It was 2005 when he went to Seoul.

He stood in the middle of the stage in front of a microphone stand, confidently showing off his plain appearance to the large public audience that crowded behind the judges.

The three critiques sat behind a long table with pencils in their hands, the tip of the lead pressing down on the paper in front of them and ready to note.

He politely bowed to them, hoping to get on their good side and prove he had talent within him.

A woman judge with a light brown, short and outdated hairstyle held a microphone to her sharp lips without an expression, “What’s your name, student? And where are you from?”

  “Kim Kibum,” he smiled, “I’m from DaeGu but I came to Seoul to take this opportunity to take part in SM entertainment.”

She gave him a small, seemingly careless smile and nodded, writing down what he told her, “How old are you?”

Kibum glanced around the audience and his dry lips, getting closer to the microphone, “I’m fourteen, ma’am.”

The other two judges—who were male—raised their eyebrows in approval to how young he was; maybe even impressed with how tall he was for his age.

  “Did you come to Seoul alone, Kibum?”

He felt like his lips fell from his face and jumped off the stage, leaving him silent nerves. With a small smile, he managed to nod in response.

Unamused, she nodded thoughtfully, “And your papers say you’re going to dance for your audition, yes? Let’s just start then,” she put down the microphone and lazily waved her hand to the music crew for them to turn on a random song.

Kibum stepped back from the microphone and wiggled his fingers, making sure to loosen himself up before trying to show off how flamboyant he knew he was.

He came here for the reason of fame. He wanted to see bright lights, he wanted to sing and dance, he wanted to be an idol. This was where it all started and he didn’t plan on messing it up with blunders.

The song that came on was English and he smiled as he recognized it. He tapped his foot for a good measure before popping his body along with the beat and spreading himself all over the stage in impressive energy.

  It was two years after since Kibum’s audition and he’d successfully made it into the entertainment company with flying colors.

 It wasn’t easy being a trainee, though.  He spent much of each day practicing and working out that he’d become too exhausted to even try studying for school (even though he was already infallible as a student, so he hadn’t had too much to worry about it).

 The hardest part was traveling home. He lived with different friends instead of his own family in his own house. Daegu was too far away to travel back and forth and neither did he have the money to even be able to travel.

 He really missed home a lot, but he had grown strong enough to not cry over it like a child. It was difficult to be away from his family and sometimes it hindered his ability to participate in training. But he had to stop his foolish behavior or else he wouldn’t even have the chance to debut.

 Kibum looked at himself in the bathroom mirror after trying to scrub off all the sweat on his face with water from the three-hour exercise session he’d just got done with. He had a few minutes before he had to speed off to the other side of the building and start dance training for three more hours.

 He examined the flawed reflection in anxiety. It’d been so long since he had decently slept and his under eyes were dull and suffering because of it. He was so stressed from everything that little red bumps decided to make themselves apparent all over his face. His short brown hair had thinned and was almost damp every day, sticking to his face and accentuating his high cheek bones.

 He disapproved of himself heavily, furrowing his eyebrows and biting his lip. He’d been working so hard and there was no praise offered to him. His trainers never said he was good or improving but that he was awful and each day he was getting worse to the point they barely even looked to see if he had existed or didn’t make it to the next level of the trainee life.

 He believed them, too. It may have been easy and all happy the first couple months and back to auditions, getting compliments here and there, but now it was all severe insults and critiques.

 He doubted he would even be good enough to pass. It wouldn’t have mattered how hard he worked, they’d easily tell him to leave with a wave of hand without consideration of his dedication.

  “You’re no good,” Kibum sighed, staring into the reflection’s sad eyes, “You heard what they said. You have no talent. You won’t make it to debut.”

 The reflection was getting him frustrated. No wonder the trainers were so hard on him; he looked so awful and unhealthy that he could be on the verge of collapsing and then they could throw him out of the entertainment business. He splashed the water from the faucet on the mirror, little droplets and skinny streaks worsening his mirrored image.

  “You won’t make it,” he growled through his clenched teeth, “You’ve done it . . . for nothing.”

 There’s no way, he thought, there’s no way you’re better than the others.

 Kibum jumped when the bathroom door opened and in came a familiar friend—the last kind of person he wanted to see right now.

