won't be touring. It's just a one-time test. Still, you'd better do well. Your sunbaes are counting on you. So, you'll be split. Henry, you said you only needed one?"

"Yeah. I'm doing a medly of my solos, and I want to have a bit of a storyline, kind of like Mel's duet performance of 'Mirotic' a while ago. But I need a main female character."

A whole bunch of eyes traveled to me, and I felt a flush creep up my cheeks. I was proud of that performance, but also a bit embarassed of it. 

"Wait, YOU did a performance of Mirotic?!" It was Yunho, giving me this look of extreme incredulity. He'd come into the SuJu dorm once or twice, usually with Heechul, and had seen me there. He knew I was the ELF Queen.

"Well, I didn't exactly have a choice..." I answered as politely as I could. "It was chosen randomly. We just did as well as we could with what we had..."

"But what exactly did you do?"

"Hyung, Min Hee got it on video! I'll show you. It was awesome!"

I paled. "Henry, I don't think we need a public viewing of that..." I was a bit unwilling to show that particular dance to BoA-sunbae. I knew she herself had done much more intimate dances than that one, yet for some reason I didn't want her to think that I was that kind of girl. 

"So you actually do know TVXQ?" Changmin asked. "Who's your favorite member?"

"Mine's Yunho!" I heard one of my fellow trainees yell, and the others laughed.

"Umm..." I thought about it. "Well... I like Yoochun..."

They seemed to take it in stride, just saying "oh." 

"ANYWAY, Henry, you were explaining what you need for your performance?" Sunsaeng interrupted.

"Oh yeah! Anyway, it's kind of going to be a story thing, so I need someone I can trust like, a lot. Soo... seriously, Mel, I don't are if you don't want to, you're working with me."

It so turned out that we'd all be doing the backup dances for ALL of the artists, but we'd get special featurings in the three artists we'd split ourselves amongst.

For the first time, I really appreciated how hard it was to be a backup dancer. I'd seen a few of them, spending hours in the practice rooms, stretching, and then disappearing out the door with one of the artists. But they never really liked to make a fuss about anything, so most of the time they kept to themselves. So I'd never really seen just how hard they worked. They had to memorize the dances to more than one artist's dance, arranging their schedules to fit practicing with the different artists, and also to practice relentlessly. It was almost harder than being a performer yourself. 

Admittedly, most of the groups had their own set of backup dancers. They mostly practiced the different choreography with that one group, learning the choreography for other artists if they needed a few more hands. But in a way, the backup dancers seemed like a part of the groups' families, though more content to not have the spotlight.

SuJu's main female backup dancers were very kind to me, and very welcoming. Personally, I think it might have been because they were happy to get a break. They were all too happy to let me take over. Actually, I recognized a lot of them from the Super Show tours, but didn't know their names. 

In addition to my special performance with Henry, I was scheduled with the rest of my dance class to be backup dancers for BoA, TVXQ, f(x), and SHINee. my classmates would be getting featured in the other performances. 

We split our days, first learning this dance for that artist, then another dance for another artist, also continuing with our other studies, and, in my case, my job.

I'd never been so exhausted in my life. Every day, when we got home, it took every ounce of strength Min Hee and I had to swallow some supper before we collapsed on our beds.

Chief among my duties, though, was to be Henry's main female character. I spent about fifty percent of my backup dancer practice time with him, twenty-five percent training with the other artists, and another twenty-five percent practicing all of the different dances on my own, or just with the other trainee dancers. 

So there I sat, on the floor of one of the empty practice rooms (since the main members of Super Junior were in the SuJu practice room), trying to figure out what exactly this performance entailed.

"So, like I said, I want to do a medly. It's kind of going to be themed, about how there's this girl that I just can't seem to get away from."

"That seems to be what most of your songs are about," I teased, surprised when I saw his exprssion darken. Had I struck the wrong chord? I wouldn't know, because it was gone as quickly as it had came, almost making me wonder if I had imagined it.

"Yeah, I guess so," he exhaled a laugh, "So, there's going to be sort of five songs."

"Sort of?"

