After 6 months, the two of them have grown closer. They had celebrated Kibum’s 15^th birthdays together. They watched movies together. They did everything best friends did or at least that’s what they say they are. In other people’s eyes though, they were more than that. Kibum and Nicole would often call each other at night to talk just about anything. They just needed to hear each other’s voice. During the day, they would text each other whenever they can. They’ve become part of each other’s daily lives. Everything was going so well that they had almost forgot that they were idols in training. It was until Nicole and the girls were called into the president’s office.

“Girls. I’m happy to tell you guys that we’ve chosen the four of you to debut together,” he announced. The girls gasped and looked at each other, each of them starting to tear up in happiness.

“For the next 6 months we will be getting ready for your debut. That means starting the recordings for your debut album, practicing the choreography and working two times as hard,” he looked sternly at the girls. “The name of the group is yet to be decided but that is all for now.”

As soon as the girls left the office, they hugged each other and broke into sobs. After working so hard, they’re finally going to become idols. SS501, their sunbaes who knew about the news before, quickly went over to congratulate and counsel them. It had been a while since the girls had seen their oppas in a while because of their schedules. SS501 had debuted not long after the girls joined the company meaning they had been trainees together before. Hyun Joong walked over to Nicole and stood awkwardly in front of her until she looked up at him with tears in her eyes.

“Uh… Congratulations,” he said, sticking his hand up in high five. She smiled and gave him a high five. He smiled and patted on her head like an older brother.

“I think this calls for a celebration!” Jung Min announced. The nine of them cheered happily and headed out for dinner.

When she got home after dinner, the first thing she did was announce the news quickly to her mother who broke down into tears of joy. “My Nicole’s going to be a star.”

“I promise I won’t let you down,” Nicole nodded with tears building up in her eyes again as she hugged her umma. After talking with her mother about her future career, she bid her mother good night and ran into her room, closing the door quietly behind her.

She hopped on her bed and quickly whipped out her cellphone. She had already memorized his number by heart. She sat there almost bouncing on her bed impatiently for him to pick up.

“Who the hell’s calling so late?” A groggy voice said from the other end.

“Omo! Mianhae, Ki!” Nicole gasped forgetting that it was 1 in the morning and that Ki was probably exhausted from practice.

“N-nicole?” he stuttered, immediately changing his tone.

“Mianhae! Did I wake you? I’ll just talk to you tomorrow!” she talked so fast he could barely catch her words.

“No it’s okay? Wassup?” he was dead tired but for whatever reason it was that she’s calling, he was willing to listen.

“I have the biggest news to tell you! Eek!” she screeched.

“Like?”

“President called us into the office and said we were going to debut soon!” she announced, hitting her head with the pillow in happiness.

On the other end of the phone, Kibum shot up from his bed and said, “WHAT?! REALLY? FORREALS?”

“Yeah,” she chirped. “I’m so happy!”

Hearing her so happy made him laugh and smile widely, “I’m so happy for you!”

“Thank you!” The two of them were grinning sheepishly to themselves not saying a thing. “Oh! You should go back to sleep. Sorry for waking you up.”

“It’s okay. I’ll talk to you more tomorrow okay?”

“Okay. Good night,” she said not wanting to hang up yet and she knew that Kibum was waiting for her to hang up first as always. “Ki?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you for being my friend. I don’t feel as lonely anymore. Good night,” she finally said and then quickly hanging up, feeling her cheeks heat up. She’s not the kind of girl to say such cheesy things. She had to press a hand against her chest to keep her heart from jumping out.

Ki slowly took the phone away from his ear. Was it just him or was the room suddenly really hot. He stared at his cellphone’s wallpaper which was a picture of him and Nicole eating ice cream at the beach. The smile on her face always gave him the butterflies.

“Aish! Kim Kibum! Damn you for being so unexperienced with girls!” he scolded himself. He fell back against his bed while pulling the covers over his head but ended up hitting his head on the headboard. “!”

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Their debut came closer, and closer until there was only a month left. Once again, the girls were in the change room after a long day of practice and Nicole was on her phone again. Gyuri, who has been decided as their group leader for KARA, furrowed her brows.

“Texting Ki again?” Sunghee asked. Nicole looked up and grinned.

“Don’t you think you’re becoming too attached?” Gyuri stated bluntly. The three girls turned and looked at her with surprise at her sudden remark.

“What do you mean?” Nicole forced a small smile and pretended not to understand.

“There’s one month left before we debut, maybe you should be less distracted.” Gyuri crossed her arms and leaned against the wall.

“Yah. Just because you’ve been chosen as the leader doesn’t mean you can suddenly start ordering people around,” Seungyeon narrowed her eyes at Gyuri with her arms also crossed.

“Yes I can. As the leader I’m only thinking of the good for the group. We didn’t work this hard for nothing.” She said looking at Nicole with strict eyes. Nicole felt looked away, understanding what those eyes said. She wouldn’t have ever thought of making the selfish choice of bringing their efforts to waste.

“Maybe… you two should talk less often,” Sunghee suggested, putting a hand on Nicole’s shoulder. Even Sunghee was agreeing with Gyuri.

“Sunghee. Are you serious?” Seungyeon looked at her in disbelief.

“I’ll… I’ll try to stop talking to him,” Nicole said, looking at Seungyeon with pleading eyes to stop. She didn’t want the four of them to be having issues with their relationships before they debut.

