January 19, 2012

"Annyeonghasaeyo~" Aimi greeted with a smile as she jogged past the ahjummas and ahjusshis in the park. Some of them were sitting down on the benches, some of them doing light exercises, while others were watching their young children or grandchildren.

It was winter, and even though it was freezing outside, the park was still full of life. Aimi smiled and hummed to herself and she continued jogging, wanting to build her stamina for her debut. She had woken up at 6.30am that day, while her other members were all still sleeping. She was determined to run 2.4km before she had to return to the dorm to make breakfast for her members, which was at 8.

As Aimi was jogging, she came across a small pond with many rocks around it. Curious, she bent down, picking up a few rocks. She noticed that they were flat and round, and just the size of a palm. Recalling that she had read on internet that rocks like that make good rocks to skip on the water, she decided to test it out for herself. Except, she didn't really know how to do it. 

Plop. The first rock plunged straight into the water, creating ripples. She tried again. The next few rocks followed exactly what the first rock did. 

"Gah! This is so hard!" Aimi whined, randomly throwing a rock away. 

"Ah!" She heard a pained shout. Aimi snapped her head towards the voice. She saw a man, maybe in his twenties, bending down picking down a rock that she supposed had hit his leg. Her eyes widened when she realised that it was the rock she had thrown away.

"Omo!" Aimi gasped to herself. "Ah... what should I do?" Before the stranger turned to look at her, Aimi did the most unlikely thing a motherly figure like her would do - she turned to run away.

Lay looked up from inspecting the rock that just hit him. He turned to the direction of where he thought it came from, and saw a girl running away, seeming like she was trying to hide her face behind her scarf. That must be the person that hit me with the rock, he thought as he ran after her. Usually, Lay would just brush it off, but today, there was something about the girl which just piqued his curiousity. With his long legs, he soon caught up with her, and tugged the end of her scarf.

"Eh, aren't you Song Soojin-sshi?" He asked when he saw the face of the girl.

The girl widened her eyes. "N-neh, but my stage name is Aimi," Aimi replied, bowing. "But how do you know who I am?" 

"I'm a trainee too. I'll be debuting in Exo," Lay replied. "Were you the one who threw the rock at me?" He held up the rock and asked, going straight to the point. Aimi coughed loudly. 

"Uhm... Neh, joesonghamnida," She bowed again, blushing from embarrassment. 

"No need to keep bowing," Lay replied, "but next time, watch where you throw the rocks! You could have hit a young kid! And then you'd get chased by their parents or grandparents. And since you have a stage name, I take it that you're debuting soon. And if those people recognise you when you debut, you can get a bad reputation!" He continued nagging, while Aimi just nodded her head now and then. 

"Are you done?" Aimi asked, mildly rolling her eyes. Lay had been nagging at her for the past five minutes. 

"Nope," Lay replied, before continuing, "don't you have training today? And what band are you in? When are you going to debut?" he asked, bombarding her with new questions. 

"Wow, inspector, I'd have expected you to know what band I'm debuting in since your band actually wrote messages for mine when we moved into our new dorm," Aimi replied, blowing at her fringe. 

"Oh, really?" Lay asked, scratching his neck. "I must've forgotten again," Tch, so forgetful. Aimi thought.

"Anyways, I don't have training today because it's my rest day. And I have to go back soon. I have to make breakfast for my members," She said, bowing again then walking away, glancing at her watch. 7:55am.

"I'll see you around!" The voice behind her called excitedly. And that was when Aimi realised she didn't ask for his name.

"Unnie! Where did you go?" Moon asked, walking up to Aimi when she entered the dorm. 

"I was jogging," Aimi answered, making her way to the kitchen. 

"During winter?" Moon gasped.

"Neh," Aimi answered, not looking up from the frying pan. She was making omelettes for the members, and heated up the kimchi chigae she made the previous night. "Can you wake the other members up for me?" Aimi requested. 

