I could have sworn that my heart stopped, but when I took a breath, I was still alive.

“Shin, what about…” I started, but I was interrupted.

“Can you please just forget about Risa? I love her as a friend, but that’s it. There will never be anything between us. I have been searching for a girl who was like you. Weren’t you listening to the lyrics? You are my ideal girl.”

His face went sour when I didn’t answer.

“I knew I shouldn’t have done this. But I thought you liked me.”

“I do like you!” I yelled. It was my turn to interrupt him. “But I don’t know if I can do that to Risa. She really likes you.”

“So what? I really like you. Why am I the one who gets screwed? The only difference between me and her is that my feelings are actually returned. If it bothers you that much, we can hide it from her and the others.

“Shin, calm down, let’s think about this. When are we going to have time to go on a date anyway? Tell me that. We only have four days to choreograph and learn G2Y’s part of ‘Catch Me’.”

“Don’t you think I know that? But if you hadn’t noticed, we are both extremely exceptional dancers, I think we can learn it, and I promise that if you let me take you on a date tonight, I will stay up every night until I have it done.”

            My phone alarm rang, saving me from answering him.

“We can talk about this tonight, okay? But right now, we have to get to English class.” I ran out of the room.

            During class, I tried to sort out my thoughts, but I was too tired. I ended up falling asleep. I was woken up by Shuri poking me in the side.

“Mimi-unnie, wake up. We have to get going to tumbling practice.” She said, shaking me.

“I’m up, I’m up. Come on, let’s go.” I muttered, grabbing my bag and heading out the door.

“Oh, by the way, Mimi-unnie, Shinji-oppa told me to give this to you.” She handed me a folded sticky note. “I didn’t read it.” She said as she ran off skipping.

Meet me in the music room after hours --Shin. The note read. At the bottom, there was a little arrow pointing to the other side of the paper.

By the way, you look adorable in your sleep J

I smiled to myself and then went to catch up with the girls.

            After hours, I walked by myself to the music room. I passed Risa who looked content to see me without Shin. I wonder what she would do if she knew that he had asked me out. When I got to the music room, I could see the light was on from outside. I entered to find Shin on his guitar.

“I thought that we should practice a little before we go.” He said.

            We did just that. We practiced for 20 minutes and then we walked to the costume room.

“Why are we here, Shin-oppa?” I asked.

“After the picture incident, I thought that we should get into a disguise this time.” He said. “You have 5 minutes.”

“Okay.” I replied.

“Oh, and Minami?” He called.

“Yes, Shin-oppa?” I answered.

“Can you do me a favor and stop calling me oppa when we’re alone together.”

“Sure” I smiled.

            Five minutes later, he came out in denim skinny jeans, a white t-shirt, sun glasses and a fitted cap on, which was quite bland compared to what he usually wears. I braided my hair to the side and wore a cerulean sun dress. On my head was a matching blue and black bohemian style beanie and I wore black sunglasses with black pumps. Even with the pumps, Shin was still a bit taller than me. He took me to the lobby where we sat at the waiting area.

“So, where are we going at this time, Shin-op- oh, um, Shin?”

“It’s a surprise.” He replied. Somehow I knew that he’d say that.

            His phone buzzed. He opened his phone and then he brought me outside where a taxi was waiting. We ended up at a park. We walked around the park just talking. Because it was nighttime, there weren’t many people, just an occasional runner or a person walking their dog. There was a small pond at the park that was filled with ducks and their ducklings. Shin pulled out of bag of bread crumbs from his backpack, which I hadn’t noticed until now.

“Do you want to feed the ducks?” He asked.

I nodded.

            Our hands met inside the bag, which caused us both to retreat. We looked at each other and laughed. The bag was small, so it didn’t take us long to finish it. After that, we continued to walk. We walked for silence for a little, until Shin reached for my hand. Now, we were holding hands; I smiled to myself, feeling the butterflies in my stomach more than ever. We came to an empty spot in between a few trees. Shin put his backpack on the ground and retrieved a blanket. He laid it down and we had a picnic. The rest of the date was brief, but delightful and it was already late.

