03. The end of the beginning

“Damn I’m so cool, like, gosh I should’ve tried this kind of hairstyle before,” a voice says admiringly, causing the current inhabitants of the room to look up. The door creaks slightly, jamming for a bit until the invader pushes strongly, before it opens and said human practically trips into the room. “Oh hey! Didn’t think this room was being used.”

“Hi oppa!” one of the two inhabitants, Sora, greets happily. She skips over to the older boy – who offers her a fist bump – before running around him. Sora was a normally bright child, and, seeing as she had been hard at work for the majority of the last four hours, any distraction was a good distraction – even if it came in the form of an overconfident, charismatic man called Seungcheol.

“What are you doing here?” the other girl in the room asks, a lot less friendly and inviting. Mirae raises an eyebrow as she regards the older man with an unreadable yet highly scrutinizing gaze. She stays rooted to the spot, despite the tiredness in her stance, and continues glaring at Seungcheol until the man spoke up.

“I don’t know actually,” Seungcheol replies, grinning – causing Mirae to deadpan and Sora to burst out laughing. “Kyungsoo yah just told me to come in here so here I am. I don’t think he knew you girls were in here though. You guys aren’t like, doing something illegal right?”

“Nah, we’re just practicing,” Sora answers before Mirae could make a snarky comment. She jumps a little, bringing Seungcheol’s attention back on her, before smiling. “We’re next on the list for the dance cover thing.”

“Oh right, there’s an order or something. I think I’m on there somewhere but not soon so I don’t have to practice until then,” Seungcheol nods, thinking about the list that had been placed in most of the major practice rooms. As a part of a marketing campaign, Yunrae Entertainment had devised a schedule for YRT2016 and other trainees. It was a kind of list; you were grouped together with people of similar skills or talents, and were allowed to pick whatever you wanted to show. In Mirae and Sora’s case, the two girls had decided to do a dance cover and were set to film the next day. Said video would be edited and monitored by the girls and some staff members and, when it was deemed okay, would be released on YRT2016’s YouTube page.

“You should still give it some thought,” Mirae says icily. “Have you even contacted your group members yet?”

“Chill Mirae,” Seungcheol rolls his eyes. “I guess you’re already doing that,” the male barks out a laugh before calming down and throwing Mirae a lazy smile. “You’re going to look older if you worry so much. Things’ll turn out fine, especially since I’m there. One look at me and it won’t matter what we do. The fans’ll be head over heels in love within seconds.”

“I wouldn’t be so proud if I were you,” Mirae shrugs, her own smirk appearing on her face as Seungcheol gives her a slightly confused expression.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Seungcheol narrows his eyes.

“I mean, if I were you, I wouldn’t be so confident in those... so called ‘looks’ of yours,” Mirae shoots back, inciting further narrowing of eyes from Seungcheol. Stepping in before the two could enter a full out battle of words, Sora bounces once again, drawing all the attention in the room, and smiles energetically.

“Oppa, would you like to see our dance? I think it’s really good – of course, I helped tweak the details so it should be perfect – but that’s subjective,” Sora grins, and the tension in the room lowers exponentially. Nodding, Seungcheol gives Sora a thumbs up before going to the mirror and sitting down in front of it. While Mirae scoffs and goes over to turn the music on, Sora drags the two chairs in the middle to the sides of the room before going to stand by one of them. As Mirae finishes adjusting the music, she jogs over to the other one and the two wait a moment before the music starts.

Sitting back, Seungcheol watches in low key awe as the girls go through the routine perfectly. The smooth R&B music matching the sultry yet elegant dance moves perfectly while the slow paced dance showed off both Mirae’s flexibility and skill as well as Sora’s experience in dance and charismatic facial expressions. As the music faded and the dance finished, Seungcheol stands up, applauding loudly. Grinning at the silent compliment, Sora bounds over to stop the music while Mirae coolly nods at the older male. Seeing as the previous tension between the two older trainees was gone, Sora breathes a sigh of relief before returning to the duo.

“How was it?” Sora asks cheekily, already knowing the answer. She avoids the swipe Seungcheol throws her way before laughing and twirling around happily. “It’s going to be awesome. Soon enough people will see how awesome I am and they’ll put me in a trainee project group too.”

“Oh right, they’re only releasing the members of YRB2016 right? Nothing for the girls right?” Seungcheol furrows his eyebrows as Sora nods, pouting slightly.

“Well there’s the duo Daehoon and I are in, and the upcoming boy group in the works, nothing about a girl group yet,” Mirae shrugs, patting Sora on the head comfortingly. She smiles maternally at the younger girl before stretching her arms. “Although there are still girls being accepted into the whole YRT2016 thing, they’re just not releasing the actual member profiles for them yet.”

