The rest of the week went by quickly. Hanging with the seniors of Diamond was fun, especially with the Cologne oppas. It’s a bit weird for us to call them our “oppas” since they’re actually younger than us, but since they’ve been in the music industry longer that us, they insist on us calling them our oppas. It’s only been 6 months since their debut, and they haven’t even made a first comeback, but it is what it is. I kept away from Risa and tried to avoid any drama whatsoever. Rita and Risa refused to talk to me directly while Rika, Rin, and Ritsuko stayed neutral. Finally, the day with G2Y came. The whole week, the Ri-bon unnies had to leave earlier than us, so we walked there by ourselves; none of us really minded. Every day, we woke up early with the unnies. It was hard to sleep with girls yelling and getting ready so early in the morning. The only way they know how to communicate in the morning is by yelling. All we heard in the mornings were things like “Unnie, where’s the blow dryer?” and “Are you done yet?” Last night, we were out late with the oppas of SML4 and their wives. They wanted to test out singing skills, so they took us out to karaoke until 11:30; we didn’t get home until 11:45, and didn’t get to sleep until 12. I ended up being the only one up and about this morning. I tried to wake them up, but then decided to let them sleep. While making breakfast, I heard a knock on the door.

“Haha, Rika probably forgot her purse again.” I laughed to myself. She had forgotten it two times this week. When I opened the door, I found Kang-min and Seung-young smiling and holding grocery bags.

“Come… come in.” I said to them, even thought my hair was up and I was wearing an apron.

“Hey, Nami-sshi, we brought breakfast.” Taichi said.

“But it seems like you already started making some.” Seito added.

“No, it’s okay. I didn’t really start; I just began to boil the water. I did make fried rice though.” I smiled.

“Oh, that’s what smells so good.” said Seung-young.

“So… what’re you guys doing here?” I asked, trying to mask the awkwardness in my voice.

“We wanted to get an early start so that we could have a lot of free time today. We have a lot to do.” Shin explained. “29Bass’s last concert of their tour is here. Last week, at his concert in Sydney, one of Diamond’s solo artists, Seira Amano, got hurt and can’t open for the show, so for now, another one of Diamond’s soloists, Seo-young Choi is opening for them with her new album.” Shin explained.

I unintentionally interrupted. “Oh, I know her! She debuted at Seira Amano’s tour last year, right?”

“Yeah, but back to the point: The President just announced that we’re going to be opening at 29Bass’s last concert in three weeks because Seo-young is starring in a movie and can’t be there for the last concert.”

My face lit up. “Oh, that’s cool! I hope that we get to watch you guys!”

All of the guys started laughing hysterically. Hearing the noise, Hana, Shuri, and Minyoung came out to check on breakfast. “Unnie, what’s going…” but Shuri never finished her sentence. All the guys turned to look at the girls. Hana screamed at the top her lungs and went running into her room. Shuri ran after her and Minyoung shrugged and walked away.

“What was that about?” Seito asked.

He was answered by the screaming Hana. “Why didn’t you tell us that the G2Y oppas were here, Nami? I can’t believe they saw me like that!”

          We all started chuckling quietly.

“Get back to the subject, G.” Kang-min reminded him.

“Oh yeah” He calmed down his laughter then began again. “The reason we laughed is because when I said “we” I meant us as in Hanabi and G2Y together.

Now it was my turn to scream at the top of my lungs. The frequency of my scream caused all of the guys to flinch and cover their ears. Seeing this, I stopped and calmed myself down. I got to my feet and bowed. “Sorry oppas.” I said with a smile of embarrassment.

Shin laughed. “Now I’m scared to tell you the other good news.”

“No, no tell me!” I argued. “I won’t scream.”

“We’re going to do ‘Forever Together’.” He said.

The boys braced for a scream, but one did not come out. I wanted to tell them, but how could I tell Shin that I didn’t want to do that song with him because I didn’t want to hurt Risa.

“Wow, I didn’t believe you when you said you wouldn’t scream.” Kang-min laughed.

          When the girls were ready, we told them the news and then ate breakfast. After that, we walked to Diamond. Our first stop was the fifteenth floor; we were going to have our first of our mandatory everyday fitness training classes. Every day, we have fitness training and language class; we all take English and either Japanese or Korean, based on which one of them we aren’t fluent in. Since I’m fluent in both, I take Japanese so that Minyoung won’t be alone. We also have to do physical, dance, and voice training. Our instructors are very busy, because all of Diamond’s young groups and soloists have to do the same, so they have to balance us all. So far, we’ve started every class, except for fitness training.

          The boys just sat outside the room and waited, either playing a game on their iPod, on the phone, or asleep.

“Ms. Takano?” I asked.

