I hope you enjoy! ^^

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As anyone might guess, life as an SM trainee wasn’t the easiest job in the world. There’s the many work hours and the lack of sleep, the pressure of pleasing the company and some trainees even had to combine all of that with school life. Thank god, I’m done with high school! Sen thought to herself every time she saw younger trainees fussing over their homework during training. School had never been Sen's thing and she was glad to be doing something else. She had to be honest though; things at the company had been getting sort of dull. Training in the same place with the same people every single day, not even knowing what they were really working towards. There was no specific goal, well, except for the fact to maybe, possibly, someday debut in some sort of a group, but Sen figured the odds for that were pretty damn slim. But it was all just training, training and more training and it was all getting pretty tiring.

Luckily something came around just in time to shake Sen awake. She and her friends had been pleasantly surprised today when they, along with a bunch of other trainees, were rushed into dance practice early and their instructor told them out of the blue that they’d be dancing at the Mnet 20’s Choice awards. They’d be doing the back up for one of the groups, she’d said. Unfortunately, she’d been very brief about it. She’d basically rushed them in, told them the news and pushed them out of the room within a minute or so. She’d looked quite agitated. The preparations for these kinds of shows must bring heaps of stress for some of the people working here, Sen figured. Especially since the award show was only one week away. She wondered whether they always did things last minute like this.

On the way home, the girls had discussed what kind of performance they’d be doing and more importantly, with who. The only information they had was: 1) You’ll be performing at the Mnet 20’s Choice awards, 2) Practice starts the day after tomorrow at 5 o’clock and 3) Don’t be late!

It didn’t take long for the girls to figure out that the group they’d be dancing with would most likely be SHINee. Those guys had been occupying the dance practice room for the last couple of weeks, training for something big. They’d always been very secretive about it, pretending they were training for some top secret mission but everyone had figured out pretty quickly their hectic dancing schedule could only mean Mnet 20’s Choice performance.

“I think this deserves a party.” Riki said matter of factly. Sen rolled her eyes. “Everything deserves a party in your world.” She laughed. They entered their quiet dorm room and set their bags down. “Well, we can at least make a toast.” Riki said as she opened up the refrigerator looking for something. She looked up towards the rest of the girls a moment later and exclaimed. “I’m going to go out to buy some champagne!” and before anyone could come up with a reason not to, she was out the door.

Whilst Riki was out buying alcohol, Sen retracted to her room and opened up her laptop. She found her friend Tasha on Facebook and immediately told her everything she knew about the performance at the awards, which evidently wasn’t much but still, it was exciting. Living on the other side of the planet, keeping in contact with friends and family back home had become quite the effort. There was the occasional Skype talk with the relatives and sometimes a friend would ask how things were going in Korea. The only person from back home Sen had regular contact with was her good friend Tasha. They’d message each other daily, keeping each other up to date with what was going on in those two very different worlds. Sen told her pretty much everything that went on in her life, Kris being one of her favorite subjects. This time though, she merely wrote the following:

Sen: We’re gonna be on TV!!!!!!!!!

Tasha: No way :o

Sen: Yes! Mnet 20’s Choice awards, next week. And I’m not even kidding.

Tasha: …

Tasha: Holy crap.

When she came back into the living room after a good twenty minutes of spazzing with Tasha, she noticed Els was already pouring the freshly bought, fancy champagne into the not so fancy glasses on the counter. She walked over and grabbed a glass. None of the girls were big on drinking, except maybe for Riki, but a little champagne definitely felt appropriate. Even if this really wasn’t that big of an accomplishment, at least stuff was happening now. “To uhm… to us, for doing something productive!” Kelly cheered. “Yeah.” Els followed. “And to hopefully not making a fool of ourselves on live television.”

Els had a point. Their instructor might have chosen them for the job but it was up to them to not screw it up. If they did, undeniably there would be consequences. Sen thought about that for a moment as they drank in silence. This was as much an opportunity as it was a burden to her. It’s not like she was a horrible dancer. It’s just. This was different. This was dancing on a huge stage with a ridiculously huge audience, all eyes focused on the quality of the performance. And if she were to mess something up, it wouldn’t just affect her, but also the entire group they were dancing with. She realized she was probably overthinking things, as she tended to do, but she couldn’t ignore the nerves that were already searing through her veins. She was brought back from her thoughts by a vibrating sensation in her right pocket. She took out her phone and read the ID.

“Let me guess.” Kelly started. “It’s Kris, asking how your day has been.” Sen looked up from her phone, her face turning to a smile. “I knew it.” Kelly grinned, looking really proud of herself. “Uhm, I think we all could’ve guessed that.” Els said, sipping from her glass, smiling as well. Meanwhile, Sen still couldn’t stop smiling, not because of her friends, but because Kelly had been absolutely right.

