"I don't understand why they won't let us talk to our parents anymore," Amber said, staring at herself in the mirror of the practice room. They had a short thirty-minute break, then all of the current potential teams were going to meet in the gym. 

Victoria overheard Amber speaking to Krystal and folded herself down beside her. "It's to make you more independent but also dependent on your team members." She squeezed Amber's shoulder and patted her head. "I've been training away from my family most of my life. You miss them, but you learn to stand on your own feet and be surer of your goals. If you've always got your family to run away to or call when you're in a bad place, you won't rely on yourself to get out of it." 

Amber sighed, placing her head on Krystal's shoulder. "I don't care. It's awful. I'm thousands of miles away from them, isn't that enough?" 

Victoria gave her a brief hug. She missed her family too, but having all of these younger members to care for was soothing. They needed her in aways girls around the same age just wouldn't. Impulsively, she planted a kiss on Amber's forehead, then Krystal's then bounded across the room to pull SunYoung and Sulli over. She gave them the same affection, causing all the girls to giggle. 

"I love you," she said to all of them. 

SunYoung, ever the most emotional one, burst into tears and threw herself at Victoria. "I love you too." 

The rest murmured the same and gathered into the group hug. 

"Alright, enough of all this mushiness," Victoria commanded. "Dry your faces and let's head to the gym, we've got some competitions to win." 

Five groups of five girls stood around the gymnasium. They were stunned to find the bleachers packed with lots of young faces, probably trainees from the company. Amber's heart started beating rapidly, feeling like all eyes were on her. She felt Krystal loop her arm through her elbow and knew the younger girl was feeling the same despite her expressionless face. She didn't really like crowds. The other girls didn't seem stressed at all. 

Amber glanced around to lock eyes with Irene. "Good luck," she mouthed. 

The older girl nodded and said the same. 

"Who's that?" she heard Krystal whisper in her ear.

"My old roommate, Irene." 

"She's pretty." 

"One of the prettiest girls here," Amber said proudly. "And kind too." 

Krystal shifted away from her slightly and folded her arms over her chest. 

"I hope she does well," Amber continued. 

Krystal sighed and looked toward the stands hoping it would start already. The tension was killing her. "I hope we do well too. I've never performed for so many people before. There are over two hundred people up there." 

"How many more of these tests until we debut?" Amber wondered.

Krystal shook her head. She didn't know. It was always different. She'd tried asking advice from Jessica a while back, but her sister hadn't been able to tell her anything. It was in their contracts. 

She felt a warm hand rubbing circles on her back, then moving up to massage the tension from her neck. She leaned into the touch and released some of the tension she'd been holding. She knew the contact helped Amber too since the girl hated to stand still with nothing to do, and so far, ten minutes had passed and no one had told them anything. 

She saw one of the groups sit down and start talking amongst themselves, one of the girls taking a short nap. You never knew when you'd get a chance to rest during the day, so it was always a good idea to take the opportunity when it was presented, though Krystal really didn't think this was the best time. 

Amber dropped her arm around her waist and pulled Krystal to her side. 

"Are they playing with us?" she asked. 

Krystal didn't have an answer. She knew this was some kind of test, she just couldn't figure out what kind. 

After another half hour passed, another group settled down on the floor to rest, four girls were sleeping at this point. Watching them sleep made Krystal yawn. 

Amber held onto her and dragged her over to Irene. 

"This is the weirdest day I've had since I've been here. Not counting them removing all of my body hair," the remembrance still made her shiver. It had taken six embarrassing weeks. 

Irene nodded tensely and Amber started gently massaging her neck and shoulders. Krystal didn't know why it made her irritated. She watched Amber brush the hair off Irene's neck so she could touch her skin without tugging on her hair. She narrowed her eyes and wandered back over to Victoria. 

"This is boring," she complained. "What are we supposed to be doing?" 

Victoria shrugged. "No idea. Sun Young has been chatting with some of the people in the audience and they don't know what's going on either. 

A voice crackled over the intercom, causing girls on the floor to jerk awake and everyone else to stand at attention. 

"Stand with your members." 

Everyone moved back with their group. 

"Starting from the left, you will now be known as Team A, Team B, Team C, Team D, and Team E." 

They all nodded. That was simple enough to remember. "Team A, step forward. Practice routine 42 and song 5, go." 

They stared blankly as the music started over the speakers and they were given handheld mics. They performed as well as they could, but most of them had been asleep, their bodies had cooled down and their voices sounded groggy. 

Amber and the rest of Team C started jogging and stretching in place, doing voice warmups as quickly as they could. A few others joined in. 

Team A finally finished one girl in tears. 

"Team E!" the man called over the loudspeaker again. The team jolted. They'd been expecting him to go in alphabetical order. "Improv!" 

Amber felt a headache coming on. 

The team did a funny skit about a husband trying to get his pregnant wife to the hospital on time. 

"Team C!" 

Oh god, Amber groaned mentally. 

"Each member show their special talent." 

They all froze and looked at one another. Then SunYoung sprang into action. She bounded to the front and said loudly to the audience, "I'm Team C Park SunYoung. I'm going to dance for you." And she did, without any music. It looked like one of the BoA dances they'd learned before but Amber couldn't be sure, she could barely think straight. What was her talent?

Victoria walked gracefully to the front. "I'm Team C leader, Victoria Song." She showed off her flexibility, getting wows from the audience. 

Amber and Krystal met eyes, both slightly panicking now. 

Sulli stepped forward and waved both of her hands. Then she pressed her fingers into her cheeks with a wide smile, giggling. The audience oohed and ahhed over her. She laughed and said brightly, "I'm Choi Sulli, Team C master of aegyo." She blew the audience a kiss and walked back in line. 

Krystal gave Amber a slight push to her arm, and Amber pushed her right back. "You're younger," Amber mouthed. "You go." 

Krystal shot her a glare. "You're older. Shouldn't you show me how it's done?" 

If Amber's eyes could kill, Krystal would be dead on the spot, same for Amber. Amber grabbed Krystal by the elbow and dragged her to the front. 

"This is our Team C Maknae Jung Soo Jung. Backward it's Jung Soo Jung, forwards it's Jung Soo Jung." Krystal was surprised into a laugh and covered her face with both hands. The audience laughed with her. 

"And this is Amber," Krystal said. "Umm...yeah." 

The audience burst out laughing again and Amber couldn't help grinning. Krystal clearly couldn't think of anything. Amber covered her face too and dragged them back to their spot. She buried her face on Krystal's shoulder as they kept laughing at their stupidity and complete uselessness. They couldn't even raise their heads to see what the rest of the Teams did.  

"I'm going to pretend today never happened," Amber murmured. 

"God, me too," Krystal said.