"Okay," Moon replied, going to the room she shared with Angelle, realising that her roommate was mumbling in her sleep again. 

"The stars are pretty~" Angelle dreamily said. 

"Yeah, the stars are extremely beautiful~" Moon said, playing along. "Gel, wake up!" She said, gently shaking Angelle. 

"Mm... Five more minutes umma..." Angelle mumbled, swatting Moon's hand away. 

"I'm not your umma," Moon shot back, pulling Angelle's pillow away from her head.

"Arasso! Arasso! Go wake the others!" Angelle complained, sitting up. "Our practice starts only in the afternoon, can't we sleep in?" She whined. Moon smiled, threw the pillow back at Angelle and made her way to Ji Eun and Hope's room. 

"WAKE UP!" She shouted, not bothering to waste any time. Ji Eun woke up immediately. However, Hope was still in deep sleep.

"Maknae, wake up~" Ji Eun shook Hope, who only groaned in response. 

"Yah, wake up!" Moon shook Hope harder, forcefully removing her pillow like she did with Angelle.

"Mmm... Five minutes..." Hope replied, covering her ears with her hands. 

"Andwae! Now means now! Get up!" Moon started hitting Hope with the pillow.

"Five minutes, just five more minutes, please," Hope begged, rolling over.

"I give up," Moon said exasperatedly, throwing the pillow at Hope. "I'm going to wake Haeli-unnie and Jae-unnie. Ji Eun-unnie, you can deal with her right?" Ji Eun nodded with a small smile, ruffling her already messy hair. Moon got up and went to Haeli, Jae and Aimi's room. 

"Haeli-unnie, wakey wakey," Moon tapped her shoulder. 

"I'm up, I'm up," Haeli opened her eyes almost immediately and sat up. Moon smiled. At least there were two people that were easy to wake. 

"Jae-unnie, wake up~" Moon shook Jae. No response. "Jae-unnie!" she shouted again, pulling the pillow away from Jae's head. Still no response. "Yah! Unnie!" She started hitting Jae's arm, and then her shoulders, before shaking her. Jae stirred a little, but other than that, no reaction. 

"Let me try," Haeli said, flicking Jae's forehead. She woke up instantly.

"Yah! What was that for?" Jae complained groggily, rubbing her forehead. 

"You wouldn't wake up, no matter what Moon did," Haeli explained calmly. "Now let's wash up, come on~"

"I probably should check on Hope. I hope Ji Eun-unnie was able to wake her up..." Moon thought to herself, walking out of the room. 

"Unnie! Did you wake the maknae?" Moon asked as she walked into Ji Eun and Hope's room. 

"Almost," Ji Eun smiled, still shaking Hope.

"Unnie... Stop shaking me..." Hope complained.

"Not until you wake up!" Moon replied. 

"I am awake!" Hope retorted. 

"Okay, correction, Not until you stand up and walk out of this room!" Moon said, getting frustrated. The maknae seemed to be harder to wake today.

"Fine!" With that, Hope stood up abruptly, swaying a little before regaining her balance. She then walked to the couch in the living room, lying down on it. "I stood up, and I walked out of my room!" She announced. When Moon saw her, she sighed. 

". Off. The. Couch," Moon punctuated each sentence with a gentle hit on Hope's shoulders or arms. Finally, Hope decided to sit up, not without complaining about how annoying Moon was, earning a thump on her head. She then stood up to go to the kitchen to get a glass of milk, sat at the dining table and rested her head of the table, leaving Aimi shaking her head.

Angelle sprawled herself on the couch in the living room, using her phone while the TV was on.

"You should sit properly, what if one of our managers suddenly come in?" Aimi nagged while she stood beside the couch, fixing her clothes.

"Unnie, where are you going?" Angelle asked, sitting upright as she noticed that Aimi was wearing a long sleeve shirt, a casual cardigan, and a beige coloured coat outside.

