I obviously remembered the time when I signed the contract, the black ink that formed curves of my professional signature. If only I knew what was the meaning behind all those regulations. It was my fault. It was my carelessness that made me live a life like this now. I chose a two decade year job span and I regretted doing that.

I handed in the contract together with Jaesung. We went there the exact time we’ve been there a week ago and sure enough we saw Mr. Eunkwang. He was chilling on his seat, reading a newspaper with a mug of coffee on his table. He was pleased that we agreed to the terms and conditions. In fact he was so happy that he even treated us coffee. I guess he was an out-going man of some sort.

Ah, I forgot to mention. He informed us that we’ll start being official SM trainees starting tomorrow and hell were we excited about it. The day came and I tried to look as good as possible. I tried tons of fancy outfits which I later thought it looked lame so I ended up with pretty casual clothes. I told Jaesung that my driver will pick him up at his house and when we did, he was just wearing a tracksuit and a tee. His house was a simple yet comfortable looking terrace with a small yard. I love his golden retriever by the way.

We reached the agency and my driver dropped us off. The sophisticated lady was there again and she told us to go to the floor we’re required to. The hallway of the floor only leaded to one opaque glass door. I let Jae opened it since he was so bouncy and excited. He opened just a little and peaked through it.

“Yah… Open it full. I want to see what’s inside too.” I sort of whined.

It wasn’t long until he shut the door back with an ‘eep’.  I was curious so I opened the door making about ninety percent of the people in the room stare at me. I bowed down to all of them. Then I saw a tall, lean guy in a black singlet, showing his muscles perfectly. There were a few other men around him but the tough guy stood out of the crowd.

The said guy looked at me with his sharp eyes. I bowed down, since I was taught that it was the most important thing to do when meeting someone regardless of your age – I even do that in other countries. He smiled, looking satisfied and walked closer to me. I realized everyone’s eyes were on us as if we’re the star of some show. As he got closer, he seemed a lot thinner than I thought.

“That kid behind you. Who is he?”

“Park Jaesung and I am Kim Joonmyun.”

 “I didn’t ask about you.” He responded back coldly. What the heck. Was he some kind of a lead gangster over here?

“You didn’t bow to me.” He looked at Jaesung. I knew Jae can get nervous and shy sometimes, well most of the times, so I nudged my elbow likely at him but he still froze.

Slap.

“Heh. Maybe that ought to snap you out of it.”

Jaesung face turned to the right. His cheek was slowly turning red as his blood rushed in. The room was filled with silence. No one dared to say a thing, well except me.

“Yah!!!”

The slapper looked at my direction and grabbed my collar. I didn’t say anything. More like I couldn’t say anything. My breath was hitched and I felt suffocated.

“How dare you raise your voice at me!?”  He growled, throwing me down. I landed on the cold ground with a thud. I did mention that he was thin but I also did mention he had muscles. And I wasn’t a very athletic person, you see. I coughed several times before standing back up. I saw the guy about to do whatever crap to Jae again. And again, I yelled at him.

He stared at Jae and spat ‘You’re lucky you have an idiot that cares for you.’ Or something like that at his face. I wasn’t sure what he said because the next I knew he was coming for me. I wanted to run but I was the one who asked for this in the first place, so I couldn’t. I need to stop what I created. He smirked before punching me once in the gut, causing me to groan out loud. I managed to see Jae’s shocked and guilty face before I fell on m knees, clenching the area between my stomach and bottom ribs tightly.  

“Let this be a lesson for all you ers.” He shouted, making sure everyone in the room could hear every single word he said. The blonde head looked at me before crouching down on my level and pinched my cheek softly.

“You just have to respect seniors then everything would be fine. It’s a tradition here, you see. Sorry that you didn’t know.” He whispered, mimicking a cute voice – that sounded so disgusting in my opinion – before smirking and standing back up.

“Okay. Show’s over. Get back to work!” probably one of the seniors said that and everyone went scurrying off, leaving me there on the cold, hard floor. Jae obviously came to me. He asked me for about a hundred times whether I was okay and I really wanted to say ‘No, idiot it hurts so bad, can’t you see?’  But I, of course, didn’t.

He helped me got up and all of a sudden, my friend got so enthusiastic to go complain what just happened. I didn’t stop him but I can’t help thinking about how long have all these ‘bullying trainees’ cases started. It seemed like it begun long ago since Mr. Lead Gangster told him that it was a tradition here. If it did start off long ago, surely someone in their right mind would have complained to the staffs or boss?

To our luck, we saw Mr. Eunkwang whose back was facing us. He was taking to some another fat and rich looking man. We ran to him – more like limped in a fast way since Jae was helping me walk – and soon, my friend was shouting his name, calling out to him.

“Mr. Eunkwang sir! I have come to report to you that Joonmyun-hyung had been punched hard. He didn’t even do anything and this guy just punched him!” He explained, well maybe not truthfully because I in fact did do something, but to him I guess it seemed that way.

“Hmm. They’ve gotten less rough this year, huh?” Mr. Eunkwang’s friend (I guess) questioned as he sipped his coffee.

“Don’t underestimate this year’s batch, sir.” Our contract dealer told the other. He then looked at us – me actually – and said,

“You’ve just have to respect them then everything will be fine. You guys need to be disciplined enough to become idols, am I right?”

Both of us were speechless. By now the pain was starting to numb, I felt a little better as I stood up straight without the help of Jae. I looked at the man’s eyes and knew that he was serious. With that, I have nothing else to say, grabbed my dongsaeng, feeling raged at Mr. Eunkwang and the other man, and led Jae out.

 I understood completely. This so called ‘respect’ thingy had gone too far a long time ago and trainees probably kept complaining until the staffs of the agency got immune to it. It must’ve started when a group of seniors started this and then the next batch seniors would do the same thing and so ona and then became some sort of tradition.

I wonder whether Jaesung understood why.

“Hyung… I don’t understand why.” He whined. Well, that was easy. Did he read my mind or something? It took some time to explain to him but by the time we reached at the (now scary) floor again.

“So what do we do, hyung?”

“Nothing, I guess…”

Bullying was kind of a common thing in our school – I knew cause I had to deal with the tons of reports – but all of them only lasted for a while, two weeks at most. I silently hope for this to last as long as the cases in school. We paused in front of the glass door, hesitating to open it but eventually we did. We entered it at once, ready to brace for whatever was waiting behind that door but nothing ever came. We just saw a guy in a white sweatshirt. He had long straight hair that reached Adam’s apple. He looked like a normal, healthy teenage boy. The boy had slightly squinted eyes and an innocent expression but we weren’t going to be fooled by that.

The both of us – me and Jae of course – bowed down as soon as we saw him.

“You guys are new, aren’t you? Follow me. This room is for this year’s new comers.” He smiled and led us to one of the six doors inside the room. He had a nice voice. It was sweet. We bowed and say thank you and followed him.

He pause his tracks before he opened the green door and looked back at us. For a second I thought he was going to hurt us or something and Jae was probably thinking the same thing – since he was shutting his eyes tight. Instead, we hurt a chuckle and I saw him pat Jae’s head gently.

“I’m not going to hurt you. I’m new here too.” He looked at me.

“How are you? I-I should have helped.” He said with a little guilty look on his face.

“I’m fine. Let’s hurry. We don’t want to hold you up… uh…” I hesitated then asked his name.

“Ah, mianhe. I forgot to introduce myself.” He scratched his head with a smile.

“My name is Lee Jinki. A pleasure to meet you.”