.005

The dorm…

Jessica reached the entrance to the dormitory first as she did not like being late, unless she can’t help it. She stood at the small veranda of the apartment, away from the sun while waiting for the other members, their manager and Mr Lee Soo Man to reach. She was early half an hour than the appointed time which was supposed to be 10a.m.

*Flashback*

6 years ago, she was playing with her sister, Krystal inside the shopping mall while their parents were shopping. They were playing with the maps they got from the directory near the couches where their parents ask them to wait since shopping is boring for kids.

Both Krystal and Jessica were happily folding and tearing the paper maps and taking turns to throw it into the trash can a meter away from the couches. Jessica being the older sister purposely missed the trash can so that she could pick them up and have more throws with Krystal. On the other hand, innocent Krystal was so good that every throw went straight into the trash can, regardless of the size or the shape of the paper map.

This scene was so coincidentally watched by a talent staff from SM entertainment. Krystal was surely talented. Hence, he approached the sisters and asked where their parents are. To confirm the talent, Krystal had to go through the audition and supervised if she could sing and dance too or not.

However, the sisters’ parents did not approve as Krystal was too young and she could not make decisions herself so they both asked the company to wait for a few more years. Nonetheless, the parents pushed Jessica forward for the audition. Since Jessica couldn’t make decisions either, she went with the flow and tried it out if she could pass the audition.

Jessica underwent several tests so that the company could find out her talent, without letting her know so. For example, she was asked to play a game on an arcade machine, to find her accuracy of shooting, but to no avail. Next, the staff asked to play chess with her, to see if her intelligence is her talent, but again, it wasn’t her talent. Finally, they reached the last test- throwing darts to test her accuracy of throwing instead.

The dartboard was adjusted to match her height, and unexpectedly, Jessica hit the bullseye with every throw of dart even though she did not try it before. The staff could not believe it and increased the distance between Jessica and the dartboard. Without thinking anything about it, Jessica perfectly aimed all the darts straight at the bullseye.

The staff gaped at her, and the talent staff who scouted Krystal came to her and asked for an explanation. If Jessica was this good, why did she let Krystal throw in all the “paper balls” into the trash can? Innocently, Jessica explained that she likes to see the smile on Krystal when she wins herself and that she wanted to play more with her. With the limited number of maps they had, there were limited tries and so Jessica wanted to make it seem endless.

After that, she was immediately casted as a trainee in the company when she showcased her superb singing which melted the vocal trainers in her soft silky voice. Everything went well, except when the cameramen were sent to film her. She cried badly, she was afraid of the cameras, it felt uncomfortable, infiltrating her privacy, and also because of the fact that she did not have enough confidence.

The company then gave her time to adjust to the camera of about three months since she was still young, a chance had to be given to her. And besides, she has a rare talent which they might not be able find a second one, besides Krystal. So here she was now, she still felt that she wasn’t worthy to be part of the group, but since it felt like destiny to her, she moves with the flow.

*Flashback ends*

While she was checking her wristwatch, she caught a figure from her corner of an eye coming towards her. Carrying several pieces of pink luggage, Tiffany came waving at her while sending her eye smiles at Jessica. “Hello, Jessi! You’re early!” Tiffany greeted, still eye smiling at Jessica.

“Hi, I don’t like being late, unless some mishap get in the way.” Jessica calmly said, not wanting to tell Tiffany that specific mishap that always happens is her oversleeping. Just to not get up late today, Jessica went to sleep a few hours earlier so that she could complete her 12 hours of beauty sleep. Even worse, there were times when she needed 16.

Tiffany was totally surprised by seeing Jessica arriving first. Back then, Jessica would always be late for her classes during high school.  Both of them were in the same foreign high school in Korea when they were trainees. What really amazes Tiffany was that even though she was from Diamond Bar, they were born in the same hospital in San Francisco, the same place where Jessica was born and grew up.

“Hey Hyoyeon, over here!” Jessica frantically waves her hand at Hyoyeon who seems to be listening to her earphones and walked on as she could not hear Jessica’s soft voice. “Kim Hyoyeon!!” Tiffany called over, causing Hyoyeon to jump aback a little. Gaining back her senses, she waved energetically back at both of the waiting girls and went towards them.

