Oh I love cats! When they are behind a thick glass and projected into my living room from outer space. On the other side of the television, the deadly sharp and spiky claws were just far away enough. My absolutely favorite cat came every Saturday morning. It was a fat orange tabby cat, and poorly animated. Garfield!

We just had moved to Boston and my English was still at a beginner level. My sister and I hadn’t many friends to spend weekends with. Of course we had some colleagues but it was too embarrassing and awkward if you aren’t able to talk properly. Garfield introduced the foreign American culture to us and soon became dear.

My mother is a very bubbly and active person who was fun to be around with. But she rarely was at home since she was always busy with her work. It happened that her free days were Saturdays as well. We could hear her rattle in the kitchen the whole morning until she very proudly came out, with weirdly shaped cookies. I might have to explain; my mother can’t cook at all and she most definitively can’t bake either. But she wanted to, since she saw it in those American housewives TV shows that caring mothers would do such things.

So whenever she tried to surprise us with her self-made food it was actually close to being dangerous. At least in our father’s eyes, who landed in the hospital at his second date with her - because of food poisoning. He luckily thought this woman had guts and character and felt touched by her desperate attempt to show him her non-existent housewife skills. Else I wouldn’t sit here now and write my personal once-upon-a-time-story.

But let me introduce myself first, I’m Ok Taecyeon, owner and CEO of OkCat and this is my story.

At the beginning we missed Korea, our friends over there, the language, kimchi and even the instant ramen our father poorly made for dinner. In America everything was different but soon we acclimated since we adjusted ourselves into our new home. Instead of ramen we would often eat at our aunt’s home, and on weekends when our parents were at home we went outwards with them. I enjoyed it until my sister suddenly started to want her own cat, she said she felt lonely.

I had to stop her because no one was supposed to know I was terrified of anything alive. Especially when they had a fur and four legs; unpredictable home-kept monsters that were lurking for a careless human they could attack shamelessly. No everything but most definitely not a cat nor a dog! From this day on I officially was fictionally allergic to any pet hair and yes it was more exhausting as you may think to pull that through. You have to fake sneeze whenever you see an animal and suppress your want to escape. It was horrible but it was worth it.

If I haven’t told you yet, my sister is almost as smart as I am and she is very witty. She knew exactly that I lied since she often enough had to rescue her clumsy brother from ridiculous situations. I was often deviously attacked by a demonic animal like our neighbor’s Papillion. Some would say a Papillion is a small breed dog with long hair around his neck and tail and some blind humans must have thought it looked like a butterfly because it was named with the French word for it. I saw a rat with fur. It does look cute from afar though, but the cuteness couldn’t hide the wickedness in its eyes and the sharp huge killing teeth.

Once when it was younger exactly it had slipped beneath the fence and happily ran towards me. I panicked and accidentally dropped the new bought king of my antique and expensive wooden chess set.

The beast took it and admitted I felt relieved it spared my life until it came back biting on the wood and provokingly running barking around me. Don’t ask me how it could bark with something in its mouth, it could and did! I thought I would die and never complete my antique chess set. Perhaps that would have been more merciful than the humiliation to be saved by your older sister.

She played along with the puppy ignoring my nagging until it got sleepy. Picking it up and cuddled with it before she returned it to its owner. When she came back she gave me a headless, chewed up wooden piece of slobber. Needless to say I had a second panic attack and needed to soap my hand and the wooden thing at least three times until I was able to recognize my missing chess collection figure - the king.

My dislike for animals was deep and my sister knew it was impossible to change my mind. Therefore she had to outfox or eliminate me to get her wants. As mentioned, my older sister was very clever and so she went for the much easier get-rid-of-me-plan for which she already had an idea how to trick me out of my home without me realizing it.

I always had a weakness only she was aware of:

I was despite my nerdy look very vain because I was sure one day I would be someone famous. It wasn’t important if modeling or acting would make me known but I just felt I would be one day. Maybe because I loved to watch those old western movies with my dad. She attacked me there where I never would search a mistake, my perfect self. One day, it had to be around summer, she suddenly stood in my room. I was annoyed because of course she stormed into it without even knocking. Seriously what if I was changing or even worst, ing, I mean I was a normal teenager and that’s something teenagers do sometimes!

But as usual she was ignorant and deaf for my scolding, instead she showed me a sparkling flyer. Little did I know how much this paper would change my life. Her smile was big and very bright when she explained what the paper actually meant.

“JYP will hold an audition, you know Park Jinyoung creator of G.O.D and RAIN! They search for talented boys. Not only singing, modeling too and I thought since your height is kinda perfect you may just try it!”

To be honest I was flattered. My sister thought I would have a chance to become a model? Her supportive words meant a lot to me and yes I didn’t think she may just say it to make fun of me. She might be mean from time to time, like big sisters are, but she never lied to me. It really did encourage me, and she even helped me to search for the outfit I should wear.