“Yes, Cherry, and you can just call me Naomi-unnie.” She replied.

“May I use the restroom?” I asked.

She agreed and let me go. I walked out of the room and stalked past the boys, hoping that they wouldn’t notice me. When I got around the corner, I ran to the elevator. I checked behind me to make sure that I wasn’t being followed.

As soon as the door opened, I ran out, hitting someone. I recoiled then got up to bow. When I came up from my bow, it was someone who I wasn’t expecting.

“Shin-oppa, what’re you… how’d you…” I was at a loss for words. Of course he’d be the one to notice me leave, the only one who made me feel anxious.

“If you’re gonna ask how’d I beat you, the answer is I took the stairs; and if you were gonna ask how I knew where you were going, the answer is I saw that the elevator was going up, and this is the second to last floor. You know, using the elevator is only faster that the stairs if you’re going up more than one floor. Now, tell me why you’re at the top floor.” Shin demanded.

“I… can you please just let me go.” I said, pushing past him and running to the President’s office. I heard his footsteps following me. When I was right outside his office, I stopped and let Shin catch up. “Please, just stay out here and don’t tell anyone that I came here instead of going to the restroom, this is very important.”

He nodded with a blank face. I think he was surprised.

I knocked on the door, when I heard “Come in” I entered. As soon as I entered, I did a long, deep bow.

“Sorry for interrupting, President Diamond, but this is an important matter.” I said sternly.

“I think I have time for this then.” He stopped typing and swung his computer chair to face me.

“Shinji-oppa explained to me the situation about 29Bass’s concert and I have an objection.”

“Go on.” He replied.

“Well you see, sir, Risa-unnie is deeply” I stopped myself and rethought what I was about to say. “Risa-unnie has a crush on Shinji-oppa. The girls of Ri-bon told me that she was jealous of me and she hasn’t talked to me directly ever since she heard about the picture of Shinji-oppa and I. I’m not comfortable with doing that song and letting him kiss me on the cheek.” I noticed that my volume kept getting louder, because when I stopped, my breathing was coarse.

“I understand your concern, but what do you want me to do? I certainly can’t let you go up by yourselves, because I don’t want you to officially debut yet. This is a situation much like when YG Entertainment’s Big Bang appeared at SE7EN’s concert before their official debut and when their 2NE1 released a digital single with Big Bang for a CF before their official debut. You may not understand this, but just because you are training now, does not mean that I may not add another member, or dismiss one. You four are still in your trial, I was also thinking about adding one or two of our solo artists to your group, but for now, this is the best I can give you, especially since Diamond is currently working on plans for a new boy group to debut about a year after you girls do and Cologne is preparing for their first comeback quickly so they can make their comeback before you girls officially debut.The only option besides it up and letting Shinji kiss you girls is not going on stage at all. I understand your concern for Risa’s feelings, but is one damaged relationship worth not getting this experience you will need to debut? Think about that. What other solution is there?”

I smiled to myself. “I was hoping you would ask that, sir.” I pulled a white, folded piece of lined paper from my pocket. “I started writing songs when I was in middle school. As you know from my first interview, I’ve dreamed about debuting with Diamond Entertainment since I was young. When I was young, I thought that writing songs would make me look better on paper for when I filled out my resume for an audition, but as I got older, I began to love writing both lyrics and music. This is a song that I wrote about two years ago that I pulled out from my lyric book.”

“Yes, but what does this have to with this situation?” He asked, keeping his same serious tone.

“If you look at the title, the song is called Catch Me. When I was a second year in high school, a boy who I had no intention of dating kept pursuing me. That situation inspired me to write this song. The lyrics talk about a girl who tells the boy that no matter what he does, he’ll never “catch” her. I was thinking that instead of scratching the whole idea, Hanabi and G2Y can do ‘Forever Together’, but right before Shin kisses me, the song can change to ‘Catch Me’ and we can set up stage craft to make the performance like a short musical with a plot. G2Y will be the boys who fall for Hanabi, but Hanabi will refuse. I already have choreography for ‘Catch Me’ and all we have to do, if it’s not too much trouble, is record ‘Catch Me’.”

The President did a short applause. “I admire your persistence and I’m surprised that you came up with this whole plan and that you are so prepared, there’s just one thing. We’re going to have to change part of the choreography for ‘Forever Together’ and choreograph the boys’ part for the song. Who will be responsible for that?”

          Immediately following the question, the door swung open.

Shin came in and bowed deeply. “Please excuse me for listening at the door, President. I followed Minami here thinking she was going to apologize to you directly for our little mishap with the photo, so I thought it would only be right for me to be there also. But upon hearing your question, I volunteer to re-choreograph ‘Forever Together’. Not only am I the leader of G2Y, as you know, but I’m the one who choreographed ‘Forever Together’ in the first place. So if it’s alright with you, I would like to be the one in charge of changing the dance that I created in the first place.”