“Oh, Jessica, you are here early.” Hyoyeon commented, recalling back that Jessica was always late for the training sessions in the mornings. Jessica nodded curtly, she was actually too excited for this day to come and so that both her parents could see her off in the morning before they went to work, she reached early.

“What time did you two arrive?” Hyoyeon asked casually. Tiffany took the initiative to reply. “Jessica arrived 5 minutes ago, I arrived shortly after that.” Hearing Tiffany’s response, Hyoyeon raised her eyebrow, unbelieving Jessica is that much early. “Anyways, I’m totally excited to see our dormitory!” Hyoyeon changed the topic.

“Me too! I hope I can get a bigger room though, look at all of my stuff!” Tiffany pointed towards her luggage beside her. Pink addict. Hyoyeon thought, making a side note in her mind.

Just then, a figure appeared to be approaching them, and said, “You can’t if I do not approve it.” The three girls eyed her, making out who that is because they could only see her silhouette from the blazing sunlight beyond the small veranda. As the figure came closer, they realised it was their leader, Taeyeon.

“Why so? I thought it is our manager who arranged it?” Tiffany challengingly asked, taking Taeyeon’s words just as a show-off of being the leader. “It’s true; the manager gave me the authority to arrange it.” Taeyeon calmly said. “There are four bedrooms and one washroom. I’ll see how it goes before assigning the rooms.”

At that moment, a gentle voice broke their conversation. “Good morning unnie-deul.” Seohyun greeted politely the four girls at the veranda of the apartment. “Good morning Juhyun!” The other girls were still not yet used to calling her stage name.

“Hey yo, good morning! It’s a splendid day today!” Yoona came smiling happily while approaching them and greeted the other girls informally. Before another word was spoken, Yuri quickly joined in the girls and greeted them.

It was already 10a.m in the morning, reaching the appointed time. Seven of the girls, Jessica, Tiffany, Taeyeon, Hyoyeon, Seohyun, Yoona and Yuri had arrived. The seven of them were chatting happily, not wanting to mention their farewells with their family. Family is their strongest support, and so losing the pole of support close to them was really too pain for them in their hearts for their young and youthful age. They chatted for random topics, evading issues relating to family.

Finally, Sooyoung and Sunny arrived. Both of them took their luggage from their fathers’ car trunk. The girls noticed them coming and compared the differences between them. Sooyoung hugged her father lovingly before saying “Goodbye.” On the other hand, Sunny switched off her Nintendo DS and took the luggage from her father and without looking at her father, said, “Yes appa, bye bye.”

As both of the girls approached the other members, the other members giggled. The height difference between them was even more comparable and obviously funny. The both of them noticed that and realised the reason they were laughing. Sooyoung joined in and chuckled while reaching the veranda. Sunny yelled “Yah!” while smiling, not minding the little joke.

The atmosphere was quite friendly, except the tension between Taeyeon and Tiffany have not yet resolved. As they chattered for a few minutes, time passed. Finally, a black limousine stopped in front of the apartment and a middle aged man stepped out.

Under the blazing sunlight, he squinted his eyes and searched for the girls and approached them. “Sorry I’m late girls, I had to do some paperwork in the company. Here are the keys.” Not wasting any more time, Mr Lee Soo Man handed them 9 keys to each of them. “Here, Taeyeon, keep the spare key. The manager is busy at the moment and couldn’t come at the moment. He said that he already asked you to assign the members to their rooms.” Mr Lee Soo Man gave Taeyeon the spare key.

“I have other matters to take care of in the company. Have a great day!” With just that, Mr Lee Soo Man returned to his limousine and the car sped off.

With that, Taeyeon shot a look at Tiffany and said, “Told you so.” Not forgetting to tease Tiffany, Taeyeon did merong at Tiffany and headed inside the lobby towards the lift.

The other girls followed in anticipation to see what their dormitory will look like. However, since there were 9 of them and many of their suitcases, they had to split into two elevators to get to their dorm.

As Taeyeon was the first to arrive at the door, she put in the key and before unlocking the door, she turned back and asked the other members, “Are you all ready?” “Ready!!!” She turned the doorknob and they all stepped in, looking around their dormitory by their own.

-END-