“H-Hey there don’t be shy,  nae-ge marhaebwa, nae nuneul barabwah . . .” I sang along to f(x)’s Beautiful Stranger in my head, waiting for to go through baggage check at O’hare Airport. I had left my parents and brother back at the front of the airport; they hadn’t come any farther because they wanted to go out to brunch. Brunch instead of staying to say goodbye to their only daughter, who they wouldn’t see again for at least a five years, at least.

            I wasn’t really torn up about leaving to be honest. I guess some would call me heartless, but I was never one for homesickness or being overly emotional about good-byes.

            Baggage passed by fast enough, and I had an easy time getting to the boarding gates with over thirty minutes to spare.  To pass the time, I got a venti caramel frappe from the Starbucks kiosk and settled with watching youtube on my ancient Toshiba laptop.

            While watching EXO’s new Wolf MV, it dawned on me; they’re my sunbae’s now.

            My flight was called, putting an end to my epiphany and beginning my life as Choi Erin, SM Entertainment trainee.

<><><><>----- I want to get to know you, deep into that mask -----<><><><>

            After the flight, I was so exhausted from the time change that I wasn’t able to focus when my new manager, Manager Oh, led me to the company dorms and then to the company.

            There were a bunch of fans in front of the building, even though if I could guess it was about 10 in the morning here.  They were all holding signs for EXO, I guess they were here because of the recent comeback?

            Even if I was out of it, I did notice that they pointed and whispered about me, wondering who I was, why I was going into the building only so few could get into.

            Manager Oh told me to keep my head down and my sunglasses on, since I was already in a group, the less predebut pictures netizens could get of me, the better.

            “She’s here,” A woman announced in Korean when Manager Oh and I walked into a conference room on the second floor.

            Everyone in the room, 11 girls and 3 people who I had already been introduced to as managers, stood up to welcome me.

            The woman, it took me a second to recognize her as the CEO, who had announced my entrance, beckoned me to come to the front of the room where there was a powerpoint projected onto the screen next to her.

            “Everyone, this is Choi Erin. She is the last and final edition to the group, ChecK-Mate,” It was quite unnerving, all the girls looked like they were trying to stare me down, judging me, trying to nit pick and find every flaw they could.  “As you may have figured out by now, Erin is not a trainee with us. She was recently cast and signed in America and although she has had no previous training, she will be joining you as the main dancer and a rapper in the group. She will be stationed in the ChecK part of the group and promote mainly in Korea during sub-group promotions,” The scout who had signed me on to SM had explained to me before that I was already being placed into a group that was going to debut in less than a year, 10 months to be exact. ChecK-Mate, and yes the spelling is correct, is a 12 member girl group just like EXO is a 12 member guy group.  ChecK represents the 6 girls who will be focused more of the Korean and possibly Japanese music industry. Mate represents the 6 girls who will be more focused on the Mandarin and possibly Taiwanese markets. The story was that in chess, a game of strategy and war, we represented the confidence and knowledge of unavoidable victory. Personally, each of us were a chess piece and had the same chess piece as an opposing member in the other sub-group. There was a pawn, rook (castle), knight, bishop, queen, and king in each group.

            “You may sit now,” the CEO told me. I honestly forgot her name, because at first I thought that the Lee Soo-Man guy was still the CEO until I had been finalizing my contract.

            I walked over to the empty seat near the end of the large conference table, I wasn’t looking but could still feel the eyes of some of the girls, I mean my members, follow me.

            “You have all been moved into the group dorms so I know you’ll be able to bond sooner or later, but here’s an introduction to what roles you’ll have in the group and what the public will know about you.” She forwarded the powerpoint and it came to a stop on one of the girls sitting across from me.

            “ Lee Ra-Im, age 22. She has trained for 8 years with us and been a background dancer for BoA many times. For drama version of EXO’s new single, she also played the female lead. She will be the leader of ChecK also known as the ‘king’” Another slide

            “Kim No-Rae, age 21. She has trained for 3 years, and previously trained with JYP for two years. She has been a background dancer for the Wonder Girls. She has previously lived in China for 5 years as a child and teenager and will be the leader of Mate, and ‘king’” Next slide,

            It went on like that for another seven slides, then one caught my attention,

            “Go Sun-hye, age 17. She has trained for 4 years, and is the most fluent non-native member in Mandarin. She plays the pawn in Mate as the maknae and most obedient member”

            “Gong Xi, age 22. She was cast in an international audition held in Beijing and has been training for five years. She will be Mate’s main rapper and the ‘knight’”

            Then there was me,

            “Choi Erin, age 17. The newest recruit, the tallest at 176cm, the youngest, and the only one truly fluent in English. She previously lived in Illinois and is skilled in the piano, flute, violin, and saxophone. Erin also swam at a national level when she was 14 and played tennis is America. She will be the main dancer, rapper, maknae and ‘Queen’ of ChecK,” Wow, they actually had something to say about me.

