“It’s nice to meet you.” His voice, soft, said as he extended his hand to me.

I smiled shyly, taking his hand before returning the phrase. “Thank you, please take care of me. I promise to train my hardest under you Taeyang-seonsaengnim.” I said, remembering to be formal like I’d been advised to do by other trainees.

“Ah… you don’t have to be so formal with me.” My dance trainer said with a soft laugh. “Come on, there’s really not much time to waste when you’re a trainee. Show me what you got.”  I nodded in understanding before walking over to the boom box that sat in the corner of the empty dance studio, connecting up my iPod and picking out a song. I hesitated before pressing play, taking a deep breath and trying to get the nerves out first. It was the first day of my training, and I just still couldn’t shake the anxiety.

“No need to feel nervous.” Taeyang said, obviously noticing my hesitation. I nodded sheepishly, all while feeling very thankful to have a trainer that was pushing me to feel at ease with him. I’d heard rumors about the stickler trainers, and that was definitely not something I would learn well with.

I finally pushed the play button and set my iPod down on the table before moving towards the center of the studio, looking at my own reflection in the mirrored walls as I tried to let the beat sink into me. The queue for the start of the choreography came soon, and I jumped right on into it. I did my best to try to ignore Taeyang’s presence in the back, watching my every move, but it was getting hard.

I stumbled in my steps, having a moments relapse by forgetting a move, and suddenly it all got out of a sync. “Dammit…” I muttered under my breath, not having much more time in the song to redeem my mess-up.

“It’s fine.” He reassured me, a comforting smile on his lips actually making me feel better with just a look. He gave me a little nod of the head, encouraging me to go on and try it again, and so I got up and started the song and choreography over. I jumped up and down on the balls of my feet, waiting for the song to pass to the right part while I really blocked out any worries out of my mind other than just dancing for the sake of dancing.

“Wow.” I turned around after I hit the last pose, hearing Taeyang’s comment. “Just dance like that and you’ll be debuting before you know it.” He said. I knew that was probably an exaggeration, but just hearing that kind of encouragement from a trainer on the first day boosted my spirits.

“Ah you’re just flattering me.” I said with a shy laugh. I walked over to the boom box and pushed the pause button to stop the next song from playing.

“I’m not, really.” Taeyang smiled until his eyes were just small crescents. I wasn’t oblivious to how hard the life of a trainee can get, so this was the last thing I expected on my first day. I thought I’d was going to be coming into something close to hell with some trainer breathing down my neck and telling me I wasn’t good enough and that it’d be a decade by the time I’d debut.

“Come on, I still gotta teach you some choreo.” He said, taking out his own iPod and replacing mine with it. He picked out a song, and let it start to play. “Just watch for this first time.”

An hour later, I was drilling the dance with him, already on the fourth full run-through with Taeyang as the music kept our movements in sync. Still far from perfect, I extended a leg just a moment too early, causing me to bump into my trainer, knocking him off too. Before we knew it, we somehow ended up on the floor, in a tangle of limbs, chuckling and giggling at the sudden clumsiness after such a long time of working so hard.

“This doesn’t look like much training…” The deep voice rang throughout the studio as the song happened to have just stopped. Shifting our gazes to the door where the voice came from, the happy and relaxed expressions on our faces soon turned to those of fear.