“Okay, you two, I’ll agree, but this is not going to be easy. You both have busy schedules so you’ll have to work after hours. I will not allow you to miss any of your classes. Well, actually now that I think about it, you can both skip your secondary language class since you are both fluent in both Korean and Japanese. I’m guessing that you’re going to want to hide this from Risa, so be careful with that. However, with this new situation, both of your groups are going to have to have two dance practices a day. You will be responsible for practicing for the performance during your assigned dance practice times and also during the practice time of the other group. So I give you permission to miss the class that it at the time of the other group’s dance practice. However, this does not go into effect until you two make the music, choreograph, and learn the lyrics for ‘Catch Me’. I’ll schedule a day for Hanabi to record the song and a day for you both to record the remix and I will contact you then. Since we are on a tight schedule, all of this must be done by next Wednesday. You two are excused.”

          We both got up and bowed.

“Thank you for this opportunity, President. I will definitely not let you down.” I said to him.

He smiled. “Yes, just make sure you both work hard and get it done.”

          When we closed the door, I slapped Shin on the arm.

“Hey, what was that for?”

“It was for listening in on my conversation.” I replied.

“It turned out well though, didn’t it?”

I smiled. “Well, I guess that’s true.”

          That day, at lunch, Shin and I excused ourselves. He said that the manager had texted us to come to her office so that she could tell us our punishment. Risa’s face was bitter. Our plan was to tell them that our punishment for the picture was that we had to clean the cafeteria during our language class and clean the practice and vocal rooms after hours.

“So shall we learn the song first?” I asked.

          He agreed, so we went to the music room.

“No one usually uses this place since we have other music rooms. This one is the smallest.” He explained.

          I gave him the sheet music.

“I’ll play the song on the piano. After that, you try in and then we’ll try it on the guitar. You can read music right?”

He nodded. “Okay, so this’ll be easy.”

          I started playing it on the piano. I love the piano, it’s so calming. As I opened my mouth to sing, my body froze and stopped play.

“What’s wrong, Nami-yah?” He asked.

“It’s just that, I’ve grown so comfortable around you, that I forgot that you were my musical idol. I just realized I was in a room with my male musical idol about to sing a song for him, then he was going to play and sing a song that I wrote and later he was going to dance and help me choreograph a song that I wrote.”

He smirked. “Wow, I didn’t know you liked me that much.”

“Oh shut up.” I sneered back.

“Who’s your female musical idol?” He asked.

My smile turned into a frown. “It’s… its Risa.” I replied quietly.

          Again I realized something. I’m in a room with the man my female musical idol is in love with and we have to lie to her about spending time together and everyone thinks that we’re dating. I also realized something else that I’ve been pushing down and trying to deny. I’m… I’m in

“Come on already, Nami! Just play it.” He whined.

I took a deep breath and started playing again. I let the music wash over me and soon forgot he was even there.

          He applauded when I finished.

“Nice song.” He smiled. “It kind of reminded me of 2NE1.” He said.  “I like when girls sing songs that make them feel powerful.” He smiled.

“Oh, now I see why you like 2NE1.” I commented.

“You don’t like 2NE1?” He asked with surprise.

“No, no, no, I do like them! They’re among my favorite K-Pop groups.”

“Oh really?” He asked. “Who else do you like?”

“2PM, Beast, BIGBANG, G2Y, Ri-bon, and 2NE1 are my favorites, but I like G2Y and Ri-bon the best!” I answered. “What about you?”

“BIGBANG and 2NE1 are my all time favorites, but my others are people like TVXQ, Girl’s Generation, Cologne, 4Minute, and 2AM.”

          We stayed like that talking about things we liked and dislike and things of that sort and our favorite rookie groups. The time with him ended just like that and it was time for our English class. We had accomplished a lot in what little time we had. Shin already memorized the words of the song. However, playing it was a different story.

***

        The day was over and it was time for everyone to go home. G2Y, Ri-bon, and Hanabi all met in the lobby. Shin and I told them about Manager’s “punishment” and headed off to the music room again.

“Okay, its 10pm right now, what time do you want to be home?” Shin asked.

“Let’s see how much we get done today and we’ll see.”  I replied.

          We played the song again and again until he got it down. Finally, let Shin play the song by himself.

 His voice singing to the sound of a guitar made my stomach knot. Wow, I almost forgot what it was like to go into fangirl mode ever since I started seeing my favorite artists’ faces every day. I looked at the clock.

