-- Geum Min

I trace my arm, all the way down to my fingertips, with my gaze - watching as my fingers curl inwards and I arc my hand. Gracefully letting it fall down, I raise my eyes to the mirror opposite me. Reflection-Geummin does the same, and I can see my twin doing something similar further down. Suddenly something strikes me - there are four lookalikes in the room now. 

Oh well, we look similar. Not really alike - I'm far better-looking.

Of course, if you ask my twin, you'd get a different answer, but don't trust her, she's deluded.

As the beat of the music changes, I smirk and jerk myself to the left, ing my left arm into the air as I do a quick body wave. I finish the step by stamping my feet and propelling myself into the air, twisting in midair to land in a pose. Freezing in position, I wait as the others finish their movements before I join back in, just before the chorus. 

The thing about dancing is this: you just need to move your body to the rhythm, and enjoy yourself while doing it. That makes you look good - grace and skill come with practice, practice, and practice. As they say - practice makes perfect! This is the twentieth time I'm doing the same song this week (give or take a few), and I have it down to the last detail already. At least it's an energetic song. I don't think I have the heart for touchy-feely girl group dances right now. It's not even my style.

Now that I'm in the debut group, everything has been hyped up. Although it's still the early stages, we practice a whole lot more, and everyone expects nothing less than the best from us. Having been so successful already with Boyfriend and Sistar, Starship is keen on catapulting us out there to let us land with a bang. We have to give everyone a wow - and that takes perfection. Apart from practice, our trainee group has been assigned a dorm which we share, and we do everything together now. With time, we'll be going to performances and showcasing our own covers as a group, and maybe we'll even get the chance to go overseas as well. They might even give us a chance to star in our seniors' music videos or certain cfs and dramas of our own.

To be honest, Yoomin and I have already started our acting careers. Like YoungKwang, we were child stars, and we were featured in many cfs and advertisements together. As we grew older, we started getting offers to be extras in dramas and movies. In the band, we (as faces of the group) will get exposed to more and more of the Korean drama industry - and we'll probably get a few films of our own too. While this is all kind of exciting, it's also stressful - I have to balance my acting career with my music one, and I have to make sure my grades don't flounder in the meanwhile.

Speaking of that, we will only be getting busier. To promote and have all our schedules, we'll be skipping a lot of school. We won't be able to get out of any exams, but we'll need to make sure that we can cope with our schoolwork as well as all this - not easy to balance, believe you me.

Suddenly the music stops.

"Jo Geummin," the trainer yells at me, his eyes flashing. 

I groan inwardly, although I expected this was coming sooner or later. Trainer Lee never lets me off the hook. He seems to have it in for me personally - he was the one who told me last year that there was no way I could make it in this industry, regardless of the talent that I have. Unfortunately he was the one who took over for us today, since our personal trainer is sick, and he's had his eye on me for the past hours, waiting for me to make a mistake.

"You're not putting enough energy into the dance," he berates, his tone clipped. "Work harder, or the whole performance will look sloppy!"

Did I mention - the dance we are doing now, is meant for a performance that we'll put on at a funfair next week. Right now we're learning the dance, and later we'll split the vocals and learn that. Then we'll assemble the act and rehearse. We need to do this for three songs in total, various songs chosen by the producers of the event.

"Yes, sir," I reply, bowing in apology. 

He snaps his fingers to signal to us to get back into our starting formation. Once we've done so, he clicks on the music and it starts all over again.

This time I make it through the whole song. He calls for a break, and the other immediately relax and stroll over to their stuff to get a drink of water. Some go off to the restroom, and some pick up their phones and start texting. We have ten minutes to rest before we start on the choreography of the next song we need to do. We'll be learning that one from scratch today, something I'm looking forward to as I love learning new dances. It's the rehearsing that gives you trouble, honestly.

"Geummin," Trainer Lee's voice stops me midway to the door. "I need to talk to you."

Wincing, I slowly turn away from the door, bow to be polite, and walk back towards him. He looks stony, and I can tell that what's coming next is not going to be good. Gritting my teeth, I brace myself to withstand a torrent of negativity.

Although I know it's coming, I can't help but feel horrible hearing what he has to say.

"You are lacking in so many ways," he tells me, looking genuinely concerned. "Look at the others around you - they're all flawless in their movements and perky. They look like they're enjoying themselves when they dance. But you? You make mistakes, your moves aren't sharp enough - they don't have enough energy - and you yourself look like you'd rather be anywhere else but here. I know Trainer Choi thinks that you're a really great dancer, but I don't agree. Your twin is much better because she's sharper with her actions. If I were your trainer, I would never place you at the center because you don't have the right attitude.

