“Hello, my name is Lee Seoyoon.  Today is Friday, March 31, 2000, and I’ll be presenting my song and my two dances today.”  I bowed to the panel of judges and took a deep breath before starting to sing.

A month had passed.  Now, I was going through evaluations for the first time.  Every day I had spent at SM for the past month had been more or less the same: school in the mornings, practice in the afternoons, homework during dinner, and practice for the rest of the night.  School took up most of my time during the weekdays, so I spent the weekends practicing from early in the morning to late at night.

Everything was stressful for me.  Aside from singing and dancing, I had to learn how to act, rap, and speak at least two foreign languages.  Although my English was already proficient, having lived in the States for most of my summers, I still took English classes at SM, along with Chinese and rapping classes.  I decided to join my art school's drama club.  With all the classes I was taking, I barely had any free time.  I was only twelve, and yet I found myself practicing until past midnight: struggling to perfect my routine, struggling to hit the right notes, struggling to memorize the list of Chinese vocabulary words.  Struggling to cope with all the pressure.

Now I understood why Haneul seemed so grumpy all the time.  The others were alright: even though I could tell they were just as stressed as I was, they managed to carry on with their lives in a normal fashion.  But there was something different about Haneul.  As the end of the month approached, she either completely ignored or snapped at everyone in the dorm whenever they spoke to her.

Haneul didn’t have any practices with me, but when I left SM at around 12:30 A.M every day, I would sometimes see her in one of the practice rooms, hard at work.  She never talked about her personal life, but it was obvious that she wanted to debut more than anything.  I would see her staying behind during lunch, talking with one of the instructors.  The doors were soundproof and I couldn’t make out their words, but from the way her eyes flashed determinedly as the instructor spoke to her, I could tell that their conversations were about something immensely important to her.

Boa and Haneul became my role models.  The two of them were entirely different people.  Boa was warm and friendly towards everyone she talked to, whereas Haneul was more secluded and distant.  However, they had one thing in common: a huge amount of determination to debut.  I resolved to be just like them.

But since I never felt particularly comfortable when I was around Haneul, I turned to Boa for help whenever I needed it.  Since she actually had a chance of debuting, she was practicing even later than I was. We would practice together sometimes.  I would give her tips on dance and she would give me tips in vocals.  In this way, we slowly became good friends.

During and after practices, Hyukjae and the instructors would tell me that I was doing well, better than they expected from a girl my age.  But other than that small amount of praise, no one else ever talked to me during practice.  Or after practice, for that matter.  The others would talk and laugh and joke with each other, but whenever I tried making conversation, they never treated me the same way they treated each other.  Hyukjae would talk to me after practice and we would practice together most nights, but he usually didn’t go out of his way to approach me during practice, even though we were friends.

A lot of the time, I felt like I was invisible, as if my presence during dance practice always went unnoticed.  It saddened me.  Was I really that bad at dance and was I slowing them down?  Why didn’t they want to talk to me?  Was it because I was a girl?  Was it because I was so much younger than them?  I wanted to make friends with the others in my dance class, but they obviously didn't want to.

The rest of my classes were alright.  There were more girls my age, and we would sometimes talk about our personal lives.  The atmosphere, although just as stressful, was considerably less icy than the atmosphere in the dance studio.  But this wasn’t what I had visualized when I had first entered SM.  Competition was intense, and I knew that many people were sometimes reluctant to help each other because it would decrease their own chances of debut.  But more often than not, I would see the rest of the guys in my dance class helping each other.

Why wasn’t I ever included?

A lot of the time, I felt like I didn’t matter.  A pang of sadness stabbed at me, causing my eyebrows to furrow slightly.

Then I remembered that I was in the middle of my evaluation and I blinked twice in rapid succession, forcing myself to concentrate.

You can’t think like that, Seoyoon-ah.  What does it matter what they think?  I know you’re disappointed because you’re not really making friends in dance, but that doesn’t matter.  You can manage by yourself.  That’s what you’re supposed to do, right?  You’re the only one who can make yourself good enough to debut, and you have to do that alone.  And now’s not the time to worry about these types of things.  Focus on what’s most important right now.

I finished my song and the judges began scribbling on their clipboards.  I sighed inwardly.  Even after a month of vocal practice, I hadn't made significant improvements.  Well, I wasn't worse than I was before.  But I wasn't that much better either.  I needed to work a lot harder.  Failure was unacceptable, I reminded myself.

Instead of getting discouraged, I made myself put all my effort into my dance routines, which I began as soon as the judges finished taking notes.