"I'll get there; just hang on. So anyway, it's going to be a kind of building love story, starting with '1-4-3'."

"Kind of a sweet, innocent kind of love at first?"

"Yeah. And then it goes into 'Off My Mind', starting to show when it's getting more serious. That's when you come in."

"Aww, I don't get to be in '1-4-3'? But I love that song..."

"Sorry. It just fits together this way. So then I wanted to go into 'Trap', which will kind of be two songs, since I'm going to start off doing the violin and piano version, then go into the actual song."

"Ooooh, that'll be cool."

"I thought so. And then after that, I wanted to do 'My Everything' and then 'Holiday' to end with a bang."

"Oh, well... that's good, then..."

"You seem disappointed," he noticed, tilting his head to the side.

"It's just... I wanted you to do 'I Would'."

"Really?"

" 'I Would' and 'Holiday' are my two favorite songs from the album," I admitted, "Sorry for being disappointed; it's your performance; you get to decide."

"No, no, I think that's a good idea. I've heard that 'I Would' is a fan favorite, actually... so maybe I should replace 'My Everything' with it... what do you think? Would it fit? It's kind of a sudden drop, then suddenly back up again..."

"Well, if you fit it just right, and tweak the instrumentals just a bit, I think we could make it work..."

I pulled his sheet music folder towards me, opening it up and pulling out the appropriate sheets. If it were anyone else, they would have been mad that I was looking through their stuff without really asking, but I knew that Henry didn't really care.

I laid the sheets for "Trap", "I Would" and "Holiday" next to each other, scanning the pages for the appropriate cut-off points, then finding the spots I wanted and flattened them out side-by-side. A few months before, I wouldn't have been able to do that. Thanks to the training Henry had given me on writing and reading music, though, it wasn't that hard for me. "See, if you end with the piano for 'Trap', then it practically goes right into the piano for 'I Would'. And then, if you stop here, you can add a few quickly rising notes, going into 'Holiday'. What do you think?"

He leaned over and ruffled my hair. "This is why we keep you around, Mel."

"So what kind of story are we going to be doing? With the dance, I mean?" I asked, now that we'd finished figuring out how exactly the arrangement was going to work out using the piano. 

"See, that's the hard part. This is a love story, so..."

My mind processed the words, and then it clicked.

"Henry, are you telling me that I have to do a dance that suggests that I'm in love with you?!"

He shrugged. "Sorry."

"But that's so... I just can't..." I loved Henry. Truly, honestly. I loved talking to him, and spending time with him, and watching him dance, and listening to him play the violin, or singing. I loved him, really. But not like that.

"It's like pretending to seduce Patrick. You're practically my big brother. It just feels really wrong to me."

"But I can't think of anyone else who could do this! The choreography is going to be really intimate, and I need someone I can trust to trust me. It's not just a professionalism thing. I need a friend."

I considered his words for a while, thinking about what they meant. 

"Then again, it's also nice to have a female dancer that's shorter than me. Most of them are taller than me, which messes up chemistry a little bit..."

I glared at him. "Well, if you put it like that, I guess I can do my best. Just as long as you promise me it's not going to be quite as intimate as the dance I did for 'Mirotic' was."

He just laughed. "No, it's nowhere even close. That kind of thing would make me feel awkward."

Sometimes, although it's a rare occassion, our vocal training teachers go on vacation. Min Hee had a different teacher than me, and hers was gone for a day, so her morning schedule was open. Therefore, I invited her to come and watch the acting class that day. Maybe she could get some insight into expression. She didn't really argue, but seemed especially excited to come when I said that the teacher had just bought a whole bag of blue raspberry lollipops. 

It wasn't until we got there that we realized why.

The blue represented tears. Today's lesson was on sadness. 

Min Hee took a spot in the audience while we did warm-up excercizes, and then our teacher passed out little bits of script.

"These are pieces of scripts for dramas that haven't yet been produced. So you'll be keeping them in here. If I find out that anyone walked out of here with one of these scripts, they're getting cut from the company, no questions asked. Is that understood?"

We gulped, nodding profusely.

