Voice. Style. Moves. Determination. Done, done and done. And that's all you need to become a K-pop star, they say.

But for me personally, I do not believe it. I've been training for around 3 years, since I was in middle school. These endless hours never seem to pay off. My dreams never seem to come true. And for some reason I chose this path, which to me is endless amount of beating and torture, sacrificing my sweat and blood to remain in this place.

When I was seven years old, I used to play with toy snakes all the time, and read books that have snakes as anthropomorphic characters, or just educational books talking about the different species of snakes, and their diet, reproduction, appearances and distribution of species around the world. My favourites were anacondas and boa constrictors, which I thought were the cool creepy ones because they squeezed their prey until they were strangled to death, and ready to be swallowed in a single gulp. The other adults, particularly my parents, teachers and neighbours would worry about me because they thought it was not normal for a seven year old to be fascinated with such creatures, which were actually poisonous.

At the same time, I grew fascinated with drawing, and therefore decided to draw a picture of a snake swallowing a bunny rabbit. So I tried, labelled it Drawing Number One, and showed it to my parents, sitting in the living room.

"Mommy, Daddy, are you scared of......this?" I asked in my eeriest voice as possible, suddenly flashing them the piece of paper. But they just squinted at a moment, then laughed.

"That's a hat." they would say, "Why be scared of a hat?"

I had to keep telling them that it was not a hat, and it was a boa constrictor swallowing a bunny. That was when I started Drawing Number Two, and drew the snake, showing the insides of the snake, with the rabbit clearly inside. I went back to them, hoping they would realise the difference.

But my parents told me to stop my fascination with snakes and instead focus on academics, and music, particularly playing the piano and singing. The teachers would tell me the same thing too, since they thought I was anti-social. I was not anti-social, it was just my natural interest. But that was it. I just neglected my dream of being an artist, and thus I did not think about bringing this up again. In fact, we did not bring up this topic for a very long time. I was discouraged I guess from my interest in snakes.

But then again, here I am in Cube Entertainment building. My fate was be decided. Was I to be a K-pop star or not? It was all up to me to decide.

As usual, I was in the dance studio, practising popping, locking and just other moves of dance, the choreographer incessantly barking at us and telling us to work hard. My first friend here was Ilhoon, who attended to same middle and high school as I did, so we were closest in the place.

"Do you think we really made the smart decision to do this?" I asked, nudging Ilhoon.

"Only time would tell," he answered, "Other fates can be told to us at any time, just like a fortune from a crystal ball."

I did not believe him, it seemed that this would go on forever, and I would be forever balancing my academics and my training at the top of my head like a clown on a unicycle. If I was to fail, it was all my responsibility, and myself to blame. But I kept dancing my head off, and singing my throat out until it was sore and dry. I always wondered, what if I could take the opposite path? Did I really waste 3 years here for nothing? What was the point of being a K-pop star if it all had to end up like this?

But then one night, what happened to me that night should not have happened. Maybe it was a dream, but it's up to you, as readers to interpret it for yourselves.