March 09, 2020

It was nearing ten thirty in the morning by the time the last group of girls rushed to get their headshots done. Some of them decided to eat breakfast first, some took too long getting ready, but Song Sori woke up late. She stayed up a little late the night before, working on memorizing the lyrics for the first evaluation. When morning came, she completely slept through her alarm, an entire forty five minutes!

Skipping a shower, thankful that her hair was clean enough still after yesterday’s shower, Sori rushed to dig through her clothes, eventually throwing on a simple white lace top. None of the girls were in the same room with her, so she didn’t have any reference for what the other’s might be wearing to their first photoshoot. As she looked into the mirror, she felt so plain, and quickly added a headband with bunny ear styled bow before nearly running down the stairs to the floor below. She managed to join the last group going to get their headshots taken.

Everything seemed to be a flurry of activity around her, girls hurrying past to change into their comfy dance clothes, Label SJ employees walking around with clipboards, talking about meetings and schedules, even a few people moving around big lighting equipment for the photoshoot.

By the way Minyoung was whining to Soobin, despite Soobin’s clear eye rolling, Sori wasn’t the only one stressed out by the flurry of activity.

Taking a deep breath, Sori waited in line with the last few girls, trying to will herself calm.

Nearby, Jiae noticed just how much the other was shaking from nerves. The two had talked before, a few times, but never got extremely close. Despite being same age friends, the “friends” part wasn’t quite accurate. Either way, she decided to help the poor girl.

“Hey, you look cute,” Jiae flashed a brief smile, motioning to Sori’s chosen outfit. “I should have done more like you, instead of just this plain shirt.”

“You always look beautiful...” Sori told the other girl honestly, thinking that the simple outfit couldn’t have looked better on anyone else.

Ignoring Sori’s shy way of responding, Jiae grinned in a friendly manner. “Is it just me, or is this more nerve wracking than expected?” She tried to sound casual, wanting to make it seem like many of them were nervous, not just Sori.

Finally, after a brief look of shock, the dance trainee finally seemed to relax at those words. Knowing someone as pretty as Jiae could be nervous made things easier, and their short conversation lasted only another minute until it was Jiae’s turn to photograph.

-----

Aeri took a deep breath, closing her eyes as she focused on her task. Having just finished stretching out her limbs, it was time to practice the group choreography. Soobin and Minyoung were still upstairs at the photoshoot with Sori, while Kyungmi and Hiroko were finishing up their breakfast in the dining hall. Eunkyung had followed Aeri to the practice room, because even though she wasn’t participating in the first evaluation, she felt like she was missing out.

So Aeri decided to include her by showing the dance routine.

With a quick motion of her hand, Eunkyung the stereo, letting Wonder Girls play through the room.

A short few minutes later, after a near-perfect job by Aeri, the music faded away and Eunkyung couldn’t help but clap quietly. “Wow! That was great, you really are an amazing dancer!”

Laughing together, the two went through the moves a few at a time, having fun before the rest of the girl’s slowly started to join them.

-----

The day went by in a flash. Group B barely was able to get through one full practice of their song before lunch time came. To everyone’s surprise, Heju was with them- nearly on time. She kept completely, shut other than singing her handful of lines, otherwise sticking her nose in the air as if she was too good for rehearsing.

Still, her being a silent was better than her complaining constantly.

“I’m really surprised, it was almost like she was cooperating with us.” Chaejung murmured under her breath to Jinheo, both of them glancing quickly at Heju.

“I guess she really got in trouble yesterday. She already got one strike, remember?” Haru added in, sliding onto the bench beside her group mates.

Jinah frowned, swallowing the bite of her food before speaking. “They haven’t updated the scoreboard yet, do you think it’ll say if she got another strike or not?” Chaejung looked a little hopeful, crossing her fingers. Aerin and Haru snickered, enjoying the gossip break.

