Chapter 2
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B. Eight years of training and all she got out of it was a B. It was all she could think of as the last of the auditions wrapped up, the B stuck to her name sticker seemed to burn right through her sweater and into her skin.
She’d danced ‘too well’, what the hell was that supposed to mean?! Lexi knew she was a fantastic dancer, even at JYP she’d been the best around, better than Momo for sure and she seemed to be carried on some platter as great idol dancer or whatever. No. Lexi was better. Much better. She was a great singer, a fantastic dancer, and she knew she had cool looks, wasn’t all of that worth an A? Weren’t her eight goddamned years worth a single A?!
She took a breath and balled her fists into her skirt.
She loved the other girls dearly, despite how Chaerin always managed to needle her about being a leader (she wasn’t a leader! How could she be a leader? She’d always been the baby, she’d always been the one who’d needed only the slightest of leadership, the teacher’s pet. How the hell was she supposed to be the teacher?), despite how Areum always managed to mess up a formation here or cohesion there, despite how Juyeon could slack off at the worst moments. Despite all of that she loved them dearly, they were hers.
But how the did Juyeon and Chaerin rank higher than her? She’d trained longer than any of them! She’d choreographed the dance break herself! Hell, she’d even helped Woojin choreograph Hollywood for last season and he’d stood there and taken all the credit for it. And suddenly she danced too powerfully? What the hell was that even supposed to mean?!
Deep breath Lexi. Deep breath. The cameras are rolling.
She tried to focus on the next audition. Hey, she knew this one, sort of. She vaguely recognized the girl who’d trained at JYP for a few months when Lexi had just joined, Jiho or something? Yeah, Hwang Jiho, that’s what her name tag said. Wait, why was she dancing, hadn’t she been a vocal trainee? At least she got a lower mark than Lexi, she took some satisfaction in that.
More and more auditions rolled around, the end slowly coming in sight. Girls were nodding off all around her but Lexi remained wide awake. Why was this mediocre rapping girl getting an A? The Plan A performance wasn’t even that impressive, she saw so many faults in their moves. The EM girls weren’t that impressive either, sure Moonae had some presence, but it was hardly worth an A. Not if I wasn’t.
“Oh, stop sulking,” Juyeon nudged her. “Please, you’re dragging this whole section of the chairs down.”
“I’m not sulking,” Lexi whispered back.
“She said sulkingly,” Chaerin weighed in with a grin.
“I’m sure you’ll get an A soon, unnie,” Areum said. “It’s only a matter of time. We all know you’re the one who deserves it most.”
“Don’t make me sing Cheer Up,” Juyeon threatened.
“Please don’t!” Lexi quickly said. “You know it drives me up the wall how they mangled the English! That is so not how you pronounce cheer, how hard is it?!”
Juyeon leaned in again for another attack. “Do you think Kang Daniel would want to see you sulk like this?”
“Stoooooop!” Lexi buried her face in her hands, feeling her face get embarrassingly hot. “Please stop!”
“Will you?”
“I will, I will! I give in please let me live!”
“Good.” Juyeon leaned back, satisfied, before being possessed by a frighteningly big yawn. “Now, let me use your shoulder as a pillow real quick.”
“Fine, you lazy .” Lexi pulled her hair back from her shoulder and slumped a little in her seat for optimal pillow position as had been carefully calibrated by Juyeon over the course of very many years of training together.
“Don’t you want reaction shots and stuff?” Chaerin leaned across Lexi to ask.
“They can take a reaction shot of my sleeping face,” Juyeon said, head already firmly on Lexi’s shoulder and eyes already closed to the world.
Lexi sighed. They could be a real headache but they were her headache.
She glanced down at the head nestled in her shoulder, her own exhaustion creeping nearer. Maybe it was okay to doze off a little too, just for a little while. Just for a couple of minutes… just… for...
Fen let her head rest against the cool glass of the coach. She was exhausted to the bone, even more exhausted than she usually was after a day and night of training. The sun was coming up in a distance, painting the sky in pretty pastels and the clouds as spun gold. She wished she could see the actual sunrise behind the skyline but there were far too many buildings obscuring her view. It reminded her a bit of home, except the air was usually too thick with smog in Beijing to see much of the sunrise.
She exhaled against the cool glass and drew a little smiley face in the condensation. She was drawing the smile just as the coach caught a pothole turning the passive smile into a deformed zigzag. Poor mister smiley. She wiped it out and tried again. There. Perfect.
The coach itself was silent save for a few whispers and one girl’s deep snores. Behind her a cute girl had her face buried in her phone, the blueish glow of it painting shadows over her face against the dark lighting in the bus, a coat quickly thrown over a pretty hanbok. Fen didn’t really remember her from the auditions but she looked very pretty now with the very light fringe brushing her forehead and the fake pink flower hanging onto dear life by a single hair, threatening to fall onto the coach floor and, Fen was sure, be lost forever. A younger girl in a yellow hanbok was next to her, head on her shoulders and firmly asleep, face completely blank and peaceful.
In front of her the wavy haired Starship girl was chatting excitedly to another one, making even a whisper sound very loud. She thought they were the only Starship girls in this coach, she’d looked for Haeun but she was nowhere to be found.