“Even though SM has really high expectations and they're usually really strict, I’m pretty sure they go easy on trainees who’ve only been there for a month or two.”  Boa’s words from earlier this morning came back to me.  ”They shouldn’t be too hard on you.  But then again, you never know, so try your best.”

But there’s no such thing as ‘your best’, right?  People can always push themselves beyond their limits.  There’s always, always more room for improvement.  That’s what the instructor said.  He must have been right because he’s the instructor, and he knows best.

Perfection, I thought to myself again as I went through the routines I had been practicing all day, every day, for the past two weeks.  I hoped my dance performance would make up for my mediocre vocal performance.

When it was all over and I wrapped up my evaluation, I tried my best not to grimace as I left the room.

My routines had gone alright, but my vocal skills could have been so much better.

I still wasn't good enough.

A frown slowly clouded my face as I headed into an elevator and pressed the button for the second floor.  My vocal instructor wasn’t here today, so I had no one to ask for help.  Instead, I dragged myself to the dance studio, a dark cloud hanging over my head.  At least your dancing skills have improved immensely within the past month, I thought, trying to cheer myself up a little. And it’s not that likely you’ll get kicked out of the company.  Boa said so.

Despite my attempts, I still felt disappointed.  Why wasn't I good enough?  I needed more motivation, I decided.

But at this point, now that the stress that came with preparing for evaluations had temporarily disappeared, I felt my exhaustion catching up to me.  I headed into the practice room, suddenly feeling very tired and frustrated, and collapsed on the couch.

I fell asleep almost immediately, and woke up later with a throbbing headache.

As I slowly pushed myself off of the couch and landed ungracefully on the floor with a thud, I saw someone sitting against the wall with a small stack of textbooks.

“Hyukjae?”  My eyes gradually focused and allowed me to make out the outline of the skinny boy.  “What are you doing here?”

“What does it look like?”  He emitted a small scoff.  “Homework.  Now that evaluations are over, I finally have a bit of time to take care of the rest of my life.”

“Hmm,” I muttered, getting up from the ground and stretching.  Hyukjae went back to his homework and I stood around for a little while, not knowing exactly what to do because I didn't have a new routine to practice and I didn’t feel like going over my old ones.  “So how do you think you did?”  I said after a minute.  “On the evaluation, I mean.”

His bony shoulders moved up and down.

“Alright, I guess.  What about you?”

“I felt like I could have done better,” I admitted.  “My vocals still aren’t that great and I don’t know how to improve.”

“Well, I would help you on that too, but I’m not exactly a good vocalist either.”  He shot me a glance.  “I can only dance and rap.  There’s not a lot of other things I’m good at.”

“Same,” I said absentmindedly.  Silence settled between us and I headed to the middle of the room.  I glanced at the clock and raised my eyebrows in surprise.  It was already half past four.  Evaluations had started at nine in the morning, and I remembered finishing mine before one in the afternoon.  I had apparently forgotten to eat lunch.

I glanced back at Hyukjae and a plastic container on his lap caught my eye.  It was filled with sliced apples.  My stomach growled and I headed over to him.

“Hey, Hyukjae, can I have some of your apples?  I haven’t eaten lunch.”

He glanced up in surprise and stared at me for a little while.

“But aren’t you gonna go back to your dorm for dinner?  Or the cafeteria?  We’re gonna eat in one or two hours anyways.  Can’t you wait until then?”

I stared back in surprise.  Why was he being like this?

“But I really am hungry.  I haven’t eaten since six or seven this morning.  Besides, it’s only an apple.  Can I please have some?”

To my surprise, his face hardened.  Slowly, almost reluctantly, he passed over a small slice of apple.  I put it into my mouth and chewed on it, giving him a strange look the entire time.  His expression had turned darker and more annoyed and I narrowed my eyes.

“What’s with you?”  I said at last.

“Nothing,” he said shortly, keeping his eyes on his homework.

“No, seriously.  What’s with you?  It’s only a piece of apple.”

He didn’t say anything.

“There’s no need to be so stingy, Lee Hyukjae.”  I felt myself getting more and more frustrated.  My headache and hunger pangs weren’t helping.

“I’m not being stingy,” he retorted.  “What do you want?  The entire thing?  Fine, you can have the entire thing if you want.”  He held the container out towards me and I stepped back, biting my lip.

“What the-- I never said I wanted the entire thing."  I made a face.  “Are you going deaf or something?”

“Yah!  Lee Seoyoon!”  He yelled out of the blue.  I jumped in shock and took another step back.

“What?  What did I do?”  I said indignantly.  “It’s literally one, tiny, measly piece of apple.  “Why are you so mad at me all of a sudden?”