“What?” a new voice asks, shocking everyone in the room. Sora jumps visibly, whining when she turns around and notices the new face, while Mirae merely glowers at the floor, refusing to acknowledge the small squeal she had made in surprise. Seungcheol on the other hand, laughs out loud and waves at the newcomer before turning around and smirking at Mirae.

“Another oppa!” Sora declares. “Although this one is a little less appreciated, but only because you scared me. I still adore you San oppa.”

“You bet you do,” San walks in confidently, throwing Sora a wink before walking in and slinging an arm over Seungcheol’s shoulders. “So what were you talking about before I came in?”

“The female trainees in YRT2016,” Seungcheol replies. “And how they’re not being released yet – the member profiles at least.”

“Right, the people up in management have started revealing the members for YRBGT2016 or whatever it’s called – too many letters and numbers to remember,” San yawns, itching behind his ear. “All these terms are confusing to be honest. Why can’t they just label them like project 1 and group A or whatever?”

“Because then there’d really be too many numbers and letters to remember,” Sora responds, giggling when San shoots her a look. “What? You said it yourself!”

“San!” a whiny voice calls from outside, causing San to untangle himself from Seungcheol and go to the door. Opening it widely, the foreign boy almost smacks another trainee in the face. Luckily enough, the other boy moves back just in time. However, said movement was a bit too quick for his feet, and the other trainee falls onto the floor with a loud thump.

“Oh, yo Taekjin hyung, what’s up?” San says without offering Taekjin a hand.

“You left me,” Taekjin accuses half-heartedly. The tall man stands up, towering over the rest of the trainees, and rubs his tailbone sadly. “I didn’t know where Kyungsoo ssi wanted us to go and you said you’d lead me – but then you just ran off.”

“Did I say I’d do something like that?” San blinks, thinking back. “I think I did. Whoops, sorry man.”

“Whatever, you’re here now eh?” Seungcheol drags Taekjin in before the clumsy boy could hurt himself again. As San closes the door, Mirae feels her eyebrow twitch uncontrollably as the once quiet practice room became crowded and uncomfortably filled with testosterone.

“Why is everyone coming into this room?” Mirae asks, cutting into the conversation between Seungcheol and San – with Taekjin awkwardly speaking up every so often, only to be ignored and made fun of by Sora.

“I don’t know, ask Kyungsoo,” Seungcheol shrugs. “He said I should come here because he had something to tell me and then ran off.”

“Same here,” San points a finger gun at Mirae and pretends to shoot her.

“M-me too,” Taekjin says quietly, almost too softly for everyone to hear – until Sora announces it once again in her naturally loud voice.

“But why,” Mirae groans again. The Japanese girl anticipates the headache already beginning to form in her temples. The three boys had decided to ignore her again, going back to talking about whatever teenage boys chattered about. Sighing, Mirae drags the chair closest to her and collapses into it. She wasn’t paid enough to deal with trainees like this – although, technically, Mirae wasn’t paid at all, but that wasn’t the point here.

“Oh! Kyungsoo oppa is here!” Sora announces suddenly, causing Mirae to open her eyes and watch as the door opens and closes again as the man walks into the room. Kyungsoo looks over at the three boys, nods, before moving his gaze onwards.

“What are you girls doing here?” Kyungsoo asks, obviously confused. Mirae resists the urge to curse.

“We were practicing oppa,” Sora responds, scooting over, closer to Mirae, and hands the older girl a water bottle. As the Japanese trainee busies with the drink, Sora smiles charmingly at the trainee manager. “And then everyone else walked in for some reason – they said you were the one who sent them? Any particular reason why you decided to disrupt your practice session?”

“Oh, I didn’t know this room wasn’t empty,” Kyungsoo shrugs uncaringly. “Sorry about that I guess.” Resisting the urge to smack someone, Mirae sighs, taking another sip from the water bottle, while Sora forced a grin. While Kyungsoo wasn’t entirely stoic, he tended to be a little more insensitive than the other trainee managers, and, as such, wasn’t entirely popular with the younger or female trainees. “Anyways, where’s Myunghwan?”

“Not here,” Sora replies dryly, a stark contrast to her previous upbeat nature.

“I can see that,” Kyungsoo narrows his eyes.

“But you couldn’t see that we were in here first hm?” Sora challenges; face lighting up in glee at the slight annoyance in Kyungsoo’s face.

