“Your debut was just a couple weeks ago right?” the interviewer – a young female who looked slightly bored with the whole situation – asked, to which Ina and the rest nod their heads. “How was that?” the interviewer, Ina was sure she had probably introduced herself sometime during the interview, but Ina was tired. She didn’t remember meaningless things like that.

                “Really exciting,” Solbi speaks up, smiling brightly. “I remember feeling really nervous before hand but then the stage flew past. I almost couldn’t believe it when it finished – it didn’t feel real. I kind of thought I’d wake up to a blaring alarm and that everything was a dream but no, I walked off the stage and realized I wasn’t a trainee anymore.”

                “So you feel more like an idol?” the interviewer raises an eyebrow, looking down at her paper before writing something else down.

                “Kind of,” Solbi replies, grin faltering at the odd question. “We’ve been on a couple music shows but it still kind of feels unreal. Like, seeing myself on television? Monitoring our performances? Meeting other idols – especially meeting other idols,” Solbi laughs, “it feels amazing but I still kind of have that dreamlike mindset.”

                “So you’re saying you’re not concentrated,” the interviewer gives Solbi a skeptical look.

                “P-pardon?” Solbi asks, blinking owlishly.

                “You’re saying that you’re walking through your days in a, dreamlike trance was it?” the interviewer looks back at her notes, nodding when she finds what she was looking for. “Does this mean not you’re not fully concentrating on your job?”

                “Does it matter?” Ina narrows her eyes, glaring at the interviewer. She gets a shocked and slightly scandalized look in return. The interviewer’s eyes widened just a bit and opened – much like a fish. “I mean, sure, I guess you could say we’re in a ‘dreamlike state’,” Ina makes air quotations, “but it doesn’t mean we’ve lost focus. If anything it means we’re working even harder to make this dream last forever.”

                “I-I see,” the interviewer coughs, struggling to maintain her composure, but Ina continues giving her a steely glare even after the woman switched questions. Sighing silently, Ina casts a glance at the clock on the wall and groans mentally at the time. It was close to 8 in the morning and they had been here since 6:30. It was a sort of magazine, definitely low key judging by the space – but Sanghee had said they should take whatever opportunities revealed themselves. As of now, they had been conducting this interview for around twenty minutes. Afterwards, they would take a couple solo pictures before ending it off with a group shot which would serve as one of the magazine’s centerfolds. The offer had sounded pretty good when Sanghee had originally given them the details, but now, Ina glares at the interviewer, Ina would have much rather stayed back at Yunrae and continued practicing. It was obvious that the interviewer couldn’t give less than two s about them and was definitely trying to get them to slip up. After all, scandals and gossip draws more views than normal, cheerful, idol-like answers.

                “So, most groups usually have a debut or comeback showcase when they release a new song, is there any particular reason as to why your group did not?” the interviewer moves on to another question, jolting Ina back into the conversation. Raising her eyes to meet Solbi’s, she’s met with panicked looks. Liqin looks shocked – her normal quiet poker face melting away to a more expressive and confused expression. Solbi was dead silent, no doubt thinking of a reason or way to answer the question, but judging by her unfocused eyes, she couldn’t think of anything. Eunhwa was also struggling to fish for an answer, her eyes were moving from side to side, trying to think of something, anything, to answer the question.

                “We want to approach music differently,” Ina pipes up, causing the interviewer’s smug smirk to fall slightly when the woman realized that Ina was the one to answer. “So we didn’t bother with conventional methods.”

                “Are you saying that showcases or useless?” the interviewer drums her fingers on her clipboard, no doubt trying to corner Ina into saying something she shouldn’t say.

                “No,” Ina almost smiles when the interviewer raises her eyebrows again. This was a game she was good at, and there was no way she’d lose to a prick like this woman. “I’m saying that we chose not to have a showcase. We’re very involved with making our music, so we wanted to go about it a different way. Think of us a sort of mix between an indie band and an idol group. Therefore, we went the unconventional route. We want people to like us because of our music and talent."

              “Surely you could’ve showed that off at a showcase?” the interviewer continues. “Or,” she pauses, smirking victoriously, “is it just that your company – a fairly new one at that – just didn’t have the funds to pay for one?” 

