“YAH!!! YOU LITTLE RASCAL, WAKE UP!!” I sprung up as someone pulled my earphones out quite sharply and was now yelling at me. Not my ideal of a wake-up call.

“What, what, where’s the fire?” I literally jumped out of my bed and when I finally realized that the yeller was Yoojin, there was no fire and I was standing in front of him looking completely messy and in only my and a t-shirt I gave out a shriek and threw pillows at him while trying to cover myself up. “WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING IN HERE!! What if I was changing??” I was a bit hysteric. I had no complexes over my body and I had to admit, there was no big difference between a bikini and underwear, but this was still not a situation I wanted to be with oppa.

Once he came to it as well, he immediately turned beetroot red and turned around instantly. “Ahem…” he brushed off the whole topic of him coming into a girl’s room uninvited. “Well, we can talk about that or you could start getting ready. It will take you at least an hour to be ready and it is already 8am and we still need to have breakfast and get you to the place.” He explained, moving towards the door and once I checked the clock, realized that I had to be back at Woollim entertainment in couple of hours and in what state I was I literally pushed Yoojin out of the room as quickly as I could and started the race against time to get ready. And here I was thinking that I won’t be able to sleep all night from excitement.

I jumped into the shower as quickly as possible, I had to admit that really helped me to find my senses again and I actually knew from that point what I had to and was doing. Choosing the right combination of clothes was a bit difficult though. I had all the clothes laid in front of me that I had bought yesterday and as I was drying my hair, I was cursing myself for not choosing yesterday before bedtime. I had to look good enough to stand out, but at the same time I had to look like a trainee and fit in amongst people. Plus we would probably be doing a lot of dance practices and stretching, so shorts were out of the question. When my hair was finally dry and I was brushing my teeth I was now in front of the choice of tops. I had decided on black with hot pink knee-length trackies since I had matching trainers, now the choice was between white top or the short, stomach revealing top. If it was any other occasion and I was going to practice dancing with my crew mates back in England, I would have gone for the later, but since this was my first day there I guess I had to look more ‘normal’. Putting everything on, checking if my make-up was applied properly, grabbing my black hoodie and rushing out the door I nearly slammed it into Yoojin oppa who was patiently waiting for me with toast in his hands.

“No time for proper breakfast. We need to get going.” He said, shoved the toast in my mouth and dragged me out of the front door. What would I ever do without him? He was like a manager at times, really.

As we got to the building, I had still about fifteen minutes left. I was amazed by the fact I actually got here with that much time to spare considering how hectic the morning was. Oppa passed me a bag. “It’s just stuff you might need. Couple of fresh towels and bottles of water, a change of clothes and shower stuff. You know, in case you have showers there and you work out a lot.” He explained and I seriously wanted to give him a good pat on the head. He was not just like a manager, but a concerned wife as well. It’s a shame that patting people who are older than you here in Korea was a very rude gesture. So instead I gave him a big hug and turned around to go into the unknown first day of being an idol trainee. I could hear oppas’ ‘hwaiting’ from the back and although it might be a bit embarrassing, it really did give me a bit of strength.

I walked up to the reception and asked them about where I’m supposed to go and the woman, without even really looking at me, just waved towards a few seats where there were other 3 people – two boys and a girl – already sitting. I approached them and they all looked at me. How I hated these sorts of moments. I did a little introduction and bowed to them slightly, had to keep my manners up. They did the same, introducing themselves and it turned out that one of the boys and the girls were both younger than me and the second boy was actually the same age as me, although he looked much younger and quite feminine. I guess I fell into the ‘late-trainee’ category here. I sat next to the girl who I could see was shaking a bit. Bless her, she must have felt really nervous to be here. She looked quite timid. But it’s not like this was an audition all over again. The boys started chatting between each other, from time to time involving us in their conversation as we were waiting. There were five others joining us in the next five minutes, two more girls and three boys. Every time we had to repeat the introduction process and it turned out that I was the oldest one here alongside the other guy. That felt strange for me as I was used to being the youngest. Truly a strange feeling.

Finally, exactly at 10am the same man that was evaluating my audition appeared and all of us immediately fell silent, stood up and greeted him with a 90 degree bow. I could hear the girls all excitedly saying how cool he looked in real life and stuff like that. I guess he really was a celebrity, just not someone I knew. Shame.

“Yes, good morning, everyone. For those of who don’t know,” at this point he looked me right in the eyes, I guess he had guessed I had no clue who he was, “I’m Epik High’s Tablo. It’s nice to meet you.” I heard one of the guys spurt in disbelief that someone wouldn’t know the man named Tablo. Now I had to admit, I’ve heard some of their songs, I really liked them and I have heard of Tablo. It’s just that I had no idea how he looked, until today.

“So, first, let’s move to somewhere quieter.” He said as there were a few fans outside the building screaming for different celebrities and when Tablo came out some of them went mental, so I guess it would be a bit hard talking here. He led us into a practice room – it was full of mirrors and I had to admit I liked it a lot – it reminded me of England so I immediately felt a lot calmer and more at home. We all sat down on the floor as he instructed us to do and were looking up to him for further instructions.