Of course she wasn’t, why would Haeun want to see her? She’d pushed her luck, she’d asked too much, and then she was alone. She should never have asked so much of Haeun, if only she could turn back time...
Maybe, just maybe, she’d be brave enough to try again. To see if maybe her mistakes could be mended. Haeun was scary but Fen knew that underneath it all there was softness, there was that cheeky smile and the utterance of thoughts Fen could never have said aloud, there was that booming laugh that was loud and free and without a care in the world, there were jokes that maybe she didn’t get right away but then Haeun would explain them and laugh at her a little and it would be funny and it would be good.
The coach had no left Seoul and found itself deep into the outskirts. Fen didn’t really see much of a difference, really. The outer cities seemed just as attached to Seoul as the neighbouring cities. She’d only been outside of Seoul once, to some ocean town when Haeun had taken her to celebrate chuseok with her grandparents so she wouldn’t be alone in the dorms. She didn’t even really know where that was, she’d just followed Haeun then. There had been an amazing sunrise there, the only one she could remember ever having seen where she saw it rise from the sea, she could just imagine it being pulled up by Xihe’s chariot to make its way across the sky. She’d said as much but Haeun had waved it away as nonsense. Fen just thought the story was nice and romantic and poetic and the sunset so very pretty, but that’s just what Haeun was like.
She missed her best friend.
She leaned her head back against the glass. Her little smiley had already disappeared almost completely, only the slightest trace was left to suggest it had ever existed. She should probably sleep, it was already inching towards morning and she probably wouldn’t get much sleep after, but despite exhaustion making every part of her body feel heavy, she couldn’t close her eyes as not-Seoul-but-sort-of-Seoul streaked past her.
Now the sun was truly peeking out from behind the mountains. The sleeping girl sitting behind her stirred. “Where are we?” she asked, and Fen couldn’t help but glance behind her through the gap between the headrests. She could just about see their faces like they were cut out and pasted between the abstract covers of the seats.
“Goyang,” the pretty one said with a soft smile. “We’re going through Goyang.”
“Are we going home?” the young one asked, voice still thick with sleep.
“If only,” the pretty one answered. “Shhht go sleep, we’ve some time to go.”
“Okay.” The young one settled her head back on the pretty one’s shoulder and drifted back off.
The pretty one looked up and locked eyes with Fen. Her heart skipped a beat but the girl just stuck out her tongue and went back to her phone. Fen jumped a little and turned back around quickly, feeling her face flush. Thankfully the girl stayed silent and Fen could drift back into her thoughts.
She breathed onto the glass again, and this time she wrote her name: 明芬.
She leaned her head back against the glass. She should really try to sleep, even if it was just for another half hour or so. She probably wouldn’t, but she should try at least. Who knew when she’d get to sleep next?
The sound of excited chatter and the wheels of 99 suitcases on the pavement filled the English Village as the girls streamed out of the coaches. Mochou followed the other Starship girls, taking it all in. She was finally here! The yellow walls and ugly fake European columns and pink triangle posters pasted to the walls were all just like she’d dreamed of. She was two years late, sure, but better late than never, right?
The sun shone in her eyes as she stepped out of the coach and into the fresh air. It was already getting warm, whose idea was it to start this show in August, exactly? Next to her the Plan A girls were getting out, Mochou wasn’t forgetting them and their audition any time soon. “I did not snore!” A girl with half brown, half pink hair said, horrified. “Oh, that’s so embarrassing!”
“Like a lumberjack,” the foreign one said with a cheeky grin.
“We should wait for Haeun and Sooyoung,” Seoyun said. “Someone has deliver you lot to the right dorms, I can’t leave you to fend for yourselves, you’ll probably end up in North Korea.”
“If we must,” Mochou grumbled. Haeun had only trained with them for a year now but she’d already managed to completely take over the group dynamics. Good thing she was in A because of course she was. It’s not like greater than thou Park Haeun could be anywhere else.
“I can’t believe they put you in D!” Chaewon said. “I’d hoped we could all just dorm together.”
Mochou grabbed Seoyun’s hand. “You’ll come to us soon enough, I know it!”
“Yo!” Haeun came up to them, her own suitcase in hand, with Sooyoung trailing right behind. “Are we going or what?”
She was only vaguely aware of the staff instructions as they all wheeled their suitcases after the stream of other girls, she was too busy gawking at everything. “Unnie!” Mochou grabbed Seoyun’s arm and pointed frantically at one square. “That’s where they all had to stand outside, remember? Oh, and is that a railway?!”
“It looks just like a European village,” Huiyin said in Mandarin next to her.
Mochou laughed and switched to Mandarin as well. Huiyin couldn’t speak Korean very well yet but Mochou didn’t mind accommodating her, it was kinda nice to speak Mandarin with someone other than her parents or her brother. “I looks nothing like a European village! They’re all dark brick and attached to each other in a row and all looking the same! Like they couldn’t think of any other shape! It’s like you just copy and paste each one, it’s so weird.”
Huiyin’s eyes widened. “You’ve been to Europe?!”
“Only once, with my parents,” Mochou said before switching back to Korean. “Look! This is where they all ran along for the morning exercise! Remember? Kang Daniel was here! And Park Jihoon, Lee Daehwi, oh! The Cube chicks, they were so cute!”
“An Yeonjung and Sewoon,” Seoyun pointed out.
