“See, I told you we’d be meeting again.” I heard from behind me. I turned around, seeing Nick with a smirk on his face, followed by the rest of Cologne behind him. Though I’ve only just met him, his smirk bugged the hell out of me.

“Hey, it’s Mai-sshi!” Taeyoung yelled excitedly.

Behind him, Jake yelled. “and Jaehyo-ie!”

“What’re you guys doing here?” Jae laughed annoyed-ly.

“I dunno, what’re you guys doing here?” Hyunsu laughed, jokingly punching Jae on the shoulder.

“Mentor tours, you know the drill.” JD replied.

They all laughed. “We’re lucky we didn’t have to do that.” YoungJae chuckled.

“Yeah, President didn’t start doing until Aqua became trainees. Haha, ers.” HyunJae added.

I looked at him confused.

“Oh, not that it’s a bad thing. It was fun…” HyunJae nervously laughed.

“Didn’t Jake mentor you Jaehyo-sshi?” Nick taunted.

“Yeah, that’s why we’re so close.” Jake said, pulling JD in for a hyung hug.

“Hyung, let me go. I’m touring Mai-sshi!”

“Mai-sshi? Dude, you were born in the same year.” HyunJae said.

“Well what about you, hyung, you’re just a few months older than us.”

“Yeah, months, but different year. Play nice, Jae-SSHI.”

“Fine.” Jae replied as Jake finally let him out of the playful hug.

“Let’s go, Mai-yah.” Jaehyo pulled my hand away.

I turned around, the Cologne-oppas were pushing Nick into a corner. Haha, guys…

          JD was still holding my hand. I wanted to ask him where we were going, but I he looked mad. I didn’t want to disturb him. I just followed as we walked briskly through the halls and up a flight of stairs.

          We came to a room with a white door. The plaque read, “Dressing Room”. We went inside.

“This is the dressing room.” Jae said, finally letting my wrist that had turned red go. He paced in circles.

“Jae-oppa, are you okay?” I asked.

It took him a minute to reply, but he calmed down and answered.

“Yeah, I’m good. Sorry about that.” He said, scratching being his head. “And, Mai, you don’t have to call me ‘oppa’, you heard YoungJae-hyung.”

I nodded.

“So why are we here?”

Jae smiled. I don’t know why, but I smiled too.

“I don’t know. Whenever I get mad, I always find myself coming here.” He shrugged. “You see, when I was just a normal trainee in Diamond, I was near quitting about two years ago. Training was hard and long every day, and I wasn’t sure if I had what it took to be an idol. Me and Hiroshi had been best friends as long as we can remember, and just as long, we’ve loved music and wanted to grow up to be singers, but I thought all of my dreams and hard work was in vain. One night, all the trainees were ordered to watch Diamond’s Idol Search program finals, and it changed my life.” He was looking down, embarrassed.

“It’s kind of a lame thing that I’m gonna say, but just don’t judge me, okay?” He laughed nervously. I nodded.

“You know Hanabi, right?” Before I could answer, he started again. “Well duh, everyone knows Hanabi. They’re the biggest girl group since 2NE1 & Girls’ Generation. Minami… or Sakura-noona, was on that program as one of the winners. I will literally never forget her performance. She sang and danced to Heartbreaker by BIGBANG’s G-Dragon, Hello by a Japanese artist, Yui, an American song, Diva by Beyonce, and Goodbye Baby by Miss A. She danced flawlessly and her singing… was indescribably good. I can’t explain it. In that one performance, I imagined myself on stage. From her, I learned what it was like to be not only and idol, but a true artist, and she hadn’t even won yet. She went on to win, train and debut under Diamond and go on to lead Hanabi to the top. One day, she met me and Hiroshi, and Akie-noona in the trainee practice room with Shinji-hyung and all three of us were in love with her. But the best moment of my life happened in this room.”

He stopped, seemingly out of breath. I let him calm down and waited for him to speak again.

“I remember the day vividly. It was the day that President Diamond revealed the members of Aqua. It has never been revealed to the public, but, I wasn’t originally a part of Aqua. In the president’s plans, Aqua was a duo, Hiroshi and Justin. That day, I ran away from the dorms and locked myself in here. No one was using it at the time, since all the sunbae were off that day for Diamond’s annual “Sunbae Day”. When Minami-noona heard that I was missing, she and the other trainees looked everywhere for me since none of the other sunbaes had been there. Luckily, she was the first to find me. She had only been in the building to pick up SML4 Kwangho-hyung’s phone since she had lost a penalty game at the club they were at. I think it was fate that she was sent there and fate that she found me first. That night, she gave me a pep talk that I will always remember. I remember that day, she gave me her phone number and told me to call her if I was ever having problems, then gave me a hug and left.”