"Alright then. These are one-on-one scenes, whether it's an argument, a deathbed, or a breakup. You each have five minutes to read it through, and then practice with your partner. Then, you'll be taking turns performing it. I want to see a real show of sorrow. There's a huge difference between acting and pretending. Your time starts now."

My scene was one between a girl and her lover, who had abandoned her without telling her. She stayed in love with him for a long time, and then saw him again suddenly, and chased him out into the street-- The rain, actually (how romantic)-- and proceeded to tell him how she felt, and how he'd destroyed her. I could definitely do this.

My partner was pretty good, too. We had to keep our practice in whispers, so we wouldn't disturb other people, but from what we had so far, we were pretty sure we could do it. He was a bit worried that I wouldn't be able to pull off the absolute rage and yet sorrow in the character's voice, and then be able to break down into tears like she was supposed to, but I assured him that I could totally do it.

The teacher yelled for the expiration of the five minutes, and we all settled into our seats. 

He called off several people before us. Quite honestly, nobody in the class was a bad actor. It seemed like the company had people go to that class not because they wanted to make bad actors acceptable, but more to help polish the actors that showed promise. None of them were terrible, being able to scream, and mourn, and show pain on their faces.

But one thing I just couldn't seem to understand was how many of the girls just couldn't make themselves cry. The guys I could mostly understand, since guys spend most of their lives trying not to cry, but not the girls. They would get into their performances wholeheartedly, and they would gasp for breath and squeeze their eyes shut, but no tears came out. One of the girls was able get one, sliding down her cheek, but that was it.

I knew that being able to make oneself cry fairly easily was a rare gift, but I'd never really appreciated it until then.

It was our turn. I tapped my partner on the shoulder and we went onstage, waiting for the cue.

After the past weeks of repeated dance practice, my self-confidence had been rapidly dropping. I'd gotten a lot better at learning dances during my time at SM, but I was still not a natural dancer, and often screwed everything up. It was frustrating, and self-punishing. But that didn't matter now. Now I was on stage, acting. I wasn't so great of a dancer, but I could do this.

I heard the teacher clap his hands together for our cue, and my partner began. In only a few moments I could envision us, standing in the rain, the noise of the city lost in the downpour. I could practically feel the drops of water soaking my clothes, running down my face and sticking in my eyelashes.

"Go home, Sora. You have to know by now that I don't have anything for you. Not anymore." He turned his back on me, walking away from me into the rain.

"You never said goodbye!" I called out, seams in my chest I had tried so hard to keep shut coming undone. He stopped, turning back to me. But I kept talking, pouring out all of those emotions. "I loved you for so many years, I worked so hard... you were everything to me. I'd never been so happy, I wondered if it was a dream. And then when you left, I wished it had been. Because I can forget my dreams. You never gave me that chance. After you were gone, I kept wondering... kept telling myself that it would have been different if you would have said goodbye. If you would have told me that you were ending it. But YOU LET ME HOPE!" I dropped to my knees, the water splashing around me as I fell. My heart was coming undone, the pain of five years rising through my chest and pouring out my eyelids. Tears of sorrow, tears of pain, tears of rage. I was glad for the rain, washing them off of my face.

"It would have been better if you'd said goodbye. But you never did. You let me wonder if it was just temporary; if something had come up. You let me hope that you were coming back; that someday you would walk back through the door. You BASTARD!. You were NEVER going to come back, and I know that now. But you let me hope that you would! And it made every single day of my life HELL!" I looked up at him, his form blurred by tears and raindrops.

"Sora... I never wanted you to hope. I just wanted you to let go. I didn't want... to say goodbye. Can't you see that? I loved you too.  But I can't keep those feelings anymore. They'll just hurt us both. Go home, Sora. Go home." If he was crying, too, I couldn't tell. My own pain filled my mind and my thoughts and all I could see and feel were the tears and the rain...

 "Cut!" My teacher's voice snapped me back into the real world, and the rain, and the streets disappeared. I wiped the tears from my face, sniffling. As if on cue, one of my classmates threw a pack of tissues onstage. There was scattered applause, and my partner and I bowed.

"So how did we do?" my partner asked.