Mochou made a face. “Oh don’t remind me of Yeonjung and those others, it should have been us who went to season one!”
“And have to sing Dream Girls?!” Seoyun exclaimed. “Losing would be kinder!”
“Shht,” Chaewon says. “Look at the cameras.” Indeed, as they rolled past the big main training building to get to the dorms the cameras were there, ready to shoot them.
“Well, let’s give them something to shoot, then!” Mochou rolled ahead until she was sure she was in the path of the camera. “It’s so cute!” she exclaimed and twirled around in happiness. Then her foot caught the suitcase and she almost fell over, giggling with a little snort.
“Serves you right!” Seoyun said, laughing along. “Come on, before all the good dorms are gone!”
It was absolute chaos as girls streamed into the dorms claiming beds left and right, Seoyun and Haeun had already peeled off to go to their respective buildings. Sooyoung entered the first dorm they found and ed Huiyin inside. “Aren’t you coming?” she asked when Mochou hesitated.
Mochou looked around and reached for the very next dorm. “This will be ours!” Mochou pronounced, throwing the door open.
“Shouldn’t we stay with the others?” Chaewon asked.
“Nah! We see those mugs every single day!” Mochou said. “I wanna meet new people now, not stick to the old ones! But not you of course, Chaewonnie,” she gave Chaewon a big hug. “You’re perfect.”
Chaewon laughed. “I love you too, unnie.”
“Hi!” A girl was already sitting on a top bunk, legs dangling over the side. By the denim and white outfit she was one of the Plan A girls, though her hair obscured her name tag, all she could read with Kim Jin-
“Excuse me, can I pass?” Someone tapped her shoulder and Mochou turned to see the girl she remembered from the Havana audition. Well that or one of the Rollercoaster ones, she wasn’t sure, they’d all dressed the same the dummies. “Anyone mind if I take a bottom bunk? I want optimal falling-in-bed velocity, not a single drop of energy is to be wasted!”
“Go ahead,” Mochou conceded. “Top or bottom?” she asked Chaewon.
“Bottom,” Chaewon answered.
“Good! I’ll be closer to the camera!” Mochou opened the suitcase and threw her dearest stuffed animals onto the bed. There, that should do it for claims, and she couldn’t well leave her plush baby Groot to fend for itself, could she?
“I’m Bada by the way,” the Havana girl introduced herself. “Your audition was really good! Should be in A if you ask me.”
“Thanks!” Chaewon beamed. “I really liked yours too, you looked so powerful!”
Bada laughed. “You try not being perfect under the scrutiny of Han Moonae.”
A girl wearing almost the exact same outfit as Bada leaned into the door opening. Mochou didn’t need an introduction to recognize the weirdly beautiful face of that Pledis girl, Han Siryung. She wasn’t sure if Siryung was actually startled or if that was just her face. “Hi? Is there room for me here?”
“Come in, come in,” Kim Jin- said.
“Helloooo!” Mochou turned around to see actual SM trainee Jung Gaeul in the room. “Good morning! Who’s ready to face the day?”
“I’m ready to sleep another 12 hours,” Bada said.
“God, don’t I know it.” Gaeul threw her suitcase down while Mochou gaped at her.
“You’re the SM trainee!”
“And I’ll tell you all about it and your oppas just let me hide my snacks first, okay?” Gaeul waved her away and started to unload some very illegal snacks in the sovereignty of Mnet.
“We’re pretty close to the North Korean border here, aren’t we?” Chaewon asked Mochou, looking legitimately worried.
“What, do you think they’re going to invade the Produce 99 dorm?” Mochou giggled, what a silly bean.
“Maybe Kim Jongun wants that Pledis girl as his very own budget Irene,” Gaeul offered. “I say we deliver her to the border before he kills us all.”
Siryung looked aghast at the suggestion, glancing up at the camera mounted in the ceiling. “I- eh- should you be joking about that?”
“It seems pretty reasonable to me, a sacrifice for the greater good,” Gaeul said very seriously. “One for the 98. If you lure her in I’ll jump her and Bada here can tie her up!”
Bada gigged. “I do know some knots!”
“See! The plan is foolproof! Oh, do lighten up, it’s only a joke.” She got up and stretched. “Nobody’s sacrificing anyone until at least round 3.”
“Come on, we should get changed, didn’t they say to meet for food in half an hour?” Siryung changed the topic. “I don’t know about you but I’m starving.”
“Ravished,” Bada agreed.
“Let’s see what colour our shirt is!” Gaeul jumped up and approached the closet.
“It’s orange right? Like last year?” Bada asked.
“You make for terrible television, Ha Bada,” Gaeul said. She looked at the camera man who had followed her. “You ready?” She opened the closet and pulled one of the bright orange shirts out. “It’s oraaange!”
“Who even looks good in orange??” the Plan A girl lamented. “We’ll all look like oranges!”
Gaeul grinned impishly. “Do you challenge me, Jinri?”
“First, we’ll need a leader,” Jiho said to the circle of green shirts with blank faces. “At least, that’s what the producers said?”
They’d just been returned to the English village after filming the dance session back in the studio in Seoul and now that they were in the practice room with the pink walls and big logos it was finally sinking in for her. She was here, really here, after all the entertainment companies in her life had given up on her, she was actually at Produce ing Ninety-Nine. Day one and she was already exhausted.
