Joohyun is eighteen when the trainer stands her in the front of the practice room and calls all the other trainees to gather around her. The lights are a bit stifling and she can feel the humid heat of the sweating teenagers as they draw close, faces contorting into various expressions upon approaching her. Not all of them are wary, she notices. Not all of them are pleased either.

            The trainer clears his throat and slightly touches Joohyun’s upper back to motion her forward. Shuffling slightly, she moves just a few centimeters into the semi-circle the other trainees have formed on the ground, staring at the scuffed flooring in an attempt to not throw up from anxiety. Her hands are a bit sweaty; she wonders if she should’ve worn something a bit nicer than the short shorts her mom bought for her. What even would be presentable, she doesn’t know.

            “Guys, this is Bae Joohyun,” the trainer starts, voice echoing slightly from the acoustics of the practice room. “She’s going to be training with you starting this week.”

            There are a few hums from the trainees, and Joohyun allows herself to look up and quickly skim their faces. All of them are quite young, she realizes. Still kids. She gives them a small smile.

            “Hi. I look forward to working with everyone.”

            A few smiles flash her way, and Joohyun feels her shoulders sag ever so slightly in relief. They’re a handsome bunch, and there’s something incredibly comforting about having their approval, regardless of whether she’s the Guam-dong Barbie or not. She’s still their competitor at the end of the day, so it won’t hurt to maintain cordiality with them for the next two years, she figures.

            “Does this mean we get today off?” a voice pipes up, catching everyone’s attention. Joohyun glances at the smiling girl who asked the question. She’s cute, with large monolid eyes and chubby cheeks.

            “No, Seulgi,” the trainer replies. He motions for everyone to get up. “I’ll give you an hour to talk a bit to Joohyun, but we’re still finishing the routine we learned today. Alright, everyone, up, up!”

            Grumbles float up from the ground as the trainees stand to his prompting. The trainer excuses himself to get a drink and the girl from earlier, Seulgi, immediately bounds over to Joohyun. A few other trainees follow her, more hesitant than the monolidded girl to approach the new trainee.

            “Hi!” Seulgi blinks up at Joohyun, soft smile playing at her lips. “How old are you?” 

            There’s no malice in the question but also no restraint. It’s almost as if the girl says whatever she wants, and it makes Joohyun’s stomach churn, the stark contrast to her own personality.

            Joohyun lightly fists the hem of her shirt into her hands before answering. “Eighteen.”

            “Oh, so you’re an unnie!” Seulgi turns to the others. “She’s our unnie!”

            Joohyun feels a little self-conscious at the focus on her age, but she still meets Seulgi’s eyes when the girl tugs on her sleeve.

            “I’m Kang Seulgi. Fifteen years old.”

            Joohyun nods. “Nice to meet you, Seulgi,” she nearly whispers. It clearly doesn’t miss the younger girl though, because Seulgi’s lips are pulling into a happy grin.

            “I’m excited to work with you, unnie. We’re going to have lots of fun.”

            Joohyun smiles back at Seulgi, albeit very shyly. Perhaps, she thinks, there could be something wonderfully bright about this worn, crooked place, with its flickering fluorescent lights and cloudy mirrors.

            Perhaps, that something could be as simple as a wide smile and endearingly boisterous greetings.

-------

            Joohyun learns from the others that Seulgi has already been training for two years by the time Joohyun joins the company. For someone who has to practice late into the night after a full day of schooling, Seulgi is bubbly and energetic, and Joohyun finds that the younger girl has an innocent charm that transcends beyond simply being young.