            The next day, I was the last to get out of bed. We had to run to Diamond so that we wouldn’t be late to fitness training. During dance practice that day, I went over the dance a couple of times and then put Minyoung in charge. She seemed to be the one who understood the dance the best and I needed the time to sleep. I woke up from my nap on the bench when my alarm for Japanese class rang.

“That’s enough for today, girls. Let’s get going to Language class.”

            After my nap, I was able to practice with Shin without being tired. By the end of our Language class time, we already had three minutes down. Knowing that we have half the dance done, it gave me a boost and I was able to give it my all at vocal practice. By the end of our lunch time practice, we had 3:30 done. Now, we have three days to learn the rest. Now that it has all been choreographed, all we have to do is learn the other 2:48. Every day seems like is longer than the last. But, finally the day was over, and it was time for after hours practice again.

“Shin, at this rate, we’ll be able to have the dance finished by tomorrow!” I said, running to him. He hugged me.

“Yeah, this is getting exciting; I’m so proud.” He replied.

            After learning another 20 seconds, we took a break. We sat down next to each other and I put my head on his shoulder to catch my breath.

***

            When I woke up, Shin was asleep with his head leaned on mine. Startled, I shook him off and checked the time on my phone. He woke up and wiped his eyes. “What?” He whined like a little boy whose mom woke him up for school. I shook him. “Shin, get up. Come on, we have to go home. It’s already 4am.”

            The news woke him up. He called a taxi to drop us off at our dorms because we were too tired to walk home. When I got back to the dorm, I set my phone alarm to wake me up early so that I could shower. I didn’t want to wake anyone up and I was too tired to shower.

            My silent alarm buzzed in my pocket, waking me up. I had been too tired the last night to change out of my clothes, but I could have sworn that I changed into my pajamas.

            After I was out of my shower, everyone began to wake up. I got ready as usual. We grabbed our backpack and headed to Diamond.

“Nami-unnie” Shuri called.

“Mmhmm” I answered.

“We are all three really grateful to you and Shin-oppa for working so hard to teach us the music and dance for our performance. All week you’ve been coming home around two, but yesterday, you got home at 4am! While you’ve been choreographing with Shinji-oppa, we’ve been staying up late to practice too. We all wanted to say thank you.” She smiled.

            The three of them bowed at the same time, even Minyoung, which surprised me. I felt bad for not telling them that me and Shin fell asleep and that’s why we were late, but if it got them practicing, I’m okay with it.

“Well, Shin and I are determined to learn the rest of the song by today, so that we can show the President that we’re done two days before the deadline. Also, the sooner we finish learning the dance, the sooner we can all start skipping fitness training class to have more practice with ‘Catch Me’. I’m just afraid that the song is going to get annoying after a while.” I said.

“What do you mean?” Hanami asked.

“Well, after me and Shin-oppa show the President that we’re finished, he’s going to allow us to skip fitness training class. Instead of dance practice with Jyunsung-oppa, we’re going to be practicing the ‘Forever Together’ & ‘Catch Me’ with the G2Y oppas. Also, instead of singing whatever song we want to during vocal training, we’re going to have to practice the songs with the G2Y oppas. We’ll even spend what time we used to have as fitness training class to practice with the G2Y oppas. We’ll be with them all day except for tumbling training and if we have a different language class than them.” I explained.

“So, are you scared of spending too much time with Shin-oppa now that you two are dating?” Shuri smiled.

“Shut up, Honey. I told you not to talk about that.” I snapped.

“Yeah, but the Ri-bon unnies aren’t around. You have to tell us something.” She whined.

“No I don’t. Anyways, we’re here already and we have to get to fitness training class.”

            At language class practice with Shin that day, we worked our hardest to finish learning our newly choreographed dance. If we could just finish memorizing our choreographed dance, we could show the President. The room was filled only with the sound of me counting the dance steps, determined to finish by today, we danced not saying a word. I broke the silence, out of breath.

“Okay, Shin, we can take a break.”

I looked at me phone. There was only five minutes left of our language class time.  I opened my mouth to speak.

“Look, I know it’s important that we practice and all, but this not speaking thing is killing me. I haven’t heard your laugh all day.” He said, interrupting me.

My mouth was still open after his statement.