“Alright. So, has everyone introduced themselves to each other?” He asked and we all slightly nodded. We had, but I had already forgotten everyone else’s names. They just did not stick with me. Seemed like he wasn’t satisfied with just mere nodding. “Well, let’s do it once more then.” We all had to stand up in turns and introduce ourselves in front of everyone. I was the last in line which I wasn’t complaining about. After the last boy, the one that was my age, introduced himself as Lee Sungjong, it was finally my turn. I stood up quite briskly and did the introductions again. This time we were also supposed to add where we came from. “Hello everyone. My name is Lee Yura, I was born in 1993,” I just recited the usual introduction, “and I’m from England.” I finished off and I could see that a few of the other seemed impressed by this or just plainly surprised. He, well, looks like I managed to stand out without having to dress up. “Let’s all work hard together.” I finished off and went back to sit down next to the guy called Lee Sungjong. “Are you really from England?” He quietly whispered to me before Tablo moved on to the next thing. “Yes I am.” I answered to him in English which automatically made him nod his head in amazement. I guess it really was a big issue being from a foreign country here.

“So, now that everyone knows each other, I’ll be dividing you up into your…” He got interrupted here by a knock on the door and one of the employees lead in a tall guy who had his head lowered in shame. “He’s the last trainee.” She informed and left with a little bow and the guy took a few more steps forward and bowed deeply towards Tablo. “I’m really sorry I’m late. My alarm clock didn’t work.” I could see his face was flushed deep pink and I felt sort of sorry for him, it must be hard being late on an important day like this especially in front of a famous person and the only excuse you had was about your alarm clock not working. Tablo cleared his throat loudly and looked sharply at the newcomer. “So if you debut as an idol and miss your first music program appearance the only excuse you’ll have is that your alarm clock didn’t work? For idols punctuality is very important, you have days where you can’t even get a proper night’s sleep, there are no excuses to be late. If you’re late, you can kiss your career goodbye.” He was talking not in a loud voice, but it sounded very strict and sharp. The boy blushed even more and now I really did feel bad for him. What a nasty situation. He just stood there quietly and after what seemed like hours Tablo sighed loudly and spoke again. “Forget it, it’s your first day. I guess you’ll need to work on your sleeping habits. Anyways, introduce yourself to other and find out their names later on.” He said and the tall boy immediately did as instructed, as if trying to make up for being late. His name apparently was Lee Sungyeol and I had to hold back the little laugh that was about to escape upon seeing that both this boy and the one sitting next to me were both Lees and both had ‘Sung’ in their name. To my surprise it turned out that with his arrival we were not the two eldest here anymore. This boy was two years older, therefore becoming the oldest amongst us trainees. He quickly sat on the other side of me and I gave him a smile and a quick bow of my head. I wanted to be as nice as possible so he wouldn’t feel bad about the situation he found himself in. He returned my smile and it was nice to see that the redness was leaving his face slowly.

“So, as I was saying,” Tablo spoke again and our attention was immediately upon him once more, “You will be divided first by genders. As some of you might have heard there’s a rumour going around that the company will be debuting a new male idol group. Well, this is true.” The boys seemed immediately to be very interested in the topic. “We already have five of the members selected from our current trainees and we have decided to add two more members to the group.” The room felt a bit tense at this moment. “So from you six boys there will be two selected to join the group,” he eyed all of the boys in the room, “therefore you will instantly be going through very vigorous training, so be prepared.” I could see the too Lee-Sungs on both of my sides tense up. Guess this will be an all-out war.

“As for you girls,” my attention was immediately turned back to Tablo, “we have no plans as of yet to debut a girl group, however there’s a possibility that one of you might be going solo.” He exclaimed and the other girls seemed very excited upon hearing this. I was as well, don’t get me wrong, but let’s be realistic – I wasn’t here permanently, just to find some information. So for me this was just sort of a game.

“Therefore, if you girls would like to follow me to another room, the boys will be joined by the current fixed group members and the male dance and vocal instructors.” Tablo said and at that moment there was another knock on the door and a young man appeared through it and I could see other lingering outside. “Speak of the devil.” I heard Tablo say and I assumed these were the group members. I stood in the group with the other girls and as soon as all of them had entered the room alongside the instructors, without observing them I just followed the other trainees with the bowing and greeting and just quickly checked my reflection before leaving for the other room. But what I saw in the mirror nearly made me faint. I saw a smiling face that filled me with that warm feeling that had given me strength for so long. I saw him! My brother, talking to the other boys of the group. I immediately sharply spun around, nearly hitting another girl and just stared at my brother for a bit. There was no doubt. This was the same smiling face from the pictures in my mother’s apartment, the same sparkling eyes I remembered.

“Unnie, let’s go.” I heard one of the younger girls address me and take me by the hand to lead me out of the practice room. I was in a state of shock, of slight numbness therefore it was extremely easy to drag me anywhere and by the time I knew it, I was already in another room, greeting two women who were said to be our dance and vocal instructors. I still felt out of it though and wanted to rush out of the room, go back and talk to my brother, he seemed like he hadn’t recognized me. I wasn’t surprised, there had been no pictures of me in the apartment. However the women immediately started testing our dance and vocal abilities and I found myself unable to escape at any point so I just participated in the lesson, hoping that I will be able to find Howon oppa as soon as the practice had finished. Please, just still be there – this was the only thing I could keep thinking about during the lesson and I couldn’t even care how well or badly I performed.

Once the lesson was over, I rushed to the room that we had been in earlier but it seemed like the boys had moved somewhere else. I grabbed my bag, rand towards the reception and inquired about them and I was told that they had left to the gym, but not knowing where it was or my surrounding there was no way I could get there. I couldn’t believe it. I had seen him, he was here in this company and I had missed my chance to talk to him. I exited the company while cursing quietly in my mind, but I also made a promise to myself that I will make sure to see him tomorrow.