Thinking back now I have to admit that I was a little narcissistic, but even though I really liked myself a lot, the approval letter caught me off guard. I never ever even imagined, becoming a trainee and leaving my family behind suddenly was a scary thought. But my sister was very excited and because it was close to my birthday she made me believe it was meant to be.

She might have been right. I don’t even want to picture my life without my noisy one day family, but one thing after another.

I remember the day of my departure, back then I actually had a girlfriend. Maybe I should have felt guilty for leaving her behind, but I was and still am aim-oriented.

My mother took it the worst, though she was very proud of me, she just couldn’t stop embracing me after I denied her offer to accomplish me for about the sixth time. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to have her by my side. I just felt it would’ve been worst for the two of us, a rushed goodbye somewhere in Korea. No from now on I had to act like a grown up and it would make a good impression.

The realization hit me in the plane, when I fastened my seatbelt and watched the stewardess introducing their safety system to us. It was the first time I actually felt my palm getting sweaty, and my stomach had a weird knot. I was so nervous that I even denied the food they served. In case you don’t know me, that’s a big deal for a big and healthy eater like me and it was a long way back to Korea. Long enough to think about my old home, and suddenly I became aware that I wasn’t flying home as I thought the whole time. I was going to a country I had learned to forget years ago.

Of course I understood Korean I just wasn’t able to talk it properly anymore. It was very rusty and since we moved in my early childhood I never learned all the rules I needed to know to speak formally. Despite the fact that I acted like a linguistically challenged tourist I somehow, to my own astonishment, found the way to JYP Entertainment. I probably would still linger in the huge airport if it wasn’t for this very understanding taxi driver, who simply didn’t speak with me at all and awkwardly drove me to the address I had handed him.

To be honest I almost can’t remember what happened next because I was very tired from the 17-hours flight and overwhelmed by the forgotten culture here. I do remember that I shook some important hands, I got introduced to one of my future managers Minjae and was given my first exercising plan and schedules, before they shoved me into one of their nearby trainee-dorms they provided.

The clock turned towards two o’clock, a coincidence I wasn’t able to know back then, when the supervisor of the first dormitory entered the security code to open the door. He taught me the code as well, introduced me to the strict dorm rules as well as the rules of being a JYP trainee. Of course the rules were also written down in Korean and pinned on the most visible living room wall.

After showing me my bunk bed in a room full of bunk beds he finally left me alone. Despite I was tired like hell I still pulled myself together to explore my future living place. The apartment was empty since the other trainees were too be busy attending their schedules and I used this opportunity to freely take a look around. From the other five people who shared the room with me, I could tell one, the one in the middle, must have been a game-freak since his bed was covered with games. The bed on the other side of the room caught my attention because it was the only one which was prettily made up, and a candle stood next to it.  Above me seemed to be someone who loves soccer. I gave up on spying on my roommates since the few information their beds told me was by far not as interesting as I thought. I wanted to take a look at the kitchen and the bathroom but the sleep took over me.

The door slammed and there suddenly were voices all over. And something was poking my nose with a chopstick. I grunted and turned around, just not willing to open my eyes yet.
The squeaking sound of someone running away caught my attention and let me change my mind. Of course I needed to blink a few times until the hazy sight yielded, becoming blurred colors which wasn’t any better. Still dazzled I searched for my glasses I almost forgot I was supposed to wear.

When I finally found them I looked directly in some warm curious eyes. He was the owner of the very neat bed, with the pretty pillow cases and the candle. A blanket covered his skinny legs and in his lap was a book with strange curvy signs he evidently was able to read. He smiled at me softly when he understood that I saw him before he carefully glanced into the direction of the game-freak bed. The owner of this bed had tussled hair and only two small slots as eyes. Though I was sure I haven’t seen him before he looked familiar to me but since he was busy being focused on his game and not risking any glance into my direction I wasn’t completely sure about it. Beneath his bed was an empty ramen bowl with only one chopstick which gave him away.

I wasn’t completely sure how to react but went with the friendly confronting way.

“Hi, I’m Taec!”

The boy with the book in his lap stared at me as if I just said something really stupid. Apparently not only his bed sheets were pretty, he had really beautiful facial features as well and suddenly I felt ugly and out of place.

“You speak English? Seriously?! Oh that’s so awesome!!!”

He cheered, obviously forgotten the book in his lap as he jumped off his bed, eagerly offering his hand to me.

“I’m Nichkhun, but just call me Khun! Nice to meet you.”

From the second bed came nothing but a suppressed growl and some Korean muttering that sounded similar to ‘Great, another one we have to take care of.’

“That’s Junho over there. Don’t take him personally he seems not to have had a good day.”

Seriously I was mesmerized by the brightness of Nichkhun’s smile. But then again I was sleepy and probably not fully awake yet.