“Shin-oppa, its 11:15pm, do you wanna head home?” I asked.

“Only 11:15? We can go until at least 12. Are you down?”

          I agreed, then we started heading down to the practice room.

“Diamond is scary at night.” I whispered, unknowingly getting closer and closer to Shin. I heard a sharp noise, which caused me to scream out of terror. Out of instinct, I had unintentionally grabbed onto Shin’s arm. When he laughed, I realized how close we were and immediately let go and moved a few steps away.

          To my relief, we arrived at the practice room and I began to teach him the choreography. We danced until we were both doused with sweat and out of breath.

“Remember to bring a water bottle for dance practice tomorrow, okay?” I told him.

“Yeah, sure” He replied and then paused to catch his breath.

The next day went by exactly as the last, except for the fact that we were now on our own, expected to know the ropes. It really to have dance practice right after fitness training class. The instructor gives us only two minutes to stabilize before he starts class, but the way I’ve been working the girls with teaching them the choreography made them wish they had the instructor. G2Y and Hanabi kept the performance at 29Bass’s concert a secret because none of us wanted Risa to figure out what Shin and I were actually doing.

Shin and I met at the practice room during our language class. No one uses the practice room during language classes because all the Diamond juniors are in language class while all of the seniors are out to lunch. We warmed up by singing the song a couple of times and then we started practicing the dance. We only have the first minute of the song down, which is good for a normal song after one day, but since we’re doing two songs together, the music is going to be almost two times the length of a normal song. Last night, the President informed us via email that we’re going to record the two songs on Tuesday, so we are determined to have the song and choreography by then so that we can start practicing with the other members a day early.

Soon enough, our time was up and it was time for me to head to vocal training and for tired to Shin to head to dance practice. During vocal training, Hiroki, our instructor, got to take a break while I taught the girls the song. Half of the time we practice singing ‘Catch Me’, the other half, he helped us practice ‘Forever Together’. Our dance instructor, Jyunsung, never even came to practice anymore because I knew the dance to ‘Forever Together’ better than him, so I just taught the girls.

“I can’t wait until Shin and I finish choreographing the guys’ part to ‘Catch Me’, then we get to skip some of our classes so we can practice.” I said to the girls as we took our break from vocal training.

“Yeah, and recording our first song is going to be so fun!” Shuri smiled.

“I wonder if ‘Catch Me’ is going to be our first single, or if it’s going to be part of a later album.” Minyoung said.

“Oh yeah, I wonder what the President has in store for us.” Hana added.

          After classes, it was time for lunch. Both Shin and I quickly finished our food and then left for “punishment”. Today, the practice room was being used, so we went to the small music room instead. The music room isn’t air conditioned, so it was harder to practice in there. We took a break to catch our breath and drink our water.

“Nami-yah,” He called.

“Yes”

“Can you give me an opinion on this song I wrote?” He asked.

I swear that I almost fainted. My musical idol is asking me for advice on his song. Unable to speak, I nodded my head. Shin stood up and got his guitar from the cabinet in the back. He grabbed his chair and sat facing me on the floor. Before he started playing, he spoke.

“Don’t laugh, okay?” I wrote this song when I was young and I’ve wanted someone to hear it, but I couldn’t ask any of my guys to do it. So, just listen.”

See that girl over there?

The way she talks, the way she walks got me losing it.

But does she know I exist, even if just a little bit?

She’s got me out of control, out of control. She’s got me out of control, out of control.

When she smiles I lose my mind.

The way she’s beautiful without even tryin.’

See that girl over there?

Just look at her and feel you the butterflies.

Gettin’ to know her was a surprise.

She’s got my heart beating like a drum. If she has any faults I can’t find ‘em.

She’s got me out of control, out of control. She’s got me out of control, out of control.

Her soft, long hair and her cute small face, all the above make my heart race.

She walks around with her head held high. Everyone loves her and I know why.

But do you know what drives me wild? Her confidence and her wild style

The way she puts others before herself and they way she loves life and nothing else

I love the way that she has a passion, and the way she sings and dances is just smashing.

          When he was finished, his face was bright red. Seeing him so vulnerable made me slightly faint.

“So, what’d you think?” He muttered.

“I think it was cute.” I replied.

“You see, I wrote this song when I was in middle school about my ideal type of girl. I always laugh at the fact that I thought they were good lyrics back then” He explained.

“Aww, how cute” I said.

“I promised that I would only sing it in front of the girl who inspired it.” He continued.

“So, you wanted me to check it first? Oh, who is it?” I asked.

“Minami,” He interrupted as I rambled.

“Yes” I answered; glad he stopped me before I went into fangirl rambling mode.

“Do you want to go on a date with me?”