December 2008

 “She what?” A woman dressed comfortably in a modest plain dress stared in confusion at the man sitting across from her. They were having dinner at a small restaurant owned by the woman.

With amusement the man in the suit said, “Well Ms. Jung, she’s been accepted to train in order to debut as a singer. You see, Hyelin has extraordinary talent in her. I’m surprised you didn’t know about this”

“She never told m-…I mean I didn’t kno-..I..wha..I mean..how?” the woman looked puzzled at her daughter next to her.  “I didn’t know you could sing!”

“She can act too and with a little bit of schooling I’m sure she will be able to improve greatly” added the man.

“Heh I didn’t know either…but it’s ok right mom?” asked the girl pushing her long brown hair back. “I mean I won’t move to Korea so soon. Mr. Park said I can finish my last year of high school here while I train then after I graduate I’d move to Korea and continue training until I debut! You didn’t know that I can sing but you did know that this has been one of my dreams since I was little!”

“Well….” Hyelin’s mom began

“It has been confirmed that she will debut once she improves enough. We at A-Lim Entertainment strive to be the best. As CEO I promise that we absolutely do not throw ANY of our trainees out into the street. Each of them has a 100% chance of debuting.”

“I gue-“

“Come on mom I promise I won’t back out and I’ll work day and night to succeed”

“As-“

“AND my grades won’t drop! I’ll keep that A- average I have now. Or…or I’ll even improve and try to sort of…..aim for a 4.0 BUT I won’t slack off an-“

“ENOUGH!  Let me talk!”

Hyelin automatically shut and stared at her mother. Mr. Park’s smile faded as he looked anticipating what Ms. Jung was going to say.

“As I was going to say before you interrupted me” she began. “As long as Hyelin graduates high school first, I guess I’ll be okay with let-“

“Yes!” Hyelin jumped out of her seat in glee. She gave a high-five to an also ecstatic CEO Park before he realized what he was doing and sat down, containing his excitement.

“Ahem...well thank you Ms. Jung for your trust, now if you’ll just sign and initial here since Hyelin is still a minor, I would really appreciate it”

---

As soon as CEO Park left, Ms. Jung closed her business for the night and went home with her daughter.

“Okay, out with it” Ms. Jung said placing her coat in the closet. “How did this all happen?”

“Well, you know Joona? She and I went to their auditions as a joke because we always wanted to see how those things went. I was just planning on making a fool of myself for fun so I could say I’ve been to an audition and have a funny memory of it. How were we supposed to know we could sing and act?” Hyelin shrugged.

“We?” Her mother asked.

“Well yea, Joona got accepted too. She can sing but they said it’s something about her voice being perfect for rapping. I don’t know. We both thought we were tone deaf but I guess only singing in front of each other was a bad choice…”

Her mother sighed and shook her head, “You’re forgetting that your late father used to be a back up vocalist in musicals”

“Oh...right..” Hyelin looked down. Her father had passed away when she was just a baby, she could rarely remember his face. “Hmmm well, I guess I always thought I took after you~” Hyelin smiled.

“I did too…wait... HEY!” Hyelin ran up the stairs to her room laughing before her mom even processed that information.

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End Chapter 2