"Jae wanted to go around DDM to get new training clothes, so I offered to go with her since we have time before practice today," Aimi replied. Angelle formed an 'o' with and nodded, turning back to her phone. "Do you have any plans? Want to follow us? I think Ji Eun, Hope and Haeli are heading to the practice rooms again."

Angelle shook her head, smiling a little. "Nah, it's fine, I guess Moon-unnie and I will just hang around at home and enjoy our last few days of relaxation before we fully start on our album."

Aimi chuckled. "Alright, but don't snack too much, okay? Remember that you're supposed to be on a strict diet!"

"Yes ma'am," Angelle quickly said, giving Aimi a salute. She didn't want Aimi to continue nagging. "Jae-unnie! Aimi-unnie's waiting for you!"

Jae casually walked out, wearing a knitted top and black bottoms with her bag slung over her shoulder, and grabbed her coat off the rack on the way.

"Get the scarfs as well," Angelle reminded. "It's freezing out there, plus the company wants us to keep a low profile for now."

"Let's leave together!" Ji Eun and Hope also came out, followed by Haeli. "We're heading to the company building for personal practice first," she informed the members present, getting her scarf and Haeli's from the rack, "so we'll meet you later at the practice room for our vocal practice."  Angelle saw Jae helping Hope put her scarf around her neck nicely, and was happy to see them getting along better as the days went by. Moon didn't come out of the room, and Angelle waved the other members bye as they excitedly headed out of the dorms for what they had planned that day.

"Have fun!" She called. She skipped to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water, before heading to the living room once again, thinking of what she could do that day.

"Unnie~" Angelle called as she found Moon in front of the computer the seven girls shared in the study room walk-in closet. "Do you have anything you want to do today?"

"Not really," Moon mumbled as she continued scrolling through the webpage she was on. "But hey, I'm going through our sunbaes past interviews and shows  as some sort of research," she said, using air quotation marks. "You want to look through it with me?" Angelle pulled a nearby chair next to Moon and the two of them sat there, randomly clicking on their sunbaes past variety shows.

Suddenly, there was a vibration on the table and Angelle saw that she had received a text message.

"Oh! It's from Minho Oppa," she exclaimed, excitedly that she was finally hearing from her cousin. "Yah," she said, nudging Moon, "he says that he has no schedules 'til practice in an hour or so, and asks if we want to meet at SHINee's dorm. Do you want to go with me?" Angelle asked Moon as she showed her the text message.

Moon made a face. "Nah, it's fine, i think it'll be kind of awkward if I went. You know what I'd be thinking the whole time, right?" She turned to face Angelle. "Is it even legal for us to visit their dorm?"

Angelle shrugged. "I dunno, but I assume it is? And maybe it's the time to prove you wrong!"

Moon stubbornly shook her head. "You can go on your own," she insisted.

Angelle sighed, exasperated. "Okay then, don't get too lonely~" Moon shook her head as she waved the younger girl out.

Angelle quickly changed into a white long-sleeved shirt and black skinnies, threw on a coat with a scarf, and packed her training wear in her bag so she could go straight from SHINee's dorm. After informing Miss Song that she would be at the males' building, she walked two streets down to the building Minho had told her their dorm was at.

"Oppa!" Angelle squealed as soon as she saw her cousin pacing up and down in front of the building entrance with a coat and a cap. She skipped over to him before giving Minho an awkward hug around his waist. Minho smiled as he threw his arm over Angelle's shoulder and tapped his card to unlock the entrance door.

"So, I heard someone would be debuting," Minho said with a gleam in his eye once in the lift.

Angelle nodded eagerly. "Annyeonghasaeyo, Ayise's Angelle Park imnida," she teased. "Do I get to meet your members today?"

Minho nodded. "Jonghyun hyung has a schedule though, so you'll meet him another day." He narrowed his eyes at Angelle and crossed his arms. "Did you learn their names yet?" He asked as the lift door opened.

