March 08, 2020

An eerie sort of hush gathered over the trainees in the dining hall, all watching as Heju stared at Heechul. She looked as if she was going to challenge his demand to go to his office, but instead, she turned up her nose and turned away, heading for the stairs.

“Is she leaving?” Soobin whispered, glancing at Hiroko next to her. “Or is she going to the office?”

Hiroko frowned, shrugging a little, watching as Heechul marched off after the trainee. “But look, Siwon is making that girl Yumi go to the office too.” She told Soobin, nudging her lightly. As soon as the two girls and the three Super Junior members left, talking sprouted up amongst all of the trainees again.

Standing up and waving towards the new girl, Hiroko motioned her over to the table she was at. “Eunkyung, right? Come eat with us, you’re going to be in the same group as us.”

The girl smiled a little hesitantly and slid onto the bench slowly, letting her small backpack drop onto the floor beside her. Her two suitcases were in front of the door to the dorms, with nowhere to go.

“Is that girl always so mean..?” Eunkyung asked slowly, watching the door where Heju had left.

With a chorus of sighs, girls scattered around her nodded in agreement, looking a mix of angry and sad.

“She’s usually not so racist,” Jinah commented from the next table over, turned around to face the new girl. “She didn’t know I was only half Korean, at first, so she was perfectly polite. When she found out my other half is Chinese, she called me a half-breed.”

Chaejung winced, frowning deeply from beside Jinah. “I remember that. The only difference is that none of the Label employees were around, so we couldn’t do much about it.”

Eunkyung looked shocked at the horrible slur, honestly feeling worried now.

“But… Did you complain to someone? Did they do anything?”

Jinah and Hiroko exchanged a look. “I wasn’t going to complain, but this girl, Hei Chu, she’s half Chinese, half Taiwanese, and she took it more to heart. I’m not confrontational, so I really wanted to just leave it behind. It was only because of Hiroko here, who’s Japanese, that I went to Leeteuk.”

“Heju barely got in trouble. I’m not sure how much you remember from the contract you signed, but we can’t get kicked out that easily. We get three strikes before we’re removed, and that was her first strike.” Hiroko said, holding up a single finger.

“But a lot of these girls won’t complain. She’s not said anything that horrible since then, until now. Generally, she’s just kind of a ,” Chaejung said as she crossed her arms in a childish manner. “We can only hope this gives her a second strike. One step closer to her being gone.”

Soobin, who had been quiet since Eunkyung joined the table, finally spoke up. “The Label just started a point system to rate the trainees. I’m hoping that she’ll get the lowest points and it’ll be her third strike.”

Just as Jinah was about to comment on her own hopes for that, a bell echoed through the dining hall to signal the end of their forty-five minute break.

“Oh, back to practice. You can come with us, watch what we’re working on.” Jinah offered, not knowing whether or not they were supposed to adjust everything for one more member or not.

By the time group A filed back into their specified dance studio, Eunhyuk was already waiting for them.

“Back to work, ladies. Like I said before lunch, work on your vocals more during the second half. Eunkyung, you will not be participating during this first trial, so feel free to sit against the wall and watch,” As the girls picked up the lyric sheets they had left lying about, he continued to speak. “You’re on your own for a while. I’ll be back before dinner to check on you.”

With a simple nod, Eunhyuk left the room, making his way upstairs to the offices. Heechul and Shindong were meeting with Heju still, and he wanted to pop his head in to make sure she wasn’t throwing a tantrum or something.

-----

Heju was sitting at the meeting table two doors down from Heechul’s office with her arms crossed over her chest, eyes narrowed at the two men in the room, reading her the riot act.

“We’ve discussed this before, Kang Heju, it is unacceptable.” Heechul said as he pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to keep himself from getting too angry. She was literally the only trainee with a strike against her, and it was for the same reasoning as this!

“I’m only saying the truth, I don’t see what’s so wrong about that-”

“Heju, stop right now. What is the truth? That you are racist?” Heechul narrowed his eyes at the girl, pressing his palms on the table and leaning forward. “This company accepts trainees from everywhere. Just like SM Entertainment, we are accepting, and your attitude doesn’t represent us.”