“Listen here child,” Kyungsoo starts out sternly, but before he could finish, the door opens and everyone’s attention is drawn by the loud and obnoxious slurp that followed. “Oh, there you are,” Kyungsoo dead pans as Myunghwan closes the door behind him. Lips still clamped around the straw of the drink in his hands, the younger male observes Kyungsoo and the others with silent disgust before moving to the corner of the room.

“Uhm, anyways, moving on,” Kyungsoo clears his throat, slightly put off by the lack of interest and silent judgement radiating from Myunghwan. “You four boys have made the final lineup for YRT2016. Well, the boys at least. The girls have been chosen too along with the help of Mirae and Sora over there but they’re not my responsibility.”

“Damn really?” Seungcheol grins. “I mean, I knew I’d make it, obviously.”

“That’s a surprise, because, for one, I honestly wasn’t expecting you of all people to be confirmed,” Myunghwan speaks up from his corner, eyes staring at his phone and while his entire body screamed detachment from the current situation, the mocking tone in his words was heard loud and clear.

“Aha, right,” Kyungsoo chuckles awkwardly at the comment. Taekjin seems just as flustered, mouth opening and closing as he tries to figure out if he should say something or not while San lets out a loud laugh and slaps Seungcheol’s back loudly. Wincing at the sound, Kyungsoo continues speaking before anything else could happen. “So you’ll all be reporting in the larger training room down the hall for the next couple of months. Most of your training will take place in that room, it’s been equipped by cameras and they’ll be activated to go live every so often – we haven’t quite figured out when yet – and viewers will be able to access any of the cameras in the room and watch you.”

“Very Big Brother-esque,” San nods.

“What?” Taekjin blinks.

“Who?” Sora adds.

“S-sure,” Kyungsoo nods as if he understood, although pretty much no one in the room other than San knew what he was talking about.

“So all the trainees of YRT2016 will be in the same room?” Mirae grimaces at the thought. She was used to mostly practicing in her own studio and only going to the larger rooms for dance and group rehearsals.

“Well that room is reserved for YRT2016 members and it’s been specially designed. There’s the big practice room, and then there are two smaller ones attached to it – one for the girls and one for the boys. The big room is only for when we play games or have live broadcasts. There are also smaller vocal rooms around where you can go for independent practice sessions if you want,” Kyungsoo replies.

“The whole live broadcast thing, it’s going to be like 17TV right?” Sora asks. “From what I remember back at Pledis, they just turned the cameras on while we practiced and the viewers would watch us do whatever. Although the more adventurous trainees usually hogged the camera the whole time but if there wasn’t a game or an organized activity, a lot of us just stayed in the background.”

“Exactly,” Kyungsoo agrees. “This kind of tests your charisma as well. An idol has to be a lot more than just a good singer, dancer, or rapper. You need to have an aura that draws people to you without you having to do anything – that or you have to be able to talk well, make people like you. If you can’t draw attention to yourself in a room full of other talented boys and girls, how are you going to make your group famous within the seas of new groups and already known seniors?”

“So much for talent and hard work,” Myunghwan snorts. “Don’t they always say that you can do anything as long as you work hard?” he continues when everyone looks at him in confusion. “Total bull – you can tell just from things like this. Life is unfair, you work hard, doesn’t matter. You’re probably going to fail either way.”

“But there’s nothing wrong with trying,” Seungcheol speaks up. “And trying is where the real things count. After all, what’s the point of being charismatic, talented, good looking – basically the whole package – if you don’t do anything with it?”

“What Seungcheol said,” Kyungsoo rubs his eyes tiredly – obviously too exhausted to deal with Myunghwan’s negativity. “Anyways, you’ll be reporting to that room starting next week. There’s going to be a bigger briefing since all the little details will be sorted out this weekend between management. For now you’re free to go – do whatever you want before the real training starts.”

“Fun,” San rolls his eyes before saluting everyone in the room and scampering away. Myunghwan follows closely behind, shooting everyone another glance that said something along the lines of ‘we’ll be working together but I still hate you and you all disgust me’ while Taekjin bid everyone farewell and left as well.

“Oh, Mirae, Sora, Xiuxin said she wanted to see you guys before your shoot tomorrow – to talk about whatever special design stuff she’s in charge of,” Kyungsoo calls over his shoulder as he leaves, Seungcheol shooting a quick, ‘fighting!’ in their direction (mostly at Sora though) before exiting the room too.

Looking over at the older girl, Sora shrugs when Mirae gives her a dead gaze. Laughing slightly, Sora leans over to take the now empty water bottle from Mirae’s hands and throws it cleanly into the recycling bin near the door. Grabbing onto Mirae’s wrist, Sora slips her hands into the Japanese trainee’s before the two also leave the room and report to Xiuxin’s office upstairs.