              This , Ina thinks narrowing her eyes and furrowing her eyebrows. She hears a slight gasp from beside her, no doubt from Liqin, and she spots Solbi clench her fists. Eunhwa seems to be the only one unaffected; the leader merely tightens her jaw and lets settle into a straight line. In any case, it was obvious that everyone was extremelydispleased, which only added to the interviewer’s happiness. The woman was positively glowing with success, her smirk stretched widely across her face and she was even humming softly. She thinks she’s won, Ina glares at the woman. But oh, she’s so wrong. I’m going to make sure she never conducts another interview again.

                “We could’ve shown off our talents at the showcase,” Ina starts, her voice controlled and calm. “But we decided not to. Much like how we decided not to put certain songs in our album or to leave out a certain move in our choreography – we have full reign over our own musical abilities. Or are you saying that our decision in not having a showcase was the wrong one?” Ina shoots her own question back, catching the interviewer off guard. Obviously the woman was used to being the one with the upper hand. She asked the questions, she made the groups and celebrities squirm awkwardly, she was never met with this kind of resistance. After all, Korea was a more conservative country. You could on someone all you wanted but they’d – especially celebrities who were constantly under the media’s lens – still smile at you through gritted teeth. But Ina wasn’t your normal idol. She wasn’t going to just sit here and smile as some sketchy woman berated her dream. Not if Ina had anything to do about it.

                “Ah, no,” the interviewer regains her composure, throwing her bleached blonde hair behind her shoulder. “I’m not saying you were wrong, I was merely asking a question you know.”

                “And I was just asking a question back, isn’t that what an interview is – what a conversation is?” Ina blinks innocently. “Then again, judging by how things have been going so far, you don’t seem to be very good at conducting conversations.”

                “What is that supposed to mean?” the interviewer practically growls, clutching the pen in her right hand tightly.

                “Well, most hosts and interviewers aim to make their guests comfortable. Of course, there are those that try to make things awkward for comedy sake, but at the end of the day, they still end on good terms. You however, haven’t even asked us to formally introduce ourselves. You launched into a explanation of your magazine and then randomly started asking us questions without a proper timeline or what not. We didn’t even get a countdown to warn us when you were going to start filming,” Ina replies, counting with her fingers all of the methods the interviewer had used to try and make their group look bad. “Then again, seeing as your magazine doesn’t seem to be of the best quality, I wouldn’t expect you to know of these kinds of things.”

                “These kinds of things?” the interviewer inhales sharply, visibly angry at this point. Ina sees the cameraman and director from behind the lights waving at her widely, trying to get her to calm down and to regain her composure, but she didn’t seem to notice. How professional, Ina laughs to herself.

                “You know, asking us to sit, giving us a drink of water, manners. Proper etiquette. But people like you probably don’t know about that right?” Ina smirks, seeing the last strand of the woman’s composure break.

                “You little, do you even know about this world? This world of ‘entertainment’? You’ve been an idol for literally three days I could break your career right here and now–”

                “CUT!” the director calls from behind the camera, stepping in front of the lights and grabbing a hold of the interviewer. He pulls her to the side, preventing her from lunging and physically harming Ina, before handing her off to another staff member. Rubbing his temples tiredly, he looks from Ina’s innocent smirk to the shocked yet pleased faces of the other members before sighing. “Interview will be paused for now, go off and take your individual shots and we’ll continue afterwards. Then you’ll take your final group shot. Got it?”

                “Okay,” Eunhwa stands up. “Thanks for telling us.” The director nods and turns to leave.

                “I hope your other staff members will treat us just as nicely as you did hm?” Solbi calls as the director starts to walk. The man stiffens, turning back around to stare at them before sighing once again.

                “You lot are definitely unique,” he says. “I’m sorry for Minyoung ssi’s actions; I’ll let you know that everyone behind the camera was just as awkward feeling as you four were.”

                “We’ll see if that’s true or not,” Ina nods, and the director continues on his way. Walking towards their makeup stations, Ina and Solbi smile at each other and share a quick high five before they’re whisked away. Sitting gently on a chair, Ina looks at her hairstylist through the mirror and is met with an apologetic smile. The man, probably in his early twenties, quickly sprays water on Ina’s hair before starting to run his hands through it.