The blank faces just kept staring. “Does anyone want to be leader?” she asked, maybe they hadn’t gotten the hint?
She only recognized some of them, honestly she’d slept through at least a third of the auditions (it was just so… samey after a while, yaknow?). The famous Japanese girl was here, looking even blanker than the others for obvious and understandable reasons. Imagine having to deal with all this Mnet bull while also not understanding a word that was being said, poor thing. That suuuper pretty Woollim girl was here, looking at her with those huge hopeful eyes like a lost lil’ puppy. The also super pretty Paradise girl was trying very hard not to be noticed right now. That was… yeah that was about all the faces Jiho recognized. Look, faces wasn’t her forte okay, don’t judge, there were 99 of them!! And who was she even internally talking to??
She sighed. “Fine, I’ll do it.” Relief flooded the faces as Jiho reached forward and grabbed the obnoxiously pink diamond with the big L on it. Someone had to.
“So, how is everyone with the dance?” Thankfully it wasn’t a very hard one, Jiho was pretty sure she had most of it down after just one session.
“I’m okay,” a girl called Yang Jeongha said. “I got a lot of it, I think.”
The rest of the faces told a different story, from unsure to straight up grimaces. This was going to be a long two days. “Alright, raise your hand if you think you’ll be okay with some practice.” Okay, okay, some of the hands went up, that was good. Paradise girl, that older American girl, Ct girls, oh the Woollim girl that was surprising.
“Who thinks they’re going to have some real trouble?” Jiho asked next, and a whole lot more hands went up. Oh boy. Good thing they had a dance instructor with them. She looked at the Japanese girls and squinted at their name tags. “Midori, Mai. Danseu?” Jiho said, followed with a thumbs up and a thumbs down.
Both of their faces perked up. “Eto…” Midori said and waved her hand in a so/so gesture.
Okay. So-so. She could work with so-so. “Okay, come on, off your butts! Up up up!”
“Already?” a girl called Girim whined.
“Come on, unnie,” another girl called Yona pulled her to her feet.
“Do you want to make a good impression on the teachers or not?” Jiho asked. She might not be able to sing or rap very well but she could dance, and more importantly she could teach dance. Time to push up those sleeves and get to work. “That’s what you get when you make me be leader!” she said cheerfully. “Now all of you line up and let’s get this going.”
Juri’s muscles screaming in protest when she managed to drag herself out of the bottom bunk and face the very very early morning. The last time she’d had this little sleep was years ago, times when they still had to be at music shows at the break of dawn only to be released well into the evening. This was worse, more like those days before debut when she’d practice until 2AM and then have to get up early to go to school and come right back to practice. Those days. Those days were a long long time ago.
Good. They hadn’t been particularly good days. No need to rosy up the past just because it was the past, those days had . .
She stretched her arms, wincing at the sore pushback. When was the last time she had actually seriously learned an idol dance? Probably the couple months after their last comeback when Kyungmi could still convince her to do a dance cover of this popular song or that popular song to try and get any kind of press going. Back when they hadn’t given up yet. So, what, two years ago? Was this pain really all because of one full day of dancing? Shame on her for letting things get this far. More shame on YNB, though, that had to count for something.
Juri sighed unhappily, stretching her leg in exercises she’d long neglected and feeling the pushback of her muscles. To be fair, she was only ever main dancer cause there wasn’t anyone better. Well, there had been better trainees, but the company wanted a group of pretty girls and here they were. Jihae unnie used to always smack her when she did said things like that aloud but, well, Jihae wasn’t here anymore was she? Jihae was off somewhere at her parents’ farm being a good little farm girl.
Sometimes she thought she would like a farm, a simple farm with some horses and some chickens and a good farm dog.
Mostly she thought that was really dumb. She just wanted a place to escape and hide that was secure and couldn’t be pulled from under her feet at any second.
Also she knew jack about farming.
She changed into the obnoxiously yellow training clothes, stuffed a choco pie she’d hidden under her bed into , and made her way out of the dorm building and into the fresh outside air. It was gonna be another warm day today. Good thing the training rooms had air conditioning.
The practice room was already filled with girls even at this early hour, including Kyungmi. Her form was off, she wasn’t quite hitting the moves sharp enough and cutting corners on some of the connections. She always did slack off in the dances, Juri had pointed it out countless of times throughout their career but had she ever learned? Evidently not. At least her voice hadn’t cracked during their audition like that one time they’d managed to get a special cover stage on The Show...
She sat back for a moment, watching the others while she drank some water (the things she would do for some actual coffee). There was the pretty one aptly named Areum who was even worse than Kyungmi, the leader who didn’t really do anything leader-like unless specifically told who was doing alright, and the MLD girl who was practicing like her life depended on it, that one looked like she hadn’t slept at all. One of the FNC girls was just sitting down singing very badly, eyes on the lyric sheet, even mixed with the various instances of Naekkoya assaulting her ears she was audibly awful.
In the corner the three Plan A girls were sticking together, they’d stuck together all through the day before, too. Every once in awhile a bubble of laughed would come from their corner. They were so filled with energy and potential and hope. A feeling bubbled up, a recognition. Juri saw 6 girls huddled together in a dorm, whispering urgently about rumoured debut plans, dreaming about what it would be like to debut. Dreaming about the glamour of standing on stage, of filming music videos and meeting and talking to stars. Dreaming of armies of fans chanting their names and billboards carrying their faces.
