The next few months were a drag, mostly because Taemin didn't visit the SM building at all, offering mundane excuses such as: "We're in Osaka for our Japan Concert" and "Wow, Europe is great for photoshoots" and "Sorry Jonginnie~ I'm going to the hospital because we were at this circus, and the trapeze artists chose Jinki-hyung as a volunteer. It was actually really cool seeing him fly around like that, but then afterwards he slipped on a peanut shell and injured his nose bridge."

SM kept Jongin busy though, announcing that his debut was imminent. Each day was spent shuttling between various rooms, practicing this, preparing that, and so forth. What was quite pleasing was that Jongin had been given eleven backup dancers (even though some of them were far below his standards, he magnanimously accepted them). They occasionally appeared in his teasers, and worked with him on his songs. In fact, while recording and filming his music videos, they even sang most of it which was great because this allowed Jongin to focus on his y dance moves.

As such, even though they weren't Taemin and therefore Jongin didn't divvy too much of his attention to them, he was decently satisfied.

One day, he received a call to appear for a meeting to decide his official debut name. The backup dancers sat in a circle around the table, together with manager-hyung and a few other high-ranking executives. How nice, thought Jongin, that so many people would come and help him choose a name.

"It should be something catchy, something with international appeal," said one of the directors, "Simple, but memorable. Maybe a futuristic sounding name."

"How about UFO?"

"No, that's too common. I think it should be called GeneX. It's a cool name that those young people would like."

"I say it should be a combination of letters. Maybe TMD?"

"I know," someone snapped his finger. "How about ENDO? It can stand for 'Everyday; No Days Off' to signify how hardworking our idols are."

The was a pause as everybody tried rolling the name off their tongues.

"ENDO?"

"ENDO sounds good."

"Easy to spell, easy to say. I like it."

To be honest, Jongin hadn't been paying much attention to the conversation because his two hands were having a finger *dance battle* on the table. His right hand was dominating the left hand. He snickered. Just like how he would dominate over Taemin.

"How should we differentiate between China and Korea?"

"Let's just stick with what we chose for Super Junior."

"ENDO-M and ENDO-K?"

Here, Jongin's ears perked up. Two names for him? How strange. But then again, perhaps it was part of SM's new marketing strategy to take over Asia the world. He shrugged and said, "Yeah, sure, it sounds good to me."

(The next day, it was discovered that ENDO was actually copyrighted by some little troupe of dancing pigs named Every Night, Do the Oink, so the managers quickly changed  the name to the reverse, which happened to be EXO, and left it at that.)

Part of his preparations for debut included moving into a new company-provided dormitory. The apartment was incredibly spacious, with a large living room and multiple bedrooms. In fact, Jongin found it quite excessive but hey, who was he to complain? He quickly sought out the largest room and deposited himself on one of the two beds, closing his eyes.

"Uh, hello?"

Jongin jerked awake, sitting up. Across from him was another boy, one of the backup dancers, meticulously arranging pictures on the wall. What was he doing here?

"Sorry," said Jongin, because he was raised a polite boy and as such felt inclined to preface his sentence thusly. "But what's your name again?"

The boy blinked and rubbed his head. "Um...I'm Kyungsoo and er...I'll be sharing this room with you."

"Oh, is that so? I was under the impression I would have my own room."

"I think we're all sharing rooms."

"We?"

At this point, another one of the backup dancers walked into the room. "Oh, good. Nice to see you two settling in. I was just about-"

"Who is this?" Jongin asked Kyungsoo, because he was really not okay with so many people just strolling into his apartment as if they belonged there.

"Oh...that's Suho. He's our leader."

To say the least, the conversation that followed was one of the more informative ones Jongin had had in a while. As he lay in bed, with the kid called Kyungsoo snoring faithfully across from him, Jongin pondered if maybe he should start paying a bit more attention to manager-hyung.

Thankfully, he didn't have too long to dwell on the unfortunate circumstances because soon after the official debut of EXO, Jongin received news that Taemin would be dropping by. At last, an opportunity for the ultimate dance showdown! He raced to the SM building after a hearty and nutritional breakfast of whole-grain Wheaties and pre-packaged fried tofurky (which admittedly was quite delicious. He needed to remember to thank Jinki-hyung for that), arriving just as the clock struck seven.

Jongin began by checking the dance rooms. Not this one, or this one, or this one, or-oops judging from the screams, that was the girls' changing room- or…

He closed a door. And then did a double take. Cracking the door open again revealed a mostly dark room lit only by a blinking computer screen. There was a calm, meditative mantra echoing through the room; chants in some strange language he didn't understand. Weird. Jongin's Taemin-radar was pinging all over the place.

Upon squinting, Jongin recognized a familiar figure sitting cross-legged with his back to the door.

"Aha! Found you! Let's have our dance- wait, what are you doing?"

Taemin turned around slowly, eyes glinting. "Taoism," he chirped.

Jongin took a few seconds to manually process this new piece of information. Nope, just like trying to chew through stale squid, it wasn't happening. "What?"

"See? Look!" And Taemin proceeded to show him a video compilation of what looked like one of his backup dancers fellow members, the odd-looking Kung-fu panda one, flipping through the air.

"Wow, I wish I could do that…" Taemin sighed dreamily, clasping his hands together. "Tao is just so amazing."

Jongin was gone before Taemin could finish the thought. If he can do it, I can do it, thought Jongin, incensed, as he located an empty room. I'll show Taemin.

The next day, when Jongin showed up to EXO's practice with an injured waist and dark circles under his eyes, Suho opened his mouth. He snapped it shut immediately after Jongin glared at him, and then at the one called Tao who shrank back pathetically into a corner.

Next time...Just you wait, Taemin, I'm coming for you.