Sen quickly zoned out the conversation her friends were having as she messaged Kris back and forth. He was nagging about his schedule getting ridiculously hectic all of a sudden. It seemed Kris enjoyed venting his random frustrations with the world to Sen, who would answer him, sweetly, but also telling him to stop ing, making Kris laugh. In this case, she sent him a comforting message first but then followed with a text saying that ‘filming commercials for an expensive clothing brand is technically not considered work in his case since he acts like his entire life is a freaking clothing commercial anyways’. A mere twenty seconds later Kris answered.

[Touché. ]

Sen proceded to tell Kris about the exciting but terrifying news the girls had gotten. He immediately congratulated Sen and told her she’d be great. Sen answered “Let’s hope." But she felt less sure than ‘Let’s hope’. She felt more like ‘Let’s pray to every deity in existence’ but she’d never tell Kris that.

She always got very absorbed when she was in conversation with Kris but she managed to notice Kelly calling her name. “Hey Sen, we just came up with the greatest idea.” She looked up to see all three of her friends staring at her smiling in a way that made her almost scared to find out what the idea was. She just gave them a questioning look.

“Ask him out.” Kelly said plainly. Sen thought she’d made a joke at first but realized how serious her friends were being when Els continued. “Seriously.” Also, the bottle of alcohol was empty.

“Uhm yeah, that’s not happening.” Sen retorted quickly. “Aww come on!!” Riki whined. “He’ll totally say yes! I know it.” She was looking at Sen with such intensity. “Listen, he has a busy schedule.” Sen began but she was cut off by Kelly. “Yes, a schedule you know pretty much by heart because he tells you everything about it all the time. You know when he’s available.”

Sen sighed. A part of her really wanted to listen to her slightly tipsy friends and ask him out. However, she was still too scared to bring herself to do such a thing. Besides, if Kris had wanted to go out with Sen, he would have asked her himself and he clearly hadn’t done that. Sen sighed again. She was staring pointlessly at the kitchen wall in front of her, thinking of how Kris wouldn't want to go out with her when she heard a noise; the noise of a message being sent to be exact.

The next moment she flung herself onto Riki, who was sitting on the couch, using Sen’s phone. She was too late though, the message had been sent. “What the hell did you do?!” Sen yelled louder than she’d wanted to. “Calm down Sen.” Riki said and gave her the phone. It showed the message she’d just sent Kris.

[Hey, I was wondering, if you have time tomorrow, if maybe you’d like to go for a drink or something. ]

It wasn’t an incredibly embarrassing message or anything but still, Sen felt somewhat betrayed by her friends. She didn’t want this. She knew he wouldn’t like it, he would decline anyways. She groaned and walked off into her room wthout saying anything.

She put her phone on the nightstand next to her bed and crawled under the sheets. A part of her didn’t even want to know his answer. She took the phone again to maybe turn it off but she was interrupted by Riki, who was shuffling into the room quietly. “Sen I’m sorry. Please don’t be mad at us.” She started carefully.

Sen wasn’t really that mad at any of them. She was just scared for the consequences the message might have. “It’s ok.” Sen sighed, dropping the phone back onto the nightstand. She was just tired and wanted to go to sleep. She shooed Riki out of the room, telling her that she really wasn’t angry and she just wanted to be alone.

The minutes passed and Sen seemed to have trouble finding sleep. He would have answered by now. She thought, twisting around in the bed. After a while though, she began to feel drowsy. Her eyes were still resting on her phone over on the nightstand when she fell asleep.

Sen was dragged back to consciousness by a faint noise. She let the lids of her eyes open up slightly and found a blinking light right in front of her. When she’d finished processing exactly what that light meant, she shot up straight and picked up her vibrating phone. Kris had answered, after a good fifty minutes.

[Hey. Sorry for replying this late. You’re probably asleep. I’m sorry if I wake you up. Anyways, I’d love too. I get off around 6 tomorrow so maybe we can get a drink after that? Again, sorry for the late reply; I was busy. Sleep tight.]

Sen squealed and then hoped to god she hadn’t woken up Riki, who was now asleep on the other side of the room. She read the message in the darkness of her room about twenty times before answering. Once they'd settled everything, at last, Sen could fall asleep with a rested heart.

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Sen sat at the window, at a table in a coffee shop. The coffee shop was right next to the company building. Most people that came in here were company people as well making Sen wonder whether the place was somehow part of SM Entertainment. She’d been sitting there for a while now. Strange, since she thought she’d be the one that would be late. She’d lost track of time talking to her friends about how nervous she was and ended up fifteen minutes late at their destination, however, when she'd arrived, there was no Kris to be found. After waiting at her table for another fifteen minutes, she decided to call him.

