Chapter 4 - Secret Admirer

Lee Jinki is forever an amateur guy when it comes to love matters, he had felt the feelings before but he casually ignored it: 1) because he afraid if he happen to confess his feelings to the girl he likes there's a high possibility that the girl will reject him and avoiding him afterwards; 2) he thinks he doesn't have enough qualities to be a boyfriend of someone, he's not perfect after all; 3) being the best friend of the girl he likes is enough for him.

But, there's something about this girl, a girl whom he met at the company the day he started his dance lesson 10 years ago. The girl who made his heart flutter whenever she was around him, the girl who was actually watching him from afar from the start but acting like she doesn't care about his existence. The girl whom always admires him without him knowing, and the girl who made him kept on working hard to achieved what he have now.

It's not about her tall and slim figure, neither about her flawless semi-tanned skin, it's just the way she treated him since the day they first met.

Flashback

On his first day as a trainee, Jinki stood awkwardly in the dance room while looking around, there are many other trainees like him there, but since he was new there; it made him felt nervous. He walked slowly to the front to make the teachers noticed his presence, but he stopped when he heard someone calling his name and the person walking her way to him.

"You're Lee Jinki, right?" He nods, too nervous to says anything.

The girl smiled at him, it seemed like she knew that he was nervous.

"It's okay if you're nervous, today is your first day after all, but I wanted to inform you that the new trainees will have a special dance practice at the other room." She said while looking at the paper in her hand and looked up at him after she finished reading it, "This way, please." She gestured him to follow her and he obeyed.

In the room there were five boys who he assumed as the new trainees as well, he took a seat behind the tallest boy and gave his full attention when the girl who brought him there earlier introducing herself.

"Welcome to SM Entertainment, as some of you may know, today is your first day to learn some dance moves properly, I, Kwon Yuri will be your part time choreographer on Friday and Saturday at 4 PM along with her, Miss Kim Hyoyeon." She said as she pointed the other girl beside her, unlike Yuri who has a tall figure the other girl was shorter with her brown curly hair, she seemed like the tomboy kind of girl. The girl smiled at us as a reply.

Jinki once thought that no matter how hard he tried to dance properly it would always turned out bad, he doesn't have talent for dancing. However when Yuri and Hyoyeon teach him how to do every moves properly, step by step slowly he started to realize that he was pretty decent at dancing and he would be more than happy to learn many dances routines from them.

***

"Hi there Jinki, getting ready for practice, are we?" A cheerful voice of a girl greeted him as Jinki made his way inside the pretty crowded dance room, it was Hyoyeon; the girl who used to be his part-time choreographer but now she's his best friend.

Jinki nodded and smiled at her as he spoke, "Yeah, what about you? Finish already?"

"Not quite, still need to nail the ending pose for our song, but the girls are exhausted already..." She said as she pointed at the eight girls who were collapsed on the floor while fanning each other with something that seemed like a lyrics sheet, Jinki feel bad for them, but his attention averted from them to the girl who stood in front of him right now—Hyoyeon, she didn't looked exhausted, not even a bit, maybe it was because this girl has a very strong determination to be a performer and Jinki envied her for that. 

Jinki was actually amused by how fast he and Hyoyeon get along, it only took them two months to get closer with each other since they first met. He found out that Hyoyeon is such a friendly girl, she loved to jokes around with him.

She also introduced him to her teammates. Taeyeon, the leader of the group who he thought as a beautiful, witty and kind person. Jessica, an American-style girl who he mistaken as an arrogant and conceited girl from her appearance but actually a really nice girl. Sunkyu or Sunny—she told him to call her that—a nice, playful and cute girl who he thought as a cool friend. Tiffany, the girl who known as a hard worker and her obsession with pink. Sooyoung, a playful and mischievous person who likes to make people laugh at her jokes. Yoona, a pretty, cheerful and childish girl who never forget to greet him whenever she meet him at the company. Seohyun, a serious and modest girl who doesn't find any of Sooyoung's jokes funny.

