20th of May 2008

Song Kyung-Ri's POV:

"OK, you can finish your practice." said Rino Nakasone-san.

With my t-shirt and shorts already drenched in sweat I looked at her for a while when finally I had the strength to do a thumb up, while regaining my breath. With hands on my knees I looked at the mirror in front of me, "Is this truly what I want for my life", I relived the question that once ran through my mind. To think that someday I thought about "forgetting this dream and becoming a lawyer" like my parents told me to do, I mean even when everything has been so difficult this has always been my dream. I've always done everything to achieve it and now it paid off, here I am in this training room looking at my drenched self in the mirror. 

"Are you going to stay staring at the mirror or get the water " said Nakasone-san while staring at me like I was a weirdo.

"Sorry I spaced out, thank you " I said while recomposing myself.

I went over to the corner of the room and took the water bottle on the floor, screwed the lid open and took a huge gulp of water. I had never felt so thirsty in my life it felt like I had just run a marathon.

“Are you ready?” Nakasone-san asked. She stood right behind me.

“For another round? I have to take a little breather, don’t you think?” I asked as I turned around to look at her.

Nakasone-san took a few steps towards me. I remained quiet, wondering what she was going to say. I hope I didn’t upset her or anything. You wouldn’t want to upset your dancer choreographer that I know better.

Rino Nakasone-san is a well renowned Japanese dancer and choreographer. She was in a dance crew called Beat Freaks, an all-female group and they participated in the third season of “America’s Best Dance Crew” in 2009 where they finished in second place. SM hired her to be the choreographer of an up-coming K-Pop group, that I am in called SHINee.

I admire Nakasone-san and where she is today is because of her hard work and commitment to dance. When she was nineteen she went to Los Angeles to study dance and starred in many music videos for various famous artists as a back-up dancer. And now she was here, working as a choreographer with SM Entertainment. And so far, SHINee is the first group she is working with since she came here.

“Do you love to dance, Sandra?” she asked with her hands on her hips.

I didn’t expect her to call me by English name, but she did anyway. I quickly nodded my head in response with her question.

“If you do, you wouldn’t even ask whether to go for another round even if you’re tired,” she continued. “I’ve seen you train from the first day I came here and I could tell that you have a passion for it. The only time I see you tired is when you sleeping down on the floor. So, I can’t help but wonder why you would asked me that question.”

I couldn’t help but blush and I stared at the floor, too embarrassed to even speak.

“It’s not wrong to rest,” said Nakasone-san. “But you will have to work much harder now. Not because your debut is right around the corner, but because a lot will be expected from you. Not just from me and the agency, but also from everybody out there.”

I nodded my head, she was right. I had to be at my very best. I had come too far already to back down now. I proved my parents wrong by being here. And I wasn’t going to back out now.

“I’m going to be tired when I finally drop to the floor,” I answered.

Nakasone-san smiled at me and gestured with her head to the middle of the room. “Then get back in position.”

I smiled at her, put the water bottle down and went in the middle of the room where the rest of the five members of SHINee stood waiting for me.

“Are you okay, Xandra?” Minho asked.

“Never better,” I replied with a smile. He was getting fond of calling me by my stage name these past few days and I couldn’t help but smile for some reason.

“Good,” said Key who stood behind me. “Taemin here thought you were ready to bail on us.”

I turned to my right where Taemin stood as he playfully shrugged his shoulders at me. He was always such a bully when he wanted to. The first day I met him, I thought he was quiet. But the more I got to know him, the more I got to realise that he wasn’t as quiet as he looked.

I gave him an eyebrow. “Don’t make me put bugs in our locker, Taemin,” I threatened.

“That will be classic,” said Onew as he chuckled.

“You know I hate bugs,” said Taemin with a frown. “They creep me out.”

“I still don’t understand why you should be scared of such little critters,” said Jonghyun.

“They are just so small and all I feel like they are walking all over me even when I think of them.” Taemin looked at his bare arms and started to rub them as though a bug had just crawled on his skin.

We all started laughing at Taemin and we soon heard the sound of clapping hands in front of us. We stopped immediately and were on high alert. We looked forward and Nakasone-san stood before us with her hands together.

“Now that you had your commercial break, can we get back to what’s really important?” she asked.

The six of us all nodded our heads in union and we went back in formation. Our choreographer clicked the play button on the small radio cassette player that lay at her feet and the music soon started to play.

21st of May 2008

Song Kyung-Ri's POV

9:00 PM

All right, this is it, it's time to meet the other members of SHINee, well my 6th time, the 1st time is when I did meet SHINee for the 1st time, the members are Jinki (AKA Onew), Jonghyun, Kibum (AKA Key), Minho, Taemin and me, Xandra (that's my stage name from now on) but that was during last March, I was really excited since there's some time that I met with the other members from before, the 2nd time was the time we were practicing for our pre-debut performance with a dance cover of Chris Brown's "Run It", the 3rd time was the time we were recording for a mini album, which we made 4 songs and both SM and SHINee ourselves have chosen "Replay" as our title song, the 4th time was the time of the shooting of our first ever music video for "Replay" and we met Victoria or Song Qian who is a Chinese trainee for SM along the way!

