♦ 3 months later (present time: March) ♦

“Aish let’s do a break. I really need to catch up with my breath.”, Minji rested her hands in her legs and tried to breath slowly. We’ve been practicing since early morning. Those past 2 (January and February) months had been tough for all of us.

The teacher saw that we were almost dying so he stopped the song and let us rest for a couple of seconds.

At that time the CEO appeared in our practice room. “Hello girls.”, he greeted. Although we were tired, some of the girls that were sat on the floor got up and bowed. “There’s great news for you!”, he smiled, “You’re moving to a dorm.”, he stated. At hearing that, we cheered together. “Start packing your things, so you can move on tomorrow. You must be in here, in this room at 8am so you can go together to the dorm.”, the man said and left the room.

After the door was closed, we jumped up and down hugging each other while screaming from happiness.

We returned to practice and waited until the time to go home came.

As usual, I caught the bus and went back home. I was excited for the news. Although I wanted to go, I also didn’t want to, because I wouldn’t see my mom often and Jihae too. But looking at it in the other side, it was for my own good. Since I wanted to accomplish my dream I should do some sacrifices. Other idols had to move to a dorm and they made it until now. So, I guessed I could survive to it.

I got home and went right away to tell the news to Jihae, but it happened that she had gone on a date with Sehun so she wasn’t at home. Mom and dad were working so, I was alone at home.

I ate something before going to my room and started thinking in what to take.

“What should I take with me?”, I asked myself while looking to the clothes in my wardrobe. Since I had quite some clothes I couldn’t take them all with me … they wouldn’t fit in the bag. So I choose the better ones, those which weren’t too old. I picked some T-Shirts, jeans, shorts, jerseys, hoodies, underwear, socks and a dress or too. I thought I needed two bags so I went to get the second one in order to put the rest of the clothes in the second bag. In the second bag, I put shoes, snickers, sandals alongside with my makeup and items of personal hygiene, like: brush teeth, my favorite towel, shampoo, bath gel, and other stuff. In my backpack I put my favorite items. Objects that I took to everywhere I would go, like my Ipod, my phone, it’s charger, the book I had been reading, my wallet etc.

After packing everything, I called my mom. At first she didn’t pick up the call but at the end, after more 3 calls, she called me back and I told her the news. She seemed sad when she first heard me saying I would be moving to another place. At first she would protest, but she decided not to and supported me on my leaving of the house. It hurt me too, leaving her, but I had no choice and after all I would be still going to visit her whenever I would have time for it.

We ended the call and I texted Taemin, informing him about me moving to a dorm before going to sleep, because I was very tired.

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The alarm clock rang and I woke up agitated. I didn’t know why, I just felt anxious and curious. Maybe it was because of moving to the dorm with the members. I was sure it was that. I got up and my gaze met the bags I prepared the night before. How could I go to the SME by bus with all those bags? I wouldn’t make it there. I asked my mom if she could take me and she nodded. After eating breakfast, dressing up, I grabbed my belongings and left my house that I wouldn’t see as much as I had been seeing through my whole life. I would miss it. I would miss even more the people leaving in it.

I arrived at SM and with tearful eyes my mom gave me a goodbye kiss and threw her fist in the air, “Fighting! I’ll always be here for you.”, she let escape a tear from her eye. I wiped it away and spoke, “Thank you mom. If it weren’t you, I wouldn’t have come to where I am now. Without your support and help, I don’t think I would’ve made it. You’re my superwoman. Thank you mom.”, I hugged her and kissed her cheek. I stepped back and waved, “Bye mom. I’ll visit you always in my free time.”, I said as the distance between us was getting longer and longer.

I waved one last time to her and she waved back. At this I turned back trying not to cry and made my way to the SME’s entrance.

I entered and went right away to the practice room.

There was already Teacher Lee, Hyunjae, Minyoung and Kyunghee. It still left Minji and Yoorin to arrive. The CEO was also there. We chatted for a while until the two girls arrived.

We checked if we had everything and then made our way to the cars we would go in. Three girls would go in the first car and the other three in the second. We played rock, paper scissors to choose who would go in the first and who would go in the second car. In the end I, Minyoung and Yoorin ended up going in the first car.

We left the place towards our destination, which was our new dorm. As soon as we arrived there we all noticed the structure of the building and analyzed, just by looking at it, if it was old or a brand new building. It seemed to have been built not long ago. For the first impression we were pleased.

The drivers helped us caring our bags and manager Choi, who had been with us for the past 4 months, helped us too. He would be our manager from now on, he announced it in the very first days he interacted with us. Our dorm was in the 6^th floor. It took some time for us to carry everything to the dorm.

When everything was there, we had time to explore the dorm. It wasn’t that big, but it wasn’t small either. It had two rooms, a quite big bathroom, a living room and a spacious kitchen.

The decoration was simple and the furniture wasn’t also anything of luxurious. I thought it was good for us. Aside from that, the location of the dorm wasn’t far from SME, so it would be easier for us to go everyday just by walking.

After a long half an hour, it was warned that we should go for practice. We didn’t even have taken out our things from our bags. We went to SME and started practicing.

As soon as we got there, Teacher Lee told us we would be continuing practicing our new choreography, which it was probably the one we would use for our debut. He also told us that we would start recording and getting our hair done and choosing the best style for the debut song.

We were happy. It was finally coming the day we all nervously waited for: Our Debut day. We wondered which style of clothes they would give us, makeup style and hair style. Sometimes during breaks we would talk about it and express which style we liked more and which we didn’t.

We started practicing and it ended at the usual time. After that we were sent to the 3^rd floor. I thought that we would be introduced to our debut song, but that was just an assumption. We got there and we went to a practice room. Inside there was a man with papers in his hands and with some chairs in front of him. He saw that we entered and nicely demanded us to sit in the chairs.

He asked who was the eldest and told us to introduce ourselves. After introducing he told us to stay side by side in crescent order of ages so he wouldn’t forget who was the oldest and the youngest.. I stood in the middle. Then he started with, “Well, you’re here because I’m going to teach you some manners and some things about reality shows. The things you can and cannot do while filming a reality show or an interview. Also, I’ll teach you how you should answer to some questions that interviewers do that sometimes are not convenient for the company to be answered.”.

He told us about those things and it was fun at the same time, because while learning we would also play. We staged an interview among the members and we laughed pretty much while doing it. He then, at the end of the “lesson” told us that we would have these classes regularly, three times a week after our practice.

It was already 8:30pm and we went to our dorm with our manager.

We were tired and we still had to tidy everything when we got there. After playing rock, paper and scissors (again), to choose who would stay in the rooms, we went to sleep. Since the rooms were unbalanced in terms of numbers of beds per room, Hyunjae and Kyunghee stood in the first and the rest went to the second that had two bunk beds. I and Minji choose the upper beds and Yoorin and Minyoung choose the lower beds. It was now distributed the beds for the members.