Trainee. Even I couldn’t help but be repulsed by the word.

While my sister was off promoting in the beautiful country of Japan, I was stuck here, in this stupid practice room, practicing a dance that I will never even show to the public. Of course, I’m not treated with any respect in this place, and I’m always the one bowing to everybody and smiling through my grimace. Sometimes I even wonder why I’m here in the first place, and then I look at the wall to only see my sister’s face plastered in a laminated poster, and an inferno blazes in my heart.

Right, I have to be better than her.

 “Ow.” I glance at the source of the tinge of pain I felt. Turns out I accidentally whacked my elbow on the wall while doing spins across the floor. Oops.

 I look up, and the clock signals that it’s almost 4 a.m. in the morning. Have I been practicing all this time…?

 “Should I ditch school and sleep in, and then practice later? Or should I just go to school?” I seriously ponder. “Whatever. I’ll decide once I wake up.” I set up an alarm, waking up earlier because my school was farther than the practice building, giving me time for getting ready and to commute, and I swiftly drift to sleep.

“Because if we just walk together like this/wherever we go, it’ll be heaven.”

The sweet tones of EXO’s (unreleased) song, “Angel,” tingled in my ears before I had the consciousness to get up.

“I’ll go to school. Why not?” I mumbled and carelessly pat around the area for my bag and other supplies.

With a sullen, tired expression, I walked across the halls of Kent International. Oh, the affects of only an hour of sleep. I didn’t even notice my friend, Amber, walk up to me with an unusually excited expression. “Hey, Krystal!”

I gave a soft, tired smile. “Hey.” Amber was my best friend; we were both trainees and spoke English fluently. We were always paired up with each other because we weren’t that fluent in Korean at first, and from those moments on, we had an inseparable bond.

“Dude, did you hear? We actually have free access to EXO’s pre-debut showcase!”

“Um, who’s that again?” I listlessly ask. The girl stared at me with an expression that seemed...incredulous.

“Um, they’re part of the SM brand?” She cocked her head, causing strands of her boyish haircut to adjust to an unfamiliar position. She sighed and continued on after recognizing my confused expression. “They’re a group of twelve people who are gonna debut soon. They’re divided by EXO-K and EXO-M. And coincidentally, they’re walking this way. Don’t turn around.” She stopped abruptly, and changed her serious expression to a dreamy one. I accidentally turned around, but my expression was unfazed. Amber looked at me as if I were delirious.

“Krystal, yo, I said don’t turn around.” I swiveled back and gave her a y stare. “What’s so great about them?” I wrinkled my nose in disgust. I didn’t really care about pretty boys that are bound to be famous; I wanted to defeat my sister in those popularity ranking polls one day. These boys had nothing to do with me, other than being in the same entertainment company. I walked away from Amber to head to class, until a painful jostle to my shoulder interrupted my gait. “What the hell?” I hissed. A handsome dude glared back at me, and didn’t even bother to help me with my books. Rude.

I sighed, and solemnly pulled myself back together. I was kind of on the edge, with schoolwork and the upcoming trainee showcase and all.

A voice interrupted my thoughts. “Jung Soojung.” I looked up and saw a bespectacled, old woman, with the aura of a dogmatic teacher. “Can you sort these files for me?” I took a glance at the papers, and set my lips in a straight line. Why me? Today’s just not my day.

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A/N: <3

i actually wanna try to make the story in a way that the text is unselectable. do any of you guys know how to do it? :3