Humming gently, Eunhwa adjusts her bag over her shoulder. She braces herself as the bus stops abruptly to pick up more passengers, and holds onto the pole tightly as the bus continues on its way. Yawning slightly, Eunhwa covers and feels her eyes start to water. It was early, maybe around 6:30 in the morning, but the bus was filled with students and adults commuting to school or work. Considering the fact that Eunhwa had fallen asleep at around 4 AM, she was deathly tired – as were the other passengers. Smiling gently at the thought that no one on the vehicle was a morning person, Eunhwa looks up to see it was her stop. Pushing the button to signal the bus driver, Eunhwa slowly makes her way to the front of the bus and thanks the worker before getting off. Looking up at the early morning sky, Eunhwa yawns again and stretches her long limbs. There weren’t many people on the streets yet so Eunhwa allowed herself to walk languidly down the street until she reached Yunrae.

            Letting herself in quietly, Eunhwa greets the receptionist, Shin Kurami, calmly, getting a bright ‘good morning’ in return. Smirking when she spots the cup of coffee beside the computer, Eunhwa and the woman share a knowing look before Eunhwa continues on her way. Humming to herself lowly, Eunhwa finds that her locker (all trainees had an assigned locker to place their outdoor shoes or jackets) in the female trainee changing room was gone. Well, technically it was still there, but it no longer had her name on it and the lock was different. Raising an eyebrow at the change, Eunhwa shrugs and fixes her bag. Checking her phone, Eunhwa decides to head on over to meeting room B.

            Seeing as the door to the room was open, Eunhwa knocks lightly before pushing it in. Entering the room, Eunhwa sees that it was empty other than what was obviously Xiuxin’s bag (no one else in the company would have such a fashionable item after all). Settling in the chair farthest from the door, Eunhwa hangs her bag on the back of her chair and sits down comfortably. Looking around the room, she sees that Xiuxin had set up a couple markers by the whiteboard and there were also a pile of files beside her bag. Wondering whether she should go out to buy a water bottle from one of the many vending machines scattered throughout the company, a creak from the door signals someone’s arrival.

            “Oh, hello,” Eunhwa gets up as she spots someone that definitely wasn’t Xiuxin walk in. Bowing deeply, she looks up at sees Seok Solbi, one of the newest trainees at Yunrae. The girl, from Eunhwa’s knowledge, was known to be quite the cheerful girl and even now, despite the time, she was smiling brightly. “I’m Ok Eunhwa, and you?” Eunhwa introduces herself out of courtesy.

            “Seok Solbi,” Solbi answers while bowing in greeting. “I guess this means you made it into Cosmos too unnie?” Solbi takes a seat next to Eunhwa as the older girl sits back down.

            “Yes,” Eunhwa nods. “Did you see Xiuxin anywhere while you were coming?” Eunhwa tilts her head, wondering where the usually punctual creative director had gone. “Only her stuff was here when I arrived.”

            “No, I don’t think so,” Solbi yawns. “Sorry.”

            “Didn’t sleep?” Eunhwa teases gently, grinning. “I’m sure none of us did.”

            “I just can’t believe it,” Solbi grins. “We’re debuting! I wonder who the other members are...”

            “Well we won’t have to wait much longer,” Eunhwa replies, and the girls drift off into a comfortable silence. A couple more minutes past until the door opens again to reveal a flustered Xiuxin. She was holding a cup of coffee – which she quickly sets down beside her bag – before apologizing to the girls. “It’s okay, you’re earlier than half of Cosmos,” Eunhwa jokes, savouring the sound of her group’s name.

            “But I should’ve been here first,” Xiuxin fans herself. “But I got distracted when I went to go make coffee, sorry.”

            “It’s okay, don’t worry about it unnie,” Solbi reassures the Chinese female. Xiuxin nods thankfully and grabs the files next to her. Looking through them, she separates them into four different piles and hands one each to Eunhwa and Solbi. “What is this?”

