TAEYONG POV

Tick tock, tick tock.

What is taking so long? I look around the office I was in. There were portraits of every group produced here at SM. There was Shinee, Super Junior, Girls generation, Exo, Red velvet, and my group, NCT. Ah, the photographer must've had a lot of trouble trying to fit 18 members in NCT portrait. I look at the others, the walls were almost completely covered, well its expected from one of the biggest 3 agencies. I look back at the desk in front of me, Lee Sooman, the CEO had his back facing me as he was making a call about some collaboration with YG entertainment. I stared at his desk looking for something to do, I the noticed that a pencil was slanted my just an inch, I got up quietly So i didn't disturb his phone call and placed the pencil back in place. After the pencil was in perfect place, I sat back down, and fiddled with my fingers.

Knock knock.

Mr. Lee, then yelled for the person to come in as he finished with his phone call. I look behind me and see the door open, in enters Joy with black heels and her Leopard pattern tight dress. I get up and greet to her, she greets back at me as she walks to the chair next to me. Mr. Lee was still not finished with his call, Joy took a seat and looked over to me. "What is going on?" She mouthed to me.

"I don't know." I mouthed back while shrugging my shoulders.

Soon Mr. Lee ends his call, and swivels his chair to us. Joy gets up and greets him, before apologizing for being late. Mr. Lee raises his hand to show that it is ok. Joy sits back down as Mr. Lee clears his throat.

"I see that you both are confused to why I have brought you here. Well the answer to that is simple, I have a stage for the both of you."

Joy's eyes widen just a bit, I could understand her concern, she just released a comeback with her group and they were in the middle of promoting their new song, adding this stage to her plate might be too much.

"It will be a Duet between the both of you, love is key in this performance, so you can choose the songs. Sooyoung, you've been getting alot of attention lately, and Taeyong you're the golden Member of NCT so I couldn't think of anyone else."

We thank his compliments. "There fore you'll be performing in 3 weeks at the AAA awards, you can tell mr. Hyunwoo about the song and choreograph you chose, that will be all." He ended.

Joy opened to say something, but then Mr. Lee's phone started ringing, he picked it up and waved goodbye at us, as he answers the call. Joy and I get up, and leave the office. Mr. Hyunwoo was waiting outside for us. He told us to prepare at practice room 4b, and left. Joy and I then start walking to the practice room assigned to us. There was an awkward uncomfortable silence between us as we walked. We walked into that silence until Joy left to change her clothing. When she came came back she was wearing black adidas sweat pants and a baggy black hoodie. Joy went in the middle of the room and sat down with her phone out, she looked up at me as she was seated and patted the floor beside her signaling me to come to sit with her. I was a bit hesitant considering she was my sunbaniem and the fact that I've never worked with her, well inside once but that was with Yeri too for Mc. Joy then laughed,

"Hey I won't bite you know." She told me.

I smiled at her joke as sit down crossed legs near her, I was told by other people that she was cold and rude at times so I don't know how to prep myself. Joy than placed her phone on the ground and turned herself so her body faced me. Her eyes were boring into mine, was she angry? Did I do something wrong? But then her eyes became softer and into eyes smiles.

"Annyeong, Taeyong-shi, I'm joy!" She introduced herself, I was struck my her eyes smile that I couldn't even tell she stuck her hand towards me. She then smiled awkwardly as she put away her hand. I finally look away from her gaze and realized what an awkward first impression I made, but then she smiled again, "Ok, erm-, should we choose our song then?" She asked me.

I tried to get out of the impression that I was working with someone I'm not comfortable with and thought this situation was a like a survival Kpop show. "Right, so the theme is love right? So I was thinking in my head between these three songs. What do you think of them." I showed her the three songs I was thinking of on my phone. There was This is Love by Super Junior, Wish you were gay by Billie Eilish, and, Think about-Chu by Sam Kim (ft loco.) .

"Those are good choices, I also have three myself." She placed her phone beside mine with the three songs showing, there was What You do by EXO, Thirsty by Taemin [Lol, this would've been something tho🤭] , and Baby Don't Stop by NCT U. I'm not gonna lie she picked great songs but there was an obvious difference between our choices, mine were soft ballads talking about live but hers are very, erm- how should say this? Erm-very ual.

"So I was thinking we should do a song, that everyone would see us go wow! Like not something too slow, and something that would work with our talents."

"Hmm, yeah I see that." I take the songs, and take out some of them, but then I think of a song that would be perfect for us. "How about this song?" I played Some by Junggigo and Soyou. I watched Joy bop her to the music and smile.

"This is perfect!" Once the song was chosen, we started splitting the lines and rehearsing it. We also decided we should do live vocals. After two hours, we decided to take a break and come back tomorrow to figure out the choreography. I was about to leave until Joy grabbed a bit of my sleeve and gave me her phone. What was I supposed to do with it? "Oppa give me your phone." She told me. Me, o-oppa?

"Right?" I gave her my phone and watched her place her number in my phone, I quickly did the same. We handed back each other's phone. "See you tomorrow Joy-shii!" I called to her.

"Ya, no need too be so formal!" She scolded me, as we left the practice room.

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I was in my dorm, watching the television with the rest of NCT 127, we were watching music core, soon red velvet's special stage comes up for Sunny Side Up. Once the camera landed on Joy, I was reminded that I had her number.

"Woah, Joy is so pretty." Says Doyoung as he jumps into the couch, then looks over to me, "Hey, you're doing a show together right?" Everyone else than looks at me eyes widen.

"Yeah, wait how did you even know?" I asked, I haven't told anyone yet.

"Oh, Joy I think told Yeri, Yeri told Mark and Mark told me. But hey working with Joy is awesome, I should've have asked her out when we did the stag