“If she really has two strikes, it won’t be long until she’s gone. That’ll be a breath of fresh air for us all.” Jinheo said with a sigh, digging into her own meal.

-----

March 10, 2020


The morning of the evaluations, Jiyae was one of the first people awake. As always, her alarm woke her up five hours after she had laid down to rest. Quietly slipping from her shared room, she snuck downstairs to the dining hall while trying not to wake anyone else.

It wasn’t surprising that Hiroko was already awake, silently making herself tea at the drinks counter.

It happened once before, shortly after the girl’s all started moving into the dorms. Jiyae, in her usual fashion, was awake early and searching for coffee when she found the young Japanese trainee looking quite upset. As it turned out, Hiroko had a bit of an anxiety issue with her nerves, and tea always helped to calm her down.

“Good morning.” Jiyae said quietly, smiling and preparing the coffee pot for herself. Hiroko murmured a quiet hello and sat at the nearest table, one of her legs bouncing up and down erratically with her nervousness.

“I didn’t wake you, did I?” Hiroko asked, frowning a little in worry.

“No, no, don’t worry. I actually wanted to get one more rehearsal in before our evaluations,” Yawning quietly, Jiyae poured herself a hearty mug of coffee once it was prepared. “Is that why you’re awake? Nervous for today?”

Hiroko nodded without a word added. The two sat in a comfortable silence, drinking their drinks and silently comforting each other simply with their presence.

It wasn’t long until the Label cooks came in and began to make breakfast, serving the two without questioning why they were there so early. As time ticked on, girls joined them in the dining hall one by one, waiting for the Super Junior members to enter and tell them what was prepared for the day.

Leeteuk and Ryeowook were the first of the guys to join their trainees. It was only a few more minutes before Siwon and Eunhyuk joined, and they started on the announcements.

“All right, all four groups will head down to the fitness court in twenty minutes. We will call one group up at a time, and you only get one shot to go through your choreography and lines. Use this time wisely, okay?” Eunhyuk suggested, clapping his hands together.

“Don’t be too worried out there. Even if someone makes a major slip up, you won’t be kicked to the curb.” Leeteuk was telling them, always taking time to remind the girls that this wasn’t a one-shot program.

“Too bad, though, it’d be nice to see Heju get kicked for falling on her face.” Jinheo whispered to Emmy, the both of them needing to cover their mouths to hide their giggles.

-----

Twenty-three minutes later, the last of the trainees were settling into the bleachers. All of them were wearing comfortable clothes, hair tied back, most of them looking anxious.

Group A was called, and Soobin, Minyoung, Aeri, Hiroko, Kyungmi, and Sori filled down onto the floor. Eunkyung stayed in her seat, silently pumping her fists in the air to cheer on her teammates.

Wonder Girl’s “Nobody” played through the speakers, and the group got to work. It was easy to see they had worked hard on the choreography, but needed more practice keeping their voices stable which moving. Soobin was a little breathy, but stable. Hiroko stumbled with her words, but held a nice tone. Minyoung didn’t do much, having very few lines to rap, but her English needed more practice if she was going to ever rap in English again. Kyungmi was surprising, but sadly, not in a good way. Her voice broke during her part, and was off key for the rest of the song. Sori, stiff with nerves, made some big errors during the dance, despite being a dance specialty. Aeri came away mostly unscathed, though she seemed quite exhausted before the song was even finished.

The rest of the trainees clapped and cheered when the song was over, feeling proud of their friends.

Next was group B. Aerin, Jinheo, Chaejung, Haru, Jinah, and Yeseul all eagerly hurried to the floor. Heju took her time, a haughty expression on her face.

Girls Generation’s “Into The New World” started up, and this team had a clear line down the middle. Everyone but Heju was in sync, doing really well in their dance steps. They new the lyrics well, but again, most of them seemed to struggle doing both at the same time. Aerin and Chaejung had been in this position before; dancing and singing at the same time wasn’t the issue, it was remembering the steps. Jinheo stood out well, as did Jinah. Being the two rappers in the group, they split their lines in half, both of them commanding the spotlight with their performances. If anything, their rap styles were too strong for this song. And while Haru and Yeseul were both dance specialties, Yeseul found herself off beat for a decent amount of time during the song, even missing one of her lines while trying to correct her dancing. Haru wasn’t extremely successful singing, but aced the dance.