He was finally done with his story.

“So are you in love with Sakura-unnie?” I asked nosily.

“Well, I was… until she and Shin-hyung became a thing. Shin-hyung has also been very good to me, so I just gave up on it.” He laughed and nervously scratched behind his head again. “Though all of us at Diamond are close, the three of my closest sunbae are Minami-noona, Jake-hyung, and Shin-hyung, plus Akie and Hiroshi.”

He looked at his watch. “Haha, well my sob story took about ten minutes, let’s head to… aw damn.” He said, looking at the schedule.

“What?” I asked concerned.

“We were supposed to go to the recording studio, but I decided to come here, now we have to head to the gym.” He said, with his weird face.

“What’s wrong with the gym?” I asked jokingly.

“The Cologne hyungs are usually there at this time.” He said with an unsure tone. “Let’s go.” He said, again taking my hand.

I again followed him as we walked briskly. I realized that he was right when we got there. The Cologne oppas were there. I guess why that’s why they’re known for their incredible visuals.

I saw Taeyoung’s head pop up from the bench press. Again he yelled out, “Hey, it’s Mai-sshi!” It was like déjàvu  when Jake followed with, “and Jayhyo-ie!”

Nick, Jake, and Hyunsu ran over to us, while Taeyoung stayed under the bench press and HyunJae & YoungJae finished their reps.

“Are you following us?” Jake said jokingly.

“Shut up, Jake-hyung. You looked at our schedule didn’t you?” Jae accused, waving the schedule in his face.

Quick as lighting, Nick stole it out of his hands.

“Ah, next is the performance practice floor, then the cafeteria.” Nick announced.

The other guys finally finished their reps and came to group hug Jae. It’s so cute how close they are, hopefully one day, I’ll be that close with my unnies. They all pulled him to the male locker room. He fought back, trying to pull away, but was no match for the five buff idols.

“Guys, stop it. Lemme get back to the tour!” He yelled.
Giving him a “noogie” to shut Jae up, HyunJae laughed, “Calm down dongsaeng. Follow us.”

“Yeah, we think there’s a weird smell coming from your locker.” YoungJae taunted.

I laughed. Jaehyo shot me a deadly look pleading me not to laugh.

“Let me go!” JD struggled. With no hope, they pulled him into the locker room. It was like a cartoon, with JD trying to claw his way out of the doorway. They left me and Nick alone in the gym room that smelled of sweat. Nick was sitting on another bench press, shirtless and sweaty. I felt really awkward looking at him, but I honestly couldn’t look away. He saw me looking at his body, giving me that same damn smirk.

“Let me ask you something, Mai. Why did President pair you with Jaehyo-sshi? Did he tell you?” He asked.

I shook my head. “No, she just said that we were very similar and that I could learn a lot from him.”

Nick laughed.

“Why don’t I finish up the tour with you? How’s that sound?” Nick asked

I wanted to say no so that I wouldn’t get in trouble with manager, because I didn’t know how important our partners are. I mean it’s just a tour, does it really matter? Plus, didn’t want to hurt Nick’s feelings by saying no, nor did I want to hurt JD’s feelings by leaving him.

I shook my head. “I don’t know Nick-oppa, is that okay? We should ask Jae-yah.” I started walking towards the locker room, but Nick grabbed my arm.

“Mai-sshi, don’t go into the guys’ locker room, here, I’ll just call Hyunsu.” He pulled out his phone. Hyunsu picked up the phone.

“Hey, hyung, ask Jae if it’s okay for me to finish the tour with Mai-sshi.”

“Hey, Jaehyo-sshi, Nick is asking if he can take Mai-sshi on the rest of the tour. It’s okay, right?” Hyunsu asked on the other side of the phone.

Little did I know at the time, but the rest of the Cologne oppas had JD tied up and inside a locker. They asked him if we had already been to the language classes, knowing that we had already been there. Jaehyo answered,

“Yeah!”

In a swift, fluid movement, Nick hung up the phone, took my hand, and led me out of the room. We headed to the cafeteria.

“Oppa, I thought the performance practice floor was next.” I said, still in his hold.

“I thought I’d be spontaneous.” He chuckled back.

We got to the cafeteria, but there was Jaehyo and YoungJae waiting for us.

“I tried to stop him, hyung, but he plays dirty.” YoungJae said, trying to restrain Jaehyo.