            And there’s just something about her smile, the way her eyes disappear and her cheeks bunch up near her cheekbones, that appeals to Joohyun greatly. It could be that she’s still stuck on how Seulgi has been the one to constantly reach out to her first ever since Joohyun started training. It could be that Seulgi reminds Joohyun of her younger sister back at home. It could be that for an eighteen-year-old coming up from Daegu to live in Seoul for the first time without knowing anyone, even the smallest of affections will ground her in the present and not the barely visible future. Either way, the eighteen-year-old sticks to the small clique that Seulgi is part of, the group consisting of relatively convivial kids who quickly grow on her through their loudly hollered frustrations of ‘Joohyun unnie, hurry, the instructor’s coming!’ and ‘Joohyun unnie, tell Amber and Seungyeon to stop teasing us, you’re the oldest!’

            Somehow, she becomes the mom friend. Joohyun isn’t sure whether to laugh at how easily they warmed up to her or cry at having to take on the role of the eldest, once again, within the span of a few weeks. But their well-meaning rowdiness doesn’t necessarily bother her, so she exaggeratedly sighs, crosses her arms across her chest, and calmly calls out the offending child’s name so as to not let too much of her dialect slip out. It goes like this for a while: them coaxing her out of her shell with their over-the-top antics and her reciprocating just enough to not make a fool out of herself in front of people she barely knows. The days are tiring but she feels alive, caught up in the small moments of togetherness.

            “I heard that there’s a way to get to the roof from the dorms,” Jongin mentions one day as they all sit gathered around after a particularly grueling lesson. The trainees all turn to the smirking boy and blink at him with wide eyes, wondering what he’s getting at. Joohyun is no exception. “But they’re all the older kids.”

            “I did hear one of the other trainees say that they got caught smoking up there the other day,” Seungyeon comments. She frowns, then relaxes. “I wonder how they even got cigarettes.”

            “Maybe at school.”

            “It wouldn’t be easy to sneak it in and out though.”

            There’s a slight pause after that, wherein someone comes in to tell the trainees that vocal lessons would start very soon. Joohyun watches the others slowly rise to their feet, motionless, until a small, slender hand appears in front of her face.

            “Unnie, we’ll get in trouble if we’re late.”

            Joohyun lets her eyes linger on Seulgi’s lanky fingers before looking up to meet the girl’s eyes. “You speak as if you know from experience.”

            “Unnie,” Seulgi whines, stomping ever so slightly. “You know I’m never late to lessons!”

            “I don’t know, Seulgi. I’ve always seen you rushing to get to school in the morning whenever you sleep over at the dorms.”

            “That’s different!”

            “Gourds that leak on the inside leak on the outside too.”

            The younger girl huffs at the use of proverbs. “Come on, unnie. We really need to go.”

            “Okay, okay.”

            Joohyun firmly grasps Seulgi’s hand and allows herself to feel the suspension that comes from the sudden upward momentum. Once up, she links arms with the other girl, who freezes before awkwardly leading Joohyun to the door. Joohyun bites back a laugh at Seulgi’s stiff posture.

            “Are you not used to skinship?” Joohyun asks, peering curiously at Seulgi as they make their way to the vocal rooms. She’s about to pull away, thinking that she made the younger girl uncomfortable, but Seulgi doesn’t necessarily take her arm from Joohyun’s hold.

            “A little,” she confesses, squirming a bit. “I’ve got an older brother, so the most we’ll do is get into fights. No, uh, hugging or anything like that.”

            “I can let go if you want me to.”

            “No!” Joohyun looks at Seulgi, eyebrows raised in surprise. “I mean, it’s fine. I won’t die or anything.”

            “I’m not going to hold onto you if you don’t like it.”

            Seulgi slows her walking as they near the conversing group in front of the vocal rooms, stopping a few meters away from them. She turns to Joohyun and gives her an expression that toes the lines between uncertainty and determination.

            “No, no. It’s fine.”

            Joohyun tilts her head, narrowing her eyes. “Kang Seulgi.”

            Her voice is stern and, based on what she’s seen of Seulgi so far, should bring out that nervous lip picking from the monolidded girl anytime now. Sure, being the oldest meant having all the kids looking up to her to solve everyone’s problems behind the backs of the adults in the company building, but it also meant authority, to some extent.