Soon Nichkhun and I were inseparable and the others even mocked us with the label “newly wed”. I didn’t mind since I just really liked his company, his wittiness, his jokes, and especially that we could talk in English with each other. Perhaps I also liked the fact that he was depending on me, because he couldn’t understand Korean.

One day I found him bent over the desk doodling something, curious I sneaked closer to watch his doings. As if he knew what I was thinking he answered the question I hadn’t asked yet.

“I practice my sign.”

He said confidently, and I felt a little bit weird hearing him saying such a thing. It was the first time that I apprehended, one day we will either be famous or lose the contact to each and another. And I meant not just him but all of us, we weren’t here to simply learn the job being an idol, we actually might become one. It was a strange feeling like suddenly I felt stupid for not taking it seriously enough, and on the other side I felt stupid for being here. Thinking I had a chance when there are people like Jay, Minjun, Wooyoung but also Junho who seriously were really talented and worked their asses off. I couldn’t even dream to be at their level, though I did work hard as well…It just suddenly felt as if my abilities weren’t enough.

“How can you be so sure they take you?”

“I’m not …

But I make myself believe to have a chance, I prepare my mind-set for it so they don’t have another chance than taking me.”

I thought it must be easy for him to say because seriously with that face, even if he would have been kicked out of JYP I had seen his popularity already, he would surely find either an agency in Thailand or simply become a model over there.

He would find his way because Nichkhun was born to shine … but what about me?

Was I prepared and ready to try, to build up hopes even though they might get shattered in the end? I already had failed once in super star survival, could I just simply shake it off and give it another try?

Nichkhun glanced up at me and gave me a pen and paper as well as his Korean book as pad.

“Here you go, practice and settle your mind.”

No I really don’t mind that they called us new weds, from time to time even I believed we shared a special boundary towards each other.

It really helped and from circle to circle I felt more and more encouraged. I wanted to be able to share this sign with people, I wanted to be looked up to. I was too focused on practicing my future autograph that I missed that someone entered our room. The sudden loud laughter really startled me but I also felt dismayed.

“Should that be a cat?”

I glanced judgingly at the short boy in the room, and followed then the direction of his pointing finger until my eyes hung on one of my previous signed pages. To be honest I actually tried to decorate the O with devil horns, but it looked indeed like a cat now.

“Well, not really ..:”

I pouted, but somehow deep inside of my mind the thought of drawing a cat stipulated. Before I got the chance to turn back at my interrupter something else caught my attention. Out of the corner of my eyes I saw Nichkhun brightly smiling at the tall boy behind Jay. He seems to be a little shy since he hadn’t dared to enter our room yet. I needed to directly stare at him until I could order the silhouette to a name, Chansung. It shouldn’t have offended me, it shouldn’t. Yet it did, this kind of smile Nichkhun would only flash at me, when I helped him with his homework, or explained him what he needed to do. Why did he just present it to Chansung as if it meant nothing? Lost in thoughts I probably missed a part of conversation since suddenly all six eyes were looking into my direction and Jay repeated.

“So Picasso, do you want to join us?”

“Huh, where?”

I asked irritated, Nichkhun suppressed a giggle and Jay lifted an eyebrow.

“We go and celebrate because Chansung mastered his backflip.”

Nichkhun explained to me and I was thankful once again my friend understood me so well.

“No I wanna skype with my sister later and besides I want to practice for a while longer.”

I ignored the furrowed eyebrows of Jay as well as Nichkhun’s, both knew very well how I loved to go out and drink if the opportunity was there. Hell, even I couldn’t understand but probably because Jay made fun of me earlier. Yeah it must be because of Jay…

It was only half a lie because when the three left I really called my sister because I suddenly missed her. But we didn’t get the chance to talk very long. That hussy girl really had bought a cat. Seriously I wasn’t as angry at her as I thought I would be, I actually found it rather amusing. When our call ended I suddenly had the picture of a green cat in my mind telling me to draw it, and so did I and again and again and when I finally thought I found a satisfying way in picturing the cat of my mind I hadn’t any paper left, except … Nichkhun’s Korean book.

He wouldn’t mind if I the first index page would be ruined, no one needs the index page anyway.

I probably don’t need to tell you I screwed it, by the time Nichkhun came back his book was full with small cat drawings. Luckily he was too drunk to notice it. In fact he was so drunk he couldn’t even walk on his own. Chansung needed to carry him, and he even brought him to his bed and stripped off his clothes. I glared at his back before I interrupted them to take over what Chansung had begun. He only had removed Nichkhun’s sweater and shoes, so there was still a lot to do. But he didn’t went back to the second dorm like I wanted him to do, not before he brought a glass water and aspirin to his Hyung. Seriously I didn’t know what to think of it, they barely talked because Nichkhun wouldn’t be able to. But something was going on between the two of them and it bothered me.

