Six months later

Bass boomed from the studio speakers, rattling the mirrors and causing vibrations on the floor. Yubin moved along to the rhythm, getting lost in the beat. She was dancing with a few of the members; the few being Taeyong, Yuta, and Ten.

It’s been a couple months since Yubin was revealed as a “new trainee” and things have been going rather smoothly. She still went to vocal training as well as compete in the progress examinations, though they were mostly for show at this point since it was already confirmed of her position in the new unit. A lot of her time was spent getting to know the other members (since it wasn’t like she had anything better to do, she had no schedules) and honing her voice. Her friendship with Ten grew tremendously, to the point where one wasn’t seen without the other. It helped that neither of them really had a schedule, and could laze around together.

With the time of their debut approaching, though, they all began to throw themselves into practices with their choreographer and with their producer. The CEO had plans for a summer debut and had no ideas on holding it back.

The music eventually broke off to the end, and the quartet fell into various stages of relief, panting as they tried to catch their breath. “Okay… I think we should take a break…” Ten commented, crumpled on the floor in a starfish stretch. There was a unanimous agreement from everyone, and the decision to take a fifteen minute break was made.

Yubin laid out on her back and closed her eyes, letting her body become limp. They’d been dancing for hours without break, so this brief one seemed like a blessing. Suddenly there was weight falling on her, causing her eyes to reopen with a groan. “Why must you be like this?” She whined at Yuta, who had crawled over to flop tiredly onto her.

“You’re so comfortable. Let me relax,” The older whined in response, resting his head on her stomach and throwing his arm to stretch across. Yubin sighed but let him do as he pleased, not feeling it was worth it to make him move. From across the room Taeyong snorted into his water bottle at the sight. “If he gets too annoying, just hit him,” he advised, an amused lit in his tone.

Similar to Yubin, Yuta found it not worth it to put up an argument beyond complaining loudly about the “disrespect.”

The quartet soon finished their break, though instead of continuing to dance, they decided to call it a day and head back to the dorms. As they expected, the dorms were in chaos just as it was when they left for the studio earlier in the day.

“Stop running!” Taeyong demanded, just nearly avoiding getting trampled over by Jisung who was being chased around the house. The younger boy simply yelled out a “sorry!” before disappearing into one of the bedrooms.

Ten kicked off his shoes and left them in front of the door, bouncing on his feet as he waited for Yubin to take off her own. “Organize your shoes, Ten. Someone could trip over them and hurt themselves.” She scolded once she finally slid out of her sneakers. Still leaning over, she reached out and rearranged Ten’s shoes as well, setting them beside hers.

“But you do such a good job of doing it for me,” he responded cutely, making a show of doing aegyo for her. Yubin rolled her eyes and swatted at him causing Ten to yelp and move out of the way, escaping into the living room.

“Don’t be ing rude!!” Ten called out in his best Kim Kardashian voice. Yubin headed over to the living room where she found him sitting between Taeil and Jaehyun on the couch, unfazed by the sudden English. It only took a day and a few hours for everyone to realize she spoke fluent english, and so the few English speakers utilized their time talking to each other in the easy language (though the non-speakers got annoyed at times when they began a heated discussion and didn’t know what was going on). “Don’t be a baby.” She retorted.

“What did he do this time?” Jaehyun asked curiously as he turned his attention away from the television. “What didn’t he do is the real question.” Doyoung muttered from his spot on the other couch, curled up and looking at something on his phone.

“You guys are so mean, what did I do to deserve this mistreatment?” Ten pouted.

“He was being messy, as usual.” Yubin answered Jaehyun’s question, ignoring her whining friend as she turned her attention to her vibrating phone. She took a seat on the floor in front of the couch and rested her head against Ten’s knee, giving a hum of appreciation when he immediately began to play with her hair. Her phone continued to vibrate from what Yubin assumed to be messages, the screen lighting up with each rumble. She unlocked it and curiously looked through, finding she was right and that she was receiving multiple Kakao messages.

From: Sungoh

Hey you

I know you’ve been practicing and working hard lately

SO I talked with the other manager as well as with the company about a possible last break before debuting

And you know what the company said?

Yubin’s eyebrows furrowed at the sudden messages. It was a little out of the blue to be talking about their upcoming unit debut with a break. Her fingers moved across the keyboard as she typed out her response.

To: Sungoh

Uhhh

Was it a no???

I appreciate the concern for a break though 👀

From: Sungoh

Don’t be silly. Nobody disagrees with Kim Sungoh.

