Eight years of training. A lot of debuted groups didn’t survive that period of time. Eight – like an eternity, the longer it stretched the bigger the doubt grew. Jinho didn’t know if he would be able to take it much longer. He was tired without even starting – his body fell into a mindless routine after such a long period of time, but his brain hurt from thinking about it so much. Too many thoughts – hopes, doubts, expectations – both his and everyone else’s, disappointment – again both his and everyone else’s. All those years of hard work came down to simply not being good enough. Above everything else it hurt.

He debuted once. Jinho wasn’t sure why it didn’t work out, but a lot of things didn’t work out for a lot of kpop idols and there was no point in questioning it. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to debut with already well-known singers. Maybe it was meant to be just a small experiment of the company, a way to test the waters… or test him? Either way it ended much faster than it started and he was back on the reserve bench, back to watching other trainees, his friends debut before him. He just continued training and he trained harder, trying to get better because he apparently wasn’t good enough, not yet.

Years passed, one after another and he was at the same spot, doing the same thing over and over again, the days already flattened into a timeline without meaning, into a meaningless life of a young guy who was slowly getting too old to be a kpop rookie. Jinho knew what it looked like on the outside – a talented boy who achieved nothing. Countless hours of singing, playing the piano, dancing meant nothing if this was as far as he could go. It was time for change.

He moved. And he was warmly welcomed and it felt good. His mindset changed, regaining hope that maybe this time things will be different and he’ll finally be able to find his place. It was funny how completely unknown surroundings and total strangers suddenly made him feel much more comfortable than people he had spent so many years with. Slowly, he started to believe that he might have found home this time. The wait was long, but it was worth it.

Soon, Jinho discovered Hongseok, discovered his story. It was completely different and yet the same in a way. Like a memory split in half for each of them – only to be put together and relived as a whole in the process of two souls bonding. That memory connected them, helping Jinho accommodate to their new group more easily, making him feel that at least with one of them he had something more in common. There were more things that connected the two of them, but that one bittersweet memory of hard work, wrong decisions, more hard work, friendship they had to leave behind and finally failure couldn’t measure with anything else. Becoming friends was a given.

Hongseok was a soft soul under a tough exterior, easily misunderstood and in need of second chances. In a shallow world surrounding them Hongseok perhaps had it tougher than the rest of their new family, simply because not many people bothered to dig deeper and truly look at him. Most of the time he was just judged based on his looks or his skills – some of which he still needed to polish. His behavior didn’t help much as he sometimes seemed too awkward, too stiff, too… foreign for kpop world as he stepped into it a bit late. Jinho spent too many years training and Hongseok started too late. But there were no such things, such rules and both of them soon proved it.

Exactly two years younger boy found comfort in his hyung, admired him, followed his lead and found happiness in the painful shared memory. Jinho, however, valued Hongseok’s presence much more, sometimes feeling like he wouldn’t have been able to make the transition into the new company and new group of trainees if it wasn’t for him. Unknown to anyone, Hongseok was the thread that Jinho gripped onto – his way into the family, one person on his side to guide him, even if the younger one thought it was the other way around. Guidance was unnecessary, they wouldn’t have gotten lost without each other, the rest of the family wouldn’t have let it, but they both felt that this way was much better for both of them and their group as a whole. They were both grateful that after a long time their halves of the common memory found each other.

The time has passed, but the days weren’t forming a flat timeline without meaning anymore. Age and previous experiences remained as a helpful memory that shaped them into who they were, people at the beginning of a new stage in their lives. This time they were building fresh memories, memories of all colors, good and bad, one after another. This time they made them together.