"Their names yes, not their faces," Angelle said as a matter-of-factly. "You know me." Minho rolled his eyes as he pushed the door to SHINee's dorm open.

"Annyeonghasaeyo~!" Angelle was overwhelmed by the three boys waiting in the dorm to greet them, the loudest one being a blonde boy with a feminine voice who popped out from the kitchen. She hesitantly stepped into the dorm, bowing a little and greeting the whole group of boys.

"Do you know us?" A boy with chocolate brown hair asked her. He had a deep but smooth, unique voice. After listening to SHINee's songs a couple of times before, she managed to identify him as Onew, but still shook her head sheepishly.

The blonde boy who stepped out from the kitchen chortled loudly. His laughter was unique, going like 'AHAHAHA' instead of the usual 'HAHAHAHA'.

"I'm SHINee's Almighty Key, nice to meet you~" he waved enthusiastically.

"I'm maknae Taemin," the other blonde boy in the room introduced himself. He seemed awkward, and looked like he was itching to go back to his video game.

"Hi, I'm Onew," the chocolate-coloured hair boy said in English. "You're from Singapore, right?" He continued in Korean, and Angelle nodded.

Bowing, she introuduced herself. "Annyeonghasaeyo, Angela Park imnida, but my stage name is Angelle."

"You're debuting in Ayise, right?" Taemin asked, then giggled. "Your group is so tall. Jonghyun hyung freaked out the other day," he said, which left the other  members chuckling.

There was an awkward silence.

"Just treat this as your own dorm, make yourself feel at home," Minho told Angelle, and the other SHINee members agreed. Key went back into the kitchen, and Onew went into the room. Angelle shuffled towards the couch, and awkwardly sat down as Taemin continued his soccer video game.

"You want to play?" Taemin offered, reaching out for the other game console. "You can play for Minho hyung." Angelle smiled. She was surprisingly good at this, and although she hardly played it, she always won when playing with her group members. it was exciting to have a new opponent. Within minutes of playing, Angelle had scored two goals, while Taemin only scored one.

"Goal!" Angelle shouted again, jumping up and down in excitement.

"Yah hyungs, she's damn good at this!" Taemin exclaimed, sliding off the couch in defeat. 

"And she has the same habits as Minho, jumping around when she scores a goal," Onew added.

"Don't get distracted," Angelle giggled, tapping Taemin's shoulder. He quickly recovered and soon, Minho, Key and Onew were by their sides, watching the exciting match as well.

"Angelle, how old are you this year?" Key asked.

"I'm turning 18 this year," Angelle replied, her eyes still fully fixed on the screen.

"I debuted at the same age," Key said thoughtfully. "What's your position in the group?"

"Triple threat."

"That's what the netizens call me too!" Key said smugly.

"And the next you know, she's good with cameras as well," Onew interjected. Angelle nodded, concentrating on the game as she and Taemin were fighting for the ball.

"Stop flirting with her," Minho whined.

"Oppas, you're so noisy," Angelle complained, and the next moment, Taemin was happily screaming goal over and over again.

"Oppas?" Key raised his eyebrow. "Wah, you do warm up to people very easily..."

"Ah!" Angelle felt her cheeks heat up in embarrassment. "Mianhaeyo, Key-sshi."

'Ani, ani! It's better that way," Key quickly said. "Then we'll speak comfortably, okay?" Angelle smiled and nodded, happy that she had made three new friends.

Minho suddenly gasped, looking at his watch.

"We have half an hour 'til practice," he said, jumping up from where he was sitting, "and we haven't had lunch yet." The other SHINee members started panicking.

"Argh, we're going to be late even if we collect food from the company cafeteria," Key groaned. "We still have to do our warm-up."

"We were so excited playing that we forgot about our hunger,' Taemin said, switching the game off.

There was a stagnant pause, everyone thinking of what to do.

"I would say skip lunch but it's not good to dance on an empty stomach," Key said, with his arms folded.