            But to Joohyun’s surprise, the younger girl’s lips quirk up into a smile as Seulgi slowly pulls back to face Joohyun more easily. There’s a suave attempt to say something cheesy—Joohyun can feel it—at the tip of Seulgi’s tongue, presented in the jumping corners of . Joohyun braces herself for something stupid; she’ll roll her eyes, flick Seulgi’s forehead, drag her in to do their lessons, et cetera, et cetera. And yet, she’s still caught off-guard by the sincere confession that leaves the younger girl, as disgustingly melodramatic as it sounds.

            “I’m letting you hold on, because I think I might want to do the same with you when things get hard, unnie.”

            Then she skips off to catch up with the others like she didn’t say something ridiculously cute, and like she didn’t just make some sort of long-term promise to stick around with Joohyun. It results in the older girl blinking mindlessly at the wall in front of her, the muffled laughter from the others in the practice room ringing out into the hallway, before the vocal trainer peeks out from the door and calls for Joohyun.

            And when Joohyun enters and makes eye contact with Seulgi on the other side of the room, the younger girl smiles again, and Joohyun doesn’t have to look at her lips to know that she’s doing so.

-------

            But at some point along the line, Joohyun loses it.

            She had been sure that she knew Seulgi pretty well despite their relatively short relationship, because part of being a trainee meant bonding with the others and bonding quickly. Yet, Joohyun doesn’t think she can read the younger girl as well anymore just by a simple glance, because after Seulgi is told that she won’t be part of the f(x) team and after Seulgi loses her voice not too long after that, she seems to shut down internally. Happy facade, no worries. It isn’t until Joohyun catches Seulgi crying alone in a vocal room that she learns Seulgi is fragile. So impossibly fragile.

            “Seulgi,” Joohyun whispers. She crawls towards the younger girl, hand hovering above Seulgi’s shoulder. “Seulgi, are you okay?”

            Seulgi turns to look at Joohyun, and for a split second, Joohyun can see the desperation in her eyes before it’s covered up behind crescent moons. Waiting for Seulgi to say something, Joohyun maintains the distance and just stays in her spot. There’s no response. Just a silent, unsteady smile and a plea for her to turn away.

            “Seulgi, talk to me.”

            “Unnie…” Seulgi croaks out just barely, voice on the verge of fading. Joohyun never thought she’d believe someone’s voice could be so evanescent in quality, especially from a person who carries confidence proudly on her shoulders like an epaulette. Something clenches in Joohyun’s stomach, and she’s soon pulling the younger girl into a hug, tight but not too tight, because Seulgi is fragile, and Joohyun needs to hold onto her. She won’t understand, of course she can’t understand, but she’s still holding onto that memory of Seulgi smiling up at her from under flickering lights as the other memories start to leave with each weary kid, and oh god, maybe she’s selfish, but it terrifies her to think that Seulgi could one day end up like them—lost, exhausted.

            So Joohyun lets Seulgi hold onto her.

            Never mind that the girl is crying on Joohyun’s shirt and the wet spots chill Joohyun in the cold room. At least Joohyun can hear Seulgi’s voice right now, and in all honesty, that auditory reassurance alone is enough for her to channel all her energies into keeping Seulgi whole.

            “Give me a chance to let you hold onto me too, Seulgi,” she breathes out, barely audible over the sobs Seulgi tries to suppress. They rock softly side-to-side as Joohyun Seulgi’s hair. “Let me be here for you.”

            She’s met with frustrated hiccups and now less restricted crying. Seulgi starts to push away, hair hanging over her face, but Joohyun gently holds onto her shoulders and moves the hair to see Seulgi’s face.

            Her eyes are angry. They hold the spark that Joohyun has always seen in Seulgi since they first met—determined, persistent, stalwart. Tell Joohyun that everything will be fine, she’ll get back up and move on as she’s been doing this whole time.

