07. Suns and wars

“Where are we going?” Taewoo blinks, staring at the elevator panel. While the Icarus team had happily bordered the elevator before, it seemed that none of them really knew where they were supposed to go from there. “Does anyone know what level we’re supposed to go to?”

“Up,” Seungcheol pipes up unhelpfully.

“Okay but what floor,” Taewoo repeats again, rolling his eyes when the other male shrugs. “Let’s just try the first floor – maybe there’s a directory in the lobby or something,” Taewoo sighs before pushing the button that determined their fate. Listening to the chatter of the other trainees, Bongjoon bounces happily on the balls of his feet as the elevator reaches the first floor. After a couple seconds of intense staring, Seungcheol and Dohyun end up getting out of the elevator to search for a directory while the rest of the group awkwardly stands inside the elevator.

The two elder trainees carefully walk down the halls, trying to stay quiet as to not disturb anyone else, before they make into the reception area. Glancing around, Dohyun spies the directory hanging behind the main desk and goes over to take a look. Seungcheol follows, but ends up stealing a couple mints from the box on the desk – probably reserved for guests or the younger trainees – before joining Dohyun in his search. Peering at the various labels and floor levels beside them, Seungcheol furrows his eyebrows as he tries to make heads and tails of the signs before giving up. Plopping down on the desk, the long haired male decides to just watch the cars pass from the floor to ceiling windows in the lobby while Dohyun actively searches for their destination.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” a voice says, and Seungcheol looks up to see a girl walking towards them, maybe his age but definitely not a trainee. Especially not by the way she was dressed, no trainee would actively come to practice wearing high heels and what seemed to be a tight fitting dress. It looked good on her; Seungcheol wasn’t going to lie, but still, definitely not a trainee.

“And you are?” Seungcheol challenges, as both a way of asking who she was and what her status was. He raises an eyebrow as Dohyun turns to look at the newcomer as well.

“Yoon Jisol, Yunrae’s newest intern and Hyeri unnie’s stand in secretary,” Jisol flicks some of her silky hair behind her shoulder in a haughty manner before crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow at Seungcheol. The girl looks him up and down before smirking. “And if I was honest, I look like I belong here more than you do.”

“Excuse me?” Seungcheol intakes sharply, jutting his chin out. This girl did not just insult his looks – or whatever she meant by that. Seungcheol would be proud to tell anyone that he as grade A idol material, from his looks to his body to his talent, and he wasn’t going to let some infuriating intern knock him down.

“Chill,” Dohyun breathes, scratching his neck awkwardly. He smiles kindly at Jisol, although he very much disliked her. The minute the other girl had walked in; Dohyun had gotten bad vibes left and right. She didn’t mean well, and her body language and words only reinforced that, but if there was something Dohyun knew how to do was to act calm on the outside. “If you’re working here then you can help us right? Do you know where Xiuxin ssi’s office is?”

“You’re the team that won?” Jisol sniffs in disbelief. “Now that’s interesting, I was expecting something more... Whatever, that doesn’t matter.” The girl smirks, walking behind Kurami’s desk before pointing at a label on the directory. “Management offices – fourth floor,” Jisol reads slowly, as if she was talking to a bunch of little kids. “Xiuxin unnie is the visual design director, her office would be there no? But since you guys are going for a meeting,” Jisol trails off, moving her finger until it was pointing at another sign. “Obviously you’d look for the meeting rooms no? Third floor – meeting rooms. How long have you been here?”

“Thank you,” Dohyun says through gritted teeth, ignoring the obvious jab at their lack of knowledge of the building. Pushing Seungcheol in front of him so the other, hot-blooded trainee wouldn’t say anything, Dohyun returns back to the anxiously awaiting group at the elevator. “Third floor,” he says simply and Taewoo punches it in. The elevator doors close again and the group goes up, until they arrive at another floor, filled with different hallways and multitudes of offices and business rooms.

                “Okay now where?” Taeryung asks, looking around in confusion. Jisang responds with a shrug of his shoulders and the group sets off in a random direction. Peeking into the various rooms, Taeryung finds himself hopping excitement. He, like many of the trainees, hadn’t been in the higher levels before – especially not the meeting rooms. Although he’d been in Hyeri’s and the other head staff member’s offices a couple times, he’s never been allowed to explore this floor. So walking around searching for Xiuxin was exciting enough for him.