"I think... and don't quote me on this, but... if this gets made into a drama... I think the two of you should be in it."

I grinned and high-fived my partner, and we made our way back down the stage. Score one for Melissa.

"How did you DO that?!" Min Hee asked whe we got out of the class, and were walking back to the dorm so I could grab some stuff before going to the SuJu dorm.

"Do what?"

"You cried! Just like that! It was like you'd practiced that scene billions of times, but you'd only had it for five minutes! And when you were talking, it was just... WOW! I wish I could act like that! How in the world do you just make yourself cry like that?"

I bit my lip. "Well... it's a bit of a long story..."

"Tell me."

"You're going to think it's silly."

"I swear on my status as an SM trainee, I won't think it's silly. Now tell me."

"Well, whenever I need to cry, I think of a time period where I couldn't stop crying. Usually we forget pain, but it was the worst grief I've ever felt in my life. Every time I need to cry... I think of my dogs."

"Your dogs?" She seemed surprised.

"See, I told you you'd think it was silly..."

"No, no; it's not silly. Go on."

"Well... I've had two dogs in my lifetime. The first one, well... my sister and I were just kids. We didn't know how to train a dog. So we listened to our dad, who encouraged... physical punishment to train it." Min Hee gasped, but I went on. "Yeah, I know. Needless to say, Buc went bad. He loved us, but he started to bite people. Still, we didn't put him down. And then one night, he started having this whimpering bark. I could tell something was wrong, but my dad thought he was barking at the neighbors. Then, the next morning, when I went to go feed him his breakfast..."

"Oh no! That's horrible!"

I nodded grimly. "He was only five years old." I looked at my reflection in a store window, took a deep breath, and continued. "But he wasn't a good dog. I barely even cried when we put him into the ground. Then we tried again. A roly-poly black lab puppy, who we named Sarge. He was as adorable as it comes, and friendly. He loved people. My sister loved him too, but it became clear pretty quickly that he was my dog. Unfortunately, he kept going after Mom's chickens. After the fifth dead chicken, she told me that I would have to train him better, or we would have to give him away. I couldn't take that thought. So I started to get seriously dedicated. I watched episodes of It's Me Or the Dog to learn the proper way to train him. I took him for walks every day. He was just starting to get better." I could feel the tears beginning to clog my throat, and fought them back down. Min Hee saw it, but she didn't say anything.

"You know, sometimes he just wasn't hungry, so sometimes he wouldn't eat his food. So that day... I didn't think it was strange. But then when I was grooming him--burshing out the winter fur, you know, because it was summer, and he was shedding-- he was so cooperative, getting up when I wanted him to, rolling over, and not getting excited and jumping, like he usually did. He was so well-behaved, I had to give him a treat. I grabbed one of the best ones, a strip of dried chicken that usually he would have snatched from my hand... but he barely even looked at it. That's when I knew that something was wrong. I took him for a walk, just around the yard, hoping that it was just indigestion. And then sometimes he would lay in the grass and refuse to get up. Finally, I brought him back to the house, and I wanted to stay with him through the night because the vet wouldn't be open until the next day, but I had to work at a concession stand the next day, so I couldn't."

Min Hee's eyes widened. "You mean-?"

"Just like Buc, he was only five years old. Both of them had... so many more years left to live," I choked out, clutching my chest to stop the pain. "And both dogs-- both of them-- I found dead the next morning. And Sarge-- he was my dog. I loved him and cared for him, and every time I had a problem, I could talk to him and he'd just... listen. But he wouldn't. Not anymore. And as they dug his grave, all I could think of was how good he'd been when I was brushing him. As if he knew that he wouldn't last any longer. As if he wanted to be sleek and shiny for when he entered heaven..." I sobbed, choking the sound out of my mouth.

Min Hee hugged me, right there on the street, my hair. "Shhh... Mel. That's not silly at all. That's heartbreaking."

"It took everything I had to stop crying that day. Even as I served hambugers and smiled for customers, I saw him in the back of my mind, and had to fight down the tears. I was never much of a crier before that. But after it... tears come to me pretty easily."