To be fair, the stage was ing. That much remained true.
She hoped Liling was doing okay.
Right, well, no reason to dawdle any longer. Juri found a spot in front of the the mirror and got started, ignoring the screaming muscles and the out of tune singing around her. Come on Juri, it’s all up to you. The girls are counting on you, someone has to bring Jihae back from her farm and it sure as hell isn’t going to be Kyungmi.
“I can’t do this,” this time it was Kim Saebom who crumpled in on herself in the middle of practice. “It’s too much, I can’t do it!”
“Shhhht,” Dain knelt down next to her. “Hey, it’s okay, do you need a break?”
“I want to home,” Saebom snivelled. “I want my mom.”
“I know sweetheart, I know,” Park Dain pat her head lovingly. She wasn’t someone Inree had noticed during the auditions but that all changed quickly as soon as they started practicing. The girl picked the dance up really quickly and had been very patient about helping the others as well. She was a treasure. “And you can if you really want to.”
“Don’t you want to keep going?” Yang Taeyoung knelt in front of Saebom and leaned on the girl’s knees. That one was an odd one, Inree had noticed. Often looked at things just a little differently but always with a smile. Also shameless as hell. Inree liked her, too. “I know it’s hard but imagine how proud your mom will be when she knows that you kept going even when it was hard! And how proud we will be.”
“If you really want to go home, you can you know,” Inree sad, sitting down herself. “There’s no shame in giving up if it’s too hard.”
“But aren’t you going to miss this face?” Taeyoung asked completely seriously. “I know I’m going to miss your face.”
Saebom giggled softly through her tears. “I would, a bit.”
“How long have you been training?” Inree asked.
“C-couple of m-months.”
Why did her company think she’d be ready to go on a stressful show like Produce after only a few months of training?! The girl was only 14 years old for god’s sake! She didn’t know how to sing or dance at all, all this show could give her was a hit on her confidence and more stress than she could handle! A big part of Inree did wish the girl would quit just to save her the emotional strain on this show, it wasn’t like Urban Works didn’t have enough trainees, they sent eight already! There should be a blasted age restriction if it was up to her.
“Heeey,” Dain cooed. “You’re not alone, okay? We’re here with you and we’ll help you.”
“Y-you have to h-help y-yourself first,” Saebom snotted.
“Oh, Dain will be fine,” Hyemi joined them. “Don’t worry about that one, god knows why she’s been lucked in the F dungeon with the rest of us.”
“Oh hush,” Dain brushed her away. “If we have time to help that English one then we’ll have time for you.”
Saebom giggled again. “She’s pretty terrible.”
Inree glanced behind her at Lucy, who was looking their way with her head tilted like a puppy who didn’t understand but wanted to be there anyway. “Gwenchanha?” she asked.
“She’s in the middle of turning into a donkey but the transformation is stuck!” Hyemi called back in full Korean.
You could see the confusion on Lucy’s face. “Eeeh? Molla??”
“You shouldn’t like that,” Dain chided, but she giggled herself and the silliness seemed to cheer Saebom up a little.
“Hey, you’re always better than I am,” Inree said. “I might even be worse than Lucy!” It had been years since she’d been a trainee and saying she was rusty was a gross understatement.
“Nonesense,” Hyemi says. “That’s impossible.”
“How do you feel? Do you want to continue?” Dain asked Saebom.
Saebom nodded and rubbed away the tears with the back of her hand. “I’ll keep trying for a little bit, okay?”
“Alright.” Dain helped her up. Inree was a little in awe of the girl, how well she dealt with the meltdowns of the younger girls. First it had been Yuka, then it had been Saebom, then Yuki and that was harder because she only spoke Japanese and even Chiyo seemed to be panicking a little, now it was Saebom again. These young girls really shouldn’t be made to compete like this. Inree really wanted to help, she knew what it was like to be young and stressed after all, but it was so hard to say the right thing. She always felt a little awkward with girls this young like how was she supposed to communicate with the youth without sounding like an ahjumma?!
“You’re so good at this,” she said.
“I have a younger sister,” Dain said. “Real crybaby. You learn a thing or two.”
The door opened and Haesung, the other independent trainee with the nice voice, struck a ridiculously triumphant pose, bag of small candy bars in hand. “Guess who has snaaacks!”
“Shout it into every camera why don’t you!” Sojin, a pretty girl from MBK, rolled her eyes.
“Poo,” Haesung said. “You ruin everything. Catch!” She tossed some candy bars around, even said something in English to Lucy before tossing her one. “What are they going to do? Send all of us home because we ate some candy?” She turned to the Japanese girls huddled together in the corner. “Hey! CANDY.”
They perked up. “Candy!” Sora repeated with a big smile. Some words transcended languages, Inree supposed.
“Here’s to not giving up!” Hyemi said, triumphantly raising a bar into the air. “Here’s to being the worst of the worst and sticking together for it.”
“I don’t identify as the worst of the worst, thank you,” Haesung said. “All of is simply transitory.”
“Not me!” Taeyoung said almost proudly. “I’m here to stay!”
“You shouldn’t be proud of that” Sojin said.
