These days we had been extremely busy. Just a few days ago, the final line up for the company’s new girl group was finalised and I was in it, along with the other eight eonnis! And that would mean more training hours and even more intensive lessons. We spent most of our time in the company. Home was only a place to sleep at night. I remember waking up early in the morning to go to school, the company right after and finally home, after long hours of training. It sounded awful I guess. But at that time, we were too blinded with our dreams of making it big to feel tired.

Thanks to that, I occasionally bumped into our sunbaes who were preparing for their albums and stuff. Including Kyuhyun oppa. To be honest, I could not remember when I started calling him that way. In the midst of our rather frequent meetings and his piano lessons - which he insisted for me to teach him during our free time, we became friends. There was this one time when Super Junior sunbaes won the charts for the first time with U and they came over to the company to celebrate. We were practicing when suddenly loud steps were heard.

“Kids! Stop practicing for a moment and let’s have some treats!” Sooyoung and Yoona eonni immediately ran into Teuk oppa and helped with the food and snacks. The others and I congratulated them too. At some point, I noticed Kyuhyun oppa, who was wiping his tears upon seeing me. I chuckled at that, and he smiled, as if all his burdens had gone. Only later on I found out that they indeed had gone. He told me during one of our piano lessons that he was already in good terms with his hyungs, now that they had won and had a more established position in the industry.

We were having this little break and Soonkyu eonni was trolling us with her aegyo when loud, hurried steps were heard again. Thinking there must have been some good news, we all went outside. However, instead of our sunbaes, it was some of Super Junior’s managers and the president that we saw. They had this pale look on their faces. Taeyeon eonni who would be our leader, went to the nearest manager and asked what was going on. She returned to us with a frightened expression.

“Super Junior sunbaes got into a car accident and were admitted to the ICU just now.”
 

My heart stopped right at that moment. I looked around and saw some of the eonnies broke down, while the others were calming them. Then I heard the news anchor in the TV mentioned “Super Junior”. I immediately turned my attention to it, only to hear Kyuhyun oppa was the most severely injured.
I was too shocked to respond to the other eonnies calling me.

It had almost been a month. Teuk oppa, Shindong oppa and Hyuk oppa were all discharged. Only Kyuhyun oppa was still in the hospital. They had been talking about how he would not talk to anyone, would not try walking. He even barely ate.

I decided to visit him that day, before going to the company. Yoona eonni got me the address and his room number. The hospital was rather empty then, so it was not that hard for me to go and look for him. He was asleep when I entered his room. I stared at him for a while.

“Be strong, oppa!” I hesitated, not knowing what to say to him. “You have to walk again and sing again! I’m debuting soon too.. You said one day we should sing together, right? Then, be healthy first, oppa!”

I left soon after that and only during my walk out of the hospital did I realize that I had been crying. What I did not know back then, was that he was not sleeping at all when I visited.

“Hey, Seohyun-ah. There’s something I need to tell you.”

“Yes, oppa?”
 

“Well, a while ago you were asking why we are doing this duet right? Actually, it was me who asked for it..”
 

“Eh? What do you mean?”
 

“Wait till I’ve finished, okay? You know, that time when you visited me in the hospital, I wasn’t sleeping. Well, I was about to, then you came in and I still wasn’t feeling like talking to anyone, so I pretended to sleep.. But, really, your words encouraged me a lot! I don’t think I would’ve recovered so quickly if it wasn’t because of you. So, here I am, keeping my promise to you. Thank you, Seohyun-ah. For helping me getting through things, from the start, even now.”
 

“And, ehm, Seohyun-ah. I think I’ve fallen for you...”
 

“Oppa, I...”


 

I did some research during writing this chapter. And I really broke down, reading and watching all the footage on the accident :( Be strong, you guys!! :)

So, yeay, SNSD was debuting soon! This chapter was set to happen in April 2007. They debuted in August 2007, so the line up must’ve been finalised by then I suppose :p However, in the last part of the chapter we jumped into sometime in 2011. It’ll make more sense in the next chapter, hopefully :p

A little correction on first chapter’s note. I read the article wrongly.. The ones who were in the first line up and stayed till the final were Sica, Hyoyeon, Yuri, Sooyoung, Yoona and Seohyun :D

Thank you all for reading this! :D