I hope you enjoy this first chapter :)

Joohyun stretches up, feeling the joints in her back crack.

Her mother had always scolded her for doing such, insisting she would regret making her joints pop and that it sounded gross, but it was a habit she could never  quite break. During times that she was nervous, overwhelmed, or sometimes just lost in thought, her fingers would wander together and start pushing. She was currently the latter, dazedly staring down at the table in front of her, inspecting the flakes of color inside the white marble.

“Unnie,” she heard a sweet voice from behind her call. She turned around and locked eyes with Seulgi, the painfully adorable younger girl she had grown close to over her time as a trainee. Joohyun's personality was naturally very reserved and quiet, and she sometimes had a harder time being open and putting herself out there to make acquaintances. Personally, she didn’t really think it was such a bad thing. She was genuinely very content with herself and sitting alone with her thoughts. Putting in the effort to make friends and go through the whole 'getting to know someone' process seemed like such an exhausting task to her, one she was perfectly fine with almost always avoiding, if she was being completely honest. She knew very well her personality seemed contradicting, considering the reason she left her home town and came to this company, but she doesnt think about it often.

Having said all that though, as she looked into the girls eyes who had had called her, which were always sparkly with mirth, she finds herself silently thankful that the younger girl had stubbornly persisted her friendship.

“Whats up bear?” she responds, and Seulgi's eyes grow smaller as her smile gets bigger. Another adorable factor.

“I like that name,” she says, starting to wander in topic as she takes a seat next to Joohyun in the cafe of their company.

“Was there something you were gonna say Seulgi-ah?” Jooyun asks softly, remembering the questioning tone in Seulgi's voice.

“Oh yeah! The trainees from the last global audtion are coming in today,and we're getting a girl from Canada added to our group!" Seulgi starts excitedly, bouncing the slightest bit in her seat, "Her name is Seungwan if I remember correctly, shes only a few days younger than me,” Seulgi finishes, smiling widely. While Joohyun takes in the information, Seulgi squints her eyes to look at the menu above the cashier not far from them. Joohyun thinks for a moment how she knows the cafe menu inside and out because of how much time she spends there, time Seulgi probably spends getting to know people. 

“Ah that will be nice, maybe you’ll have someone you can relate to better,” she teases, and Seulgi rolls her eyes with a giggle.

"Don’t be silly unnie, I love that you’re older than me, who else would I go to with all my problems?” she asks, and Joohyun smiles warmly at her younger before realizing something.

"I wonder if we will be able to communicate with her well though, I'd hate for her to feel exluded because of a language barrier," she wonders outloud. Not that it mattered what language the new girl spoke, since Joohyun's first language was silence.

"Well I kept bugging one of the coordinators about it, and they mentioned she was born in Korea but moved there to study, so I assume that won't be a problem," Seulgi explains, and Joohyun hums, content with the answer. They stand up to head to the cashier, talking together about what they’re going to order. As Seulgi chats, somewhat to herself, about which drink she should get, Joohyun notices the girl in front of her in line whom she doesn’t recognize. The cashier asks her what she wants, and she watches the small girl hesitate for a moment as she reads the menu. 

“Um yes!" the stranger starts, with a happy energy that takes Joohyun aback slightly, 'Could I have the, the um, s-sik,” the girl struggled to pronounce the word, and Joohyuns curiosity was peeked. She decides to speak up.

“Pardon, do you mean a sikhye?” she asks, gently tapping the girls shoulder. The girl spins to look at her, and Joohyun instantly feels a weird feeling run through her chest once she faces the girl.

“Yes! One of those please, thank you,” the girl says to the cashier, who punches it into the register and accepts her cash. The girl then turns to them, and Seulgi was pulled out of her thoughts at the young girl in front of them who was struggling to order a simple drink.

“Hello! My name is Son Seungwan, I probably seem pretty dense,” she laughs, “I haven’t been in Korea since I was pretty young, so the language hasn’t come back to me that fully yet,” she says, bowing with her introduction.

“Ah yes!” Seulgi  responds instanty, turning to Joohyun with a giddy smile, while the elder wonders about the coincidence of this happening. "I was just telling my unnie about the new girl coming from Canada, I heard you are an amazing singer," Seulgi instantly starts chatting. Joohyun had been just a little distracted, taking in the arguably very attractive young girl in front of her, as she realizes she had been a little too quiet.

“I'm Bae Joohyun, its very nice to meet you Seungwan," she starts with a bow, "don’t worry about being choppy with the language, I’m sure it will come back to you before you know it, and we are happy to help you in any way, cause that’s what elders do. Well, Seulgi isn’t really your elder, but I am. I only know cause Seulgi said you guys were the same age…” Joohyun trailed off awkwardly, finding herself…rambling? Bae Joohyun does not ramble. Hell, Bae Joohyun barely talks as it is.