Day later I have asked him, but for the first time Nichkhun never gave me an answer. In contrary he changed the topic to his Korean book, and he definitively was very unhappy about it. Later when we became 2PM he often carried it around and so I am sure nowadays he wasn’t as disgruntled as he likes to act. But even so he still reproached with that matter whenever he needed me to do him a favor. I wouldn’t mind at all, if he just didn’t use it against me to protect our very witty Dongsaeng’s.

However I didn’t need him to answer my question, the reason became obvious to me once I accidentally ran into Wooyoung and Minjun practicing a song for the weekly challenges we had. Suddenly everything made sense. Their sly smiles they exchanged when they were paired up together, the not-that-casual touches when they passed each other, they weren’t friends yet but something much more important in a life full of teammates and enemies. They had a bond, like Wooyoung and Minjun or Jo Kwon and Changmin. I couldn’t really explain why, but seeing them fixing each other’s flaws made me think that they actually became more than teammates but members of one and the same group.

So this was the birth of OkCat. OkCat soon had its own character, it’s very smart you have to know and it loved and still loves to play jokes. Especially on my members. Till today I can’t stop drawing it, there isn’t much progress in my drawing skills, but the ugliness is its charm and yes by now consciously done!

I even started to take classes in management, as my first try promoting my personal mascot was turned down by JYP. But this time I was prepared, I planned everything and now I’m sitting here in my room writing you my story beaming happily while chatting with Nichkhun on kakao-talk. He bought the stickers, of course he did, his book was the beginning of something big so of course he had to encourage and support his best friend and member!

Chansung and Junho did as well because Chansung and Junho bought almost everything which had to do with cats and because they were dutiful Dongsaeng’s. Wooyoung and Minjun never quite made their peace with my cat, even though Minjun came with every song he made to me to let me draw a cat on it. The story behind it is rather funny. As you all now Minjun early started to compose his own songs. Yes even before Junho did, he always was interested in doing so and he is constantly saving money for something new he needed desperately to compose. Even though he already was a genius, in our eyes, when he simply had nothing else than his hum and a pencil.
He once wrote a whole song on Chansung’s back just because there was no paper around, and Chansung was the only one submissive enough to really lay there for about an hour and didn’t dare to move any muscle. Knowing how upset Minjun would get if he accidentally would have drawn a tune wrong.

I don’t know what happened to this song but I went off topic here.
It was the day I was called by JYP talking about my acting career. I spotted the pile of song suggestions Minjun had once again handed over to JYP just to get denied as always. I felt bad for our oldest member, and to cheer him up, when he got the pile back, I drew a cat face on the first paper I saw. I couldn’t know that the pen, I used to draw the cat face with, leaked through and made the other papers unreadable.

Minjun never was as angry with me, he was so mad that he actually kicked me out of our shared room. Though I could sleep on the couch since Wooyoung as well as Chansung didn’t want to be with me in one room. I wasn’t sure if they were just scared to get involved in the fight or really thought I ed it up. Well admittedly I did until the next day a very sleepy Minjun suddenly jumped on me to hug me so tightly I thought he was about to strangle me. Apparently Park Jinyoung had given Minjun the permission for his first self-composed song ‘Hot’ to be on our next album.

Since then he always gives me his songs to make a small cat face somewhere on it before handing them in. Yes Minjun was and is superstitious.

Wooyoung hadn’t any reason to dislike OkCat, not more or less than the others. He was just simply annoyed because I had ruined his favorite t-shirt. It was yellow with nothing on it so how could I have known it was his favorite? So I had drawn my trend mark on it and colored it green with blue ink. It was my first try of branding a shirt and I seriously thought it looked really great and much better than plain yellow. Wooyoung obviously had another opinion since it wasn’t just any yellow shirt but the exact color between orange and citron yellow which is the only yellow that looks like gold as well as yellow and smoothed his skin tone perfectly.

Still my shirt looked by far cooler, and though I actually presented it to him he refused to wear it. Wooyoung held grudges longer than anyone else, even longer than Chansung when it comes to eating away his food. Because those antipathies could easily be fixed by simply buying him more and better food than he had lost.

Though there was one exception, if he was on diet and wasn’t allowed to eat anything nice except some treats his personal trainer allowed him. One will be dead if he dares to take them away.

When I close my eyes now, I hear the soft purring of a soundly sleeping cat in my lap. What once started in my imagination is now only a cat hop away from the OK-world-domination. Okay maybe a long hop, but who knows with you, my cat and of course all my members by my side it should be achievable. Don’t you think?

Because fairytales happen anywhere and anytime, I started as a nerd and ended up as an idol, beastly icon and owner of a cat.

The important thing is to never lose your hope, to believe, and to hold onto the chances you can make, regardless of the painful way.