Being a trainee, let alone an idol, is tough. First, you go through rigorous training that ultimately tests you as an individual and a team player. Most of the time, you find yourself thinking, “Am I really good enough?” And let me tell you, these thoughts aren’t ever healthy to have. They consume your mind, body, and soul, and make you believe the worst, most awful things about yourself; you begin to believe that maybe even after all these long nights practicing in the studio, you probably won’t even stand on a stage overlooking rows and rows of people who chant your name like a mantra.

Second, if you do find yourself onstage amidst a sea of people, the pay makes it seem like it wasn’t even worth it. That makes you want to work ten times harder, trying to get your name, your image, every fiber of your being out there just so some other project director could come up to you with an opportunity to make more money outside of the company.

Third, you begin to realize that the minute you became a trainee (or sold your soul to the devil, as Taemin likes to put it sometimes) your time is limited and you feel utterly suffocated by everything you have to do either as an idol or a trainee. You can’t go out as much as you wanted to. You can’t see your family or your old friends as much as you wanted to. And, though through some grace of God I was able to do it, you can’t be able to be in a relationship. Your previous life, as you came to know it, is over.

And despite the fact that I honestly didn’t have all the confidence in Min Seol (contrary to me saying it to her earlier), I wanted her to go to my dance practice so she could witness, first hand, what if felt like to be me. I wanted her to understand that being a trainee or an idol isn’t just the flick of your bangs across your forehead or that smoldering look you have to give when you’re onstage. It’s more than what meets the eye.

I walked through the sliding glass doors of the Gangnam Severance Hospital where Min Seol had ordered me to be at. I was already thirty minutes late to her shift, but it’s not like that bothered me too much. I wanted to waste as much time away from the traitor that so happens to be so in love with my own girlfriend.

When I approached the reception desk on the second floor of the children’s unit, I had to hold in my anger as my attention was drawn to Han Dong Ha still in his uniform as well, standing by the reception nurse on duty. He was looking over her shoulder, probably going through some charts for sick little kids when he looked up at me.

“Min Seol,” he spoke up, worriedly. He raced around the reception desk and closed up to me. “Are you alright? You left in such a hurry. I tried calling your phone, but you weren’t answering it.”

“I’m fine,” I said, giving him the bad eye before turning expectantly to the reception nurse in front of me. Min Seol told me that she’d know what to do with me once I got there. “Have you got anything for me to do?”

“Uh, sure,” she replied, stumbling a bit with her words as she rummaged around her desk for a manila folder of papers. She handed it to me. “You were supposed to input some of these records into the system earlier, but Dong Ha did some of your work for you.”

I avoided Dong Ha as I took the hospital records. I glanced down at it, still quite unsure of what to do next. I heard Dong Ha cough uncomfortably by my side, but I still refused to look at him. I expected the reception nurse to point me towards the computer that I might need to key the records into, but she was already preoccupied with a phone call.

“Well, come on, then,” Dong Ha finally said decisively. “I’ll help you out.”

From the corner of my eye, I watched him move out and walk down the hall of the children’s unit. Doggedly, I followed after him, still keeping him out of my peripheral vision as much as possible. Nothing’s more annoying than having to deal with an ex-best friend who goes behind your back and flirts with your girl.

As we ambled down the hall (but with Dong Ha, it felt more like a fast-paced stride), I couldn’t help but throw quick glances inside the hospital bedrooms. It was obviously nothing like walking down the hallways of my old high school: the way Min Seol’s sneakers squeaked and clicked against the cold, white linoleum floor that smelled of bleach had an eerily haunting ring to it. It unconsciously made me shudder just being in a hospital like this.

We finally reached near the end of the hall, where Dong Ha stopped in front of a room where passers-by could look through the glass windows. The door was labeled in big, block letters saying “RECORDS”. He unlocked the doors with a set of keys that hung from a lanyard around his neck and flicked on the lights. It was a rather large room with metal file cabinets lined up against the west and south walls to surround two computer desks that stood in the center. There were no windows other than the ones that opened up to the hallways, and the white fluorescent lights made the room look even duller.