“You guys the trainees that won?” a male voice inquires, and Jisang turns around to spy an unknown male. He nods hesitantly before the male waves them over. “Xiuxin is waiting over here,” the male states before opening the door and letting them in. Walking in, Jisang spies Hyeri and Xiuxin at the front of the room before the trainees settle in and sit down.

“Hello boys!” Hyeri greets, smiling widely. “Henry tells me you’re the team that won, I’ll be viewing your video files later on today but I trust his decision. This over here is Xiuxin, you’ve probably heard of her but she’s the visual director of Yunrae and so she’ll be helping you with your image and what not. The new face over there is Song Minho, he’s a new marketing intern who’ll be working with you all along with Xiuxin so you’ll be seeing him more often in the future.” Nodding awkwardly, the trainees turn their attention to Xiuxin who stands up and walks to the board at the front of the room.

“Alright, so Cosmos’ comeback song is titled Colour,” Xiuxin begins, writing the English word on the board. “And as such, we’re going to take a unique angle on the music video. We’re going to base it on the Wizard of Oz movie, in which it starts off as black and white and turns to colour. The same concept except the music video will slowly change to colour as Cosmos interacts with the main male lead,” Xiuxin explains hurriedly, obviously feeling awkward and self-conscious in front of the new trainees. “The main male lead, we’ve decided, will be played by Dohyun ssi,” Xiuxin pauses and looks at the man in particular. “Because of his precious acting experience, is that fine with you?”

“O-oh, yeah! Of course!” Dohyun stutters. He sits up straight at the sound of his name and gives Xiuxin an easy smile and two thumbs up. Jisang, sitting beside him, claps him on the shoulder in encouragement while Taewoo hoots off to the side.

“What about the rest of us?” Bongjoon asks cautiously after everyone else quieted down.

“I’m getting to that,” Xiuxin replies, “the MV is going to be set in a diner so the rest of you will be extras. Some of you will be other customers while I’ll have some trainees at the back pretending to be cooks. The director will give you your roles when you get to the MV shoot so don’t worry too much about that now. And other questions?”

“Alright,” Hyeri speaks up after the boys shake their heads. “I want to remind you all that after the MV shooting, you’ll be filming your first episode of Yunrae’s Deck, that’s what we’re calling it for now at least. The girls are going to be called Yunrae’s Sky.”

“Those are some, uh, interesting names you got going there,” Seungcheol coughs, causing Taeryung to laugh. Jisang elbows the older boy in the stomach before nodding at Hyeri to continue.

“Oh my children,” Hyeri wiggles her eyebrows, “things will make sense to you soon enough. It’s all part of my master plan after all,” Hyeri giggles, tapping her temple lightly as the trainees, Xiuxin, and Minho stare at her in confusion. “Anyways, you guys can go off and do whatever trainees do, train or whatever,” Hyeri waves her hand dismissively and the trainees awkwardly leave the room.

“You’d think the CEO of Yunrae would know what trainees do,” Dohyun says in amazement after their encounter with Hyeri. Jisang shrugs, pressing the button for the elevator and the group quickly follows him.

“I think she was joking or what not,” Taewoo states as Jisang drags Bongjoon backwards – just moments before the elevator door closed, thus saving the other boy’s fingers. “They say she’s kind of really weird, but she’s extremely smart and means well.”

“Well you know what they say, geniuses are all ed up in the head,” Seungcheol says, making a little twirling motion with his finger, only to be stepped on by Jisang. “Ow what the heck bro?”

“Watch your language,” Jisang blinks innocently. “There are minors here.” The younger boy motions towards Bongjoon and Taeryung before pressing harder on Seungcheol’s foot.

“You’re literally the youngest one here– okay okay! Sorry!” Seungcheol yelps as he feels something jab into his side – Jisang’s pointy elbow probably – before moving farther away from the younger trainee. Soon enough, the group of boys are back in the dungeons – trainee levels – of Yunrae and as they make their way into the big room at the end of the hallway, they run into the other male members of YRB2016.

“Hey!” San exclaims, pointing at the entering boys. “How was your meeting?” he inquires as him and Seungcheol shoot finger guns at each other. The newcomers easily merge into the group, some sitting down with friends while others awkwardly stay at the edges of the circle, but they meld into one unit nevertheless.

“Good,” Dohyun replies. “I’m uh, going to play the male lead.”

“That’s amazing!” Junho offers, though his voice was slightly thick. Dohyun glances at him slightly, taking note of the tired look in the older boy’s eyes before Dohyun makes a mental note to ask Junho about it later on. “You’ve got experience after all.”