Again, the rest of the trainees applauded before group C slowly stepped down. Younghee, Jiyae, Minsun, Hei Chu, Minhee, and Yumi gathered on the floor, needing an extra moment to find their proper starting places.

Girls Generation’s “Gee” started up once they seemed ready. This group was lucky- they had zero rappers in their group, and the song somehow had basically zero rap in it. Younghee stood out with her good vocals, despite tripping up during the dance segments. Jiyae bust out her moves as good as SNSD themselves, and it was obvious she was working on singing while dancing, but it still needed a bit of help. Minsun had a gorgeous voice, but had the habit of stopping her dancing every time she had lines. Hei Chu was very sharp with her dance moves, moving her body in a great way, but sounded just generally off when singing. Both Minhee and Yumi, who were dancers, did well on the choreo, but stuttered over their lines, as if they didn’t practice them much.

The clapping was a little bit all over the place after they ended because some of the trainees in the bleachers were singing “Gee” to each other.

They grew quiet after a hush from Siwon, who called down the final group, Group D. Jiae, Jieun, Hanui, Yeonhye, Emmy, Jimae, and Seungyu rushed to take their places.

Wonder Girl’s “Be My Baby” started playing, and the performance started immediately. Jiae hit both each dance move and each line with ease, though she needed work keeping her breathing stable. Jieun showed off her dance skills in a fun way, flaunting charisma. Hanui had the most stable vocals out of possibly all of the trainees, but accidentally kicked her own foot while dancing. Yeonhye and Jimae both should have been better at the choreography considering they split the single rap verse between the two of them and didn’t have any lines otherwise. Emmy was mid-level during the entire performance, accidentally singing in Mandarin when she forgot the Korean lyrics. Seungyu, though, the poor girl, tripped halfway through the song and apparently twisted her ankle. She was barely able to keep up with the rest, and barely managed to hold pitch during her lines.

The applause seemed more somber, a handful of girls too worried about Seungyu’s ankle to cheer for the whole group.

“There you have it! You’ve finished your first evaluations!” Ryeowook cheered, clapping his hands together as the trainees all sat down again. “Your points will be posted by tomorrow morning, so for the rest of today, rest up.”

“I know you might want to celebrate, but don’t stay up too late or snack too much,” Leeteuk warned the girls gently. “Seungyu, let’s get you up to floor 3 to check on your ankle. Does anyone else want to see the nurse?”

With no responses coming immediately, the boys started to usher the girl’s out of the room, but Sori silently waved down Leeteuk.

“Did you twist your ankle too?” Siwon asked with a touch of worry, but she shook her head at the small group of guys.

“I… I think I’m going to drop out of the program…” Sori said after a long moment of silence, sounding ashamed.

“But why?” Eunhyuk looked concerned, wondering if something was happening behind their backs.

“We’ve done so little, just the rehearsal for this, and that photoshoot, but I’m already too stressed out. I’m exhausted, physically and emotionally. I can’t… I know it’ll only get harder as time goes on. Especially if I really became an idol. I think it’d be best if I followed my parents wishes and became a dentist instead.”

There was a beat of silence before Leeteuk patted her shoulder gently. “I understand. Come upstairs with us, there’s some paperwork you need to sign to nullify your contract.”

And with that, the program was down to twenty-six trainees.

 

Please keep in mind - this fic will not always be happy-go-lucky. The fic this is paired with (that I will eventually get back to writing...) is going to be a sad-ending fic, and it will absolutely come up in this later on. I will put warnings ahead of time when we get to that part.

Happy (Almost) New Years!

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