No answer.

She wondered whether maybe he’d gotten second thoughts about the whole thing. Although that didn’t really sound like Kris, she thought. He would at least call or message her. She had started debating for how long she should stay before considering this date a failure when she saw his familiar face rush into the place and come over to her.

“I’m so sorry I’m late.” He said sitting down. “The shoot went on longer than I expected. I should’ve called but the director wouldn’t let me use the phone.” He looked her directly in the eye now. “I’m sorry.” Sen looked down and smiled. Honestly, she was just happy he showed up after all. She didn’t feel like telling him that though so instead, she answered. “Yeah well, you better know you’ll be paying for these drinks.” Kris broke into a smile too then. “Anything for you.” He said playfully. “Anyways” He went on. “Since it’s so late already, maybe we should just eat here too. I’m really hungry.”

When Sen just blinked at him he quickly added “I’ll pay, of course.” He flashed her a smile again making it impossible for Sen to say anything else but “Fine by me!”

“So, how did the shoot go.” Sen started. Kris was turning out easier and easier to talk to. “Oh it was fine, I guess. Lots of walking and posing in fancy clothes, you know.” He said. “Hmm… So basically what you do on a daily basis.” Sen laughed. Kris seemed to be trying to come up with a comeback for that comment but ended up just shaking his head, smiling, his eyes flickering up towards Sen every now and again. They talked about the award show as well. Sen told Kris about how they were guessing to be back up dancers for SHINee when Kris started grinning at her. “So you don’t know?”

“Don’t know what?” Sen asked, sincerely confused. “You’re not dancing with SHINee”Kris smiled. He his lips and said. “You’re probably dancing with EXO.”

Sen had not expected that. She didn’t even know EXO was performing. No one had told her or her friends anything at least. “How do you know? Why didn’t you tell us?” She responded, still confused.

“Well we only found out yesterday; it’s all very last minute.” Kris began. “That’s why I was complaining about my schedule yesterday night. Mnet had told us before that we couldn’t perform; no time or whatever. But now, all of a sudden, there’s time and we have to come up with a performance in a weeks’ time.” He sounded a little annoyed by it all. When he noticed Sen’s slightly worried expression he went on. “Not that I don’t want to do it. It’s one of the more fun things we get to do. It’s just badly arranged and it bothers me. Anyhow, I’m excited.” He smiled again.

“How do you know, we’re dancing with you guys though?” Sen asked to which Kris answered simply. “We’re the only ones dancing with partners.”

They went on discussing the performance. Apparently, the EXO boys had gotten a little more information about the matter than the girls had. Kris had told her it would be both EXO-K and M dancing with partners. The instructor hadn’t told them what kind of dance exactly it would be but she’d said it would be something memorable. “That could mean anything.” Sen mumbled. “Yeah, pretty much.” Kris said.

By the time they’d finished their plates it was dark outside. The café was mostly empty as well. Sen and Kris however didn’t really notice as they were enjoying their free time together. It was mind blowing to Sen how much her relationship with Kris had grown all of a sudden. He used to look so serious and cold all the time. This was nothing like the Kris that was sitting in front of her now; funny, smart and incredibly sweet. It just felt so good being around him and having him flash that smile just for her.

After another hour of chattering away about random things Kris looked outside, for the first time noticing the night had already fallen. “I guess we better get going; long day tomorrow.” He said. Sen averted her gaze from Kris’s face to take in her surroundings and she realized the café was closing up.

Kris payed for their meals and then they walked home together slowly through the dark and mostly empty streets. Kris walked Sen all the way to her dorm room door and then, quiet fell. This was the first time today that things had even been slightly awkward between the two so Sen didn’t really mind. “Thanks for the meal” She said, unable to look Kris directly in the eye. “Not a problem.” Kris smiled. “We uhm… could do this more often.” He stumbled out after. Again, quiet fell.

Sen opened her door to her dorm and Kris took this as a sign. “It’s really late so… I better get going.” Sen smiled at him and nodded. “Okay”

He was backing away from the door a little; eyes still glued on Sen, but before she could close the door on him Kris came back and leaned in a little closer towards her. “We really should do this again sometime.” He repeated himself. Then he turned his eyes away from the girl before him and ran his hand through his hair, messing it up.

Sen was still just smiling and nodding at him. Kris gave a little nod as well and finally made his way down the hallway, leaving Sen smiling in the doorway.

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^^ tada