  “Hey,” he slowly walked in, pulling his long black hair in a ponytail as he came to Kibum’s side, putting his hands under another faucet, “You’re still here, too? Maybe we could walk to practice together—what’s with the long face . . . and why is there water all over the mirror?”

 Kibum’s hands rubbed his face in embarrassment as he realized that this was a public bathroom and he shouldn’t have splashed water all over the mirror like it was his own, “Onew-Hyung . . .”

Both faucets stopped and Onew replied, “What’s wrong, Key?”

 The silence stood in the air between them as Kibum put together his thoughts and it made everything just awkward.

  Kibum finally groaned and weakly slammed his fists on the edge of the sink, staring at his elder with tired eyes, “I think my time is up, Onew-Hyung. I think I’ll do worse today than yesterday. I think I’m done with this—I know I won’t debut,” he confessed, clutching the sink rims.

 His was disappointed in himself for being this way. He was so excited and he worked so hard for two years on his own and now he wanted to throw it away because he didn’t want to hear the truth from his teachers.

 Maybe from the start he was doggedly averting himself away from the truth. His time as a trainee was just a waste of time and he just got lucky on getting in.

  “Are you serious?” Onew questioned in astonishment, “Key, are you literally being serious, right now?”

  “Does it look like I’m faking, Hyung?” he spat, “Who would even joke about this?”

 The answer was no one. No one would even dare to joke about quitting. It was like it was a forbidden subject.

  “Key, seriously,” Onew stepped forward, placing a hand on his shoulder, “If this is about the trainers, you know why they act like that. They have to be tough on us.”

  “Yeah, but they want us to be perfect!” he protested, shrugging off the hand on his shoulder, “Ever since that one day I squeaked, that sing-song teacher hates me. Ever since that one day I danced in freestyle, the choreography teacher has kept too close of an eye on me. They all tell me that after two years I still resemble too much of myself from audition and I just can’t escape from it!” He clutched his hair with a hand and sighed.

  “Student,” the teacher ordered, “Go higher.”

   Kibum bowed his head in obedience, filling his lungs with air before traveling up to the highest note he could manage. When he found it, his voice strained a little and his throat vibrated uncomfortably, embarrassing him in front of the other trainees.

  “Now,” the teacher stared at him sternly, “Go even higher.”

Kibum squeezed his eyes shut and tried going higher, but his vocals wouldn’t move up.

  “I said higher, Kibum,” the teacher harshly demanded.

 Kibum drew in a large breath and started at the same place, once more trying again to go higher while clutching the edges of his chair.

 What came out was this awful, ear piercing screech that absolutely no one wanted to hear. He cut himself short and widened his eyes, feeling his cheeks flush in mortification.

  “That was awful,” the teacher insulted, “Go to the other side of the room and practice with what’s-his-face over there and learn to go higher than ever. Next!”

  The music was blaring and Kibum couldn’t help himself but nod to the beat with his head, slowly and casually making his way to the middle of the dance room, staring at himself in the mirror in confidence.

The beat picked up and the vocals to the song started, Kibum instantly reacting.

 He popped his chest and started sharply moving his body around, fluently moving from one move to the next in a heartbeat without flaw, showing off how well he thought he did.

 It went on like that throughout the song, soon coming to an end, Kibum stopping with a pose at the left of the room.

The other students clapped and cheered for Kibum, showering him in compliments.

When the teacher strode up to him, Kibum wiped the smile from his face, bowing.

  “That was good, student,” he praised, “Now do better.”

 Kibum was taken aback when he heard the order, giving him a questioning gaze, but didn’t have the heart to actually voice out his confusion.

 The teacher pointed him to move back to the middle of the floor before the music started again. When Kibum starting dancing again, trying to do even better, he kept glancing at the teacher occasionally through the mirror.

He wasn’t impressed.

  “Key,” Onew sighed, holding on to both of his shoulders and forcefully turning Kibum to him, “You can’t give up right now. Mostly, you can’t give up before today ends.”

  “Why not now?” Kibum rolled his eyes, trying to shove Onew’s hands away, but couldn’t succeed, “I don’t believe in this anymore.”

Onew shook him harshly, his mouth dropping open in disbelief, “You do not mean that.”