            “Records of your training and skills,” Xiuxin replies. “I’m here to help you guys build your personal personas and images, then we’re going to move on to Cosmos’ general image. We’ll also start talking about set design and costumes for your music video as well as what kind of style you guys want to portray in terms of makeup and clothes and yes, I know Solbi, I’ll try and keep the heels at a minimum – although you’re kind of the shortest out of everyone.”

            “What?” Solbi screeches, eyes widening. “But I’m pretty tall!” she pouts, not being used to being the shortest (she had always been the tallest in her class). Eunhwa merely laughs out loud at her indignant expression. “Unnie! How tall are you?”

            “172 cm,” Eunhwa answers with a hand over .

            “I cannot believe this!” Solbi huffs. “I’m literally one centimetre away from 170 and I’m the shortest?” Solbi groans.

            “To be fair I’m only a centimetre taller than you,” a voice states from the doorway, causing the three females to turn. At the door is a Vietnamese girl, who immediately bows down awkwardly in greeting. “I’m Na Ina, nice to meet you all,” Ina’s eyes flitter side by side nervously as she regards her new teammates.

            “One centimetre?” Solbi exclaims, “That’s even worse! I cannot believe this.” Quirking an eyebrow at Solbi’s behaviour, Ina awkwardly takes a seat beside the lamenting girl and nods at Eunhwa and Xiuxin. “What about our last member? How tall is she?”

            “She’s the tallest,” Xiuxin replies in amusement. “175 cm.”

            “That’s not fair – is it even human for a girl to be that tall?” Solbi groans, rubbing her face tiredly.

            “Well, seeing as she is, there’s at least one human female that’s almost 180 cm,” Eunhwa pats Solbi on the head in comfort. “Then again, aren’t there basketball players that are taller than that? Diana Taurasi was 183 cm tall.”

            “Who is that?” Solbi questions, turning to face the older woman with a questioning look in her eyes. “And how do you know that?” Eunhwa shrugs, causing Xiuxin to laugh. Ina merely looks at the three other girls with a slightly annoyed expression.

            “I’m sorry, am I late?” a soft voice asks, so quiet that the girls almost didn’t hear her. It’s Eunhwa who finally spots the source of the noise, shaking her head at the tall girl standing at the doorway.  “Oh, I thought I would be since I missed the bus this morning...” the girl trails off when Solbi stands up and points and accusing finger at her.

            “You! Who are you and why are you allowed to be so tall?” Solbi asks, narrowing her eyes to stare at the newcomer.

            “Y-yang Liqin?” Liqin answers, as if unsure of herself. She shrinks back from Solbi’s hand and skittishly sits next to Ina.

            “Don’t scare her Solbi ssi,” Eunhwa rolls her eyes before tapping Solbi’s shoulder. She gets up and forcefully pushes the energetic girl into her seat before sitting down as well. “Hello Liqin ssi, don’t mind Solbi ssi, she’s just... a bit annoyed that she’s the shortest,” Eunhwa says, motioning towards a pouting Solbi. “I’m Ok Eunhwa, nice to meet you.”

            “Nice to meet you,” Liqin nods, a little more at ease.

            “Alright, that’s Eunhwa, the short, excited one is Seok Solbi, the scowling face next to her is Na Ina, and Liqin just introduced herself,” Xiuxin announces. “Now that everyone is here, we can get started.” Handing out the rest of the papers, Xiuxin explains what the files are to Ina and Liqin before settling back into her chair. “Alright, so all of you met with Yoo-nim last night right?” The girls nod. “And she told you all that you’d be choosing your personas and such. So I decided that we were going to go over that first before deciding on a group persona.”

            “Okay, but what is a persona?” Solbi asks, flipping through the papers. The front half held records of her training and skills, but the back half (separated by a blank piece of paper) contained more information regarding their debut.