"I can collect lunch for you guys and bring it to your practice room if you want," Angelle quietly offered, and all the members looked at her. "I mean, it isn't that hard, and I can get one of my members to help me."

"Wah, lifesaver!" Taemin clapped his hands in glee. "I miss the food from there too, we hardly eat there anymore," he pouted.

Thank you then!!" Onew and Key gushed, and Minho just smiled.

"But it isn't smart to dance on a full stomach either, so just get something easy and light?" Onew suggested as the four boys piled out of the door, with Angelle trailing behind them. She nodded as she put on her shoes, whipping her phone out to call Moon.

"You must be kidding me," Moon groaned as soon as she heard what the younger girl had to say over the phone. "Okay fine, where are we meeting? Yes yes, i will hurry." She grumbled as Angelle hung up, and she reluctantly got out of her comfortable chair in front of the computer. As she changed into her traning wear, a white tank top with a jacket over and matching training pants, she decided that it would be good to get to know her SM seniors better before debuting. Even if she was already good friends with some of them, she only talked to Jonghyun regularly from SHINee.

She quickly poured a glass of water, drank it, and while humming, grabbed her hooded coat, the last on the rack. Miss Song wasn't in her apartment, so Moon sent a short text to let her know where she would be. She met Angelle at the lobby, who gasped upon seeing her.

"Unnie! We only have 20 minutes 'til their practice start, we take 10 minutes to walk there, 5 minutes to collect the food, that leaves them only 5 minutes to eat! And then we have to eat too!"

Moon laughed as she saw the younger girl's panic. "it's fine, we'll just get more of something really easy to eat, then they can eat during their short breaks," she said, as Angelle hurriedly dragged her out of the building. "Why did you have to drag me into this though?"

"If not, you'll be eating instant ramyun for lunch," Angelle pointed out. "Plus, the cafeteria food isn't all that bad. They're prepared according to our diet, so we can eat freely there! And it's free for us."

Moon nodded sleepily. "Okay, okay, I get it. You're younger than me yet you nag more."

Haeli hummed to herself as she walked back to the vocal practice room after collecting more score books from her vocal trainer. Ji Eun and Hope had went for personal dance practice yet again, but Haeli had wanted to practice her singing and piano-playing skills instead. She happily skipped towards the room, callously swinging the books with her right hand.

Switching the lights on again, Haeli went into the room and grabbed her bottle of water and sat on the table, swinging her legs while looking through the new songbooks she had just received. Most of them were oldies or choir songs, but Haeli knew they were the best to help her improve her emotions and increase her vocal range, rather than practising with recent pop songs. She tried two or three of them, and once she felt like her voice was tiring out, she moved to the piano bench and grabbed the closest scorebook she saw.

"Hmm... I like Yiruma," Haeli remarked and nodded to herself as she flipped open the book to a random page, wanting to practise her sight reading. It was a common and popular song, River Flows In You, but Haeli loved that song and she played it without problems.

After finishing the piece, she looked at her watch and realized that she had half an hour left before she had to leave for lunch before her dance practice. She thought about how she wanted to spent the last half an hour of personal practice, and remembered the book that her vocal trainer had recommended to increase her vocal range.

"Let's do the practices seongsaeng-nim recommended," Haeli said, talking to herself again as she stood up and walked over to the stack of books on the table. "Now, where is it........"

She started to panic as she couldn't find the green book her trainer had handed her. She went through the stack three times slowly, yet still couldn't find it.

"Where can it be?" Haeli furrowed her eyebrows with her hands firmly planted on the table, chewing her lips as she tried to remember where the last time she saw the book was.

"I must have dropped it outside!" She exclaimed, knocking her head with her hand and not believing that she could be so careless. She quicky ran out, hoping that no one had picked it up and taken it away.

"Always standing right there protecting me, always receiving the hate I should have received, with no words, you’ve embraced me, so now I’ll reflect you as a mirror," Jonghyun sang softly as he exited the recording studio he was in. He had just finished writing a song, and had handed it in to thier producers to see if it could be used in the next album.