Seungyeon grabbed her bag in a huff while shooting a glare at Gyuri and stomped out. Nobody spoke a word as Sunghee and Gyuri also grabbed their belongings and left. When Nicole was the only one left in the change room, she let the tears out as her heart clenched tightly in her chest. Ki, was one of the few people she was close to. She knew she would’ve had to make the choice between her dream and him sooner or later but that didn’t mean it was easy for her. Her choice was made a long time ago but she didn’t make the choice for herself; it was made for the group and for her umma.

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It was already 11 p.m. and the SM trainees were finally let out from practice. Minho ran his head under the shower to wash the face from his neck and face. Ki did the same, drying himself with a towel after. He smelled himself and stuck his tongue out. “I smell like crap.”

“Don’t we all,” Jonghyun said pulling on a fresh t-shirt. Onew was pulling on his jeans when he lost balance and fell over.

Minho and Onew were new trainees who just joined them but they were okay. Onew was the clumsy one even though he was the oldest one of the five and Minho was the quiet one. It was true that his face was handsome and perfect but he’s barely spoken more than three sentences over the past three months that he’s joined them.

“The first thing I’m going to do when I get home is shower,” Taemin said, fixing his hair in the mirror. Kibum sprayed himself a couple of times with his deodorant until he was sure that you couldn’t smell the sweat at all.

Beep!

“Someone’s got a text from Ms.Nicole again,” Jonghyun chirped.

A week after they found out that it was a girl that Ki was always texting, Taemin had somehow gotten to his phone and checked his inbox. It wasn’t until Taemin yelled out, “HYUNG’S GIRLFRIEND’S NAME IS NICOLE!” that Kibum snatched his phone back and started pinching Taemin’s cheeks roughly.

Ki quickly opened up his bag and dug out his phone.

“What’d she say?” Taemin asked curiously. When he didn’t answer, the rest of them looked at him wondering why he didn’t say something like “Shut up.” or “None of your business.”

His eyes were wide and he had no smile on his face as he stared at the phone in his hand.

“You okay?” Jonghyun asked, cocking his head to the side. Kibum shoved his phone in his jean pocket, grabbed his bag and raced out without saying a word.

The four boys looked at each other trying to figure out what just happened and shrugged.

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He had tried calling her a few times but she didn’t pick up. Kibum got off the bus stop and sprinted to the front of her house.

I don’t think we should talk anymore.

The words repeated over and over in his head as he ran. He was confused. Everything was fine just a while ago. He didn’t know what to do besides asking her himself. He rang the door bell not caring about whether someone was sleeping or not. When he was going to ring again, the door opened and Nicole came out, shutting the door behind her. “My umma’s sleeping.”

“Mianhae.” He noticed the lack of emotion in her voice and her puffy eyes.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, not looking up at him.

“What happened?” he asked, trying not to become frustrated with the fact that she wouldn’t look at him at all. When she didn’t answer, he said, “Did I do something wrong?”

She shook her head,, still looking at the floor. “Nicole. Look at me.”

He felt his heart drop when she looked up at him with tears streaming down her face. “I’m sorry. I’m going to debut soon and they didn’t want me to be distracted. I had to choose. And you’re a trainee too. If people find out how close we were before we even debuted, it could ruin our image in the future.”

His chest squeezed and he found it hard to breathe without feeling his eyes burn with tears. He understood what that meant. It was her future or him. He didn’t want to be the one to be it hard for her. He knew how hard she had worked for this.

Kibum had to clench his fists to control his voice from shaking as he forced a bitter smile. “I understand. That’s great, your dream’s finally coming true. Maybe we’ll meet each other on stage one day.”

Nicole tears didn’t stop as she hugged him tightly. “I’m sorry, Ki. I’m really sorry.”

Kibum simply stood, not moving a single muscle as she pulled away and walked back into her house with her head hanging.

Nicole dragged herself up the stairs, holding in her sobs until she got to her room, not wanting to wake her umma. She watched from her window as Kibum turned around and left. She didn’t want him to go. She loved him. She really did. But she wasn’t going to ever tell him that because she knew it would only hurt him more. She turned off the lights in her room and crawled into bed, crying into her pillow until her eyes ran out of tears and fell asleep.

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Kibum eyes were empty, his heart felt empty and his mind was empty. Everything was empty. He was like a body with a soul walking down the streets, not aware of anything around him. Until he passed by the bakery.

He was reminded of their first encounter. He remembered her in a pink apron with her hair tied up in a pony tail, calling after people to buy something. He remembered the smile she had on her face even when he was glaring at her. He remembered the familiar feeling he felt when their eyes met.

He remembered how desperately he had wanted to see her again after. And when he did, he couldn’t be any more happier. He remembered how he stood stupidly outside trying to explain to her that he only wanted to buy a cake. He remembered how she addressed him as an ajusshi. And he remembered how surprised the two of them were to see each other again.

It was then that the sadness seeped into him as he stopped and sunk to the floor just outside his house. His head buried in his hands as he shook violently, sobs escaping him from his first heartbreak. Was this fate? Fate for them to meet again but unable to talk. Maybe things would’ve been different if he hadn’t auditioned for SM. Maybe things wouldn’t be like this if he wasn’t an idol in training just like her. His heart felt like it was stabbed more and more as he thought more about it. He loved her. He knew he did. But he did nothing to stop himself even though he knew this was going to happen. And now it’s finally happened. And he can’t do anything about it but sit here and cry.