“I knew you’d come here next, hyung, thinking that you were clever by switching the spots around, huh?” Jaehyo exclaimed.

Still holding my hand, Nick and I ran out of the room and down the stairs. He kept looking behind to see if we were being followed.

We ended up in a dance practice room, both huffing and puffing.

“That’s just a game we play. He’s really good at it.” Nick said.

He told me that we were in one of the practice rooms for the trainees, but it was lunch time, so no one was there.

“So, who did your group mates get paired up with?” He asked.

“They already did the tour a week ago. I just go here, so I had to do it by myself.”

“Oh yeah, we heard about that. You must be pretty good for the president to pick you from a cover contest, but not only to be a trainee, but in a group.”

I blushed. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Did the president tell you about our next CF yet?” Nick asked.

“No, he didn’t. Are A-Bomb and Cologne doing another commercial?”

“No, it’s supposed to be just the two of us. The director of our last commercial supposedly saw chemistry between the two of us and recommended us to the Seoul branch of Uniqlo. We’ll be modeling their spring line. It was partially a favor to the president too, since he’s looking for any opportunity to put you girls on the air. I’m scared for you all. You’re getting it way harder than anyone else’s debuts.”

My eyed grew wide. “Wow, that’s exciting… and a bit scary.”

“We better watch out though. Because if we make too much chemistry, at the rate the president is going, he’ll probably book us to appear on ‘We Got Married’.” He laughed.

After laughing about what our couple name would be and gossiping about how hard the president is, we talked about random things about the company and he shared some highlight points of his career. His phone rang.

“What’s up now, Taeyoung-ie?” Nick asked into the phone.

“Oh damn, okay, thanks.” He said, hanging the phone up. “Taeyoung said that your tour time is up and you and the others need to meet up in the performance practice room. Hey, that’s lucky, that was our next spot. Sorry I didn’t get to show you everything. Why don’t you give me your number, and I can show you the rest sometime?” He asked slyly.

I shrugged me shoulders. “I don’t have my phone on me.”

“You don’t know your number?” He laughed.

I stuck my tongue out at him. “So what?”

“Ah, so the girl has aegyo, huh?” We laughed.

Nick did the bbuing bbuing. “Now that’s aegyo.” He said. We laughed.

“I better get you to the president, then.”

He took me to 8^th floor, the floor with the performance practice rooms. I reached for the door knob, but Nick stopped my hand.

“Where do you think you’re going, missy? I haven’t yet dismissed you dongsaeng.” It was his turn to stick his tongue out.

“Yes, sunbae Nick?” I mocked.

“Why don’t you give me your number and we can finish up that tour? You used to live in China, right? If you’re lucky, I’ll show you all the best places to have fun in Seoul to help you with learning more about Korea.”

Now I was understanding why Nick has the largest fan base in Cologne and why so many other idols and actors labeled him as their ideal type.

“Sorry, Nick-oppa. I just got my Korean cell phone since I just permanently moved here less than a week ago. I don’t know my number, and I left my phone at the dorms.” I looked down, embarrassed.

He lifted my face up with his right hand.

“That’s okay. I’ll get it at the CF photo shoot on Wednesday. I can wait three days.”

With that, he let me enter the room.

“Nice of you to join us, Mai-sshi.” Akie snarled. “You just missed the president, he’s a busy man, you know. Anyways, we’ve got ‘Body Groove’ pretty much down, so he thought it’d be a good idea to learn another dance before the day ends. We’ve been tasked with learning the dance to the chorus of ‘Break It Down’ by Cologne.”

          The dance practice lasted until 10:30. By then, we had the dance down and headed home. Akie still wouldn’t speak to me. We went home and I started helping Tola with making dinner. It was our night of the week.

There was a knock at the door.

“Get the door, maknae!” Akie yelled.

“I can’t! I’m helping Tola with dinner!” I yelled in reply.

“I’ll get it.” Mei-lein said, interrupting Akie’s would-be leader lecture.

She opened the door. “Omo, Cologne-oppa?”

Chai ran to the door like the fan girl she was. “Really, Mei-lein? You don’t know Nick-oppa’s name?” She said. Mei-lein turned to Nick. “Hi, how are you, Nick-oppa? What brings you here so late at night? It’s almost midnight!”

“Ah, hey Mei-lein-ah, Hung-ah. Is Mai-sshi here?”

Chai was too mesmerized by him to answer.