  Kibum rolled his eyes again, scoffing as he stared back into his reflection. He pointed at it with a shaking finger, “See that, Hyung? That has lost hope. That knows that others have been here for more than four years to debut but can’t stand being there for two. That tried doing well in rapping yesterday, but completely failed. That looks awful. That wants to believe that debut is just around the corner, when it really isn’t. That just wants to stop. ”

 Onew shook him again, anger arising, “Shut up,” he growled, “That is Kim Kibum and that is not giving up on my watch and that’s final, you hear me? Come on,” Onew’s hands left Kibum’s shoulders and roughly took a hand, dragging him out of the bathroom, seemingly not caring about any protest.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Dance studio,” he simply said, “You can’t quit before dance practice. Today of all days is the last test and you have to do it. If you don’t try, I swear to God, I’ll be so disappointed in you that I won’t know what to do with you, Key.”

 Kibum huffed, clearly not wanting to even take part of it. Although . . . it shouldn’t be too bad since this could definitely prove today was his last.

 Onew tripped over air as he tried quickening his pace, checking each clock he passed to see if they were late.

Soon enough, they skidded to a stop and Onew let go of Kibum’s hand, looking him with his sincere, narrow eyes, “You’re going to do great, Key. You always have. You have more of a chance making it than me,” he tried joking, but utterly failed.

 He opened the door, revealing how crowded the inside was even though it was a large room. Onew forced Kibum into the room and the younger grunted.

 To be honest, he was getting scared as the mirrors were being covered with large pieces of cardboard with pictures of clouds on them and a table was set up in the middle of the room with four judges, two female and two male, sitting there, observing papers scattered all over the table.

 None of them were the judges from years before and it made everything more perturbing. He knew these people would be even harder on him than his teachers; there was no way he was to pass.

  “Good, you’ve made it,” their dance teacher smiled, getting behind the two and pushing them forward to join the group getting ready to dance, “We’re doing that song we’ve been working a lot on, so you should do it perfectly. Go on, make me proud, guys.”

 Kibum and Onew were shoved to the group, both making sheepish smiles at them—even though they already knew each other, a few weren’t really friendly.

 Both of them huddled closer to the three people they knew best through their years of training: Taemin, Minho, and Jonghyun.

  No one understood why Minho wanted to be a rapper—he would’ve made it easier on himself if he just became an athlete. Minho was skyscraper high and a major sports player so he never had a problem working out. He could’ve made it as a model, too. He was tall, dark, had a pair of adorable frog-like eyes, long black hair and he had this quiet personality that everyone fell for.

  Jonghyun was a fantastic singer and a pretty decent dancer. He was the shortest among the five of them with the structure of a dinosaur (and he was always teased about it), darker than Minho, brown hair and had eyes similar to a puppy. Key knew there was no way Jonghyun wouldn’t debut with a voice like his—if he didn’t make it, he’d have another reason to call it quits.

  Now, Taemin was the youngest of the group—he was only fourteen and it would be a miracle yet a disadvantage if he debuted by next year (due to basically having no social life). He was a lot younger than Jonghyun, but was actually taller than him, though, a lot bonier compared to Jonghyun’s muscle. He had a bowl cut hairstyle in jet black—and for goodness sake he looked way too young to be doing any of this. He wasn’t too good at singing, but he was an amazing dancer at heart. Even though he never received any praise for his talent, everyone knew the teachers were thinking he was too good.

There were about four other people in the group to perform with but they were snide people. All five of them would’ve been totally happy if those four got sent home in rejection.

  “Guys,” Onew sighed, “Convince Key he’s got a bigger chance than he thinks he does.”

  “Of course he does!” They all chorused, staring Key down like he was mad.

  “You’re the best, Hyung,” Taemin supported with thumbs up.

Minho stood next to him and patted his shoulder, “You’re a better rapper than I am, Hyung.”

  “And I’d seriously die without you,” Jonghyun over exaggerated.

 While it was all flattering, Key still didn’t feel he was up to the judges’ standards, and right now, that’s all he could care about.

  “Everyone, stop lazing and get ready!” their teacher commanded.

Key sighed, stiffly walking into place and avoiding the judges’ gazes that turned to him.

  “You’ll do fine, Key. Fighting!” Onew whispered from behind him.

Kibum froze.