                “Sorry about Minyoung ssi,” he says a couple minutes later as he switches from his hands to a comb. “She’s always been like that. Everyone cringes whenever she interviews someone but she’s been working here for so long that she’s basically the boss when the CEO isn’t around. She really messed up this time around though,” the man continues, putting the brush away and switching to a hairdryer. There’s a lull in his speech as he works his way through all of Ina’s locks. Putting the hairdryer down, he reaches for a curler and begins to style Ina’s hair.

                “What do you mean she messed up?” Ina gently reminds him – seeing as he was entirely focused on his work and had probably forgotten his previous train of thought.

                “Oh right, did you not know? Your manager didn’t tell you?” the hairstylist asks. “Don’t do that, I’m going to burn you,” he reprimands when Ina shakes her head no. “Well, the interview was live. We recorded it obviously and are going to put it online, but last minute the higher ups also decided to test out this new system and put it on live. I don’t think a lot of people were watching since we’re not a very famous magazine and – no offence – but you guys just debuted, but I’m sure someone probably recorded it.”

                “Oh ,” Ina blinks, before laughing out loud. “Then they saw?”

                “That they did,” the man finishes curling Ina’s hair and reaches for a bottle of mousse. “My thoughts are that Minyoung ssi will probably be put on leave or fired in general, then she’ll most possibly have to write a public apology. You guys will get a bit of fame out of this I think, depends on how fast the netizens jump on it, but don’t think that everyone will agree with your words. Some people might hate on you because they think you should’ve just stayed quiet.”

                “Well screw them,” Ina huffs. “She was obviously throwing shade at us, I was just defending myself and my group. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

                “Some people just find anything to hate on, don’t worry about it. If anything you’ll get more female fans,” the man steps back from his work and nods. “There done, you just need a bit of touching up in terms of makeup and then you’ll be ready.”

                “Thanks,” Ina bows. “You’re a lot nicer than some of the other staff members.”

                “I’m telling you, that’s only Minyoung ssi,” the hairstylist laughs. “Now go on and get over to Taemi ssi before she gets really mad, she’s a beast when she’s angry – and she’s not a patient one.”

                “I cannot believe you did that,” Eunhwa laughs as the four girls are lying around the practice room. It was around 9 PM and they were just beginning practice. Eunhwa was sitting next to Liqin, helping the dancer stretch out her legs, while Solbi and Ina rest on the floor.

                “She deserved it,” Ina replies.

                “But still,” Eunhwa continues, “that was very savage of you.”

                “Look at you, using hip lingo,” Solbi teases.

                “Shush you, I’m not that old,” Eunhwa rolls her eyes.

                “In any case, the other interviewer who replaced her was much nicer,” Liqin says after she’s finished stretching. “What did they say when they cut off the live broadcast though?”

                “Something about technical difficulties and how they’re using a new system,” Solbi reminds the Chinese girl. Ina scoffs at that. After taking individual shots, they had gone back to the interview – with a different woman this time – and that had gone much more smoothly. The new interviewer was still a bit dry and awkward, but at least she actually seemed to want to make them look good. “And that if the viewers really wanted to watch the rest of the interview they could later on after they uploaded it – unedited I think they said?”

                “They’ll probably edit it,” Eunhwa shrugs. “Anyways, let’s get back to work hm?”

                “Ne,” the other three girls chorus and they eventually get off of the floor. Walking to her position, Ina watches as Solbi runs to play the music before they start running through the choreography. They go through the dance a good four or five times before stopping the music. As the other members catch their breath, Eunhwa points out a couple mistakes she notices and Liqin backs her up. After realizing what they have to work on, the girls go through the choreography a couple more times without music and drill through the moves that they’re having trouble with before starting the song again. This process continues throughout the night until finally, the girls drop to the floor in exhaustion in the early morning hours.

                “We have to practice our singing next,” Eunhwa lazily reminds, although she makes no move to get off of the cool floor. “Jinhyuk ssi said something about going through the choreography without music and singing live at the same time?”

