** Please go back to chapter eleven to read part one! **

“Excuse me,” Annabelle called out to the couple that tried their best to ignore the foreign speaking female in front them. “Excuse me,” Annabelle called out again.

“Oppa, should we go and get some ice cream?” She said as her boyfriend agreed and walked right past Annabelle without giving her a second look.

“If you guys don’t know Chinese, just say so!” Annabelle squatted down and began ruffling her hair. “Ugh, why did I even come here?”

Looking up, she saw a young girl sitting on a bench reading a book while the sunlight hit her. ‘Should I go and ask her?’

“Ex-cuse me,” Annabelle said in broken Korean. “Can you he-lp me?”

The young girl put her book down and slightly nodded in confusion. She looked at Annabelle’s wardrobe and wondered if she was Japanese from her Lolita-like attire. Scoop-neck white ruffled dress with knee high socks and overly exaggerated doll-like shoes, she wondered if she was comfortable in the warm sun.

“Ah, how do I ask her this?” Annabelle asked herself as she ruffled the left side of her hair.

“You’re Chinese?” She asked in fluent Mandarin.

Annabelle was surprised to finally see someone in Korea that spoke her language. “Are you Chinese as well?”

“No, I just know how to speak Chinese.”

“Oh,” Annabelle cleared and extended her hand. “I’m Annabelle Lee. Nice to meet you,”

“Choi Sooyeon,” she replied as she took her hand and shook it as well. “So what do you need help with?”

“I know this sounds really weird especially since we just met, but can I stick with you for the next two weeks?” Annabelle begged with a gloomy look in her eyes. “No one here speaks Chinese and I can’t speak Korean that well and I don’t know what to do because I can’t communicate with anyone here.” She continued on all in one breath.

“S-Sure,” Sooyeon reluctantly agreed as she scooted over to make room for Annabelle.

“How old are you?” Annabelle asked in order to break the awkward silence.

“I’m twenty-three,” Sooyeon answered.

“Hm, I’m twenty-one so you’re my jiejie!” Annabelle’s eyes had a small twinkle in them. “Or do you want me to call you oppa?”

Sooyeon let out a small giggle as she realized that Annabelle wanted to call her oppa. “Oppa is the same as ‘gege’. I don’t think I’m a man. It’s supposed to be unnie, but I’m fine with whatever you’re comfortable with.”

“Jiejie it is!” Annabelle chimed as she jumped up and clapped her hands. “Jiejie, what do you want to do first?”

Before Sooyeon could answer anything, Annabelle had already decided on what they were going to do. “Let’s go get some shaved ice!”

Grabbing Sooyeon’s hand and pulling her towards the shaved ice kiosk near the beach, Sooyeon couldn’t help but let out a little smile. ‘She reminds me a lot of Seungyeon.’

“Jiejie, what flavor do you want?”

“Strawberry is fine,”

“You like strawberry, too? Two strawberry please!”

The worker at the kiosk couldn’t understand what she had said due to that fact that he wasn’t Chinese, so Sooyeon had to repeat the order again. “Two strawberry ice cones.”

“Ahh, coming right up!”

It took about five minutes in total for the ice cones to be ready and the two started eating them as they took a walk, looking around at the peaceful and green surroundings.

While Annabelle was busying pointing out the beautiful scenery, Sooyeon couldn’t help question herself. Ever since she was young she would always be antisocial. It took her about a year and a half just to be able to talk to Amber comfortably, but why was it so easy for Annabelle to approach her and easily accept her into her bubble?

Was it because Annabelle reminded Sooyeon of her own sister? The one that was no longer in the same world as her? It wasn’t her fault that she was gone. It wasn’t her fault that they were all gone. It took fourteen years for her parents to accept Sooyeon. It took hours for Sooyeon to accept Seungyeon. It took minutes for Seungyeon to accept Sooyeon. It took seconds for Sooyeon to lose it all.

It’ll take Sooyeon a lifetime to forgive herself.

But why? It wasn’t her fault that everything happened. Why did Sooyeon have to beat herself because of it? It’s been five years since that incident ever happened, but ever single second in her life, she blamed herself.

She left America in order to let go of the past, but why was it continuing to haunt her? All she wanted to do was be alone without the thoughts of her family in her mind. She had a tattoo done on the back of her right shoulder blade that says: ‘it can’t rain all the time’. It was to tell Sooyeon that she needed to move on. They were gone and Sooyeon could do nothing to make it otherwise.

“Jiejie!” Annabelle called out causing Sooyeon to break out of her thoughts. “Are you okay?”

“Y-yeah,” Sooyeon replied in an uneasy tone. “You were saying?”

“I said that I heard there were going to be some guys performing at the hotel I’m staying at. Do you want to watch it with me?”

“Which hotel are they performing at?”

“Hotel Lively at 7P.M!”