            But the exhaustion is evident in the slight droop of Seulgi’s mouth when Joohyun lifts the younger girl’s chin up to meet her eyes. The corners tremble in uncertainty and they’re pressed tight, as if trying to seal in whatever is left of her voice. Trying all at once to push others away from her insecurities and swallow those worries deep down to a place where they’d suffocate her alone.

            “It’ll come back, I promise, Seulgi.”

            It’s empty words, because Joohyun has seen too many times all the people who left and didn’t return, but perhaps Seulgi needs that emptiness so she can fill the space with her own voice. A void that will swallow the tremors and conceal them until she realizes one day that her song is strong enough to reverberate throughout that vastness and echo into open air again. So Joohyun continues to tell her that it will be alright, that everything is cyclical and unpredictable, but that as long as they’re holding onto each other, it’ll all be okay.

-------

            The next year brings in a new batch of young trainees, most of them boys, that has Joohyun on her toes at all times. They’re all younger than her and still buzzing from the excitement of being able to train for such a big company, but that doesn’t mean a few brave souls don’t keep her in their peripherals at all times.

            One of them is Yerim. She’s not as much of a concern to Joohyun in the sense that the boys are; in fact, she’s charming and adorable and able to finagle favours out of pretty much everyone with just a quick smile and a tilt of her head. Joohyun has taken to playing along with her antics—now that she’s a bit more comfortable speaking without a dialect—and the two of them drag Seulgi around everywhere. The eldest of the three thinks Seulgi’s starting to get annoyed, judging by the way twitches despite her eye smile and habitual ‘no, really, I’m fine!’ when a passing trainer jokingly tells the two to leave her alone, but she knows for sure that the curve on Seulgi’s lips is genuine when they spot Yerim giving a tour to one of the new trainees, taking special care to point out ‘and this is a water fountain’ in a serious tone only achievable by a twelve-year-old finally grasping the concept of seniority.

            But that same smile isn’t maintained when Joohyun gets asked out by one of the male trainees right after dinner nor when the confessions become a weekly occurrence for the older girl. At first it was funny for both of them, if not awkward on Joohyun’s end, because at least she got a Ghana Milk Chocolate Bar out of it and they spent all day trying to think up how to eat the sweets without getting caught.

            By the sixth time or so, however, Seulgi starts frowning ever so slightly, and Joohyun sees it—she definitely sees it—even when Seulgi’s eyes insist that she’s as amused by the situation as Yerim seems to be. Joohyun wonders if there’s just something about Seulgi’s lips that the younger girl is unable to control but decides to not overthink it because at least she can read the girl through them. Plus, she thinks, Seulgi seems more human and not like the idol machines they’re being molded into because of that miniscule aberration.

            “More chocolates?” Seulgi nods at the confession gift in Joohyun’s hands before quietly taking it. “You wouldn’t think that they know what it means to be a trainee.” The chocolate returns to its place.

            Joohyun plays with the serrated edge of the wrapper but tucks the bar away before one of the adults finds them with it. “I’m sure the boys don’t feel that threatened by us to intentionally make me gain weight.”

            “What do you mean, us?” Seulgi questions, lips pouting slightly. Joohyun watches how it stays like that for a minute but slowly returns back to its normal place at the lack of response from the older girl. “You’re the only one getting anything.”

            “I saw Jongin give you a whole basket of egg-shaped chocolates just yesterday. Don’t even know how he managed to get that into the building.”

            “That’s…” Seulgi’s face flushes red and her eyes dart back and forth, unable to meet Joohyun’s, but the older girl is already staring at a point just below and smiling at what she sees. “That’s just as friends!”

            “Uh-huh.”

            “And because he’s in that one group! So...so it was a goodbye present.”

            “Shouldn’t it be the other way around?” Joohyun retorts, finally taking her eyes off of Seulgi’s lips, which are rolled into . “With you giving him a congratulatory gift. Plus,” she adds, “it’s not like you won’t ever see him again.”

            “It’s not like that, unnie.”