“Y-you guys talked with Xiuxin right?” San asks suddenly, playing with one of his shoelaces.

“Yeah, why?” Taewoo shoots back. “There was this other guy too, Minho or something. Had a pretty face but I don’t know, I got a weird vibe from him. Like he was just there for the money.”

“Well that’s what a job is,” Hyukjin states gruffly. “Any idea as to what we’re supposed to do now?”

“We’re having our first broadcast soon, this Friday. It’s going to be called Yunrae’s Deck,” Seungcheol replies. “Girls are being called Yunrae’s Sky. So I guess we can start stressing about that?”

“Yunrae’s Deck? Like a deck of cards?” San scrunches his nose. “What kind of name is that?”

“A better name than San that’s what,” Myunghwan mumbles, although everyone in the room hears him. The boy had a talent for that; his ability to stage whisper was beyond belief. Chuckling awkwardly, San decides to ignore the smirk on Myunghwan’s face and turns towards Seungcheol instead.

“I don’t know, apparently Yoo-nim has it ‘all figured out’,” Seungcheol shrugs.

“Well she better, she’s the ing CEO for goodness sakes’,” Chihu grumbles, poking at a stain on his sock – how he got food down there he had no clue. Looking at Jisang in disbelief when the other trainee didn’t reprimand Chihu for swearing, Seungcheol throws his hands into the air and mumbles something about ageism before Jisang turns to him with a raised eyebrow and death in his eyes. Waving his hands quickly, Seungcheol shoots Jisang a smile – albeit a slightly terrified one – before tuning back into the conversation.

“Should we have greetings? For our individual Projects?” Taekjin suggests meekly during a lull in the conversation. “I hear they’re giving us different coloured t-shirts with our names on them so we could be prepared with greetings too?”

“Cool, free t-shirts,” San grins wickedly. “But yeah, a greeting would be cool.”

“What should we do then?” Taeryung asks worriedly. “Project Gladius...” The group becomes quiet after that, all silently thinking of different greetings. It was their first chance to impress and gain fans after all, and first impressions were the most important and lasting. They didn’t want to stumble and end up saying something stupid and embarrassing that could hinder their chance at debuting. And none of them had shed so many tears, gone through so many hours of training in order to be hindered by something as foolish as a botched greeting.

“I got it!” Taewoo jumps up suddenly. “Gladius means ‘sword’ right? And I don’t know, you use that to fight so we could go something like, ‘lose the battle, win the war’?”

“Oh, that’s cool. It’ll show that even if we fail we’ll learn from our mistakes and still end up victorious in the end – fans like cheesy things like that,” Dohyun nods. “That’ll do for us then. Lose the battle, win the war! Annyeonghaseyo, uri Project Gladius imnida!”

“Sounds good,” Seungcheol praises, giving Taewoo a high five. Jisang hums in admiration as well, while Bongjoon quietly mutters the greeting to himself, intent on not messing it up. Taeryung bounces in place at the newly made slogan, pretending to sword fight and accidentally bumping into a flustered Taekjin.

“H-how about us?” Taekjin asks after he recovers from the slight shock of being slammed into by Taeryung. “Icarus?”

“Icarus was a Greek character in mythology who flew too close to the sun and died because of it,” Taeryung pipes up. “I don’t know what Yoo-nim is planning with a name like that but at least it sounds cool.”

“Thanks,” Chihu rolls his eyes. “That makes me so much more motivated to think of a greeting.”

“We could use that though? Make something kind of ironic,” San offers, thinking deeply. “Like ‘brighter than the sun’ – even though Icarus died flying too close to the sun?”

“That sounds great,” Myunghwan comments dryly. “Obviously we’re not going to die like him right?”

“Hey! That’s a great idea!” San says, completely bypassing Myunghwan’s sarcastic comment. “Like, we’re alike Icarus because we’re flying off but we’re not going to die like him since we’re brighter than the sun – the thing that kind of caused him to die in the first place!”

“It’s better than nothing,” Junho offers, giving the group a small smile. “Brighter than the sun, annyeonghaseyo, uri Project Icarus imnida.”

“It sounds pretty cool,” Taekjin says, trying it out for himself. Seeing as the other members of Project Icarus had nothing better to give, the group settles it there and go off to work on their own personal talents. After all, Friday was only a couple days away, and if they really wanted to accomplish their dreams, then they couldn’t hesitate now.