Seulgi eyes her for just a moment, picking up on her weird behavior but not saying anything.

Seungwan does nothing but give her a blinding smiling, “Well thank you! I think I like you two, we’ll be nice friends,” she smiles, before turning around to take the drink from the cashier.

“Say Seungwan, whats your room number? Do you know who you’re rooming with?” Seulgi asks curiously, before smiling at the cashier and ordering for her and Joohyun, ignoring Joohyun's pout.

“My room is 4C, and my roommates, if I remember correctly, are these two girls Park Sooyoung and Kim Yerim?” she asks, with a question in her tone as if shes not sure. At that, Seulgi starts to laugh and Joohyun smiles at Seungwan's sweetly innocent confused face.

“If you are remembering correctly, you’re in for it,” Seulgi jokes with that smile of hers, and Joohyun idly nods her head next to her in agreement. At Seungwan's eyes widening to a somewhat funny size, Joohyun jumps in.

“Don’t worry, they’re sweet girls, just very into causing trouble. especially that little rascal Yerim,” she explains for her, and watches as her facial expression relaxes back into a normal one. 

“I’m lucky to room with unnie here, she was in a room by herself until I asked to be moved from mine to hers,” Seulgi explains, and Joohyun feels the need to elbow the younger for starting a conversation that she was too embarrssed to have.

“Oh wow, how did you manage to have a room by yourself?” Seungwan asks with raised eyebrows, turning to Joohyun.

If Joohyun was just a bit further behind Seulgi instead of next to her, she could pinch her back without Seungwan seeing.

“Oh, most people are afraid of unnie's beauty, doesn’t this face just scream ‘don’t approach me’?” Seulgi replied, dramatically gesturing to Joohyun's face. Joohyun doesn’t care anymore, she pinches Seulgi anyways. Seungwan seems to take the question seriously, her brown eyes suddenly trained on joohyun for a bit as Seulgi whines at the pinch. Joohyun is use to people staring at her, but something about the sudden, intense gaze had her looking at the very interesting stain on the floor, suppressing the need to squirm. 

“Well, maybe she is a little intimidating looking,” Seungwan starts, and Joohyun finds herself suddenly needing to be anywhere but here, “but only because she looks, well, like a goddess. But I’ve personally found her very sweet, I can see why you’d want to room with her Seulgi,” Seungwan concludes.

Joohyun is frozen for a moment. Shes very use to people saying such things about her, but again, it just makes her cheeks flare red. Also, it was a little odd that Seungwan was answering as if Joohyun wasn’t standing there, but Seungwan did seem a little odd. Joohyun didn’t seem to mind though.

“That’s what I’m saying,” Seulgi agrees, and the two girls smile at each other. Offhandedly, Joohyun thinks about how shes happy Seulgi found someone that could be a little more her speed. Of course Seulgi was, and she imagined she would always be her, best friend, but the connection the two balls of sunshine had made Joohyun tilt her head and smile.

“I should probably be heading off, I still have to unpack and meet with some people to finish setting up my schedule for the next few months. I’m very happy to meet you girls, maybe I will see you around soon?” Seungwan asks hopfully, taking a sip of her drink she as she locks eyes with Joohyun.

Thankfully, for Joohyun’s sake, Seulgi is a quick talker.

“Not maybe, definitely. We’ll be seeing you in our practice group, so we’ll actually see you everyday at the start of next week. But thats just for practice, we’d love to hang out with you outside of that,” Seulgi says, already pulling out her phone to exchange numbers with Seungwan. Seungwan happily types her number in, and tells Seulgi to text her. 

“You too Joohyun-ssi,” Seungwan adds with that soft, pretty smile. 

Joohyun nods, “I will. I hope your unpacking and planning goes great,” Joohyun says. Seungwan thanks her shyly and smiles, bowing to the two one last time. The cashier grabs their attention to hand them their drinks, and Seulgi looks curiously at her unnie. After a beat of silence, she laughs slightly.

“You hope her planning goes great?” she questions, and Joohyun can hear a tone in her voice that sound awfully similar to those of the two girls Seungwan is rooming with. She smacks Seulgi’s arm, which only makes the younger laugh harder.

Looking over her shoulder as she goes to sit with Seulgi again at a table they previously occupied, she sees Seungwan pressing the button for an elevator. She’d met a lot of people since coming into this business, but something about the girl she just met already felt like it had changed something, in some way.