He would have a group dance practice which would last 'til 6 that day, and because he was tired, he wasn't very enthusiastic about. He stretched before looking at his watch, and then he look around the corridor, his feet not willing to move. About five metres to his left, he saw an A4-sized book lying on the floor, opened and facing down. He walked towards it and picked it up, looking through it and realizing that it was his vocal trainer's. Shaking his head, he peeked into the vocal practice rooms one by one, trying to see which practice room he was in. As he peeked into one of them, he saw a girl playing the piano in the room.

"Aish, seongsaeng-nim," he mumbled to himself as he cocked his head to the sides, not seeing his trainer in any of the rooms. He quickly flipped through the book, before looking around again.

Suddenly, he heard a door slam open, and saw the girl he saw in the room looking very flustered. She was wearing a tank top, and a sports jacket over. The girl seemed to be looking for something, turning her head left and right while looking on the floor, not even noticing that he was standing at the end of the corridor.

"Ahem," Jonghyun cleared his throat, not used to someone ignoring his presence, especially a girl.

The girl snapped her head to his side. "Oh, annyeonghasaeyo sunbaenim!" She bowed 90-degrees.

"Are you looking for this?" Jonghyun asked, holding up the songbook he had found and walking towards her. Jonghyun noticed that her face had lit up and was also walking towards her.

"Yes!" She said. As she approached him, Jonghyun froze, realizing that she was as tall as him. Dazed, he stretched out his hand, giving the back the book.

"'We have the same vocal trainer," he commented, trying to keep a straight face. "And um, you're really tall." The girl giggled, and Jonghyun felt his face heat up. "Are you debuting soon? Since you're training in this part of the building," Jonghyun babbled, not wanting an awkward pause. "I think I've seen you around before. Your name is.......Choi Haera, right?"

The girl nodded eagerly, hugging the songbook to her chest. "My stage name is Haeli, though," she added helpfully.

"So we're going to be labelmates," Jonghyun smiled, and then looking at his watch, exclaimed, "oh, I need to go for practice! I'll see you around?" He asked Haeli.

Haeli smiled. "I have practice too, but yeah, I'll see you around." With that, she bowed and turned around, walking back to the practice room she was in before.

The two girls ordered different types of burgers, sandwiches and salads as well, including food for themselves.

"i think they said something about being on the third floor......." Angelle wondered out loud as they walked into the training building, greeting the staff members behind the receptionist counter.

"You mean you're not sure?" Moon questioned, facepalming with her free hand. The two girls climbed the stairs to the third level, where Angelle hurried down the corridor to check if SHINee was in any of the practice rooms. She stopped in front of one, trying to peek who was inside through the transluscent door.

"Yah, I don't think they're here," Moon remarked, abruptly turning around and walking into someone around 10cm taller than her. "Omo!" She exclaimed, almost falling but quickly regaining her balance but dropping the food in her hands.

"Joeseonghamnida! Joeseonghamnida!' Moon bowed repeatedly before crouching down to pick the food. "Aish, it's all ruined," she murmured as she saw the bowl of salad strewn all over the plastic bag. She looked up at the person she bumped into, wanting to apologize once more, but stopped short when she saw a pair of ice cold eyes piercing through her.

A/N: Yay cliffhanger! It's probably really obvious though ahahaha. Anyway, we're sorry for publishing this chapter only now! It has been an unpublished chapter for a few weeks already >< Also, we might take longer to update because school just started for us and it's really tiring :( don't worry, we'll still update, we'll just take a (little bit) longer~ we still come online though, so you can message us for anything if you want :)

Also, some other things:

1: If you have any scene request, please PM us! It makes our work easier too hehehehe.
2: Let us know if we're potraying your character wrongly. You can be honest with us :D We sometimes tend to write and write and stray from the original idea.... you know what I mean? Haha xD

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