I turned round the corner after walking out of the elevator and heading towards the entrance door. I was still in the SM building. We didn’t have practise today so, I was only here just to pass time I was with Victoria in the studio. She was going through a song with f(x), an all girls group, and it was fun to watch them sing. I spent most of my time with Qian but I also went to get a load off by dancing in one of the dance studios for fun. And time had passed by so quickly, I didn’t know it was this late. My parents would probably be worried about me but I had sent them a text earlier saying that I would be back a little late.

I politely said goodbye to the guard who stood at the entrance and I found myself outside the building in the parking lot and stood there. I felt a chill when I felt the cold night air and I couldn’t help but rub my arms. Luckily, it wasn’t winter. I would have frozen to death in a second with the clothes I was wearing. I looked at the time on my watch. I was supposed to meet my group members outside at this hour but they were taking forever as usual and I had to book a taxi that would take me home. I hope I would be lucky enough to find one around this hour.

I felt like I had stayed out here forever when I decided that they would find me outside the gate. I was already on my way and just as I was about to walk out of the premises, I heard a sound of laughter behind me. The people laughing were loud and I couldn’t help but feel that it was a little annoying. If they were in my neighbourhood, I would have thrown a shoe at them and told them to keep quiet.

The laughter continued behind me and I couldn’t help but shake my head. I was glad I was getting out of here. I wouldn’t hear their ridiculous laughs ever again. The funny thing was I didn’t even know who were laughing.

“Wait, is that Song Kyung-Ri over there?” came a voice behind me.

I stood still just before I could put one foot out of the open gate and the laughter behind me died down immediately. I winced. Who else in this agency knew me apart from my group SHINee and Victoria and a few members of her group?

“It’s her,” came Key’s voice. I couldn’t help but feel embarrassed. How didn’t I know that it was them?

I turned around and there were my five group members standing close to the entrance. They had also just got out of the building. They all approached me while I stood there waiting.

“What took you so long?” I asked.

“We were about to ask you the same question, young lady,” said Taemin as he placed his finger on my forehead.

“I was waiting for you as usual,” I answered.

“Never mind,” said Jonghyun. “Now that we are all here, I think we can carry on with our plan.”

I gave them a confused look. “What are you talking about? You guys made me wait till this late and I have to head back home.”

“We plan on having a slumber party tonight,” said Minho. “At our dorm.”

I almost burst out laughing. “What are you? Girls? Because a minute ago you were laughing so loud that I thought you were hyenas.”

They all had annoyed looks on their faces I could tell they felt offended. I could be really mean sometimes. I felt like I was the worst among them, but that didn’t matter. In the few times I got to know them, they also had their opportunity to bully me. All I was doing was being even with them.

“Haha, very funny,” said Key, not sounding too pleased.

“Okay. Mianhae,” I said politely and sweetly. “I won’t say that again.”

“You’re so lucky you’re a girl because you would have seen the worst of me,” said Onew.

“Sometimes I feel you’re too sweet that it’s hard for you to lash out at anyone.” I gave him a look.

“We wanted to have a slumber party to celebrate on our MV’s release,” said Jonghyun.

“And you want me to have a slumber party with you?” I asked.

“You’re a member of SHINee, aren’t you?” Key asked. “It’s going to be so much fun.”

“As fun as that sounds, I still need permission. Remember, your dorm is an all boys dorm and I can’t go there until they try and see if they can even try and put up a room for me there.”

“We know,” said Taemin with a smile on his face. “That is why we tried to convince our manager for you to come for this one night.”

“Really?” I couldn’t hold my excitement. “This is so cool.”

Key looked at Taemin and said, “I told you she wouldn’t refuse to come over for the slumber party.”

“Let me just text my parents and say that I will be coming tomorrow,” I quickly pulled out my phone from my pocket.

“That won’t do,” said Minho as he took my phone away from my hands. “You can tell them that when we pass by your house to get your things. And then we can go and get some snacks and drinks to celebrate.”

“Okay,” I blindly agreed. He smiled at me as he gave my phone to me.

“We better get going,” said Jonghyun. “We all want to be ready before the release and the manager has already provided a car for us so no need for a cab.”

Thank goodness. I never liked taking the cab anyway. This was going to be so much fun. The excitement could show all over my face as I followed my group members towards a car in the parking lot. There was a hop in my step that the others thought I looked like a little girl hopping in the flower field.

Tonight was going to be a good one. I could easily tell.

 

11:45 PM

We're having a slumber party, just in time for our album and MV release, we bought a lot of snacks like chocolates, ice cream and crisps while Onew have ordered fried chicken, while I have bought some drinks,and some fries with burgers too.