Anyway, like I said I asked about it and all they said was ‘NCT Life’

So, make of that what you will

“Oh, really?” She said aloud in surprise. She felt shuffling behind her, and turned her head to see Jaehyun leaning forward. “What is it?” He asked.

She took a moment to look from her phone back to Jaehyun. “I guess there’s going to be another NCT Life…?”

Her phone buzzed in her hand again.

From: Sungoh

You’re welcome

↺

It was hot.

Yubin sighed for the upteenth time as she reached for her water bottle from her carryon bag.

They were finally recording a new season of NCT Life just as Sungoh had mentioned. Though surprisingly enough, to try and bring up the recognition of NCT worldwide, the management had talked it over for a bit before deciding on shooting in America.

Los Angeles, to be specific.

It’d been a while since she’d gone someplace where it was perpetually hot all hours of the day so she was a little caught off guard. But it wasn’t something she couldn’t quickly adapt to.

At the moment Yubin along with Taeyong, Jaehyun, Mark, Donghyuck, and Ten were all standing outside of the airport gates with their managers. They’d already gotten their luggage and were just waiting for the van to pick them all up.

The camera crew had already gotten their first arrival shots, so they were essentially free to goof off until they got to the hotel. And already Mark and Donghyuk were utilizing the free time, swatting at each other and playing some sort of random dance game despite no music actually being played. Idly, Yubin watched them as she leaned against a pillar. Her phone battery was low, so until she got to an outlet she decided to preserve the remainder.

“Excited for your first NCT Life?” Taeyong appeared beside her with a slight smile. She turned her attention to him, lifting one shoulder.

“I’m not sure yet. Maybe I’m just anticipating,” She responded, “It’ll essentially be my first time being recorded to this extent.”

Taeyong hummed in understanding, “Don’t worry too much about how things’ll turn out. Just be yourself.” He advised.

“Mm, but that’s what I’m worried about.” She said back, “But thanks, I’ll try.”

He reached out and patted her shoulder a few times in attempts to comfort then he stepped away as the van appeared before them.

They all squished themselves into the van, Yubin finding a spot in the back next to Ten, who excitedly commented on the sight of the van cameras once again.

“Oh, Hyung!” Mark suddenly turned in his seat to face Yubin. “Have you been to LA before?” He asked curiously. At the question she pursed her lips.

“Ah… yeah, actually. I have cousins who lived here for a while, so during the summer I would come and visit.” She explained. The members made various sounds of surprise.

Branching off of her words, the group talked about various things in LA as well as playing the ever classic I Spy game. Of course, the game died out pretty quickly considering how boring it actually was. The van’s little air conditioner was on full blast, doing it’s best to keep its inhabitants cooled but it didn’t stop the members from sweltering from the heat that made its way inside.

Feeling that they’d satisfied the car cameras enough, they all fell into a silence, a few of them taking a nap due to feeling jetlagged. When they finally pulled up into the next location though, they were excited and filled with energy once again.

They stepped out the car and stretched as the camera crew quickly went about setting everything up. Yubin stretched her hands high above her head, a groan slipping past her lips. She let her hands flop to her sides as she peeked at where they were, curiosity litting her tone as she furrowed her eyebrows and hummed.

“I thought we were going to the hotel?”

Sungoh suddenly appeared from the crowd of crew members. He was fanning his face with a makeshift fan made out of a piece of paper. “Don’t worry your little head,” he stated easily, “staff’s just giving you guys a mission to pick roommates.”

Yubin took a skeptical glance at the mall they stood in front of. “At a mall though?”

“You’ll see!” Sungoh replied, turning around and going back to the crew.

Before they knew it, they were being ushered into the mall. People were walking about, ducking in and out of the stores. They were brought to the centre of the mall and huddled up. Already people were gathering around them, curious from all the cameras and obvious crew members.

“Alright boys!” Sungoh got their attention with a clap of his hand. The cameras were already rolling. “Here’s your mission card.”

Taeyong stepped up and took the card from his outstretched hand before returning to the line. Everyone waited as he opened the envelope so he could read it aloud.

“‘In this mall there are five balloons. You must find them and bring them back to the starting area to win. Each balloon found is a point to that member. The members with the most balloons will be declared winners, and will have first pick for rooms at the hotel.’” He read, folding the paper back into it’s envelope and handing it back to Sungoh.

“In the mall, like the entire mall?” Jaehyun asked, his eyebrows furrowing. The mall was huge, how long did the staff expect them to take?

“Too make it e