“You first,” he stated and I could only roll my – Min Seol’s - eyes at his attempt to be a gentleman to my girlfriend. I moved past him and settled at one of the computer desks. He moved over to me where he reached over in front of me to turn the computer on.

“I can do it myself,” I said bitterly, noticing that he gladly took the initiative to bend over my girlfriend’s lap just to press a stupid little ‘Power’ button on the CPU of the desktop computer on the farther end of the desk.

Dong Ha merely chuckled and said, “Well, that’s definitely a first.” I responded to that by looking at him quizzically, before he answered again, “You always ask me to turn it on for you.”

I ignored that. That’s another good thing to bring up to Min Seol when I meet up with her later. I’m starting to believe that this probably isn’t just a one-sided thing anymore.

As the computer in front of me started up, I tapped the desk impatiently. The atmosphere inside the Records Room was thick with awkwardness. Dong Ha leaned against the file cabinet nearest the desk I was sitting at, his arms crossed over his chest and obviously staring at me – I mean, my girlfriend.

A program with spreadsheets automatically began to run the minute the desktop computer was finished starting up. I thought my troubles were over when Dong Ha had let me cheat on Min Seol’s Physics quiz during class earlier, but I was once again met with the frustrating realization that Min Seol was such a nerd.

I looked up at Dong Ha with the greatest look of fear and ambiguity I could muster with Min Seol’s face. He laughed, again, and reached over to squeeze my – Min Seol’s – cheeks. I jerked away suddenly.

“What’s wrong?” Dong Ha asked, his eyebrows wrinkling with the deepest look of concern this cold, retched boy could manage.

That’s when I began to lose it.

“Dong Ha, what do you want from me? Are you expecting me to break up with my boyfriend?” It was a little too late to say that, considering that I’d already broken up with Min Seol last night I didn’t want to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Finally, he stepped away from me, looking slightly shocked at my – Min Seol’s – sudden outburst. He probably never saw this side on Min Seol, considering how surprised he was to see me – her – so pissed off with him.

“I – I –” His cold, indifferent outward persona had finally crumbled to a blundering mess. I guess this is the kind of power Min Seol had on all men. “I’m obviously not wishing him away, I just… I just… Well, isn’t it obvious? I mean, you deserve better.”

Oh hell no.

I don’t remember what happened next, exactly, but I soon found Dong Ha on the ground, his right hand cupping his ear and looking up at me with the most horrified look on his face.

“M-min Seol…” he stuttered, obviously just as flabbergasted as I was. “D-did you just punch me? In the ear? You punched me in the ear?”

I froze. Damn it. Even in Min Seol’s body, I was still such a klutz. I don’t understand how SM could label me as such a great dancer when I can’t even punch my ex-best friend properly!

“Well, y-you deserved it!” I cried, Min Seol’s voice quavering through . I was trying to regain that monstrous anger that I had possessed right before I had just punched him in the ear. “You can’t talk like that about Jongin! I’ll have you know that he’s the most handsome, most attentive, most perfect boyfriend that anyone could ever have!”

I was probably pushing the envelope by now, but it was worth it. If Dong Ha could go on and on to my own girlfriend about how I probably was unfit as a boyfriend to her, then maybe this moment – this whole, messed up body-switch situation – was the perfect time to set him straight.

“What’s wrong with you lately?” He said, getting up, rubbing his ear that had gone achingly red. “You’re so off the entire day. Your seat in class this morning, your Physics quiz, then hurrying off and coming late to work; it’s just… Min Seol, are you acting up because of your parent’s divorce?”

What?

//+//

I gave Dong Ha the excuse that yes, I was just acting up because of my – Min Seol’s – parent’s divorce. The truth is, and I’m sure it’s obvious with my initial confusion, that I have no idea what he was talking about. After Dong Ha used his sleaze ball charm to woo the reception nurse in letting me off early, I wandered out of the hospital, trying to decipher what he Dong Ha meant about Min Seol’s parents being divorced.

How could they have been divorced when I clearly saw those two together this morning? I’ll admit that I noticed they weren’t talking to each other, but I thought that