“Open up, it’s Lisa~”

It’s 9 o’clock in the evening and here I was, outside our dorm, pressing the buzzer repeatedly because my members wouldn’t open the door for me. They should be inside by now since I’m always the last one to get home nowadays.

Jisoo opened the door, already in her pajamas, greeting me with a spoon on mouth and a cup of ice cream in her hand. “Annyeong. Why so impatient, Nalla-lisa?” she said, feigning a frown.

I forced a smiled and walked inside. Oh thank goodness for heaters. It was freezing outside. If I stayed outside the room for another minute, I would’ve burst into tears. I took of my coat and found Jennie and Rosé on the sofa watching a movie, cuddled together with a blanket over them.

I squeezed myself in between them as I grabbed Jennie’s pillow.

“AYDOWMWAMDUDISEMIMOOOOO!” I shouted with my face buried in the pillow.

“What the hell did she just say?”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“She’s speaking alien again.”

I took the pillow off my face and looked at them helplessly. “I said, I don’t wanna do this anymore.” I passed Rose the pillow, wanting to cry.

“Oh no, what happened?” Jennie asked in a baby’s voice, wrapping her arms around my head. Rose and Jisoo my arms gently, making me really want to cry.

 I tried to calm my quivering lips, “Nothing actually. It’s just… It’s the 3rd day of the rehearsals already and I haven’t made friends yet; the dance is confusing and I made mistakes a lot and I think everyone thinks I’m an idiot I misunderstood the coach’s instruction and they were laughing and and all of them probably knew each other way way before and I don’t have anyone to talk to and you know I can’t easily make friends right? My Korean is not even that good yet.”

I vented out breathlessly. Wew, it feels good to get that out of my chest. Judging by their facial expressions, they must be trying to comprehend what I just said. Jisoo was the first one to speak up.

“Look I think your problem is you don’t have something to inspire you to participate in the dance.” Jisoo said as she scooped an ice cream and put it in . “I mean, you have to talk to these people Nalla-lisa. Otherwise, you won’t make friends and you would be at your worst everyday and YG-sajangnim’s not gonna like that and you would be remo—”

“Okay Chichu that’s not helping and that’s enough.” Rose put another spoonful of icecream in Jisoo’s mouth, stopping her from talking. “Lisa, what she’s trying to say is to—”

“Get out of your comfort zone and try to make friends.” Jennie finished the sentence for her. “Start a small talk. Or at least smile. Wait, aren’t there GOT7 members participating? You could talk about Bambam.”

Yeah. Yugyeom is there, he seems nice. I could strike a conversation with him tomorrow, casually talk about Bambam and that we were childhood friends. Red velvet’s Seulgi seems nice too, maybe I could say hi. She doesn’t talk very much but she smiles a lot, I observed.

“Or talk to that Thai member of NCT, what’s his name, Ten? Isn’t he representing them?” Jisoo added.

“Oh please, don’t get me started on Ten.” I said and rolled my eyes.

“Why?”

Ten. Yeah right. As if I could talk to him. He hasn’t been acknowledging my presence, eversince that first day when I thought he was a fan. We would always arrive first but he would disappear minutes later, I’d see him in between breaks drinking his stupid milk drink but wouldn’t say anything. After rehearsals, he would disappear again so suddenly. Whenever we bumped to each other, he would look at me, raise his eyebrows and bow a little.

Not even a smile.

“Nothing. I just feel that he doesn’t like me.” I answered nonchalantly, grabbed Jisoo’s spoon and fed myself some icecream. “Ah this is so nice.”

“You’ll be fine don’t worry.” Jennie pat my head and kissed my cheek. “And Rose, that’s my pillow.”

I really need to be kissed a lot right now.

The next day went better than expected; Yugyeom and I happened to ride the elevator together, along with his other member, Jinyoung. They were the first one to bring up Bambam. Apparently Bambam already told them about me, which is nice. We were talking as we reached the room; Ten was already there with some of the others, already practicing separately our dance.

Seriously, when does this guy not dance?

We started our rehearsals; we were almost done with the first part, all of us dancing together to Martin Garrix’s “In The Name of Love”. By this time, I could already feel myself mastering the steps. After a few more repeats, we had our break and I sat with Yugyeom and Jinyoung for a while before they excused themselves.

I found myself alone in one corner again, only to be joined minutes later by a problematic Seulgi. Apparently, she developed friction blisters just above her Achilles tendon from all the dancing, and she didn’t have any bandages on her.

Luckily, I’ve brought some adhesive bandages with me and helped