I’m thinking about acting. What do you think, future me? Should I give it a shot? Or did I already give it a shot? I mean, I think I’m so good at acting that nobody around me could differentiate between a façade and what’s real. Well except that Jackson Wang. He’s the only one who noticed but that only happened once. I took extra precautions whenever he’s around just in case and I think its working.

Congratulations Kim Yoonae, you have succeeded in the art of deceiving.

I show what I want people to see and conceal what I don’t want them to see. I got so used to doing this that it’s become second nature for me. I’m not happy about it but I’m contented. I’m doing this for the best. What about you? Are you still “acting” or did you become “real”? I sincerely hope that everything’s changed by five years. Five years is a long time after all.

I hope you’re happy.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry five-years-from-now Yoonae.

I’m sorry for making this letter confusing. I’m sorry for talking about my insecurities in one part then suddenly talk about him in the next part then suddenly talk about how hard it is to be a trainee in the other.

I’m sorry for not knowing why I’m writing this letter.

I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry for making you regret. I’m sorry for giving you more problems. I’m sorry for making you go through everything. I’m sorry for being a mess. I’m sorry for being a disappointment. I’m sorry for hurting both of us. I’m sorry if all I could do as of now is to make sure that there will be a five-years-from-now Yoonae and I’m sorry if I’m hopelessly failing at it.

It hurts, you know? I’m not only talking about being a fake to everyone; I’m talking about everything. All this hurts. An English teacher mentioned that we our too young to think about all this, that we are too young to complain about life and how life is beautiful but I have to disagree. No one is too young to have problems and think about it. Complaining is a natural reaction of humans to things we don’t like and who likes problems? Surely, no one. Then there’s that thing about life. Life . Life  has two sides to it: the good and the bad.  Sadly, the bad is forever inevitable and we are all bound to it – some having it worse than others while some having it better than others. The bad blinds everyone it consumes; it eats all that it could get its hands on. I’m not saying that I disagree that life is beautiful but as of now, as of my perspective, I can’t see beauty in life.

I am being blinded slowly by grief, by loneliness, by darkness and all I want is to be able to see the beauty life has to offer once again.

Are you crying right now like me? Knowing you, you probably started crying the moment you read this letter. I hope you’re crying because you're happy that you went through all this. 

Maybe that's why I'm writing this letter – to make you look back and tell yourself that it's okay to cry because yes, your past is sad but it’s the reason why you were able to finally see the beauty in life.

ⓡⓞⓛⓛⓘⓝⓖ♧ⓢⓣⓞⓝⓔ

We continued practicing when one of the mentors scolded us for being too noisy and told us that we should set our priorities straight which is preparing for the monthly assessment.

We all bowed while muttering half-hearted 'sorrys'. I glanced at Ji-U and noticed that she was annoyed because someone was being a party pooper. I chuckled to myself at my friend’s funny reaction. I swear this girl is the best.

Before leaving, the mentor gave us one last warning look. As soon as we knew that the coast was clear, we all started laughing and started fooling around again. Ji-U stood up and a serious expression was plastered on her face that everyone stopped fooling around and looked at her curiously.

“Ya! What the hell do you think you guys are doing?! The monthly assessment is nearing and you’re just fooling around! The company doesn’t need people who can’t set their priorities straight so if all of you want to stay, then know your priorities!” Ji-U shouted at us.

At first we were confused about the sudden outburst and the sudden change of character of our friend but then we realized that she was just making fun of the mentor that came awhile ago. We all started laughing because Ji-U’s imitation skills were on point.

I saw Minyoung laughing so hard that she was lying down on the floor; hand on her stomach, with tears threatening to fall anytime soon. We all stopped laughing to watch her laugh her off. She then stopped laughing when she realized that we were looking at her with incredulous looks on our faces. Then we all started laughing once again and I could’ve sworn that my face was as red as a tomato due to all the laughter.

“Oh my god Yoonae! You look like a tomato!” and that was my cue to chill before my head “explodes”, as Minseo would like to say.

We all practiced our group performance for two more hours before we decided to take a break again. This time, Minyoung and Minseo were the ones who were assigned to sneak out to buy our food and drinks since Ji-U and I were the ones who did it last time.

After the two Mins got our orders and left the room, I plopped down on the floor. I suddenly felt tired. I wasn’t tired in the sense that I was tired because we practiced for hours. I was just tired. I noticed that I was becoming tired more often than before and it was worsening each minute. I didn’t know why I felt that way or maybe I did but denied the fact but I’d rather not think of the latter. Denying the fact that I was in a state that I’m in the brink of falling “asleep”, as a favorite author of mine had refer to in one of her books, and I was scared. Once I fall asleep, everything would be like a living hell, not that I’m not in one; this hell I’m living would be worse if I fall asleep. The hard thing is, I wouldn’t know when I would “wake-up”.

“Yoon, lol you okay?” her voice had a tinge of worry. That’s the last thing I’d want to do – make them worry.

“I’m fine. Just thinking if the song for our performance is fine. I mean it’s a diss song and I’m sure that it wouldn’t leave a good impression on PD-nim.” I lied again.

“You have a point there. Lol the part you asked for even contains curse words. Wait. What were you planning to do with that part?” Ji-U asked, now fully aware that I was up to no good, as always.

“I wanted to direct it to bish, I mean Eunsook, but then I realized that that would be stupid and would mean that I’m going down to her level or even going lower. Could we change the song?”

“lol you evil person. Well, at least you didn’t pursue your stupid plan. What song should we do though?”

“I don’t know. I was thinking that we could do something with a deep meaning, you know? It doesn’t have to be about love.” I got my phone and started surfing through the songs I downloaded and then I searched through melon when I didn’t find anything. Ji-U got her own phone and searched through her own phone for any good songs.

When we didn’t find anything that could match our tastes, we just l