            “It’s kind of like your public image,” Xiuxin pushes her chair back. “So there’s your obvious normal personality, the one you have right now,” Xiuxin picks up a blue marker and draws a person. “Then there’s your offstage personality – this is the one you have when you’re with friends and such. It’s different from your normal persona because your character changes depending on the expectations of those around you – as described by the Looking Glass Self theory.”

            “By Charles Horton Cooley right?” Eunhwa cuts in. “I took an anthropology course in high school okay,” she says defensively when the other three girls raise their eyebrows at her.

            “Yes, that would be correct,” Xiuxin changes the colour from blue to red and draws another, slightly different person beside the first one. “Then there is your on camera persona, this is, obviously, different from your last two,” Xiuxin draws a third person in orange, “because you have to be careful of what you say. This is your more public image and you can gain a lot of criticism or praise depending on what you do and how you act.” Changing markers one more time, Xiuxin finally draws a fourth person in green. “And this, this is your onstage character. It’s mostly how you act while performing but can also count for interviews and such. A persona will be a mix of your onstage and offstage images, so what we’re going to do today is develop that. It doesn’t have to be very far off from your normal character, but make sure you’re not totally natural – the general public has a stereotyped image of how idols are and if you stray from that you’ll get hate right from the get go.”

            “That’s stupid,” Ina states, crossing her hands over her chest. “People shouldn’t judge someone’s singing just based on their personality. I don’t want to have to act cheerful all the time if I don’t feel happy at all.”

            “You say that,” Xiuxin raises the marker in her hand. “But people do it nonetheless. And even if you think it’s stupid, it’s important to play into the media. Do you think groups that dance ily or have provocative concepts are truly like that? Do you think they regularly go around flirting with people and having many relationships? Of course not, but that’s their concept and image so they try to act it out as best as they can.” Capping the marker, Xiuxin erases the pictures she drew on the board. “And you don’t have to be cheerful. There are a lot of different personas. You just have to pick the parts of your personality that you think the public will like and emphasize them – that’s what I’m here for. To try and help you with that.”

            “I don’t want to play nice though,” Ina groans, playing with the hem of her shirt.

            “Well then why did you want to become an idol?” Liqin snaps. Surprisingly enough, for a girl with such a soft voice, her words held more venom then Eunhwa had originally thought.

            “What was that?” Ina whirls around to glare at the other girl. “I want to be a singer. Not some stupid plastic, fake, Barbie doll like you.”

            “Well being ‘fake’ as you say is a part of being an idol, and if you’re not willing to play by the rules then get out. I don’t want someone as childish as you to ruin my dream,” Liqin scoffs, returning Ina’s harsh stare.

            “Alright, let’s just calm down alright?” Eunhwa intervenes, standing up. The sound of her chair moving back causes Liqin and Ina to break eye contact as the two younger girls stare up at her. “Listen,” Eunhwa clears , regarding her members with a slightly nervous look. “It’s true, having a persona is slightly degrading – having to play into the public’s eye and being forced to act a certain way could definitely hurt anyone’s pride. But that’s not what we’re doing here is it? Like Xiuxin said, we’re building a character for debut. You don’t act like your regular self when you first meet people right? You’re more conservative, more reserved. Then, as you get to know them, you start to reveal more of yourself correct? That’s what we’re doing. These personas are our starting point, and eventually, as the public learns more and more about us, we’ll be able to show our true selves.” Ina grumbles lowly before nodding, Liqin shooting her a triumphant smile. “But that doesn’t call for this kind of behaviour,” Eunhwa turns to look at Liqin. “Calling her childish makes you just as immature. We’re all a little stressed – having this whole debut thing looming over our heads – but that doesn’t mean you can lash out at other people. We’re going to debut as a group, not four soloists, so let’s not start off on bad terms okay?”

            “I’m sorry,” Liqin mumbles quietly, not looking at Ina. “I let my lack of sleep get ahead of me.”

            “Sorry, I guess,” Ina says through her teeth. Eunhwa doesn’t think either of them looks very apologetic but she dismisses the issue. Sitting back down, Eunhwa turns to Xiuxin and sees the Chinese female shoot her a smile of gratitude.