“It’s the truth, I can be ashamed of it but it won’t make it less the truth.” Taeyoung shrugged. “I’ll do my best but low expectations are happy expectations!”
“That’s a terrible way to live your life!” Hyemi burst out.
“Maybe, but I’m not crying on the floor,” Taeyoung said. “I’m just doing my best, right? Oh- not that there’s anything wrong with crying on the floor…” she says quickly.
“It’s okay unnie,” Saebom said. “Chocolate made it better.”
“Chocolate makes everything better,” Haesung agreed.
This was awesome.
Everything about it! Everything was PINK, there were cameras everywhere, it was all just like on tv except it wasn’t it was real! Lucy was living. Sure, learning the dance was really hard, she hadn’t exactly done much dancing before the couple months training she’d gotten at Helix didn’t count yet, but she was getting things slowly so what did it matter? What mattered was that everything was awesome.
Also she had a candy bar! Chocolate made everything better!
Even the food was great! Like, not just the candy bar of course but the cafeteria food was all super good too, like how dare every bit be good what the hell. Something had to be disappointing or it was just too good to be true! It was all ramyeon and kimchi and kimbab and chicken and rice with the most amazing sauces, the kind of food her mother hardly ever made. “Be more Western, Lucy. I didn’t escape Korea to feed you kimchi and have you watch kdramas instead of doing homework or obsess over Korean boys all day long.” Hah, joke was on her she obsessed Korean boys and girls. Equal opportunity obsessing!
But right now it wasn’t kimbab and rice and ramyeon but it was some candy bar called Mr. Big that wasn’t as big as the title suggested and it tasted more like straight up sugar than actual chocolate but it was a candy bad and she sure as hell wasn’t going to complain. Plus the slogan was, in English no less, ‘When you’re this big, they call you Mister,’ and if that wasn’t hilarious she didn’t know what was.
Too bad everyone was busy speaking Korean to each other and Lucy understood not a word. Well, some words, but only like a couple. Turned out that Korean conversation wasn’t 80% meoributeo balkkeutkkaji like kpop had led her to believe! Shame on them!
At least she wasn’t the only outcast, and nobody but Lucy in a corner unless she wanted to go into a corner which is why she was currently scooching up to the Japanese corner. “Hi!”
The actual Japanese conversation fell quiet as they all stared at her. Lucy peered at their name tags to put the hangul together. Something Sora, something Yuki, something Chiyo, GOT IT.
“Etoooo,” the Sora girl said which Lucy thought she had watched enough anime to mean eeeehm but she wasn’t totally sure. “Hi?”
Contact. Established.
Now what? “How are you?” she asked slowly. “You… good?” thumbs up! Yeah for universal signs!!
The three Japanese girls glanced at each other. “I… etooo…” Chiyo made the so-so sign. The other girls nodded.
“Aaah, it’s hard isn’t it?” Blank faces. Crud. Right. Language. Man, this was real difficult sometimes.
“It is very hard,” Sora said with a heavy accent.
“Oh, you understood that?”
“I can speak a bit of English,” she said. “Only a bit.” Oh. That kind of ruined the fun a bit.
Lucy looked at the other two who seemed completely clueless. Maybe she should ask them if they liked the song. “Do you,” she pointed at them. “Like” she made a little heart with her hands. “Naekkoya, naekkoya?” she sung.
The girls laughed. The older one, Chiyo, started. “I no,” she said. “I likeu-” she seemed to think for a moment before banging her head and playing some sick air guitar.
“Rock!” Lucy guessed excitedly, clapping her hands together. “J-rock?”
“Hai!”
Sora perked up and said something in quick Japanese to Chiyo (did she mention something code?) who nodded eagerly and spoke back, leaving Lucy out of the loop again.
Yuki tapped her arm to get her attention. “I-” Yuki made a heart with her hands. “Nekoya!” She made little cat ears.
Lucy laughed. “Neko! Neko! Cat!”
Sora nodded happily. “Like a cat!”
“I’m good I’m hot I’m fresh I’m fine!” Lucy said immediately to blank faces. No? Didn’t they know their Classics? Shameful.
“Hi!” Another girl came to sit with them, the Korean one who kinda looked like Pinky. Right, Taeyoung her name tag said!
“Hi!” Lucy said back.
“Hi!” the Japanese girls echoed.
A silence stretched on for a bit as none of them really knew where to go after. Taeyoung turned to Lucy. “I like… ehmmm,” she pointed at Lucy’s hair clip.
“Kamsa!” Lucy said. Wait, , was Taeyoung older than her? How did Koreans remember everyone’s ages let alone never slip up on the formality thing?? “Eeeh hamnida?”
Taeyoung smiled. “Ne!”
Sweet as! Another mine avoided! She was getting super good at this whole cultural sensitivity thing! She didn’t think she’d offended anyone yet and she’d already been here two days, how was that for accomplishments!
The girl seemed to want to say something else. Yes, come on, you can do it, say the thing!. “Ehm,” the girl started. “My name… Yang Taeyoung!” her accent was very heavy and very adorable.
“I’m Lucy, pleased to meet you!”
“Looshi!” Taeyoung grinned. “Please to meet you… too.” She looked so darned proud of herself it was so cute! Lucy loved Koreans trying to speak English, she could only hope that she was as endearing mangling Korean.