“Shin, calm down.” I laughed “It hasn’t been that long since yesterday.”

“I know, but we work all day. The only time we have together, we’re working even harder.” He said as he got to his feet.

He took his iPod from his pocket and played a song. He stood up and held his hand out to me. I took him hand and stood up. He placed his hands on my waist. Instinctively, I put my arms around his neck. We slowly swayed to the music. My head fell onto his shoulder as we danced. I recognized the song; it was ‘A Fool’s Only Tear’ by BIGBANG. I laughed. He really does like BIGBANG. His phone rang, which meant the end of our language class time and it was time for my vocal training and time for him to go to fitness training. I waited for him to let me go, but he didn’t. The song was just about over and I was going to be late. I began to lift my head to tell him to let me go, but when I saw him looking down at me, I couldn’t focus on anything else except his eyes. We shared that peaceful moment together. I felt our bodies move without consent. He leaned his face closer to mine, mine moved in the same way. Soon enough, our lips met and our eyes were closed. The moment ended along with the song. We stood there in silence. Speechless, I waited for him to say something. He let me go.

“So, see you at lunch?” He asked awkwardly.

“Yeah.” I replied. Then we went to our classes.

            We worked straight through lunch and the whole dance down, it just needed some polishing.

“You have tumbling class last today, right?” Shin asked me.

“Yeah” I answered.

“What are you guys currently learning?”

“Well, I’m still the only one in the class who can back flip, so for the Ri-bon unnies, they’re learning how to back flip while Hanabi and the trainees try to back hand spring.”

“Can you skip it?”

I was shocked. “Won’t the President get mad, or Manager?”

“Not if they don’t find out. I skip all the time, just get Shuri-ssi to cover for you.  Even if they do find out that we skipped, the President won’t get that mad because we’ll be practicing the dance. We have to show him by the end of today, or wait until tomorrow. Don’t you want to prove that we can finish it to whole days before the deadline?”

“Of course I do Shin, but skipping class?”

“You’re way ahead of the other girls, I doubt he’ll even mind if you skipped. He’s letting us skip our Language classes for this, why not your tumbling class and my b-boying class if we’re not doing anything?”

            I knew I was going to give in to him. What else can I do? He knows how to get to me. I ended up skipping tumbling class with Shuri’s excuse that I had extremely painful cramps and bloating.

            Surprisingly, we finished the dance. The only thing left now was to face the cruel criticism of the President. A few trainees were using the practice room. When the President entered the room, they all stopped in their tracks and bowed.

“Your manager told me that you needed to see me. It’s urgent, I understand. But before you talk, may I ask how the choreography is going?” The president asked.

Shin spoke first. “That’s exactly what we wanted to talk to you about, sir.”

“We finished the choreography and would like to ask of your opinion before we proceed to teaching the rest of the members.” I finished.

“Shinji, Minami,” he sighed, which made me heart skip a beat of fear.

“It’s not me who will be performing on that stage. I won’t be the one to debut, it’s you. I trust Shinji with everything artistic having known him since before his debut, and you Minami, from what you’ve shown me so far, I trust that you don’t need my approval.”

We both exhaled out of relief.

“Don’t get to comfortable yet though.” The President began.

I took in a sharp breath.

“You still have to teach the members the song in just two days. It’s Sunday, correct? I’ve reserved the recording studio for Tuesday at 5pm. You have until then for all of you to learn the songs and until the concert in two and a half weeks to learn the dance steps and stage craft.”

The President’s phone made an audible buzz.

“Oh, and that’s all the time I have for you. I’ll be seeing you two. Good luck, fighting!” With that he shuffled out of the room.

When he left, me and Shin came into a close hug.

“We did it!” I yelled.

            There was an awkward cough from behind us. There were still a few trainees in the room with us. I recognized the expressions on their faces, they were trying to hide the fangirling that was going on inside them. Shinji said “hi” to them and one of the girls squealed. They told him how much they all loved his music and admired him. One of the girls came up to me; she looked young, no older than 14.

“You’re Minami Kim, one of the winners of Diamond’s Idol Search, right?”

I was surprised that she recognized me.

I nodded me head and her smile got big.