            “Anyways, like Eunhwa said, these images won’t stay with you forever,” Xiuxin picks up her speech. “It’s just a short title you’ll have so the public will know what to expect from you when you debut. You’re all new faces, a new group; no one really knows who you are. These personas will help with that, they’ll immediately pair the persona to your face and have a sort of brief summary of your personality. It’ll be easier to gain fans and supporters this way.” The four girls nod in understanding. “Moving on, even from this short discussion I already have a couple ideas for your personas. Let’s start with Ina,” Xiuxin smiles when Ina looks up at her in surprise. “Yes, you. Seeing as you don’t really like this whole idea and judging by these records, I’d say you’re pretty rebellious right? So why not choose something along the lines of the feisty vocalist or maybe the strong vixen?”

            “She’s rebellious alright, a total troublemaker,” Solbi comments as the girls start to think over their own personas.

            “I like that,” Ina claps her hands together. “The Troublemaker, how’s that for a persona?”

            “Matches you perfectly I think,” Xiuxin smiles. “So you’ll be marketed – pardon my use of that word, it’s slightly objectifying – as someone who doesn’t follow the rules. Not entirely a ‘bad girl’ but someone who isn’t your typical cut and dry girl. Nowadays people like that kind of idol better.” Xiuxin takes another marker – black – and writes the words, Ina – The Troublemaker, on the board. “Moving on, does anyone have any other ideas for their own?”

            “Does the persona have to deal with just your personality?” Eunhwa pipes up, tapping her chin thoughtfully. “Or can it include something with your position as well?”

            “That would work,” Xiuxin thinks the idea over. “Do you have something in mind?”

            “I think,” Eunhwa trails off, not sure if her idea was good or not. “Maybe something like the rhythmic rapper?” she suggests after Xiuxin nods at her encouragingly.

            “Hm, that doesn’t really showcase your personality much though,” Xiuxin criticises, thinking hard. “Maybe replace ‘rhythmic’ with another word? But with what is the question here...”

            “How about ‘rhapsodic’?” Liqin suggests. “It means extravagantly emotional, and from the speech you made before I think that would fit you.”

            “So the Rhapsodic Rapper?” Eunhwa tries the words out, smiling at the way it rolls off of her tongue. “I like that; it’s even a sort of alliteration.”

            “Rhapsodic Rapper it is then,” Xiuxin announces, writing it down on the board. “How about the rest of you?” Xiuxin looks at Liqin and Solbi. “You’ve both come up with something for your team members, but I haven’t heard anything about yourselves yet.”

            “I don’t know,” Solbi says slowly. “All I can really think of is that I’m cheerful? But what would that make me? The cheerful cheerleader?” Ina and Xiuxin scoff at her suggestion. “See! It just doesn’t make sense.”

            “Well, we’ll think about it as we go through the rest of the things on the list, how about you Liqin?” Xiuxin turns to look at Liqin expectantly.

            “The Dream Girl,” the Chinese girl says softly. “People always tell me I’m like the ideal female protagonist for a drama or something like that.”

            “Well with your soothing, soft voice, you could definitely lull me to sleep easily,” Solbi jokes, “get it? You dream when you sleep?”

            “That was really bad,” Ina comments, causing everyone to burst out into laughter. After she calms down, Xiuxin writes Liqin’s persona next to her name.

            “Well then, barring Solbi, everyone has their personas down. Let’s move on to the next part of building your image, how about stage names? Have you thought about that?” Xiuxin asks the four trainees.

            “I want to use my regular name,” Liqin and Ina say at the same time, causing them to look at each other in surprise.

            “I want to be known as myself,” Ina says in explanation.

            “And I want everyone to know who I am,” Liqin explains.

            “That makes sense,” Xiuxin makes a note on her own version of the files. “How about you guys? It can be anything really – as long as it’s appropriate.”

