“And welcome to yet another episode of strong heart. Today will be a special episode on new and older Idol groups. We will get to know all their hardships and happiness. As a addition, today will be a live broadcast, so there won’t be edited anything. You will get all the real reactions, and thus you will know the real character of your Idol. Are you ready?” The younger one of the MC’s gave the introduction, while the camera filmed our faces and recorded our reactions. I tried focus on the MC rather than on the camera’s. It was a nice relaxed atmosphere. Normally in Strong Heart everyone tells one of their ”heart” story’s and the audience can vote for the best. But because this was a special episode it would be a bit different. The MC’s would just ask us about our chalk boards and they would feed the conversation. I didn’t need to do much more than be myself and be nice. He introduced the other guests, starting with the more experienced artists and us at the end. I heard names varying from Beast, which I had known, to Teen Top, to Hello Venus, to Nu’est and Glam. After that they reached us.

“Well, most of you don’t know these girls yet, even I don’t know much about them. Would you like to introduce yourself?” The older MC asked Sujin. She nodded and smiled to the nearest camera, on which I immediately saw a red dot appear, “We are the new group under SM, HANA.” She turned back to the MC, asking with her eyes for instructions for more. “Well that was short and strong, we will find out more about them later on. But I can already tell they are strait to the point.” “I really like that,” the younger MC commented.

“One thing all these groups have in common is that they had a hard time with their debut, especially the newer groups.” The older MC started, and the younger answered him, “Yes you are right, lately there are so many groups debuting. Many don’t even get further than the first single. There really is a tough battle for the attention of the people.” The MC looked at Doojoon, “We would like to know how you have experienced it.” Doojoon smiled, “Well of course Beast has a solid fan base right know, and we have been active as a group for about three years. And I do notice the competition is a lot bigger right now. I really couldn’t keep up with all the debut’s lately. Also I think the audience had changed their opinion about Idol’s lately. Where before the performance was most important, more and more people want to see artists and humans on stage.” The MC nodded, “You indeed really have to distinguee yourself if you want to survive.” “Yes, but also, with just one step out of line your popularity can drop below zero. The public has become more critical about the road to the stage, which before only the stage was important. I also think even though the competition had gotten tougher, the whole music industry with Idols had improved.” The MC seemed surprised, “why do you think that?” “Well it is hard to explain, of course we Idols still have a lot of restrictions and hardships, the industry had become more human and more artistic.” He explained further, “I see more and more Idols practicing music, where before they would only practice dance and or vocals. Now there is a lot more interaction with the music production.”

CAP, who sat just behind Doojoon commented, “Yes, where normally this would come when the group grew, I see a lot of rookies already more active with the music production than some of the seniors. It really drives us ‘seniors’ to practice harder. Also I think that the level of the rookie has improved a lot.” Both MC’s nodded in agreement. I looked around the faces in the guest seats, there were still three seats empty, they would be for the surprise guests. We had been informed there would be a surprise guest, but even we didn’t know who. Furthermore most groups only had brought two of three members. From beast only Doojoon was there, from Teen Top CAP, Niel and Chunji were present. The other groups I didn’t know by name yet, we didn’t have enough time to follow all new groups in the industry, though we had been given a few files with all the current artist, whom names and history we had to know a bit. It was no problem if we didn’t remember the details, but we had to know at least their names.

I recognized Ren from Nu’est, but only because of his over girly hair dressing, I also vaguely remembered the three girls of Hello Venus. They had been talking amongst the three of them before the show, and I remembered one of the girls of Hello Venus had blue hair, so I linked them to Hello Venus. After that the only ones left were 4 girls, which would belong to GLAM, and another boy with dark hair and a typical bad boy look, I think he belonged to Nu’est, since he was sitting next to Ren. The MC talked again, and I tried to pick up the topic again. “Can you tell me something about your trainee days, and about your opinion on the recent flooding of new Idol groups?” He asked the girl with the blue-ish hair. She smiled but there was something off, when she started to talk I immediately knew I would never like her, never.  “Oh, I am not really sure.” She said in a high pitched voice, trying to act cute, “I think if you have enough talent you will eventually get trough.” The MC asked, “and do you think Hello Venus has enough talent?” “Oh, I am not sure.” She looked around the room, searching for her next answer. “If I take myself as an example. I can sing pretty well, but there is still a lot of room for improvement, and even more in my dancing.” One of the other girls came to her rescue, “I also think you have to show some of your character to break trough. With skills only, you can get far, but not all the way.” The MC nodded, seemingly in thought.

“Speaking about skills,” the blue haired girl smiled wider, I had heard praise about her singing before, like the second IU, “last week I have seen a new kind of skill.” He turned to look at us, “If I am not incorrect, I believe that the most viewed video this week was from you? That is a pretty big achievement, especially without any marketing or even a debut. Would you like to tell me a bit about it?” I smiled and looked back at Sujin, signaling I would take this one. “Well I started, firstly, I am Lian. And before I came to Korea, I lived in the Netherlands, as well as in the States. There I had experienced a few street dance battles. And a few weeks ago, we had the day off, and we decided to go shopping together. And I met a friend of mine from the US. She asked us if we would like to join in a street battle, and we agreed.” I smiled friendly at the MC, “that’s how we got wrapped up in the issue. We never expected it to become such a hot topic.” The MC smiled genuinely back at me, “I see.” He exchanged a glance with the camera and with his co-MC. “I have to admit I was quite surprised when I saw the video. Everyone was talking about it on Twitter and facebook and MeToday. So I had to watch it.” I was amused and flattered, “What was your first reaction?” He replied without thinking, “Wow they are awesome, they would make a great group.” We all smiled, this was a huge compliment, “Thank you so much!”

The MC turned to the other guests, “Have you seen the video?” Most of them shook their heads, and the MC turned back to face the camera, “well how about a demonstration then?” He looked back at us, waiting for an acceptation. “Sure” Sujin replied, “but unfortunately, we didn’t bring the MP3 of our debut song, which we are not allowed to play anyway.” She smiled at the camera, with a hint of mystery. “Well that’s okay, we do have the song Power of BAP.” I smiled, I would be able to showcase my talent way sooner than expected. We rose from our chairs and put down the cushions from our laps. We walked to the middle of the floor, a bit hesitant and unsure what to expect and how it would be handled. “Just let me know when you are ready,” he assured us. Sujin exchanged a look with everyone of us, and then she nodded to the MC. The music started a few seconds later.

The heavy beat started and so did we. I enjoyed being on stage like this. It was different from being in front of street public who just enjoyed the show. Here we were tested and judged, but it was better than I imagined. I wanted to show them how good we were, how much they had underestimated us. My body followed the beat and moved on its own. The bass was beating in my heart. I a split of a second I saw the face of Lime, the blue haired girl. She seemed not amused and a bit annoyed we got all the intention. I could only enjoy this moment more, and laugh about her childish jealousy. Soon after the song ended and we bowed deeply. Lightly quicker breath and with a blush on my face we fat down again.

“Do you know what this reminds me off?” The older MC asked. “No, but do explain,” the younger asked. It was obvious he knew what his co-MC was talking about. “This reminds me of the first time we had our special guests here on the show.” He smiled at the camera, “Please give a warm welcome to B.A.P!!”

~~~***~~~

Omo, this chapter has gotten so long xD

A little treat for my lovely readers

One moment I was just around 600 words and the next about 1.600

O,O

Do you all still like it here?

(it is two in the morning when I wrote this chapter, I am going to bed really quick right know)

Love you all <3

You are the reason I keep going!