“Ah!” Sora perked up. “Sora imeunida!”
“Ne!” Taeyoung clapped her hands. “Joa!”
The other two Japanese girls took turns introducing themselves in Korean and Lucy tried her best not to succumb to the cuteness of it all. Look at them, three nationalities but trying to communicate any way they could! They were awesome!
Taeyoung turned back to excitedly speak Korean with the other girls in the room. Just when Lucy thought she was off the hook Taeyoung turned her attention back around. “I like your…” she wavered longer than before, looking for the right face. “Head?”
Lucy blinked. “My head?”
Taeyoung frowned and looked around with a desperation of someone grasping for a word, any word, to mend the grievous affront of making a language mistake. Then her face lit up. “Face! I like your face!”
“Aaah!” Lucy laughed, that was such a typical Korean thing, soso so blunt but nice at the same time. “Thank you, I like your face too.”
Taeyoung beamed. “Thank you!”
Lucy absentmindedly touched her face. Everyone thought she was so pretty here! She wasn’t entirely sure why, back home everyone would probably agree she looked pretty average but here they treated her like she was Taeyeon or something! Nuts! She’d waited at bus stops and had ahjummas cooing over how pretty she was before, it was bizarre! Like, no, have you seen Hyuna or Yuri? That was pretty, not little old Lucy. Silly Koreans, but she sure wasn’t going to complain.
Taeyoung spoke some more rapid Korean at the others and the group moved their way. “Come, come!” she even said in English so Lucy would understand, oh the angel.
“Ilbon! Ilbon!” Hyemi gestured wildly at the Japanese.
“Nippon!” Yuka corrected. “Say Nippon!”
“Nippon! Nippon!” Hyemi repeated. “You like kpop?”
Yuki nodded excitedly. “Hallyu joa!!! BTS saranghae!”
Lucy giggled, of course she liked BTS. It seemed like there were, in fact, any Armys here. “What about you?” she asked the other girls.
Saebom pointed at herself. “Onceu.”
“You like Twice!” Lucy translated.
“Ne!”
“I like Pentagon,” Hyemi said slowly and carefully. “Hui oppa-” she made a heart with her hands.
“His voice is so nice!” Lucy agreed.
“SHINee’s back!” Dain chanted with a cheeky grin. “SHINee’s back!”
“SHINee’s back back back back-” Lucy completed. Ain’t nobody gonna out-reference HER.
“I like… eh… yeoja,” The older girl (Inli? Inri? Something like that?) said, looking at the other Korean girls with uncertainty. She leaned over to Haesung and said something in Korean.
“Girl groups,” Haesung provided. “She likes girl groups.”
“Girl groups are great!” Lucy says. “Joa!!”
Inree smiled. “Joa!!”
“I’ve always loved SM artists,” Haesung said in slightly accented English. “I started singing because of Boa.”
“The legend,” Lucy whispered.
Haesung translated it into Korean while Lucy couldn’t help but glow at it all. Koreans were trying to talk to the Japanese girls and to her and she to them. Had she started this? Oh man look at her go! Sure she was going to study Korean so hard in her downtime, but also look at what could be achieved with an olive branch and some determination! This whole Produce thing was going to be a cakewalk she was sure of it. Sure, the dance was difficult and she was probably never going to master it enough to stand on stage, but did that really matter when these three nationalities were forming something true and real?
Yeah, she didn’t think so.
Okay, she had the dance down, Hwari figured. It wasn't, like, the hardest dance she'd ever done, mostly just a lot or accent moves, she'd learned harder dances before for company evaluations.
She sat down a moment and grabbed her water bottle. The practice room for the A's was filled to the brim with girls practicing and practicing and most of them were frightfully good. It somehow managed to be filled with Naekkoya and at the same dead quiet. Everyone seemed to have conquered their one square meter of training room.
She glanced in the mirror. It was still weird to see her reflection with the bubblegum pink hair. How was that for adventurous! ‘Nooo Hwari you're not ready to debut yet, you're too young, too inexperienced, too careful!’ Who was careful now, Cube?
Oh she did so hope that it wouldn't end up turning people off from her, didn't the general population prefer natural hair colours for trainees, had she made a terrible mistake?
No, Hwari! You're adventurous! You're cool! You're fine! Oh please be fine.
Hwari took a big breath and turned her back on the mirror, clutching the water bottle for dear life. None of the other girls even looked her way, they were fixated on their own practice. The fierce girl with the short blonde hair was almost aggressively going through the moves, eyes only on her mirror image. In the corner that Brand New Music rapper girl was singing very off key, a certain desperation and anger in her eyes.
Moonae was struggling with the dance a little, it wasn't as clean as it should be, even Hwari could see that. Still even while she practiced and even when her frustration was obvious, her expressions were still great. Hwari looked at her own blank face in the mirror. No, it wouldn't do at all. She wasn't going to keep her A if she looked like a pink haired corpse singing a pop song!
Hwari scrambled back to her feet. No. No she was going to practice. She was going to have the best expressions, she was going to look like the liveliest pink haired corpse to ever live… eh okay the analogy kinda ran away with her there but the point stood!! She had to be the best she could be! Compete with yourself and not with others, right? Something like that.