            “My English name when I was living in New York was Aspen,” Eunhwa comments. “I could use that?”  

            “Great, it sounds very nice – fits you,” Xiuxin writes it down beside Eunhwa’s persona. “And you Solbi? You’re turning out to be quite the problematic one – I thought that would be Ina.” Ignoring the ‘hey!’ from Ina, Solbi shakes her leg in thought.

            “When I danced underground,” Solbi starts, thinking hard. “I went by the name Soleil.”

            “Doesn’t that mean ‘sun’ in French?” Eunhwa asks. “Hey! That could be your persona too, something like The Brightest Sun!”

            “That would work,” Solbi nods, slowly mouthing the words to herself. “Yeah, it fits me. How about it Xiuxin?”

            “I don’t really understand how you could have a brighter sun than the sun itself but if you like it then it’s good,” Xiuxin marks it down on the board. “And with that we have everyone’s stage images set. Moving on,” Xiuxin flips a couple pages, “we have to discuss the group image. Yoo-nim already decided that Cosmos will be debuting with a fantasy feel, but where do you guys want to go from there? The fantasy concept only deals with the song and music video. Do you guys want to be known as mysterious? Elegant? Kind and neighbourly? For example, Girls’ Generation was known as the ‘girl next door’ type group.”

            “What is our debut song anyways?” Eunhwa asks. “I heard it’s already been made? But the other tracks on the album aren’t finished right? After all, aren’t we being marketed as a self-producing group? It would be slightly awkward if we didn’t take part in the debut album production wouldn’t it?”

            “The debut track is set,” Xiuxin starts off awkwardly, causing Eunhwa and the others to narrow their eyes. “But the rest of the album is still under production. Yoo-nim said you guys would definitely be helping out in terms of production and lyrics and Liqin ssi and Solbi ssi would be making the choreography together with Henry.”

            “Who produced the album then?” Ina spoke up, causing the others to nod. “Aren’t I supposed to have the ‘producer’ role in this group?” Ina raises her hands and mimes the quotation marks.

            “Well,” Xiuxin looks very uncomfortable at this point, before sighing and looking up in defeat. “Yoo-nim decided the title track before we picked members, so, well; the person that produced the track didn’t actually make the final line-up.”

            “What?” Solbi’s eyes widened. “How can someone manage to produce a track that Jinhyuk ssi and Yoo-nim approved up and not make it into the group?” Eunhwa felt herself nodding along. “Can we not just make a new title track then? Like, I feel bad using some other trainee’s work when they don’t even get to sing the track they made...”

            “The producer doesn’t always have to sing the song,” Ina pipes up. She seems lost in thought and Eunhwa watches the other girl closely. Although the Vietnamese girl gave off an air of confidence and disinterest, Eunhwa felt a more tensed and calculating attitude underneath. Either Ina was trying to think of whom the mystery producer was or she already knew. “A lot of producers make music and then sell it to certain companies or singers.”

            “Ina ssi is right,” Xiuxin says. “After all, didn’t you make a couple of Got7’s tracks?”

            “You did?” Solbi exclaims, turning to the girl on her right. “That’s amazing! Wow, with talent like this our musical future is set!” Solbi grins at Ina, causing the other girl to crack a small smile, before Solbi turns back to Xiuxin. “But I can’t help it; I want to know who made the title track.”

            “You’ll find out soon enough,” Xiuxin sighs. “After this meeting the four of you will go off and start producing the album – we can’t change the title song because there isn’t enough time and Yoo-nim thinks this song fits you all very well. But you four will take part in making the hype track if that offers any consolation. You’ll also be seeing the producer starting next week – when you start recording.”

            “Oh, will they be there?” Liqin asks. “I guess that would make sense wouldn’t it? Since they made the song they’d know how best to sing it.”

            “Yes, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make it our own style,” Eunhwa comments. “After all, everyone’s view of a song is different right?”

            “Hey! Why don’t we make that our concept?” Solbi suggests.

