“Contestant number 455?” The announcement boomed from the big, loud speakers in the hallway. Hyeri squeaked a little and calmed her nerves down. In just after 3 more contestants, she was going to be up next, auditioning for W*ollim Entertainment. This wasn’t her first time auditioning- she’d auditioned many times before at other companies, the more major ones, but she really wanted to get all the possibilities of passing at least one of them.

She took a deep breath and talked to herself- she didn’t normally, only when she was nervous or very angry. Her insides felt like they were going to flip over and come out any minute. She had to keep shut and keep talking sips of her cool water, before tapping lightly on her chest again and taking in a few more deep breaths. This was more nerve-wrecking than finding out her results for the school she was currently in. She was more nervous than her first date with her boyfriend (which she’d broken up with now, by the way).  Hyeri could feel butterflies in her stomach and she just couldn’t placate herself. Where was Chanyeol when you needed him?

You see, Chanyeol had been Hyeri’s friend for a couple of years now. He was really supportive towards her and he would always be there for her in a brotherly sort of way.  Whenever she needed help or condolence or when she wanted to share her joy with someone, she’d always only turn to him most of the time. He normally had a charismatic aura around him when he was rapping, but he was actually really sweet and funny and he was sometimes very talkative too. Currently, she needed his words and his presence to placate her, but he was off somewhere else, buying her another drink.

She cursed again, before she saw no. 455 coming out with an uneasy expression on her face. The loud speakers made another announcement, startling the candidates who were waiting patiently in the waiting room. Hyeri closed her eyes and opened them again, to see if Chanyeol had somehow magically appeared yet. He hadn’t. She shook her head and gulped, talking another uneasy sip of her drink.

“It’s going to be fine. Seriously, what’s the worse they could do? The worse is only failing and that’s fine, because you’ll still have other chances.” She uttered to herself.

“Oh no… but what if… I fail all the other ones as well? Then I’ll have nowhere to go to and I’ll just be crying to myself and I’ll-”

“Audition again next year.” She heard a deep voice cutting her from the slightly rising ‘pep talk’ she was giving herself. She turned around to see Chanyeol holding two cans of ice coffee. He had his eyebrows raised and he seemed to scoff at her slightly before advancing towards her.

“Here,” he handed over one of the cans which he’d opened for her. “Drink this, and you’ll be fine.” She ‘pfft-ed’ and drank a huge amount before turning to him angrily all of a sudden and hissing, “Anyway, what took you so long? Is it that hard to get two ice coffees?!”

“Hey! Don’t blame me; you’re not the only one who’s wetting her pants because of some audition! Other people are scared out of their wits too and there is a huge queue to build up for it.” He defended himself, holding two arms up in surrender and shaking his head a bit. She gave him a little glare and muttered a “whatever” under her breath. “It’s easy for you to say, you’ve passed all this crazy madness!” Chanyeol shot a look at her, before pressing down on his cap once more. Yes, he’d passed the SM audition a couple of years ago and he was currently shooting off into stardom. Hyeri had been his friend for ages and she was there for him when he auditioned, so he wanted to be there for her, as usual. It just took him a lot of time to cover and hide himself completely, but nevertheless he was happy to accompany his friend on this special ‘occasion.’

Just then, another girl came out crying unexpectedly and Hyeri couldn’t help but feel dizzy. She didn’t know how she managed to survive all the other ones before, but she certainly didn’t feel like she was going to make it to the end with this one. She snapped her head towards Chanyeol with alarmed eyes and was shaking frantically.

“Oh no. Chanyeol, I’m on after this person.” She jerked her head toward the shaking male who had just gone in a tad uneasily.

“Don’t worry. You’ll be fine. Besides, what did your beloved Hoya sunbae say to you?” He mocked, sneering, earning a bash on the arm from Hyeri. He was referring to the video messages that Infinite had sent out to all their fans and audition candidates who were trying out for Wollim. Her bias had been Hoya as of the moment, and although she was a vocalist, she’d awed at Hoya’s advice the most. When she first saw Infinite on the huge screen ahead of her, she knew it was going to be about the auditions held soon. They had started off with their greetings as usual and each member had gone round, nodding a smile of reassurance and giving the audience a few tips to ‘start them off.’ Then they’d given a ‘Hwaiting!’ as usual at the end, and finished with another bow.

“Oh shi-uugar,” she almost cursed, after realising that she was next, once more and she began to warm up her vocal cords, once more. She sang her scales on a random note, holding her stomach tightly and lifting her head high to let out the best possible sound yet. She beamed slightly and Chanyeol clapped for her.

“Good, now you’re all ready aren’t you, remember all your lyrics and everything?” he nodded at her, looking her in the eye.

“Before you go, I’ll say something to you. Don’t be nervous. I know you can’t not be, but just think- if you fail, which you probably won’t, you might have passed all the other tons of auditions you’ve already done, and