We were in the living room of their dorm. I had to admit, it was an awesome dorm. There living room was just like any other living room with the comfortable sofas on one side of the room and a TV at the other end. We had moved the small coffee table aside because we had settled ourselves on the floor in a circle, eating all the junk food we bought.

Being like this was fun. We were all in our pyjamas, laughing and telling stories, personal and funny ones alike. I had never attended a slumber party, much less with guys and me being the only girl.

Fifteen minutes were left on the clock until the release of our first MV on YouTube. I was seated on the floor taking in a spoon of ice cream into my mouth when Key who sat next to me got up from the floor.

“Where are you going?” I asked. “It’s not time for the MV to be released yet.”

“I’ll be right back,” he said as he went towards the hall where their bedroom was. The five of them all shared one room. The apartment was pretty small because even in the comfort of their living room I could tell how the whole place was. I only went as far as the bathroom to change into my pyjamas when I came here.

“You really love that ice cream, don’t you?” Minho asked.

“Its chocolate flavoured. Do you have a problem with that?” I asked.

“You girls always like sweet stuff,” said Taemin.

“Then its good I’m not living with you guys then. I would finish all the sweet stuff you have in the fridge.” I gave the boys a smile.

“True,” said Jonghyun who was finishing up a bag of potato chips. “And I would kill you for it.”

Onew laughed. “Enough about killing. How minutes do we have left till the MV’s release?”

“Gosh!” Taemin looked up at the clock on the wall. “We still have twelve minutes. Is it me or time has just stood still?”

“When we are anxiously waiting for something, time is bound to slow down,” I said.

“That is why I thought we can play a game to pass on the remaining time,” said Key as he came back into the living room.

“What game were you suggesting we play?” Onew asked as Key sat back down right beside me.

“Let’s play charades. We will divide ourselves into two groups. One group will start first by deciding what word or phrase the other team has to guess.”

“Okay, we have a few minutes so let’s be quick,” said Jonghyun.

“Xandra and Jonghyun are with me,” said Minho.

I moved over to where Minho and Jonghyun sat, further separating ourselves from the other three.

“Minho since you picked the team first, you can start,” said Key.

The three of us gathered round and started to whisper so that the other team wouldn’t listen on what we planned for them to guess. Once we were decided, I got up from the floor and went to stand in front of the TV. I started to doing funny signs with my hands and making gestures whenever I had to. The other team only had thirty seconds to know what I was talking about. Taemin guessed right by saying that I was depicting a fish.

We continued to play the game in the remaining minutes and I had to say, we were all really good because each team managed to guess what the other team was talking about through gestures.

It was Taemin’s team to come up with a phrase or a word when I looked at the clock on the wall.

“Guys, we only have four minutes till the MV is released,” I said.

“Really?” Jonghyun asked as he also looked up at the clock.

“Come on, we don’t want to miss a thing,” said Key as he quickly stood up from the floor and found himself in the hall.

“Wait for me!” I called after him as I also followed suit, almost losing balance and falling over when I tried to get up and run after Key.

I could hear the others coming behind me. I found Key entering the room at the end of the short hall. That was their computer room. When I entered the room, I couldn’t help but realise how pretty small it was and that there was only one computer. Key was already on the chair looking at the computer. He was already on YouTube.

was fast, don’t you think?” I asked as I stood directly behind him looking over his head at the screen. The others soon came in the room.

“I was already on the YouTube page,” said Key. “That was why I left you guys at first in the living room.”

“And you’re already on SM’s YouTube page,” said Onew. “Nice.”

“We only have two minutes till the video is released,” said Taemin as he looked at his wristwatch.

“Who is as nervous as I am?” Minho asked.

I couldn’t help but rub my hands together. “I am,” I answered.

“We all are,” said Jonghyun. “I won’t lie, I’m shivering.”

“One minute left,” said Taemin.

“You’re so not helping us with our anxiety,” said Key as he turned to look at Taemin.

“Is it me or is time moving too fast?” I asked.

“I feel it too,” said Onew.

“Seconds remaining, guys,” said Taemin.

“Now you’re just messing with us,” said Minho as he playfully gave Taemin a slap at the back of the head.

Taemin held the back of his head and smiled. “Ya, I am.”

Time flew in a matter of seconds and there were only a few seconds on the clock.

“Thirty seconds,” I said in a squeal. “I am so anxious right now.”

“Here, sit down,” said Key as he stood up from the chair and I gladly sat.

“Thanks, I felt like I was going to faint.”

As the seconds drew closer to the hour mark, there was intension in the room. I couldn’t help but put my fingers in my mouth while the guys behind me couldn’t help but talk nervously about the MV.

It was now ten seconds left on the clock.

“Who wishes to do a countdown with me?” Onew asked.

“Why not do it together?” Tamein asked.

“Let’s count at five,” I said.

As soon as it came to the five second mark, the six of us all started to count together:

In 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 

SHINee HAVE JUST RELEASED THE MV FOR 누난 너무 예뻐 (Replay) AS WELL AS THEIR MINI ALBUM