“Yeah, she’s here. Wait here, I’ll go get her.” Mei-lein ran to the kitchen yelling. “Mai-sshi, Nick-oppa is here for youuuuu!”

I yelled to the doorway.

“Just come on in, Nick-oppa. We’re almost done with dinner.”

Nick chuckled. “Dinner at midnight?”

I washed my hands and went into the living room with him.

“Well yeah, we were learning part of the dance to ‘Break It Down’” I said, walking into the room. When I entered, Akie was already there, sitting on the couch next to him.

“Ah, pre-debut preparations . I remember them fondly.” Nick chuckled.

Akie asked him why he was here.

“Oh yeah, Mai-sshi, can I speak to you outside? I have to go soon. The guys are waiting for me, we’re about to hit a club.”

I nodded and followed him outside.

“Do you have your phone now? I was just driving around and I decided that I couldn’t wait those three days.” Nick put his hands behind his head. I’d never seen him embarrassed. This side of him was kinda cute.

“Sure I’ll go get it.” I ran inside to get it. Akie was glaring at me as I ran into me and Tola’s room.

I went back outside.

“Here it is.” I gave him my phone number. He smiled and said good bye.

I went back into the dorm, the Chai, Tola, and Mei-lein were waiting for me with big smiles in front of the door way. Akie was waiting too, but with a straight face. She was tapping her left foot rapidly.

Sooooo, what did Cologne-oppa want, Mai-sshi?” Mei-lein asked.

“Really? Again, Mei? You need to learn our sunbae’s names. That one was Nick-oppa, the cute one.” Chai pouted.

“It’s not my fault. I used to live in China, and Cologne is the only Diamond group that never promoted in China, besides Aqua, but they have an excuse, they’re still kinda rookies. “Mei-lein whined.

“The president doesn’t want them to enter that part of their career yet. That’s why you see them on TV all the time. He specifically created Cologne to be a group that focused on telecommunication along with music. They just had their debut in Japan, and once they have a stable fan base there, they’ll start in China.” Akie explained to us. “He has different plans for us.”

Mei interrupted. “Well back to the real subject… Mai, why was Nick-oppa here?” Chai smiled, proud that she made Chai memorize his name.

“It was nothing. He was just here to…” I pondered on lying to them, telling them that he was returning something of mine. But I already intruded on their group, I didn’t want to further hurt the relationship by lying, especially with Akie. She already seemed to dislike me. “get my phone number.”

Before I could further explain myself, Tola squealed.

“Awww. Nick-ah likes Mai!”

It was weird for me to hear her call hi Nick-ah instead of “oppa” I keep forgetting that they’re the same age, since even we all have to call them sunbaes. But it was sweet of her to call me Mai, instead of Mai-sshi.

“No, don’t misunderstand, girls. He toured me around today, but we didn’t to finish, so he asked me for my number so that we could maybe finish later or something.” I couldn’t help but look away from Akie’s deathly stare.

“Well that was a nice offer, but you must decline. After our group photo shoot tomorrow and we’re learning Ri-bon’s dance for ‘Perfume’ and the dance for 29Bass’s song, ‘Control’.” Akie looked at her phone for the time. “Well now that it’s past midnight, the photo shoot is today.  Plus learning the two dances. Mai, you’ll be exempt on Wednesday for your photo shoot with Nick-sshi, and Mei-lein you will also be exempt that day for your CF filming of that Chinese lotion. I was going to tell you all this at dinner, but since it’s already out, let’s sit down and have a group meeting.”

We all sat down on the couches, Akie stood and told us all about what our schedule would be like for the next couple of months.

“We get to restart, or for Mai, start, our classes after the promotions for our debut. The classes will be the almost same as our trainee classes, but on a different level and will include other training. The president is trying to get us all spots on different media, such as talk shows, cameos on dramas and in music videos and such. Now girls, get some sleep. We have to get up at 8 to get ready. The car will come for us at 9. You don’t need any make up or anything, it will all be taken care of there.”

We all went to sleep as soon as she turned the lights off. By that time, it was already 1am. “Nighty night!” Mei-lein yelled from her room.

“Good night!” We all yelled in return.

          The next day, the company car came for us at noon again. We headed to the company building for our first photo shoot as a group. Since none of us was awake enough to do our makeup, we looked horrible, but it didn’t matter since we were going to get all that done at the shoot anyway. We filed into the room, half-asleep, and sat in the chairs with mirrors in front of them, just like our last shoot. Manager briefed us on the concept of our shoot. Since we’re new and fresh, we were dressed in bright colors. The coordinator unnie looked at us and pondered which of us had to dye our hair. Nowadays, its uncommon to see any K-Pop group without at least one member with dyed hair. In the end, she decided to dye me and Chai’s hair. She pulled us to another chair and began the routine hair treatment.