“You were my favorite contestant from the start. You really inspire me. I knew that you were going to make it. I heard in the hall that now you’re even the leader? That’s so amazing. I’m going to work hard so that I can be like you.” She said extremely fast.

I blushed. “Really? I inspired you?” She nodded vigorously.

“What’s your dream?” I asked her.

“I just became a trainee under Diamond this year. I want to be able to debut under Diamond Entertainment and become an idol. Singing is my passion.”

I smiled at her answer. “What’s your name?” I asked her.

“Akie Tasaki, 17 years old.” She replied.

I hadn’t noticed it before, she did look Japanese, but she was speaking fluent Korean.”

“Are you part Korean?” I asked her.

“No, but I studied Korean so that I could train under Diamond. I’ve been here for 3 years.”

I was surprised by that.

            A couple of other trainees came up to me, both boys.

“We saw you on the Idol Search too” They said in unison.

The taller one spoke. “I’m Hiroshi, and this is Jaehyo.” The shorter one raised his hand. They also told me about their dreams to become idols and shared with me some bits about training under Diamond. They’ve both been under Diamond for three years.

“May I ask how old you boys are?”

Hiroshi was fifteen, Jaehyo fourteen.

I opened my mouth to speak again, but Shin interrupted me.

“I texted Seito to tell everyone to meet us in the vocal room; they’re waiting for us, we have to go.” He said.

I followed him out of the room, all the girls yelled “Bye Shinji-oppa!” except for Akie and the boys who yelled, “Bye Minami-unnie” and “Bye, Minami-noona” respectively. I smiled to myself.

We met the others in the vocal room.

“Did you make sure none of the Ri-bon noonas saw you all come here?” Shinji asked. They all nodded.

“So we have two days to learn the song, good news is that we’re allowed to use our combined dance and vocal class time and after hours. We won’t be able to use lunch time because if we all couldn’t be at lunch, the unnies would suspect something.” I explained. “Learning the song is the first priority, so we won’t teach you the dance until after we record. I think we all know the words to ‘Forever Together’, so we pretty much just have to learn ‘Catch Me’.” I continued.

Minyoung looked down at her feet; this was the first time I ever saw her look shy.

“Is there something wrong, Rose?” It was weird getting used to the new names.

“I don’t know all of the words to ‘Forever Together’.”

            Me and Shinji decided to teach everyone the song and assigned Minyoung the homework of listening to ‘Forever Together’ on replay until she got the words down.

“Okay, Mimi-yah, why don’t you start first?” Shin said.

            I opened my mouth to sing, but nothing came out. Even though I had English class with Shin and I had sang and danced with him, actually being with him for singing and dancing practice was intimidating. When I’m around him, I’m comfortable, so if I make a mistake, I don’t really care; I just laugh it off. Here at practice for the performance, we actually have stakes; it’s not just for fun anymore. It’s work. I don’t know why, but now, of all times, Shin started giving me butterflies.

“You can go first, Shin.” I said politely, hoping to disguise my real emotion.

He shrugged it off and began teaching them. I followed along quietly.

            The rest of the day went along as planned. We got a lot accomplished. It was now time to go back home. We all said our usual polite good byes. The girls left the building first. We barely got ten feet away when Seung-young came running out.

“Nami-yah, Shinji said that you forgot something in the practice room.” He said with heavy breath.

I patted myself down. Damn, I left my cell phone in there.

“I’ll be right back, I forgot my cell.” I said, following Seung-young back into the building.

            Shinji was alone in the practice room, swinging my cell phone by its key chain.

“You’re real clueless you know.” He laughed. I snatched my cell phone from him.

“You didn’t even notice when I took it from your pocket.”

I playfully stuck my tongue out at him. He laughed again.

“I didn’t do it to mess with you though. I wanted to ask you something.”

Dang it, I know what he’s gonna say.

“Why did you do that today?”

“Do what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I coyly replied.

“Mimi, you know what I’m talking about. I’ve never seen you shy, it can’t be because of the others, because I watched your auditions too, you are definitely not shy. So then I thought that it was because of me, but we’ve been practicing together already. What’s wrong?” He asked. Somehow I had ended up in his arms and he was my hair.

