Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

           The ominous ticking of the clock sounded throughout the sparsely furnished office, almost maddening in its repetition. Heohyun hadn't had the time to redecorate it after its previous occupant had been fired, not when his deadline was drawing nearer every second that ticked by. He sat hunched in his chair over the mess of papers that littered his desk with bloodshot eyes, staring blankly downward as if looking at nothing in particular. His mind was as blank as his coffee mug was empty.

           Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

           Heohyun caught himself nodding off and promptly shook himself awake. He breathed deeply and gingerly ran a hand through his neatly combed hair, then glanced upward at the clock he had hung on the office wall a few days prior.

           "Ten o'clock already," he murmured in a daze. It was hard to believe that a week had passed him by already. To Heohyun, it felt like it was just yesterday that CCM's infamous CEO had tasked him with coming up with a group of six promising trainees to present to him. The time flew by in the blink of an eye, and he could do nothing but wish he had more of it. What kind of group was formed in only two weeks, anyway?

           Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

           There was no time to waste wallowing around in self-pity. There was no question of whether or not it could be done. It HAD to be done, and Heohyun wasn't about to share the same fate of the man who previously held his job. With a renewed sense of purpose, he straightened his posture, cracked his knuckles and set back to work on the clutter of papers in front of him.

           It didn't take long for Heohyun to neatly rearrange his notes so that they were separated from the profiles of potential members of his project. An orderly stack of about thirty talented trainees' files now graced his desk. With so many gifted young men to consider, only six slots, and a week before his deadline, he had to make some decisions and make them quickly. Although Heohyun had been constantly going through the same stack of files for a week by that moment in time, there were still too many to make a firm decision. At least the stack grew a little shorter every time he went through it. He took a deep breath and braced himself before going through them once more.

           "Let's see... Lim Seunghwan... Seong Haeri... Jung Hojoon," he read off the names as he attentively sifted through the files. After observing so many of CCM's most gifted trainees for a week, Heohyun had a good feel for which trainees to look out for. However, after brief consideration, he felt that sixteen year-old Hojoon was too inexperienced for the ideal group he had in mind, and placed Hojoon's file in a sloppy stack off to the side that was piled with rejected trainees.

           "Yoo Jeonhyuk... Zhang Yao...  Kwon Jaehyun... Ahn Taeho and Ahn Taewon... Aaron Shim? Probably not..." He mumbled to himself as the reject stack grew taller and taller. Little by little, an idea began to take root in his mind; he was beginning to visualize a plan to come up with a choice group of six by the end of the week...