All of them are nice to him, except one, the girl who met him way earlier than Hyoyeon's and others, Yuri. Yuri is one of the members of Hyoyeon's group and she was the only one who avoiding him whenever he was around her. Jinki doesn't know why she treated him that way, as to what he had remembered he never done anything wrong to her, so what's her reason for treating him that way? He doesn't really know and he was a bit sad because of it.

He tried to forget that feelings, maybe it was just him being so sensitive, he cheers himself up by smiling and waving at the eight girls when he went to where they were with Hyoyeon walking close beside him. They're all smiled back at him and asked casual questions like "how are you?" or "where are the other boys?" to him.

"So, next week you guys will be our Sunbaenims for real, huh?" He asked after he was done with their questions. His question earned him a smack on his head by the short-tempered leader, Kim Taeyeon. "Then, now, and even in the future we will always be your sunbaenims, forever!" She hissed at him, the other girls laughed at them except Yuri, she didn't laughing with the other girls instead she suddenly stood up and went out of the room, when Sooyoung asked her where she was going she only said one word, toilet.

Everyone stop laughing that made the atmosphere suddenly became awkward, but fortunately Tiffany decided to break the awkwardness by asking him if he got a good score on his English test at his school, and Jinki gratefully told her about his score and how much he loved to learn English, his enthusiasm made Tiffany smiled at him. Even though the atmosphere was back to normal, Jinki found himself looking at the door where Yuri was gone earlier and he smiled bitterly at himself, did not know exactly what had happened with that girl, deep in his heart he hoped it was not because of him.

***

Every single day seemed a lot harder and tougher for Jinki to keep up with his practices and his school altogether, the fact that there's no indication that he will debut soon made him started to become a pessimist. He often locked himself in the locker room after he was done with his practice late in the night, he sometimes doubted himself, doubt that he will actually make it. It has been a while since he started to think whether to give up on everything and continue his life by studying harder than before or keep his hopes up that the D-day will come soon.

And tonight was no different, after seemed like two hours he locked himself in that locker room, Jinki decided to go home because it was already 1 AM, he didn't want to make his mother more worried about him, he made her suffers a lot already. But when he went out of the room he found a note along with a bar of chocolate beside his shoes. He looked around to see if someone was there earlier, but no, there's no one there except him.

He bent down to picked up the unfamiliar handwritten note and read it,

Jinki couldn't help but smile after reading that note, it somehow made him feel a lot better than earlier. He took the chocolate and put it in his bag, he told himself that he won't eat that chocolate until he find out the person who gave it to him. Later that night, he went home while holding that note with an excited smile pestered on his face.

But who? That question kept popped out in his head even after he take a shower and getting himself ready for bed. He kept staring at the note as if he kept looking at it he somehow will find out who is the person who gave it to him. After almost thirty minutes thinking about who the person is, Jinki learned that he couldn't come up with anyone and went to sleep, he thinks everyone around him was busy with their own business and there's no possibility that anyone—girls especially—cares about him that much. So, for a couple of days Jinki kept it to himself and pretend that he never received anything 'weird' from anyone.

However, for two weeks after the first note, there were more notes for him with the same handwritten style as the first one on his locker, sometimes with a rose, chocolate, lollipop or even a burger. That's make him even more curious, and his curiosity made him swallow his pride to asks Kibum, Jonghyun, even Taemin if they knew someone who is possibly wrote those notes for him, and as expected they don't have any answer for him, they instead.

His curiosity also doesn't stop him to asks the same question to the So Nyuh Shi Dae girls, but unfortunately they also didn't know. After seemed like a month without a clue about this “mysterious” supporter of him, Jinki gave up and sincerely hoped that someday he will find out who that person is because he wanted to say how much the messages on those notes gave him strength to stayed here, with his dreams.

***

"It's not your fault, Jinki. I don't know why Yuri acts like that towards you though." Hyoyeon said when Jinki was asking her the question for the nth times already. But, from the way she looked at him, the look that often showed when she was felt guilty or uncomfortable, Jinki noticed that Hyoyeon was hiding something from him, and he sure enough that it was relat