Before the girl could speak up again to argue her side of things, Siwon stood from where he had been sitting quietly. “This needs to stop, Heju. You’ve gotten one strike against you already for this, and you’ll be receiving another. We won’t tolerate your hate speech. Get your act together, or you won’t have much time left under Label SJ. And believe me, you’ll be hard pressed to find another company to accept you after we warn them of your attitude.”

With that not so subtle threat, Heju nodded slowly. Debuting came first, she could only hope to debut in an all-Korean group.

-----

By the end of the day, the girls felt dead tired.

While a few went to the cafeteria to see if they could get any late night snacks, another small group made their way to the individual training rooms in order to practice their lines, the rest of the trainees stumbled their way up to the dorms.

“We’ll show you around tomorrow morning,” Jiae told Eunkyung, helping the girl bring her luggage into the dorm from the hallway. “There’s only a few rooms, really. The Label made them large enough to fit a lot of single beds in each, lined up end to end. I think there’s ten beds per room, since there’s a couple beds empty in our room.”

Humming thoughtfully, Jiae led the new girl to the dorm, each bed looking nearly the same besides neatness.

“Here, the bed next to mine is empty.” Minsun motioned to an empty bed, looking out of place without any stuffed animals or posters on the wall beside it.

Eunkyung briefly smiled, setting her bags down and sitting on the mattress, looking around to see the decorations scattered around the other beds.

“Get some rest, we’re doing our first photoshoot tomorrow.” The soft voice brought Eunkyung out of her reverie, looking at Hei Chu sliding into the bed across the room from her. Saying a soft goodnight, the new trainee watched as Minsun dimmed the lights in the room. There was enough light for the rest of the girls to get into the room without tripping, but enough darkness to let the rest of the girls fall asleep without much trouble.

-----

March 09, 2020

At seven in the morning, Jieun woke with a start. There was movement around her of other girls starting their day- but that’s not what startled her to consciousness. “Son of a-” She hissed softly, rubbing at her eyes. There was the source of her annoyance: Aerin and Jinheo from the room next door were digging through piles of clothes, looking for a single lost shoe.

After a sudden ‘ah-ha!’, the two girls hurried out of the room with the shoe in hand, rushing like they were on a time limit. In fact, looking around, it seemed like she was one of the few left in bed.

“What’s going on?” Jieun mumbled with a frown, grabbing her hair brush from the little shelf on the wall beside her bed.

“Did you forget?” Younghee was in the middle of straightening her hair, smoothing it down gently. “We’ve got our photoshoot today! We’re doing our own styling, and the photoshoot is first come, first serve.”

Jieun groaned and pushed herself out of bed, rushing to get ready. If they waited too long to do their headshot, they’d have less time to practice their mission. Time was ticking for them to get it perfected.

Across the hall, Jiyae was putting the final touches on her chosen outfit, ready to be one of the first downstairs. Linking her arm with Aerin, the two lead the way for a few others to follow.

Apparently, on the same floor as the Label offices, was a decent size film studio. There was a dressing room with the fancy light-up mirrors on two walls. In the studio, there was a simple off-white backdrop set up, a stool off to the side. Seeing the camera and the equipment set up was shocking to Jiyae, who had never experienced such a thing before. She had been in a label before, but they had gone bankrupt before she had gotten much of anything out of it.

“Alright ladies!” You’re the first ones here. Come gather ‘round and we’ll give you a quick explanation.” Kyuhyun smiled softly, motioning the handful of trainees closer.

Heechul glanced at his watch, seeing how many girls showed up early. “One by one, you’ll step up and get your headshots done. Listen to the tips that Kyuhyun and I give you so we can get this done faster, and you can all go back to your training. Your ‘coach’ will be waiting for you, so if you haven’t eaten breakfast, don’t dilly-dally.”

And like that, the girl’s stepped up, some choosing to stand while others used the stool to get more comfortable. They took the advice offered them, tilt your chin up, turn your head to the side, be playful and cute. Before they knew it, they were stepping away from the backdrop, heading back upstairs to change into more comfortable clothes.
 

Between working and partying, I didn't realize I was getting sick. Add in horrible air quality from wildfires (I'm in California), I've been screwed up all week. Sorry for the delay, everyone.

I know I sped through the photoshoot (it's late, i'm tired) - if you want me to expand on that in the next chapter, let me know.

 

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