            “Aren’t you just full of ideas today?” Xiuxin smiles, “What do you mean by that?”

            “Well, we’re all different right? From differing backgrounds and stuff – we even have different skills; one producer, one lyricist, two choreographers. Yet we all come together to give it our all and make music. So our concept can be something like that – where we all have our own ideas and styles yet we combine together to make something awesome,” Solbi explains. “Wow that was really cheesy wasn’t it?”

            “It’s okay, cheesy is good, the public likes cheesy,” Xiuxin grins. “But that’s a mouthful, we’d need to shorten it so the press can write about it and maybe leave a bit of mystery so it could be a potential interview question?”

            “A bene placito,” Ina says, causing everyone to turn and look at her.

            “P-pardon me?” Liqin furrows her eyebrows.

            “Bless you?” Solbi tries.

            “A bene plactio,” Ina repeats, staring intently at the four other females in the room.

            “It means ‘up to the performer’ in Italian? I think it’s a music term,” Eunhwa states slowly, drawing on her massive amount of randomly accumulated knowledge.

            “Yeah,” Ina nods. “It kind of ties into what Solbi unnie was saying right? It’s a term written on music sheets that gives the performer free reign to perform that certain piece or section however he or she pleases.”

            “I see,” Xiuxin beams. “You girls are good at this.” She momentarily asks Ina how to spell the term, before writing up a summary of the meeting. “Alright, let’s look things over. Starting off with personas we have... Ina ssi as The Troublemaker, Solbi ssi as The Brightest Sun, Liqin ssi as The Dream Girl, and Eunhwa ssi as The Rhapsodic Rapper. Stage names are as follows... Ina and Liqin kept their names the same, Solbi ssi became Soleil, and Eunhwa ssi became Aspen. The group concept is, ‘a bene placito’ and your debut song gives off a ‘fantasy and mellow’ feel. Did I miss anything?”

            “No, I don’t think so,” Eunhwa replies. “Are we going to be talking about anything else? Like... fashion or whatever?” Eunhwa shivers at the word.

            “No, that’s for a later date, we’ll discuss the music video after the title track and album recordings,” Xiuxin looks through her papers. “You’ll guys be meeting with Jinhyuk, Henry, and Minseok to talk over the rest of the album. I think you’ll also be getting the demo for the title track sometime today as well so you can get a feel of how the album should be like.”

            “What’s the name of the song?” Liqin asks as the rest of Cosmos starts to stand up and get ready to go.

            “4 Walls,” Xiuxin answers. The girls nod before she bids them farewell and they all scatter to get to their next respective schedules. Eunhwa walks down the halls of Yunrae, her mind lost in thought. It still didn’t seem real, the fact that they were debuting. Even though she had an idol image now – she would have to start associating herself with Aspen again – she still felt like a trainee. Stopping abruptly, Eunhwa sighs, and fixes the bag she had slung over her shoulder. Maybe after they started working on the album and began recording she’d feel more... well, idol-like. Turning her head to the side, Eunhwa watches as two young trainees walk past her. They soon recognize her – everyone by now had heard about who was debuting – and bowed deeply.

            “Hello sunbaenim,” they chorus before running off. Eyes widening, Eunhwa blinks twice before feeling a small smile stretch across her face. That’s right, she was an idol now. Even if she didn’t feel like it, she had a new image to keep up and she’d make sure her hoobaes would be proud to call her their senior.

I think I may have messed up the whole Looking Glass Self theory but I was just using it to explain the different personas idk that’s not really what Cooley meant by it. Well like, it kinda is but kinda isn’t. Basically Cooley’s theory is “I am not who I think I am because I am who I think you think I am.” But you didn’t come here to get a psychology lesson so don’t mind me. I’m just studying for my test.

Oooh, look at the tension between some of the members already though. Wonder what else will happen xD But yas, they have finally met. Whoop. Let’s see where they’ll go from now hm?

Hope you're smiling!

~ Yun