“You’re staying there, too?” Sooyeon asked with wide eyes.

“Don’t tell me…” Annabelle placed her arm around Sooyeon’s shoulder and smiled widely. “It’s like we’re fated to meet!”

“Y-yeah, fated,” Sooyeon said with a slight smile. “Anyways, you don’t look full Chinese.”

“That’s because I’m not.” Annabelle smiled. “I’m half Spanish. My mother was Chinese, but I was raised by my dad in Spain.”

“Oh,”

“Yup, the court didn’t allow my mother to raise me since she’s messed up in the head and my dad died in Spain from a motorcycle accident, so I was shipped back to China to be raised by my grandma. So, yeah, my father’s dead, my mother’s a freak, and my grandma is probably going to die soon.”

Sooyeon was disgusted by Annabelle words and how she could easily speak that way. “Aren’t you being a little too disrespectful?”

“Me? Disrespectful?” Annabelle scoffed, “it’s my family and I can say whatever I want about them. I barely know what my parents look like and just because I can accept the fact that my grandma is going to be gone soon, I’m disrespectful?”

Not arguing any further, Sooyeon just continued to eat her snow cone. She knew if she said anything else, Annabelle and her would part ways. Annabelle was the closest thing Sooyeon had to Seungyeon and she wasn’t going to give it up that easily even though her mind was telling her to.

“Are we still up for the performance tonight?”

“Yeah,”

“Why does Yongguk hyung have to be so strict right before a performance?” Daehyun sighed as he sat on one of the benches in the hotel’s garden. “It’s not like we’re going to forget the entire dance if we don’t practice for an hour.” He groaned as he placed the moist towel back on his face.

“Hi,” Daehyun removed the towel to see a young girl with bright aqua-blue shorts with a hot pink off the shoulder t-shirt. “I’m Kwon Minjung,” she smiled.

Daehyun blinked at the odd girl in front of him and stared at her extended hand.

“It’s a hand shake,” Minjung giggled. “You’re supposed to shake it.”

“Daehyun,” he finally replied as she softly grabbed her hand. “Jung Daehyun.”

“Well, Jung Daehyun,” Minjung took a seat next to Daehyun and smiled widely. “Nice to meet you!”

‘Why is she talking to me?’ Daehyun asked himself as he stared at Minjung.

“Do I have something on my face?” Minjung pulled her face up to her hands and tried to check if there wasn’t anything in her eyes or around .

“No,” Daehyun chuckled. “There isn’t anything there.”

There was an awkward silence between the two from Daehyun’s shyness and Minjung inability to find a topic the two could talk about.

“So, I, uh, saw you practicing earlier,” Minjung softly scratched her arm as she looked down at the ground. “You are really great at singing.”

Feeling his face heating up, Daehyun let out a small cough and rubbed the back of his neck. “T-Thank you,” he stuttered. “You’re very pretty.” Realizing what he had said, he squeezed his eyes shut and wished he had never left the practice room.

“Thank you,” Minjung let out a small giggle. “You’re very handsome yourself.”

‘Okay, this is how Himchan hyung gets a girl to like him. What do I do next?’ Thinking back to the ‘flirting sessions’ courtesy of Himchan, Daehyun tried his best to think of something to say to Minjung. “Excuse me, can I have the directions?”

“Directions? To where?”

“T-To your heart,” realizing exactly what he had said, Daehyun just want to jump off a cliff. Of course, bringing Himchan along with him. ‘Why did I say that?!’

“You’re on your way there,” Minjung let out a huge laugh as she clapped her hands from the stupid, yet successful pick up line. “Daehyun-sshi, how old are you?”

“I’m twenty-one,”

“Oh, I’m thirty-two.” Minjung said as she noticed Daehyun’s facial expressions changing to a shocked and surprised one. “Just kidding; I’m nineteen.”

“I was about to call you noona, but I guess that’s not needed.”

The two began talking a bit more before Youngjae came out to the garden to fetch Daehyun. “Hyung, Yongguk hyung wants you back inside.” He started before he noticed that Minjung was besides Daehyun. “Hello,” he bowed.

“Minjung-sshi, would you come to our show today?” Daehyun asked Minjung as the two stood up. “It’s at 7PM,” he said as he rubbed the back of his neck in nervousness.

“Sure,” Minjung smiled. “I’ll be sure to get a good table,”

Not wanting to mess up the atmosphere even more with awkward words, or pick up lines, Daehyun awkwardly bowed and ran off, pulling Youngjae with him.

“Hyung, did you just-“

“You will not tell anyone about what just happened, alright?” Daehyun commanded at he pushed Youngjae to the wall. “Especially Himchan. If you tell him, I will kill you.”

Youngjae pushed Daehyun’s hands off the collar of his shirt and chuckled, “alright, lover boy.”

