Living with Idols

Introduction {Part I}

Roseil Thorns ;

Location : Sapporo, Japan 

It was another long shift at POP Café for Roseil Thorns. She was wiping down the tables as the majority of the customers left the café. However, there were still a handful of customers lounging around on their overstuffed chairs and couches, talking animatedly to their friends while sipping specialty coffees. Four other co-workers were left to close down the shop as well as the nighttime manager.

“Hey, Roseil, if you want I can finish cleaning up and you can head out. I know you’ve been here since ten,” one of Roseil co-workers, Miyu, said as she came up beside the dark-haired Brazilian-Japanese girl.

Roseil simply shook her head, her long dark brown ponytail falling over her shoulder. “No, that’s all right. Thanks for the offer, though,” she replied politely as she continued wiping down the table that had cookie crumbs and splashes of coffee strewn across the surface.

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” Roseil gave Miyu a reassuring smile and moved onto the next table.

Miyu looked unsure for a moment before shrugging her shoulders and heading back behind the counter.

Roseil sighed softly and returned to her work. She worked until midnight, an hour after the shop had officially closed. It was times like these that she hated the long hours the café was open. She walked back to her small apartment since she lived a mere four blocks from the cafe. As she walked she occasionally stared up at the night sky, admiring the stars, and quietly sang to the music playing on her iPod.

As she arrived at her apartment building, she checked her mail box and pulled out a stack of mail. She browsed through the mail as she took the elevator up to her floor. There was one letter that caught her interest since it was postmarked from Fresh, Entertainment TV. She frowned as she opened the door to her apartment. Stepping out of her shoes and setting down her bag, she wandered into her living room/TV room and sat down on her sofa.

She stared down at the letter then finally opened the white envelope. Unfolding the letter, her heart began to race because she knew this letter was about her entry into the “We’re Living with Idols” contest she had entered a good three months ago.

Holding her breath, she read the letter.

And she had been accepted.

Suwon Lee ;

Location : Seoul, South Korea 

A nineteen-year-old girl and her older brother sat at a table in Korea University’s cafeteria, eating their purchased lunches.

“Did you finish that paper yet?” her brother asked Suwon, the nineteen-year-old girl, popping a piece of seasoned chicken into his mouth.

Suwon pouted and rolled her eyes. “No, not yet. It’s so unfair that Professor Choi is making us write another paper when we just finished one,” Suwon complained.

Her brother, Jungmin, raised an eyebrow at her answer. “Isn’t it due in a few days?”

“Aish, don’t remind me!” Suwon groaned, slapping a hand to her forehead. “It’s what I’ll be doing all night.”

Her brother shook his head at her misfortune, feeling sympathy for his younger sister. “I’m sure the paper will turn out fine,” he assured her.

“Yeah, hopefully,” she muttered back, popping a piece of her own meal into and chewing contemplatively. “At least I already decided on a topic.”

“Ah, that’s good!” Jungmin praised, smiling at her.

Just then the tune of SHINee’s Replay cut through the air, interrupting their conversation.

“Ooh! Text message!” Suwon exclaimed, excitedly digging through her school bag until she found her phone.

“Why do you have a song as an alert for a text message? Isn’t that excessive?” her brother asked, tilting his head to the side as she unlocked the screen of her iPhone.

“Come on, you can never have enough SHINee!” Suwon replied, smiling deviously at her brother to which he only rolled his eyes and mumbled, “You’re obsessed.”

Suwon ignored her brother and found her Inbox.

“Hm, it’s a number I don’t recognize,” she said to herself as she opened the message.

“This is Minseo Kwon from FrEsh saying, CONGRATULATIONS! You’ve been chosen as a finalist for our new TV show ‘We’re Living with Idols’ with Kim Jonghyun as your Idol roommate! We’ll send further details about the show through the mail in a couple days. Again, congrats!”

Suwon read the text message then read it again in disbelief, thinking that the text was a prank. But she knew Minseo Kwon was slated to be the MC for the new show she had applied to—and how would they know that she sent in her application with Jonghyun as her preference of roommate?

And, and, and…holy hell, she had made it!

“Omo!” she screamed, jumping from her chair and shoving her phone in her brother’s very surprised face. “I’m going to live with Jonghyun-oppa for the summer!”

Juliet Lee ;

Location : Seoul, South Korea 

Sighing, Juliet Lee pasted the last cut-out onto her poster board. She sat back on her heels in the middle of her condominium and admired her hard work. She had a big presentation coming up in her college Design class in a week and she wanted to finish her visuals plenty early in order to practice her speech with them.

Now that her poster board was done all she had left was her PowerPoint slides. However, before she dived into her slides, she stood from her spot on the floor and snatched her empty coffee cup from her desk. She walked into her adjoining kitchen and set down her mug next to the coffee machine. Grabbing the coffee pot already filled with brew, she poured a good amount into her previously empty cup. Next, she poured in some vanilla creamer from the small refrigerator. As she stirred the creamer into her coffee, her mind reviewed her plans for her PowerPoint slides. She thought about the graphics and the succinct but powerful phrases she would use to get her point across to her audience.

She smiled to herself as she deemed her thoughts for her slides close to perfect and picked up her filled mug, absently blowing on the hot liquid.

With her ideas still running through her head, she sat down in front of her laptop and touched the keypad. The computer sprang to life from her screensaver and her background of the daytime sky popped up. With a few clicks, she pulled up a blank PowerPoint presentation template and as she was about to start on her first slide, she paused.

“I think I’ll check my e-mail real quick first,” she thought to herself. She minimized PowerPoint and opened her Internet browser.    

Pulling up her e-mail account, she clicked on the first unread e-mail then the next then the next. She replied to a few e-mails that she had received from her friends and classmates while she deleted a few that were newsletters and others that were store advertisements. However, her tenth e-mail was very interesting.

Her eyes widened and a small gasp left her lips as she stared at the e-mail address and the subject of the e-mail.

“From : [email protected]

Subject : We’re Living with Idols New TV Series Selection”

With a racing heart, she opened the e-mail. Had she been accepted?

Her eyes immediately darted to the body of the e-mail, absorbing everything the text had to offer.

A squeak of joy left the girl’s throat before she finished reading the message.

“Congratulations Lee Juliet on being selected as a Finalist for Fresh, Entertainment TV’s We’re Living with Idols!”

That line was as far as she got before she exploded with happiness. 

Author's Note: I am SO sorry for being SO late! >> Frankly, I was being lazy. *sigh* But anyway, the beginning chapters will be featuring the finalists and you'll be getting a peak into their life right as they find out they made the cut. I'll be writing about three girls for each chapter, so there will be four intro chapters since they are twelve finalists.