Okay. So. Beginnings. A smile at first of course. A cool smirk for the fanning. A wink here and a wink there. Should she smile at the diamond move or should she look more awed? Awed, probably. Okay and bring her hands together with the most charming smile she could. Open mouth or closed? Open probably here. What about the ending? Should she blow a kiss or wink like Jihoon? Both, both, both was good.
Okay. Okay she had a list, she had a sequence of expressions, she had this. Now all she had to do was practice and practice and practice these expressions she she'd remember them tomorrow. Okay. She could do this!
Alright. Haeun felt ready. She knew the dance, she knew the song, she could sing the damned chipmunk song while doing the dumb girly dance. She had this! She might even be able to grab center, that’s how much she had this!
She glanced at the clock. Thirty more minutes before the cam recorder sessions started. De facto leader Choi Seulgi had called for one last run through with all of them just before the recording sessions started and Haeun was glad she had just so she could be confident that she was truly one of the best. The actual leader Song Yoonbyul hadn’t called for it, of course, Haeun was sure Yoonbyul hadn’t exchanged a single word with her or many of the other A trainees all weekend. All she did was practice on her own, which was cool if she hadn’t, you know, grabbed for the leader sticker. Whatever, it wasn’t like Haeun needed leadership or whatever. They were all in A and they were all very aware that they were each other’s competition so mostly they had practiced on their own, no biggie. At least no biggie for Haeun.
“All trainees are expected in their designated practice rooms in fifteen minutes,” a faceless voice announced over the intercom like some creepy dystopian thing.
“If you need to do anything like grab some water, now’s the time,” Seulgi said. “And make it quick, no dilly-dallying!”
Haeun grabbed her water bottle and shook it. A few miserable drops was all the feedback she got, crap she should go grab some more. She followed some other girl down to the water fountain a few halls over. There were already some green and orange girls there as well, more last minute bottle fillers. The hand of the green girl filling her bottle was shaking and she kept missing the stream, looking white as a ghost. Green was… D? Haeun was pretty sure it was D. No wonder she was so scared, her prospects were probably limited.
Then another green-shirted girl came around the corner and Haeun froze. Fen recognized her in the same instant, eyes going wide.
Haeun spun around on her heels and walked right back the way she came.
Why was she here?! Like this whole damned survival show wasn’t hard enough without an Avoid Waldo side mission thrown in as well.
“Haeun!”
Oh hell. Haeun spun around. “Go away, Fen!”
“I just- I thought we could talk?” Fen said, voice soft and wavering. “I haven’t seen you in a year, I thought we could, you know, catch up?”
Haeun’s eyebrows raised so far she was sure they must’ve disappeared into her hairline. “You thought we could-? Jesus, Fen. What part of anything made you think we were cool to just catch up?!”
Fen fidgeted where she stood. “I don’t know- I just- I thought maybe now it’d be okay? It’s been a while and I know that I did something and I-” she bit her lip in that determined way she did when she was dead set on not crying even though tears were filling her eyes. Haeun was intimately familiar with that look.
“What part of stay the hell away from me didn’t you understand?” Haeun demanded. “How hard is it to comprehend that? I know you’re not too bright but these instructions are very very simple to understand, Fen. Stay. Away. From. Me. Do not talk to me. Do not approach me. Stay the away from me!”
A nearby door opened. “Fen?” Another green girl peered out. “Is everything alright?” It was the pretty one from that failed girl group nobody cared about.
Fen took a breath. “I’m fine!”
Right, Haeun wasn’t going to think twice on an out. She spun around around again and hurried to her own training room, leaving Fen far behind.
“Cutting it close,” one of the girls inside commented, Haeun didn’t even bother to identify her, she just sat down in the corner and made no eye contact with anyone and fumed.
Why did she have to deal with this?! Why couldn’t she just compete in the most important competition in her life with some goddamned peace and quiet and not have to deal with wide eyed ghosts of her past?! Was that so ing much to ask?! All she wanted was to debut, for all this bull to have been worth it, was that so goddamned much to ask?
She couldn’t even focus on the recordings, couldn’t even focus on the ing annoying bubblegum song being played over and over and over until it had wormed its way permanently into her brain and she dreamed about the obscenely high notes and obscenely cheery melody and then she woke up and found that it was still there.
She couldn’t focus on all these other girls who were dancing for better or worse, cold and distant and all focused on the competition like they were better than her, better than each other. Yoonbyul who didn’t even talk to anyone, probably only took the leader mark for ing screentime. Bitna who looked like she was above everyone else, oh queen who had done all this before, but did she forget that she’d failed?! Seulgi who was trying to be oooh so nice to everyone around her but only when the cameras were on. Or that Moonae who her company invested sooo much into, invested in her song, invested in her face, they just forgot to invest in her personality, too. Or what about that other Bitna who was aaall about helping the little ones on screen but not the girls in her own grade, oh no, those were competition. ing two-faced ed, all of them.
“Park Haeun?”
“What?” She snapped.
“It’s, ehm. It’s your turn?” The Plan A girl nodded at the camera.
“Oh-” Haeun looked at the camera. . . Get yourself together, Haeun, and if not then pretend for god’s sake.
She walked to the camera with her head held high. She’d show them. She’d show all of them. She’d show Fen. She’d show everyone who ever doubted her.
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also so sorry, i'll respond to comments soon!!
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