The tension throughout the company has been high. With the debut of TXT and trying to get TNT to debut as soon as possible, the stress has not only taken a toll on the trainees but also the staff. “Since the staff is so moody lately, let’s meet up early tomorrow so we can practice a lot before showing dance instructor nim, ok?” Taeah said before taking a sip of water. The other girls nodded in agreement as they panted from the hours of dance practice they just endured. Recently, the staff has been randomly pairing trainees together in groups for dancing and pairs for singing for the upcoming monthly evaluation to see who works well with who. Usually at the monthly evaluations, it would be that everyone was split into groups for dancing based on their abilities or how long they’ve been training and each group would perform the dance they learned in front of everyone including staff. Then one by one every trainee would sing or rap their own solo performance. But now instead of being in the same group with friends who you’ve trained with for years, you could be paired with complete strangers, and that’s what happened to this group of girls.

The most experienced trainee in the group was Taeah. Even though she started officially training only a year ago, thanks to her brother who happens to work for the company, she’s been training secretly since she was 11. She doesn’t have the best relationship with many trainees due to pure jealously of her brothers high position, but it doesn’t bother her.

Yoonji was the next longest running trainee in the group, a simple way to get closer to her sister turned out to be a complete failure and ultimately left her training for four years. It wasn’t apart of her plan but since she dedicated so much of her life to it she might as well stay. She usually keeps to herself but she talks when she has to.

Next was Seungmi, the youngest of all the girls who is Korean but born in Japan and raised in both Japan and New York. After being street casted, she trained for two years and somehow still doesn’t speak good Korean despite taking Korean classes almost everyday.

Erika takes the fourth spot when it comes to experience, she’s Seungmi’s childhood friend and trained for about a year. Also coming from Japan she lacks in Korean causing the two friends to stick together like glue. Her main goal is to ultimately debut with Seungmi.

Last is Daeun, an entitled daddy’s girl who can probably buy BigHit if she wanted to. She was previously an actress and model for YG but pursued her passion for singing at BigHit, she’s only been a trainee for a little over a month and has a lot of work to do.

Despite it seeming like the staff just picked these girls out of a hat and put them in the same group, they were actually paired because they all either lack dancing skills or teamwork skills and the staff wanted to see if the girls could work together well in order to have a good performance; and they’ve all been doing a fairly good job... so far at least.

Once practice ended the girls each went their separate ways to their dorms or houses except for Taeah who stayed up practicing the dance over and over perfecting her part. She was more comfortable practicing alone than in a group since it’s what she usually did, with her brother being a staff member she got a lot of judgement from the other trainees. Basically saying she didn’t deserve to be there or she was simply there because of her brother, but little do they know is she actually puts a lot of effort into her craft. As Taeah danced away, Daeun walked by the room and saw her dancing all alone. She heard the rumors before and empathized with her, since she got a lot of hate for being a trainee too due to her past. But she was trying, maybe not as hard as Taeah, but definitely trying. Sometimes she thought it would be easier for her to endure such training if she had someone to relate to. But she just shrugged the thought off and went home without saying anything to the dancing girl, deciding it was best to let her be.

The next day, Seungmi and Erika skipped in the dance studio hand in hand being the first ones there then Yoonji arrived shortly after them. The three girls decided to wait for Taeah and Daeun before starting but five minutes turned into thirty minutes and they both still weren’t there. “Where are they? Dance instructor nim can walk in any minute now,” Erika said worriedly.

“Don’t worry unnie, they’ll be here,” Seungmi replied reassuring her worried friend. “Does anyone have their numbers?” Yoonji asked then the other girls shook their heads. Being the oldest among the three, Yoonji decided to take control and lead the girls in simple stretches before starting to practice themselves. A few minutes later, Daeun stumbled in panting and sweating looking like a complete mess.

“Oh my god, you guys won’t believe what happened,” she said as she tossed her bag on the floor then sprawled on the bench tiredly. All three girls surrounded their fellow drenched trainee.

“Unnie are you ok?”

“What happened?”

“Where’s Taeah unnie?”

Daeun took a deep breath, “Its tragic, I woke up extra early to go to my mani-pedi appointment just so I can make it here on time... and look at this!” Daeun held out her hand showing the three girls her chipped nail. “Do you know how hard it is to get an appointment with the best mani-pedi specialist in Korea? And now I have to walk around with chipped nails.”

Yoonji stood there lifeless as if her soul just left her body, looking at Daeun with an unimpressed expression.

“What did she say?” Seungmi asked Erika in Japanese.

“I have no idea, but her nails are really nice,” she responded back in japanese before switching to Korean, “I like this.” Erika pointed at Daeun’s nails with a smile and Daeun looked up at her in disbelief. “You like it? Are you kidding me?” She started to raise her voice, “I just told you the most tragic story in history and all you can say is you like it?”

“Hey guys, let’s calm do-” Yoonji started before getting interrupted by Seungmi, “Don’t yell at her! She’s just being nice!”

“Seungmi its ok,” Erika said quietly to her friend. Daeun rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, “Speak korean will you?”

“Maybe if you weren’t such a jerk to everyone you’ll have friends,” Seungmi said in English then Daeun quickly stood up and Yoonji swiftly got in front of her to stop things from getting out of control. “Jerk? Who you calling a jerk?”

“You! What are you gonna do huh? Hit me?” Seungmi taunted the other despite being significantly shorter than the 166cm girl only being 152cm. Erika held onto Seungmi’s hand trying to pull her back from Daeun who was obviously startled that someone was standing up to her. She clenched her teeth out of anger before raising her hand to hit the tiny girl.

“Yah! Lee Daeun!” A male voice screamed from the other side of the room. All four girls looked back to see the dance instructor standing there in complete shock.