chaeryeong wasn’t sure if she was fidgeting out of boredom or discomfort. if jyp entertainment was going to impose mandatory 3 hour character-building lessons on all their poor trainees, surely the least they could have done was purchase chairs with a damn backrest. they were practically swimming in money anyway, what with jyp’s knack for fully milking the passionate cash cows (onces) out there.

as it was, producer park jinyoung had been giving a sentimental recount of his illustrious career and the countless invaluable lessons he had learnt for the past 2 hours. as much as chaeryeong respected the man (or tried to), she was completely zoning out at this point, his voice nothing more than forgettable white noise in the background. oh, and had she mentioned that her back was hurting?

chaeryeong sighed inwardly, idly glancing around at her peers scattered all over the cramped room. the front row, rather intuitively, consisted of those who were desperate to get into the producer’s good books. it was little wonder, then, that hwang yeji and shin ryujin occupied the central seats of the front row, backs perfectly straight and looking absolutely riveted by the monotonous drivel. 

it was an open secret at best that yeji and ryujin were essentially confirmed to be part of the next girl group lineup, such was their discipline, sheer hard work and ability to perform when the stakes were high. they were even lined up to participate in some upcoming survival shows, which would only boost their standing among the trainees. it also helped that they were perpetually on their best behaviour and had probably never gotten hit with penalty points.

if chaeryeong were to be completely honest, she knew she had a good chance to debut given her experience, her skills and her prior exposure to the public via sixteen. unfortunately, she wasn’t much of a bootlicker, nor was she much of an early bird. so...penalty points were proving to be a problem.

her wandering gaze fell upon the only girl who had incurred more penalty points than she had this month. fittingly, she was seated right next to chaeryeong in the furthest corner of the last row, nodding off serenely without a care in the world. chaeryeong chuckled fondly. truly only choi jisu could always one-up her when it came to her absolute disregard of authority and consequences.

and then jisu suddenly jerked and slammed her knee hard against the wall next to her. and chaeryeong meant slammed, for it created a loud thump which caused everyone to turn towards their direction. jisu’s face was contorted in pain as she clutched her knee, her eyes desperately boring into chaeryeong’s, presumably in a plea to divert attention away from her.

“sorry for the distraction everyone, i dropped my water bottle on the floor.” chaeryeong directed a sheepish smile the producer’s way, who ended up laughing a little too heartily before instantly diving into another one of his stories involving dropping a microphone. typical.

when everyone was back to laughing politely at jyp’s rather questionable humour, jisu leaned over to subtly whisper in chaeryeong’s ear.

“thanks a lot chae, i kinda...just experienced sleep paralysis earlier.”

it was fortunate that chaeryeong’s incredulous snort was lost amongst the chorus of forced chuckles and claps. wtf choi jisu…

~

chaeryeong was gonna be late to practice. she was gonna get hit with even more penalty points yet again. but well...if it had come to that…she wasn’t gonna miss out on her daily fuel that got her through each day at least.

“one iced americano, please.”

as she twirled her hair around her finger mindlessly while waiting for her beloved coffee, a girl sprawled out across a table in the corner messily caught her attention.

what in the world…chaeryeong frowned disapprovingly at the girl far away in dreamland with her hair strewn all over the table and her cup of coffee toppled to one side. as she wondered how someone could possibly fall asleep in such an uncomfortable, unbecoming position, her mind drifted to how jisu would probably be able to accomplish such a feat. her eyes then widened as the dots connected and said girl began to look more and more familiar.

wtf choi jisu…

chaeryeong couldn’t exactly claim to be close to jisu. relationships were already hard enough to establish as they were, and in the midst of an unforgiving, relentless survival of the fittest amongst fellow trainees? practically impossible, especially when many others closed themselves off to others and focused exclusively on being the best versions of themselves. to chaeryeong, jisu was as close as it got to being a friend. maybe it was because they had gotten themselves into trouble together far more than chaeryeong would have liked. jisu was her friend in times of trouble, and that was definitely better than nothing.

the problem was, how do you wake someone like choi jisu up? chaeryeong had already tried her best to do it politely, shaking her gently, tapping on her shoulder and calling her name in a low voice. but jisu had to be the equivalent of a human sloth. she was like an immovable log, absolutely unable to be stirred from slumber. so well, chaeryeong was forced into slightly more drastic measures.

“ow, what the heck, who’s pulling my hair…” jisu mumbled incoherently as she just about stirred from slumber, chaeryeong still firmly clutching onto a fistful of her hair.

“lee chaeryeong? why aren’t you at practice?” jisu frowned, blinking hard and fast as if trying to make out her bearings.

chaeryeong shook her head with a wry smile on her face. “are you really in any position to ask me that?”

jisu pouted cutely and mumbled in a tiny voice, “i’m a bit of a sleepyhead…”

“and i’m here to wake a certain sleepyhead up, duh.”

chaeryeong, rather worryingly, may have added another 2 penalty points to her growing collection, but more importantly she supposed she had also made a friend. at the very least, she was certain that she was going to be seeing a lot more of jisu.