  “You’ll do fine, Key!” Onew once said before Key took the test to prove he improved his vocals and could rap, “Fighting!”

  “Kim Kibum . . . Pass!”

 Kibum’s eyes wandered across the table, watching the judges discriminate on each boy. He felt knots twisting in his stomach and he swore he was going to be sick.

  “I can’t do this, Hyung,” he whispered, hoping Onew would hear.

But he couldn’t gain a response due to the music starting.

Since he thought it was going to be his last time, he may as well just try for the heck of it.

 The sound of bass pulsed through the room and Kibum could feel himself already gaining some confidence back easily.

 In an instant, he was sharply performing the choreographed dance, pulling his body in different directions and feeling the bass with his feet.

 He spun, communicated with his friends accordingly, even stepping up to the plate to stop dancing the choreography to stand in front of everyone, enthusiastically pretending he had a microphone in his hand and lip synced with the original vocals.

What am I doing?

 He hadn’t realized he was trying harder than he intended to, but he couldn’t stop it now; he was far too into the music to try.

  “Kim Kibum . . . Pass!”

  He returned to his spot and fluently moved to the back, turning his back to the judges, stopping as a few others had solo parts. Onew was alongside him and they snuck glances. Onew smiled knowingly at Kibum and Kibum stuck his tongue out at him without the judges being able to see.

He picked up his part again, popping and swiftly changing to each dance move.

He didn’t want to believe that he was going to pass, yet at this moment, he was trying so hard to.

  He watched the strict observers, his heart plundering when he noticed they looked at him and their faces seemed to go from poker to disapproval. He wanted to start shutting down; he was feeling even more depressed than he had before. He thought he really had no chance.

  “Kim Kibum . . . Pass!”

  The final moments of the song arrived and that meant the complicated finished had to be perfect. He always had a hard time coordinating his body to twist in such an odd direction, but he wanted to try.

  He pained him as he bent back as far as he could go, snapping back up and flipping forward. When his hands hit the floor, trying to balance himself to complete the flip, he was completely convinced this was over.

 He pushed from the ground and successfully landed on his feet, stumbling a little, but nonetheless doing it better than he had before. He raised a fist in the air like everyone else as the song came to a halt.

 The other trainees on the sides clapped in support as well as all of the teachers. All of the boys bowed to the judges, formally thanking them and staying put, waiting for their final decision.

The five friends came together, taking hopeful glances at each other.

  Kibum’s heartbeat sped as he watched the judges contemplate with each others’ notes and comments. They pointed at everyone with their pencils, but not at him. He was on the verge of tears as he watched them specifically eying Onew. He definitely knew Onew would make it and he’d be so excited for him.

  They gave special attention to each person, but not him, and Kibum finally faced defeat. There really was no point of being here. His dream of being an idol was thrown out the window and it flew far away from him.

The judges seemed to have come to a decision, standing as they held papers in their hands.

  “First to debut and as the leader,” a lady spoke, “Lee Jinki.”

Onew stuttered with words, widening his eyes before bowing multiple times towards the judges, “Thank you!”

  “Second to debut and as lead dancer,” the second lady spoke, “Lee Taemin.”

Taemin’s fingers curled around the front of his shirt, looking completely lost on so many levels, “I-I made it?”

Onew grabbed Taemin and hugged him close, whispering in Taemin’s ear something Kibum couldn’t hear.

  “Third to debut and as a lead vocal,” the first male said with a tone of finality, “Kim Jonghyun.”

Instantly, Jonghyun’s hand flew to his mouth, eyes turning red and tearing up.

  “Fourth to debut and as one of the two rappers,” the last male said, “Choi Minho.”

Minho’s head tilted back, kissing two fingers and holding them up to the ceiling in relief before grabbing on to Jonghyun and shielding his tear streaked face from everyone.

  “And lastly,” the last male announced once more.

Kibum could feel heat rising to his face, his eyes full of so much water that he could see properly—he could only see blurred colors.

It seemed like forever for the man to announce the last member. He let the silence hang in the air and slowly kill Kibum as the seconds ticked by.

  “Last to debut as a rapper with these four boys . . .”

Key shut his eyes, the tears already falling. This was it. This was really it.

He covered his face with both of his hands, not wanting anyone to look at his red face. The pressure just kept building up and it was evident on his face—he just wanted to explode.