                “Can’t we do that tomorrow?” Solbi complains, rolling over to her water bottle and taking a big gulp. “I’m so tired.”

                “You’re always tired,” Liqin comments softly. Ina snorts at the jab, but it doesn’t seem to do much harm. Honestly, if it had been anyone else Solbi probably would’ve come up with some kind of snarky retort but Liqin generally was so quiet that the entire group thanked the Lord whenever she actually spoke up during interviews.

                “It’s a happy kind of tired,” Solbi explains. “I still can’t believe we’re actually performing on music shows and stuff.”

                “Yeah it’s unreal,” Eunhwa agrees. “Even if we don’t win, standing on the same stage as our seniors is absolutely amazing.”

                “Ugh, this is getting too cheesy,” Ina grimaces, sitting up. “Should we just skip vocal practice then? We’ll probably get hell for it tomorrow but we can spew some bull about how it’s better to get a good night’s rest than to abuse our voices and throats.”

                “It’s like, three in the morning, not even that late for idols,” Solbi points out. “I remember staying here until almost five regularly when I was a trainee.”

                “You were a trainee literally a week ago, stop talking like you’re an old grandma,” Ina rolls her eyes. “Besides, weren’t you the one who just said that you were tired and didn’t want to do vocal practice?”

                “I guess, but my vocals are kind of lacking the most so a little more practice wouldn’t hurt,” Solbi replies quietly, eyes suddenly focused towards the floor. Furrowing her eyebrows, Ina looks at the dancer and sighs lowly. Looking over at Eunhwa, she eyes the leader until she sees the other girl start to shuffle over and comfort Solbi.

                “Don’t worry about it; I’ll give you extra help when we get back to the dorm okay? I think it’ll be good if we all go home though,” Ina says in an awkward attempt to patch things up. She gets a small nod from Solbi and retreats from the situation. Sighing, Ina begins to roam through the halls. 

                Although she had said that it was better to get some sleep, Ina was restless. She still wasn’t used to interacting with the same people daily for so long. Usually, as a trainee, she’d train by herself or in groups if she was forced to. But most of the time, after the training session of the monthly evaluation was over, Ina would retreat back into her safe bubble and the other trainees would go back to pretending she didn’t exist. A few had tried to befriend her, often talking to her before and after dance or vocal lessons and asking to hangout outside of the company, but they had given up pretty quickly after Ina grew unresponsive or snarky. It wasn’t really her fault; Ina likes to tell herself, her personality was pretty problematic. She didn’t mix well with most people and she thought almost everyone was judging her for some reason or another. Combined with what had happened back at JYP, Ina couldn’t really bring herself to befriend her potential rivals.

                But it was different now. Now she actually had a group, a team that depended on her and that she depended on. They didn’t necessarily have to like each other, but they tolerated each other – at least, for now – and worked together. Ina wasn’t really sure how she felt about the whole situation, and she was still adjusting to have to constantly think about other people. It was easier being by herself. A little lonely for sure, but she didn’t have to watch her words and think about how they’d affect other people. She appreciated her group, they cheered her up – although she’d never say that to their faces – when she was feeling annoyed by the way the media expected her to act and helped her in other ways she wasn’t entirely aware of. Even though they had only just debuted, they had trained together for a good amount of time beforehand and Ina could already see them ingraining themselves in her life. It was a good feeling, but it also brought a sense of apprehension. Not everything was rainbows and butterflies, some day, tensions would be made and arguments would break out. And Ina wasn’t very experienced in dealing with those kinds of situations. The thought of the unknown caused Ina to shiver.

                “Cold?” a voice breaks through her thoughts, and Ina stops her pacing to turn around. From behind her is a male trainee. He had probably been disturbed by her pacing and had poked his head out of the music room he was currently in.

                “What do you mean?” Ina asks, crossing her arms over her chest. She glares at the presumably older male in an attempt to intimidate him, but it didn’t seem to work.

                “You shivered. People usually shiver when they’re cold,” the trainee points out, opening the door further to stand out in the hall along with Ina.

                “I just got goose bumps,” Ina shrugs, hoping that this conversation would hurry up and finish so she could go back to her thoughts.

                “You know, you and Mirae are exactly the same,” the man laughs suddenly, smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. “Both really cold and standoffish yet you say the weirdest things.”