“Yoo Youngjae,”

“Hurry before Yongguk hyung throws a fit,” Youngjae laughed as he placed his hands in his pockets and nonchalantly walked back to practice room.

Daehyun sped up and locked Youngjae in a head lock, “you shouldn’t be treating hyung this way.”

“Well, Minjung,” she told herself as she sat back down on the bench. “You did well today. Woosung would probably be happy to hear that you made a friend.”

Minjung closed her eyes and replayed the memories of her and young Woosung in her mind. Born and raised in New York with their parents, they were a perfect family. Those were the best memories of her life; Saturday nights out with her family in the city, Sunday are the lazy days where they would all just sit around in the living room, and weekdays where Minjung and Woosung would come home to their mother’s cooking.

But of course, with every happy moment, there would be a horrible aftermath.

While walking back from the market with Woosung and their mother, the three decided on taking a short cut home in order to save time. The quickest way? Across the train tracks. Minjung and Woosung did what any kid would do; they played on the train tracks without a care in the world. Even though their mother kept telling them to get off, they would listen to her.

Not until they finally heard the train coming.

Everything would have been fine if Minjung hadn’t gotten her foot stuck on the train tracks. She could have taken her shoe off, but being a child with the loud rumblings of the oncoming train mixed with her mother’s yells and Woosung’s cries, common sense would be the last thing on her mind.

Her mother ran up to her daughter desperately trying to take Minjung’s foot out of her shoe, but with it being straps, it would take forever for her to unbuckle them with her trembling hands. However, an infinite amount of time would be the last thing they could have.

By the time their mother was able to unbuckle the straps and push Minjung into safety, it was already too late for her. Their mother was one of the countless victims of a train accident. Screaming and crying from their dead mother, it wasn’t long before passing bystanders called the police.

When their father came to the scene, he was heartbroken. The love of his life was no longer in the lives of him and their eight-year-old children. Devastated, he packed up everything and brought him and his kids back to his hometown to try and forget the past.

It didn’t help that Minjung and Woosung’s Korean wasn’t at a conversational level at their ages. Growing up, they were always picked on for being the foreigners and were never able to fit in. That’s why Minjung and Woosung are so close together today. They were the only ones there for each other. Especially after their father passed away.

The two were sent to live with their grandmother when their father was away on a business trip. They were given the horrible news that their father was killed in a car accident and with that, they were parent-less.

Nothing being able to deal with the death of her only son, their grandmother sent them to live with her daughter. Their aunt. She could care less about what happened to the two, and therefore acting as if they didn’t exist. From the death of their parents and the neglect from everyone around them, Minjung and Woosung promised themselves that they would be the only people they would care about. They vowed that they would never make friends they would die for.

“Okay, tonight we’re going to show that we have the potential, alright? We’re going to perform about two songs, and that’s it for the night.” Yongguk said as the others were busy fixing their suits. “Our first performance is Infinite’s Be Mine as a group and then it will be Daehyun and I performing I Remember, okay? I’ll tell you who’s performing with who when the show is over with.”

The boys were all dressed in suits; Yongguk, Himchan, and Daehyun in black with white dress shirts, and Youngjae, Jongup, and Junhong in grey with black dress shirts. Making sure it was comfortable enough to dance in, all the members had the upper button of their dress shirts ed.

Making their way to the performance hall, they gained many looks from the females they passed. Himchan, after hours of finally accepted his fate with Airi, waved to the ladies even if their boyfriends were right next to them.

“Finally over the crash-and-burn session with Park Airi already?” Junhong snickered.

“W-what? Yongguk, you didn’t tell him her name earlier, did you?”

“Oh, but he did~” Jongup chimed as the two replayed the memory of Himchan’s worst rejection ever.

“You too? Do all of you know?” Himchan asked as everyone else nodded in amusement. “Why would you do this to me, Yongguk?”

“Pay back for not paying attention during practice,”

“Just wait for the day you get rejected by a girl and that will be the day where I laugh at you.” Himchan threatened. “I will stay by your side forever until that day happens.”

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Author's Corner
Whooo, so part two everyone~ Yup, I wrote fourteen pages in total and I ended up having to cut them in half! Hopefully this chapter [two chapters…?] wasn’t too long for you all. ;o; I tried to keep it as short as possible, but I don’t think I’m doing so well. xD Anyways, this chapter was the basic introduction on the members’ and applicants’ pasts. It’s not entirely everything in detail since I have a few trips up my sleeve for the rest of the story. (;

Oh, I started writing this yesterday but I lost my inspiration so I quit. Then this morning I started writing again AND THEN YONGGUK AND HIMCHAN’S TEASER PHOTO CAME OUT AND I WAS ALL HOOLLLLYYY SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT. So yeah, that kind of distracted me. Yong! forever TEEHEE.

Note - jiejie is older sister while gege is older brother. In case you couldn't tell~ ^^