            “As you see in front of you, the white binders contain your schedules for the month. That includes training for your parts in the upcoming company showcase and EXO’s first international concert which a select few of you will be featured in. For the next ten months, you are not allowed to slack, there is still no definite that you will stay in this group. So you will be watched every waking moment. We will monitor your weight, performance, work ethic, and moral code when working with not only your group but the upper artists that you will meet while training from now on” That sounds like a complete joy,

            “You may go” She dismissed us and all the girls filed out, I figured they were going to practice and followed them.

            “Hi!” One of the girls, Sun-Hye, came up and was the first one to start talking to me. Her English was so enthusiastic; it made up for the cold atmosphere that I had experienced when I first met them.

            “Hello” I spoke in Korean to make it easier for her,

            “Oh, you speak Korean. You have a good accent” The shorter girl chatted with me for a few minutes until we reached a practice room. It was dark and had black walls except for the one mirror wall,

            “Stretch now, we’ll be dancing in twenty minutes” An American accent came from the other side of the room, against the dark walls, I noticed there were two young women, both looked non-Korean. They must be the choreographers that Manager Oh told me about, Katie and Elizabeth Stone.

            “Except you Erin, you’ll be showing us how much you know the dance” They pointed at me, well it was easy to single me out of the girls, I was at least two inches taller than the next tallest girl in the group, even if it was the twelve of us.

            Needless to say, I didn’t need to show them much, they couldn’t even hide their surprise at how well I did my solo dance and the group dance. They put me in heels to see if I really was caught up with the girls, and I pulled it off without a cinch (ha! That’s what you get for running on ellipticals for two hours a day in heels, they’re almost easier to walk in than regular shoes now).

            But to be honest, I was exhausted, and it took me everything to not collapse after dancing for the first thirty minutes with the girls, and they all looked completely fine!

            I better get to meet some hot guys, and get a bagel after this.

<><><><>----- The music that reaches through the tips of my hands, that music possess my heart ------<><><><>

            “Hey guys, what are you staring at?” I walked up to my other EXO-M members, Yixing, Luhan, Tao, Jong-dae, and Min-seok were all stacked on top of each other, looking into the narrow window that led to one of the trainee practice rooms.

            “Duizhang! Check out the new trainee! She’s amazing!” Tao ushered me over, his voice filled with awe.

            I came over, interested since we rarely got new trainees.

            It was obvious who the new girl was, she was the only one being made to dance in the center, in front of the mirror. I didn’t really pay attention to her dancing at first.

            “Whoa, how tall is she?” She was easily the tallest trainee I have ever seen, she stood a good few inches taller than Katie and Elizabeth.

            “I’m guessing 5’9”, Tao thinks 5’10”,” Yixing supplied.

            “She’s killing that dance break, I bet she’s the new main dancer for ChecKMate that everyone’s been going crazy over. The company said they were adding someone finally to complete the group, but they didn’t say it was someone from outside the company, maybe she trained at JYP or somewhere else before, I wish I could see her face” Luhan thought out loud. I had to agree; she had a great technique, making everything clear when needed and smooth when appropriate.

            “She’s my dancing and rap partner for our concert, I call her!” I suddenly said, it was funny we got a little free will with this concert. The concert director and the production crew had allowed us to choose our partners out of the new girl group that SM was putting together.

            “No can do, I called her already” a smug voice came from out of nowhere, and we all looked to see Jongin strutting down the hall.

            “How? She’s new,” Dang he moves fast, but that’s Jongin for you.

            “I told our manager as soon as I heard she came here from America this morning,” He looked like he was going to say more, but we all interrupted

            “AMERICA!?” Then we realized we had spoken a bit louder than was safe and the seven of us looked into the practice room.

            They were all staring at us, the twelve prettiest girls in the company, but I only focused in on one.

            The new girl, she started at me with dark brown eyes, hair falling straight as silk around her face.           

            She was breathtakingly beautiful, just like all the other girls in the room. There was something different about this new girl though. She wasn’t the kind of I-try-to-look-perfect kind of beautiful, it was the natural beauty, the kind where you know she would only look without make-up, without effort.

            “I call her” I told them in quick English. I waved to the new girl, in hopes that I would be able to keep true to my declaration.