  “Kim Kibum.”

Pass.

He fell to his knees as relief washed over him like a tsunami hit Pohang. The tears came faster down his cheeks and he lightly sobbed into his hands.

  “Congratulations, boys,” one of the women spoke, “Congratulations on becoming SM Entertainment’s newest boy group, SHINee.”

The entire room clapped and cheered for the boys in support.

There was an embrace Kibum got stuck in and he sobbed even harder, emitting a small ‘thank you’ from the midst of his crying.

  “You did it, Key,” Onew whispered in his ear, “You should’ve never thought of giving up. You’re going to be famous, Key.”

He nodded, listening to Onew chuckle when he leaned back on him.

  “I did it,” he whispered, producing the best watery smile he could manage

It was four year later and in March. Key was fixing his blond hair in a dressing room mirror, preparing himself for the comeback stage.

SHINee had made their debut in 2008, a year after the final test, and they came on extremely strong. They were well liked and they gained thousands of fans in just one week—even now it was still growing.

The rest of the group were resting on chairs, letting the coordi-noonas fix their appearance for them.

  “So,” Onew, SHINee’s leader breathed, “Everyone ready? It’s been almost two years since we had a true comeback.”

All of the members agreed with murmurs, mostly ignoring the eldest and trying to practice their parts at the last minute.

 Key smiled into the mirror at Onew, chuckling at his dumbfounded expression when everyone just went on with business like he said nothing at all.

  “Hey, that’s not way to treat the oldest!” he complained.

 Key scoffed, finished with fixing his hair and sitting on the leg of the small sofa Onew sat upon, “Stop complaining, old man.”

He watched as Onew’s face turned red at the name he’d been called for years and just sat quietly without another complaint—it made Key chuckle again.

 Ever since being accepted into SHINee, Key’s behavior towards his job took a total three-sixty, avoiding negative thoughts whenever he could.

Key scolded himself on multiple occasions when he thought about his attitude during pre-debut. He knew it was absolutely ridiculous for doubting his abilities, but at the same time he couldn’t fully blame himself. It turned out that a lot of trainees were on the verge of quitting too—some of them actually did.

But he learned that he shouldn’t have tried giving up his dreams, his hopes, and his beliefs on being a rapper for a crowd. He realized the years of training truly did teach him more than he thought and that his old teacher, even though they were still strict with him whenever they met, really meant no real harm on him. Onew was right; they just needed to push him to be stronger.

  “Boys,” their manager opened the door, “Let’s go make that comeback.”

All of them stood, walking out the door and reciting ‘We are SHINee! Fighting!’ all the way to the stage.

Key smiled when he stepped in front of the crowd, shill cries screaming from the audience and it filled his heart with euphoria, giving him the needed initiative to get himself ready for a mind-blowing comeback.

The boys lined one behind another on stage left and Key looked at his best friend that he was faced with.

Onew smiled, his eyes turning to crescents and asked, “You still believe?”

Key bit his lip and lightly shoved his shoulder before resuming his position.

  “I still believe.”

---Note~---

Okay, hi there~ cccc:

I can't believe I got this done in ONE day and made it exactly ten pages that my teacher said was the cut off.

Oh my god, so relieved right now.

It's been edited and everything; thank you to JullieteShawol1.

This was for a plot-practice assignment. I really couldn't build a strong , and now I can't because of the page limit. D:

I really hope he doesn't take points off because it's not my style to indent . . .

Like I said, this was a Key-centered oneshot and Onew kind of played a big part, so I considered this as an OnKey in some simple way.

I'm so proud of myself. I really hope I did well.

I turned it in, so I hope I did well. xD

I'm off to go do the rest of that Driver's Ed homework. I get in a car for the first time Wednesday. Totally not ready. . . I just realized I have tests tomorrow. OTL

I spend about seven hours on this; what a useful Sunday.

TL;DR I'll stop blabbering on about nonsense.

Thank you to every reader, commenter, and subscriber. Legit makes my day, my night, my everything. It's gets me inspired. <3

BYE!

~FlaMinhoe

( Tumblr )

Edit: I swear to god, if I didn't correct led to lead, it was going to kill me.

Edit 2: I finally just put in all the edits, I couldn't take it anymore. xD