            “I’m not upset or anything.” Joohyun shrugs then lets her eyes flicker down for a brief moment. Aha. “You’re sticking with me for the long run anyway. Not him.”

            “What?” the younger girl stammers. “Of course...I don’t even know what you’re talking about, unnie. I couldn’t possibly debut in a boy group.”

            “Mmhmm.”

            “Unnie!”

            “Kang Seulgi,” Joohyun simply responds, slipping her arm, much more naturally now, around Seulgi’s. “You and me—we’re going to debut together someday.”

            Seulgi doesn’t answer, so Joohyun turns to look at her, narrowly avoiding a collision with one of the passing trainees. There’s a somber expression on her face that looks out of place despite how often Joohyun has seen it flit across Seulgi’s face these days, and somehow that silent gaze deafens Joohyun more than the noisy chattering in the space they occupy. Everything is just a hum in the background; Seulgi’s mouth moves and it’s all Joohyun can hear now.

            “Do you think we’ll be able to make it?”

            To be honest, Joohyun isn’t sure either. She’s only been training for two years, but it’s double that for Seulgi, and the older girl wouldn’t be surprised if Seulgi has hit a wall. Hours of dancing and singing and becoming the perfect television persona and suppressing, suppressing everything that’s fun and young and immature, isn’t something a seventeen-year-old would normally deal with. So that hesitancy doesn’t come off as unfounded.

            “Don’t you want us to make it?”

            “I do,” she answers quickly. “So much that I’m afraid of how I’ll live if I don’t.”

            “You’ll make it.”

            Seulgi smiles. It’s sad. “And what if it’s just one of us?”

            “It won’t be. I promise.” Joohyun doesn’t even want to think about that possibility. So she pulls away from the vacuum of negative thoughts that such doubts propel her into and instead slides her hand down to hold onto Seulgi’s soft palm. “No sad thoughts today.” She shoves her other hand into her pocket and wiggles the chocolate bar she takes out at the younger girl. “We’re binging on chocolate tonight.”

            The smile isn’t sad anymore. “Unnie, that’s not even that much! I could eat it all by myself.”

            “What are you eating all by yourself?”

            Joohyun screams and barrels back into Seulgi’s frame at the intrusion, only to see Yerim blinking curiously at the two older girls. The loud thump behind her was unmistakably Seulgi’s head banging into the wall, so Joohyun turns around to help cradle the girl’s head, the back of it in panic. Yerim is just watching them, still waiting for an answer.

            “Oh, is that chocolate?” The youngest of the three leans in close to peer at the bar still in Joohyun’s hand. “Can I have some too? I didn’t get to have as much lunch today because my friend at school left hers at home and I was sharing.”

            Joohyun and Seulgi glance at each other amidst the furrowed eyebrows and uncomfortable wincing. It doesn’t take much for Joohyun to be able to tell that Seulgi really doesn’t want to share, but her eyes are already curving in preparation to tell Yerim that ‘of course! Good girls like you need presents like this.’

            It takes a lot of convincing to get one of the more naïve trainees to sneak in an assortment of sweets while coming to the company after school the following day, but it’s more than worth it, because Joohyun is able to feed both Seulgi and Yerim, and the former’s subtly quirking lips are just a much more pretty sight than smiling eyes that don’t tell the truth.

-------

            There’s a slight relapse in Seulgi’s progress when Seungyeon announces that she’ll be leaving after her contract ends.

            The younger girl is out of it for the few weeks leading up to Seungyeon’s departure, and with only Joohyun and Seulgi left from the original group of trainees, the rest having left or debuted, Joohyun can see that Seulgi is fearing the worst for herself. Understandably. Joohyun too is barely holding onto the fact that Seulgi is still present next to her. She hates the uncertainty of its term though.

            Seulgi slips up several times during their dance routines; her voice cracks in the middle of vocal lessons. There’s a faraway quality to her that lingers even when they’re engaged in conversation, and Joohyun wonders if she’ll ever find her way back.