                “It isn’t weird to get goose bumps,” Ina blinks, scrunching her nose in confusion. “And how do you know Mirae?”

                “We’re good friends – although if you ask her she’ll just tell you I’m annoying her,” the trainee sticks his hand out. “I’m Yoon Daehoon, nice to meet you.”

                “Na Ina,” Ina hesitantly takes Daehoon’s hand and shakes it weakly.

                “I know, Mirae talked about you,” Daehoon grins as Ina drops her hand back to her side. “And in terms of saying weird things I was mostly talking about Mirae. But you seem like you’re an interesting character. So I lumped you guys together.”

                “It isn’t good to stereotype,” Ina snaps, annoyed at Daehoon’s friendly manner. She had just met him yet he was acting as if they had been friends in a past life.

                “I wasn’t stereotyping, merely making an assumption – think of it as a kind of intuition,” Daehoon replies, unfazed by Ina’s change of mood. Ina assumes it’s probably because Mirae also had a tendency to randomly snap at people. “Anyways, something on your mind? You seem troubled.”

                “How would you know?” Ina narrows her eyes.

                “Intuition,” Daehoon replies, tapping his temple gently. He winks at her and twirls around before standing back in front of her. “You don’t have to talk to me about it, I mean; I just met you – although technically I’ve known of you for some time now. That sounds weird but don’t put much thought into it. Anyways, I just think you should get some stress of your chest. Do whatever you need to do but don’t let it build up.”

                “And how would I go around doing that?” Ina asks, tilting her head to the side in an inquiring manner. 

                “I don’t know, do you have a hobby? Try putting some time into that. It’ll help take your mind off things. Even if you think you don’t have a time or you can’t let yourself get distracted – do it. I find that in the long run it helps a lot. After all, you have to spoil yourself every so often, ‘cause if you don’t, who will?” with that, Daehoon sends a small wave in Ina’s direction before disappearing back into the practice room – leaving Ina standing alone once again in the empty hallway.

                “What an odd fellow,” Ina blinks, mind still trying to catch up with the events that had just transpired. She made a mental note to ask Mirae about Daehoon later before deciding to just go home. As she walks back to the front door, she spots Solbi grabbing her outdoor shoes. Falling into step beside her, the two wordlessly nod at each other before leaving the company building. As they walk silently back towards their dorm, Ina peeks a glance over at the older girl. Solbi seemed to be feeling a bit better, although her smile didn’t fully reach its true potential, so Ina could only assume that her talk with Eunhwa worked to an extent. “Hey,” Ina starts, shoving her hands into the pockets of her sweater.

                “Yeah?” Solbi looks up and over at the Vietnamese girl, a questioning look in her gaze.

                “Do you like sweets? Like, pastries?” Ina asks awkwardly.

                “Mm, cheesecake is great. As is red velvet cake. Any kind of cookies are great too. Why do you ask?” Solbi replies before she goes off on a tangent about different kinds of desserts and their pros and cons.

                “Well, I haven’t baked in a while and was wondering if you wanted me to make anything in particular,” Ina trails off, thinking about the calmness and pride that baking gave her. It was one of her hobbies, she liked to turn simple ingredients like eggs and flour into delightful creations. It didn’t really suite her personality, but she liked it nonetheless.

                “Whatever you make, I’m sure it’ll taste great,” Solbi grins. “I’ll even make some cocoa for everyone and we can eat it together before Sanghee wakes up and yells at us for cheating on our diets.”

                “I don’t like sweet things,” Ina crinkles her nose.

                “Yet you bake,” Solbi deadpans. “Anyways, you only say that because you haven’t tasted my cocoa. I guarantee you’ll come back begging for more.”

                “We’ll see about that,” Ina grins.

                “Is that a challenge?” Solbi asks – and Ina feels a slight pride in her hear when she sees Solbi genuinely smile back at her. “Because if it is, I’ll definitely win.”

                “You’re on.”

I was supposed to work on another fic but then this appeared whoops. Here’s some fun interview times. #SavageIna #InaGivesNos #InaIsMySpiritChild

Hope you're smiling!

~ Yun