The first time she had seen him had been through a computer screen.

It had been only a few weeks before Red Velvet was scheduled to debut, and yet Seulgi couldn't bring herself to feel nervous, just strangely calm and at ease. The past few years had been pretty harsh already, and now that she was finally close to reach one of her goals, everything felt almost monotone. Or maybe she was overthinking too much, it was Sunday, after all, and the company had given the girls a day off since all they had been doing on the past weeks was rehearse over and over again. No wonder she was bored out of her mind.

Joy had stopped by to have lunch but couldn't stay for long since she had to study for some math exam before summer break, and no one seemed eager enough to help her on that.

Irene had suggested going to the cinema, but they all felt unmotivated at the thought of having to get up from the sofa. Soon enough, the boredom had gotten to her head.

"What if...they don't like us?"

"Who?" Seulgi asked distractedly as she kept flipping through the TV channels.

"The public, netizens-"

"Honestly Irene, who cares about netizens nowadays?" Wendy said without taking her eyes off from the Macbook before her.

"I do, and you should as well. The netizens are part of the public, and we need to impress said public in order to have a successful debut."

"I don't know about you, but I worked hard enough to train under SM to have at least a tiny bit of sure that my debut wouldn't fail." Seulgi tossed the remote control aside after giving up on trying to find something watchable. "You need to stop worrying so much, Irene." She flicked Irene's forehead as an emphasis. "I know the title of leader is probably already getting to your head, but you need to calm down. We've done it, let's just enjoy for now."

Irene remained quiet as she sighed and headed to their mini kitchen. Seulgi knew that she was only trying to look after the group, but she didn't want to start worrying herself before even debuting, that could certainly wait for now. Maybe they should have gone to the movies, after all, at least it could have distracted them from any troubled thoughts.

Wendy broke the tension on the room by suddenly snorting loudly.

"Well, well...I guess it's true, then."

"What are you talking about?" Irene had returned with a cheesecake and a set of porcelain plates given as a gift from her parents when Red Velvet officially moved to their dormitory. She truly treasured such moments where they could gather together and eat on the fancy set, much like a mother would.

"I'm talking about the reason we're debuting sooner than originally planned." Wendy kept shaking her head in dismay while looking at the Macbook screen.

"Not this again, Wendy, please." Irene rolled her eyes as she delicately cut the cheesecake in three even pieces.

"Wait...What are you two talking about?" Seulgi felt out of place towards the matter at hand. Truly, they had been originally sche