“I hear that you’re the group’s rapper, Chai-sshi, is that correct?” Coordi-unnie said to Hung. She nodded. “In that case, I’m going to give you firey red hair to show off your firey passion for music and rap.” She turned to me. “As for you little Miss Mai, I hear that you’re the MVP. So you’ll need to stand out. To make you stand out, I’ll dye your hair blonde. It will complement your light skin.

She ended up dying not only our hair, but Mei-lein’s pitch black and Tola’s a lighter brown. She left Akie’s dark brownish black hair as it was.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was the first time that I actually felt it, since I always left it at the dorm and missed my calls. It was a text from Nick.

“How’s the shoot going? Make sure you pick up some technique for the shoot on Wednesday. ;P” I laughed and replied: “Coordi-unnie dyed my hair blonde and we all got new hair colors.”

          We started shooting. First we took pictures altogether. We were set up tallest to shortest, which made me second to last, next to Mei-lein, the shorty. Luckily, Akie was in a good mood, which made us all able to be in a good mood. Next, we took individual pictures. Akie, having had some modeling experience, went first. Nick text me again.

“Really, blonde? Now you match Taeyoung, keke. Send me a picture. I wanna see! <(^_^)>”

I took a selca, letting Mei-lein and Chai photobomb it and sent it to him. He texted back quickly.

“Wow, you three look good. :D Coordi-noona sure knows her stuff.”

By the time he replied, it was my turn to shoot.

I stood in the center with a white background behind me.

“Just be natural.” The camera guy urged me. “Let your confidence seep through your pores.” I did as he said and my turn went quickly.

Next up was Mei-lein. I watched as she posed for the camera. She was much better at it than me. I watched as she did various aegyo poses. She is so adorable. I went to the computer screen where people were checking our photos for the ones that would be used in the magazine spread announcing our debut. They’d also be posted online on the Diamond website announcing our debut. I took a picture of my favorite with my phone and sent it to Nick.

“Oppa, how do I look? >_<??”

“Cute (0.o) Nice outfit.”

          Soon enough, the shoot was over and we were allowed to leave. It was past lunch time and we were starving. Together we went to the cafeteria, though it was lunch time for the trainees. Luckily, we saw the Aqua oppas eating there as well. Tola greeted Justin, and he invited us to their table. I sat next to Jaehyo.

“Hey, oppa.” I teased.

“Shut up.” Jae said, sticking out his tongue.

“Why are you guys here during the trainee’s lunch hour?” Akie asked Hiroshi.

“We just got back from our comeback performance on M Countdown and the driver wouldn’t let us stop at a drive thru on the way back.”

“We’re gonna go see what looks good. Are you guys coming?” Hiroshi said to everyone.

All the girls followed.

“I’m not hungry right now.” I replied.

“Yeah, me either.” JD & Justin added.

“Justin!” Hiroshi called, giving him a look.

“Huh?... oh, yeah!” Then went with the others. He turned around and said, “I’ve been craving a dessert all day.”

“So what’d you girls do today that you’re all made up?” Jae laughed.

“We had our first group photo shoot. It was pretty fun.” I answered.

I took out my cell phone and looked for the picture I took of my good shot and showed it to Jaehyo.

“Wow, nice. You look good. I think you should wear skirts more often.” He laughed.

I blushed. Suddenly, my cell phone buzzed again in my pocket. I checked the message, another one from Nick… then again, he’s the number I have in my phone besides me group members and various staff.

“You’re done with your shoot? You and the girls should let us take you to lunch ^_^”

I replied with, “That’s okay, oppa. Thanks for the offer, but we’re already in the cafeteria eating with Aqua.”

“Who was that?” Jae asked after a sip of his coffee.

“Just Nick-oppa. He’s the only number I have in my phone besides my A-Bomb unnies and some staff.”

JD took my phone and entered his own number.

“Now you have mine too.” He smiled. “Make sure to text me sometime so I can get your number too.”

The others came back to the table and we had a friendly lunch. Our sunbaes were giving us valuable advice for surviving our pre-debut schedule.

“You’re gonna eat A LOT of ramyeon.” Justin said.

“and drink a lot of energy drinks.” Hiroshi added.

“Within the first week, I learned how to sleep standing up.” Jaehyo laughed.

“I learned how to sleep with my eyes open.” Justin said.