"Also, I am going to tell you straight that you don't deserve the opportunity to be in this group. You're too weak and emotional. Have you seen any idols that are as sensitive as you are? And I'm not done yet," he continues ruthlessly, and I'm fighting hard to keep my tears from spilling over onto my cheeks. "You can't even do anything. They tell me you're a rapper, but that's not true either. You have no sense of rhythm and your raps lack energy, like everything else you do. You can't sing half as well as the others can. They termed you a rapper because you can't do anything, and it's easier to hide the abilities of a rapper than a singer. 

"Just give up, you're never going to make it."

I'm sure my eyes have filled with tears, and I know he can see them. As I stare back into his beady eyes, I force myself to bow, and apologise to him for the mistakes he claims I have made. I'm proud to say my voice didn't shake as I said it - not one bit. His smirk is the last thing I see before I turn and stalk off towards the restrooms to perk myself up.

Crashing in through the door, I see that the place is empty. My shoulders shake as tears finally break through the barrier and flow down my cheeks, forging rivulets of warmth. Running my hands through my hair, I stare into the mirror at my reflection - red-rimmed, puffy eyes which are overbright are staring straight back at me, my lips are quivering - I look a mess. I shut my eyes tight, and try to calm myself down. My fingers clench, nails digging into my palm, and I bite my lip to try and get myself to stop.

This is not going to work. If I show him that he's gotten through to me, all he'll feel is satisfaction. I have to show him a brave face, and that means I cannot cry!

Glancing back at the mirror, I realise such thoughts are useless. All it takes is one look at my red eyes and he'll know I've been crying. 

Either way, I decide, crying isn't going to do anything. I'm way better than this. I'm better than what he thinks I am. To prove him, and everyone else who believes I can't do it, wrong, I just have to work harder. I'm in the trainee group - that means I'm good, to some extent. 

Just watch me, I say silently, staring hard at my reflection, my jaw set with determination. I will prove you all wrong.

Lifting my head, I re-tie my hair, making it as neat as possible. Calmly, I splash some cold water from the tap onto my face. It's so biting that I gasp. After wiping my face with a piece of tissue from the roll conveniently located at the side of the row of sinks, I straighten my back and walk out the door. Here comes the Jo Geummin everyone wants to see.

Bring it on!

I get back to the dance studio just in time. Everyone's eyes land on me as soon as I walk through the door, although the girls pretend to ignore me. Similarly, I act as if I didn't know they were looking at me. I can't bring myself to look at the trainer - I need to keep my focus, and remain strong, and I'm afraid that if I look at him I'd lose both battles. in a deep breath, I take up a position in the back of the room (as far away from Trainer Lee as possible) and watch as he demonstrates the moves he wants us to do to open the dance. 

This looks complicated - more so than our usual choreography. But I'm sure that I can do it, with practice. The good thing about learning a new routine, though, is that even if I make minor mistakes, the trainer can't scold me too much for it. I mean, it's a new song, new moves, making mistakes is normal. Thankfully, that means that I won't have to face him again for the rest of the day.

Mimicking his movements, I move slowly, experimenting with my body before smoothly executing the entire step. Then I pause, consciously program the move into my brain, and restart the process. I do this with almost everything whenever I learn anything new. I find that using this method really helps you memorise things. When it comes to dancing, I know I can do the moves as long as I put my mind to them. Luckily I'm not the kind to have trouble with coordination. So I just need to make sure that they come out naturally, and this takes practice too.

First, though, I need to make sure that I can execute all the moves, in sequence, and at will. That means that when I hear the music I know exactly which steps to do and when. Emotion, coordination and grace come later. To do this vital first step, I visualise the choreography in my head. Whenever I learn a new part of it, I add the bit to the movie enfolding in my brain, and little by little I get the whole song.

Among the seven of us, only Yoomin has the same technique that I do. This is expected of course, since we learnt to dance together. Apart from the pair of us, the others have different styles to dancing. Sumi, for example, just does it. Somehow she can look at the trainer do the move, copy him, and it stays in her mind forever. The girl is amazing. She's also a pretty good person, so far. I always thought that she seemed like the mean kind, but she's actually not. She's really nice.

Next to me, Jae is slowly practising the choreography. She has a frown of concentration on her face, but I know that she already knows the steps. Once she learns a step, she focuses on putting energy into it to lend her dances character. Although she may make mistakes sometimes, among the seven of us her dancing is the most expressive. She pours herself out into her dance in a way that most people can't.

Just at that moment, Yoomin turns her head slightly and catches my eye. I look back at her, and see the corner of turn down in the tiniest frown. It's not something that just anyone can see - I only noticed it because I've known her forever. Anyway, she showed me that she's worried about me (obviously she can see that I've been crying). I blink back at her, telling her that I'm alright. Like how married couples can communicate just by looking at each other, I can do that with my twin. I've been doing it since we were really young, and Eomma used to laugh at us, saying we were telepathic. In fact, we can do it with YoungKwang too, just as well as we can do it with each other. I think it's due to our closeness in age.

As I turn my attention back to my dancing, I feel a sudden, irresistible urge to smile.