Chapter 5: Yun-Ae’s POV

            Once all of the girls in my group had arrived, we all piled into a large practice room.

            There were probably about two hundred girls in the room. Most of them stood around and chatted while a few of us sat down on the ground and began stretching.

            Suddenly, the room got quiet.

            I sat up from of the saddle stretch I was in and stared at the woman who was standing at the doorway in shock.

            Rino Nakasone was standing at the door.  

            The people at this entertainment company must have good connections.

            “Girls,” Ms. Nakasone said as she clapped her hands. “I am Rino Nakasone. I’m a backup dancer for American recording artist Gwen Stefani and I have worked as a choreographer with many famous artists such as Super Junior, SNSD, and SHINee,”

            I hopped up from my seat the floor and bowed and said hello with the other girls. 

            "Thank you. Welcome to the preliminary round of your audition," Ms. Nakasone smiled. 

            This is a preliminary audition? Yunji never told me this!

            "Today, I'm here to teach you a basic routine that I came up with. And based off of your performance today, you will either pass to the finalists' round of the audition or I will be telling you to leave," She explained. “So now that we got all of the administrative stuff out of the way, let's get started. I saw some of you stretching earlier. That’s good. I hope that the rest of you who didn’t are warmed up as well,”

            Ms. Nakasone then told us to form ten lines with about twenty girls in each. From there, she divided us into three smaller groups. I was put into the first group, or as Ms. Nakasone liked to call it, E1. 

            "Okay girls" Ms. Nakasone said. 

            "Yes," We all replied. 

            "Alright then," She smiled. "So first we're going to start off by stepping to the right..."

            As Ms. Nakasone taught us the routine, I tried to repeat the moves in a way that was almost identical to how she executed them and paid attention to every little detail.    

            This is a routine that she came up with by herself and she is taking the time out of her busy schedule to teach it to us. If I make wrong move, I could be sent out of here in an instant and that was the last thing that I wanted to happen.             

            "Okay. Now that you know the routine, I want the girls in E1 to go through it at half tempo," Ms. Nakasone said.    

            When we started going through the dance again, many of the other girls in my group were beginning to get lost. 

            Ms. Nakasone did not look very happy, so once we were done, she began to walk up and down each line, tapping girls on the shoulder as she passed. And if you were one of the girls that got tapped on the shoulder, it meant that you were done for the day. In other words, you were eliminated. 

            Before I knew it she was at the girl on my right. From the corner of my eye, I saw her tap the girl's shoulder. When she came in front of me, I held my breath. I even closed my eyes, because I just knew that I would be getting a tap on the shoulder. But when I opened my eyes again, I saw that Ms. Nakasone was already eliminating girls in the fifth line.

            Once she was far enough away from me, I let out a sigh of relief.

            At the end of the first elimination, I looked down the line to see how many girls were left. From what I could see, already half of my line had left. It wasn’t as sparse as some of the other lines though. The sixth line only had five girls left.

            She then continued to go through the same elimination process with the other two groups and by the end of it all, our group was probably now half of the size it was originally. 

            "Alright girls, regroup into five lines with about twenty of you in each," Ms. Nakasone ordered. "Quickly! We don't have much time!" 

            Once we were all in formation, Ms. Nakasone was then nice enough to walk through the routine with us again. But once we were done with the walk through, she went to the back of the room and then suddenly, a loud dance song began to play over the speakers. 

            "Alright girls. I'm going to go through the routine with you once at full speed before I make you do it without me," Ms. Nakasone said.  

            When we went through the dance at full speed, even with Ms. Nakasone standing in front of us and leading us, girls were getting lost. To my surprise, I was able to keep up with her and managed to make all of the times I screwed up, not so blatantly obvious to everyone else. 

            "And we're going to do this three more times girls!" Ms. Nakasone yelled over the music after our first run through on our own. 

            By the time we started the dance for the third time, I felt pretty secure with the routine. I was dancing with more and more confidence and I was even starting to have some fun. 

            In the middle of the routine, Ms. Nakasone walked up to me. 

            I tried not to pay too much attention to her and continued to dance as if she wasn't there. But I couldn't help but feel a little bit uncomfortable I noticed her staring at me.

            She then stood there for a few more seconds before she left, probably to go find another girl to go study. 

            It wasn't long until she came back to watch me again. 

            Am I doing something wrong?

            “Girls, stop for a moment,” She ordered.

            All of us gradually came to a stop and looked at her, waiting for whatever she had to say next. 

            “You,” She said, pointing at me. 

            This can’t be good.

            “I want you to go and sit outside of the studio. Don’t move until I give you more instructions,” Ms. Nakasone said.

            As I went to the studio’s door, I could feel tears beginning to well up in my eyes.

            Normally, I wouldn't even cry over something like this. But at this point, this is probably my last chance to try and get a job in the entertainment industry. I didn't want to be eliminated, at least not yet. 

            I sat outside of the studio like Ms. Nakasone instructed me to and within a few minutes, two more girls joined me outside.

            Even though none of us said anything, we were all probably wondering why we were told to sit out in the hall. 

            Suddenly, I heard the door open. A girl wearing a light pink sweatshirt and her light brown hair in pigtails came out of the studio. But instead of looking to find a seat next to one of us in the hall, she was heading towards the elevators. 

            “Hey. Where are you going?” The girl sitting on my right with wispy bangs and a purple hoodie asked the girl who had just come from the studio.

            “Home,” The girl replied, nearly in tears.

            Shortly after, many more girls started to leave the studio in a similar state as the first girl that the three of us saw.

            If Ms. Nakasone is still eliminating girls, then that must mean that the three of us haven’t been eliminated yet.

            But then, what does that make us, the ones that are sitting outside of the studio? Are we finalists?