“I don’t know.” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “It’s just that I felt butterflies all of a sudden. We were just messing around before, but this is real. We have a real deadline and we have stakes. I was scared to mess up in front of you.”

I was now looking down at my feet, still in his arms. He was chuckling.

“What could I have thought? I’ve already seen how good of a leader you are. Since we all first hung out that first night at the carnival, I knew you’d be the leader of the group. The others look up to you, and they listen, even Rose. Even if we had accomplished nothing today, I would’ve still liked you.”

Still looking down at my shoes, I asked, “Really?”

He replied. “Look at my face; do I look like I’m lying?”

            When I rose my face, he took my chin and led me into a kiss. It was a short kiss, but it was sensual.

“Did that make you feel better?” He asked stupidly.

I nodded.

“I should get back to the girls. I bet they’re waiting for me.”

I pointed to the ground below his feet. “Oh, you dropped something.”

“Huh? What?” He said, lifting up his feet.

“This.” I said as he looked up. I swiftly kissed his cheek and ran away.

            When I looked back, he was holding his cheek, smiling. I got outside, they were waiting for me. Minyoung did not look happy, but the other two were smiling big.

“What’s with those cheesy smiles?” I asked.

“You know they only waited for you to ask you about Shinji.” Minyoung said, almost snarling.

“Rose!” Shuri pouted. She got over it in a second though.

“So, why’d it take you so long?” Shuri asked with the same bubbliness she always has.

“Come on Minami-yah! Give us something.”

            I couldn’t win against Shuri’s pouting. I told them about the date, no details though, and I told them about the kisses. Then I made then swear on their careers not to tell anyone. They all promised.

            When we got home, Shuri was still fangirl mode. There’s only one way to get her out of it.

“Honey, what drama are you currently watching?” I asked her.

“Dream High” She replied. “Why?”

“What episode are you on?”

“I’m on the one where Hyemi almost gets hit by the planter. Why?” She asked again.

“Oh you know, Samdong goes to the hospital afterwards, right?” I asked sarcastically.

“NO!” She yelled, and then started to pout.

Hanami slapped my arm. “Nami, why’d you do that?”

“You know I can’t let her be in a fangirling mood when we’re with the unnies, they might suspect something. The only way to ruin her mood is to tell her a spoiler from her current obsession.” I explained to the eldest member.

“Ah, I might use that one day.” She laughed sinisterly.

            We entered the room, but this time it didn’t get quiet as we walked in. Risa even greeted us. I bet it’s because today me and Shinji were off our “cleaning duty punishment” and ate lunch with everyone.

“So how was your day, girls?” Rika asked all smiley.

“It was pretty good.” Hanami replied.

            The rest of the time went on the same, with idle chatter about our days and the random stuff that came along with it. It got later, so the Risa and Rin made us dinner, nothing special, just rice and curry. It was Rika and Shuri’s turn to clean up, which was the best time because they never complained about it. Risa pulled me to the side.

“Minami, can we talk?”

I was scared to talk to her, but then again I was too scared to say no either, so I nodded my head.

            We went into her room. It was weird because since I’ve been living here, I haven’t been into her room for more than two seconds. It was different than it looked in the first season of Ri-bon’s show. Then again, that was two years ago and she’s changed. Her room was extremely colorful with bright colors. Everywhere there were clashing colors and complicated designs on the wall. It was a change of pace from her simple pink walls and plush toys everywhere. Now there’s not one plush to be found.

She closed the door and sat down on the floor.

“Minami let me apologize. You see, you’ve been here for about a week. The day you all got here was right before, you know, my time of the month. The idea of another girl group under Diamond kind of made me a little edgy.”

Was she really doing this right now? She was lying straight to my face.

 “For almost 3 years, it’s just been us and G2Y as the Diamond dongsaengs, but then you guys came along. After being with you, I respect you as performers. I guess I took it out on you because you’re the leader. Sorry about that.” She laughed nervously.

To save this relationship, I had to fake it right back at her.

“Oh no, it’s totally okay, unnie. I understand, we’re all girls here. I think we’ll all understand.” I replied.

“Really?” She said with genuine surprise. She opened her arms and leaned in, I think she was trying for a hug. I returned her hug and followed with a fake smile.