            But not too long after EXO formally debuts, a few more girls join the company, and things return to their normal bustling rowdiness with the added members.

            Seungwan, who insists they use her Anglicized name Wendy, is from Canada, but she speaks Korean well enough, and her voice simply is phenomenal. All the trainees stop and stare in the middle of their vocal training when she opens to sing, and Joohyun subconsciously leans into Seulgi’s side at the sheer power the tiny girl holds in her voice.

            “She’s good.”

            Seulgi’s voice comes off as terribly offhanded; it makes Joohyun do a double-take at the odd coolness in her tone.

            “Yeah, she is. I like your voice more though.”

            “You only say that because we’re best friends.”

            Joohyun thinks about it. “No, it’s not that. Although maybe it could be that I find more comfort in your voice because I’ve heard it longer.”

            “Jinyoung-ssaem said that her technique just needs a little bit of brushing up to be perfect.”

            “He also said that you’re one of the strongest vocalists in the company.”

            “But still…”

            Still, there’s that unspoken jealousy that presses Seulgi’s mouth into a straight line whenever the two of them see Seungwan around and greet her. It’s almost unnoticeable; Joohyun only catches it because she knows where to look. To everyone else, Seulgi and Seungwan are getting along just fine, which isn’t completely a falsity in itself, because Seungwan is a nice kid and Seulgi meshes well with her personality-wise.

            Sooyoung doesn’t hit it off quite as quickly with everyone, because she’s still pretty young and seems to be a bit self-conscious of her body image, something probably made worse by the atrocious nickname, Doong-doongie, that the instructors assign to her after she joins. Joohyun wants to tell the poor girl that there’s nothing wrong with her, that what she sees is just the product of desperation, years of too much effort, and the need to be accepted, but they rarely interact so none of that reaches her.

            “Sooyoung seems a bit shy,” Seulgi remarks, watching the younger girl quietly practicing in a corner of the dance practice room during their short break. She passes her water bottle to Joohyun, who gratefully takes it while dabbing at her neck with a towel. The summer has been brutal for everyone stuck in the basement, and the fact that Joohyun can see Seulgi’s tan slowly fading is hilariously ironic. “Wonder if she doesn’t talk to Wendy either.”

            “Why Wendy specifically?”

            Seulgi reaches over to dab at Joohyun’s forehead, the older girl frozen at the proximity of their faces. Seulgi’s lips are right at her eye level, and Joohyun instinctively stares at how they’re slightly open. It means she’s concentrating.

            “I mean-” Seulgi pulls back to lean against the wall again- “they entered at almost the same time. Figured they would’ve talked about being the newbies or something.”

            Joohyun tilts her head to look at the girl’s face. “You were the one to reach out to me first.”

            “That was different. You were just a helpless old lady, and I was being an honourable teenager.”

            “Hey!” Joohyun lightly punches Seulgi’s arm. “I’m only three years older than you!”

            “I’m surprised you’re not using a walker yet, I can already feel my bones aching,” Seulgi quips, clutching her back. “Oh my, I think I heard something crack.”

            They laugh, catching the attention of a few other trainees, before toning it down to a light giggle. Stretching out her legs, Joohyun hums to get Seulgi’s attention again.

            “I wonder if they’ll be debuting with us too.”

            “There’s such a big gap between them and us. We’re...worn out. They’re still fresh and young.”

            “You and Wendy are the same age, Seulgi.”

            “But…” Seulgi frustratedly wipes down her neck with her own towel. “She has room to improve. I’ve pretty much hit my peak. I don’t know if I’ll be able to impress the higher ups with the level I’m at.”

            Joohyun faintly hears the call to get back up, but she pushes it to the back of her mind in order to grip Seulgi’s shoulders and meet her face-to-face. “Don’t doubt yourself now, Seulgi.”

            “Alright, we’ll be running through one more time at half speed and then do it at the normal tempo!”

            “I’m just sick of not knowing how long this waiting will last. It’s