His fingers dug into the palm of his hand and he glared up at me.  I bit my lip, suddenly feeling very upset.  What had I done wrong?  Did he hate me like all the other people in my dance class did?

‘Okay, okay, fine.  I’m sorry and I won’t ask you for food again.  I’ll just go to the cafeteria right now or something.”  I dipped my head to him and began to walk out.  I was almost at the door when he called out to me again.

“No, don’t go.”

I turned my head back.

“What now?”  I said rather harshly, causing him to flinch

“Don’t look at me like that.  I’m sorry.  It’s just that-- I--”  He swallowed and my gaze softened.

“Yeah?”

“I come from a not very--”  He stumbled.  “My family isn’t that-- that well off,” he said quietly.  “And we don’t usually have a lot of food to go around.  That’s why-- it’s hard for me to--”  He made a vague hand gesture and my eyes widened both in embarrassment and guilt.

“Oh,” I said quietly as I finally understood what he had meant.  I had never had financial issues because my dad was the CEO of two companies.  “I didn’t know.”  My voice sounded quiet and weak.  I glanced down at the ground and shifted my feet.  “I’m sorry for yelling at you like that.”

Hyukjae looked a bit uncomfortable but he shrugged again.

“Me too.  And it’s okay, it’s not that big of a deal.”  He paused and bit his lip, his eyes containing an emotion I couldn’t place a name to.  “Actually, it is.  At least to me, it is.”

Tilting my head to the side, I sat down next to him, leaning back against the wall.

“What do you mean?”

He bit down on his lip and chewed on it for a moment.

“To be honest, there’s multiple reasons I want to debut.  But there’s two big ones.  One, I actually want to perform onstage and be an idol because I’m passionate about dancing and I want to continue doing it.”  There was another hesitation.  “Two, if I do well, then I’ll earn enough money to support my family.  And maybe they’ll get to live a decent life.  I want them to live comfortably, not the way they’re living right now.”

“Oh,” I repeated, not knowing what to say.

“Yeah,” he said quietly.  He cleared his throat and looked back at me.  “So what’s your story?  Any particular reason why you chose to audition for SM?”

Now that I had heard Hyukjae’s backstory, my own reason seemed unimportant.  He had a legitimate reason aside from his own desire to be an idol, whereas I didn’t.  But I still wanted to debut more than anything else.  I began to search my brain for the motivation I needed.  Hyukjae certainly had it.  If Hyukjae was so determined, then I could be that determined too.

“I really like the idea of performing onstage and being an idol.  I got into dance when I was really young but it was only about a year ago that I realized I wanted to make a career out of it.”

“It’s definitely possible for us.  It’s not possible to tell right now because we haven’t been here for very long, but it’s possible that we’ll both debut.”

My ambition flared up even more intensely.  My headache and hunger pangs had vanished, and so had the disappointment and frustration from earlier on.  My brain began whirring in anticipation again as I slowly realized the full meaning of what we had been discussing.

“Come on, Hyukjae.  It’s not ‘possible’, it’ll happen.  Both of us are going to debut one day.  Just wait and see.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Someone certainly has high hopes,” he remarked dryly.

“We’re supposed to set high goals for ourselves.  Don’t you remember what the instructor said?”

“Yeah, but there’s no guarantee we’re going to debut.  If you start out with such high hopes, you’re gonna end up crashing and burning if you don’t achieve what you want.”

“Then I guess I’m gonna have to achieve what I want, right?”  I suddenly felt more determined than I had been before.  I didn’t really understand why, but for some unknown reason, I felt a lot more confident.

You’re going to do this, Lee Seoyoon.

I walked out the room, a new spring in my step.  If Hyukjae was this motivated, he would surely debut.  And if I motivated myself like Hyukjae did, then I was sure to debut.  Right?  My thoughts were spinning too quickly for me to process them, but I was much more energized now.

“Where are you going?”  Hyukjae demanded.

“I’m gonna go practice my routines.”

“What routines?  We literally just finished our evaluations.  We don’t have any new ones, at least not right now.”

“So?  I’m still gonna practice my old routines so I won’t ever forget them.  They might be useful in the future.”

“But why?  We’re gonna be learning at least four new routines a month.  Why do you want to remember the old ones when we should focus on the new ones?”

I turned back to Hyukjae and smiled before I left the practice room.  A flash of inspiration had just hit me.  I knew exactly what I had to do from now on to ensure that the company would notice my skills.  It would make me stand out from the others.  That, combined with my determination, would surely guarantee my debut.

“I’m gonna remember the moves we learned and I’m gonna use some of them to choreograph my own routines.”