I was hurt. I couldn't help it, my best friends, my brothers, were turning their backs on me. But what could I do? Feel sorry for myself? After all I had been the one to turn on them first.

I knew I was different from the rest a month before we debuted. I was the only one who was fluent in English and the last one to make a friend that actually understood me. Sure they didn't hate me but I suppose I frightened them, I was never the one who approached people first, my lack in understanding Korean made it hard and the other Foreign trainees saw me as someone they couldn't approach, I never laughed or smiled genuinely for the first year or two. I had home sickness, it was hard leaving my mother who I loved so much and the friends that actually could understand me, for a life that wasn't set in stone in a country I knew nothing about. I felt that I was being selfish, sure I passed the auditions fair and square, but I never thought I would get a place. I went to the S.M auditions with one of my close friends, he always talked about how cool the K-pop world was and that you would have to be insane to turn down the offer to be one of their idols.

I personally knew very little about K-pop, it wasn't around when I lived in China and wasn't talked about at all when I was in Canada. It sounded different, I remember the first time my friend showed me a video, my first K-pop music video. It was DBSK's Rising Sun, they danced really well and even though I didn't understand what they were saying I could tell they were good singers too. I asked my friend why he wanted to be involved in something so difficult, after all my friend couldn't sing or dance to save his life! He began to explain that if you pass the audition that they would train you to until you were good enough. But he said that even if you did pass the auditions it's not certain that you would debut. 

At the time I thought my mate was nuts for even considering flying thousands of miles away for something that might be a waste of his time and money. He always just turned around and laughed saying that I didn't understand how amazing it would be, he said if you got popular enough you could get oceans of fans holding light sticks up representing the color of your group, and that the love the fans gave you was greater than you would of ever dream of. Apparently they would give money to charities in your name and that they would give you enough food to last a year.

What he said couldn't have been any more accurate.

My friend didn't pass the audition, he said that he wasn't expecting to get in anyway and that he would be disappointed if I didn't accept their offer to train me. I wanted to do it for him, I didn't want to let him down, I said i'll go over there and kick and make him want to brag about me to all his other friends. He laughed and patted me on the back wishing me luck and even if it gets really hard, don't give up. I was extremely happy and thought to myself, training can't be that hard anyway can it?

That was before I got home from the audition. My mom had made a homemade meal, they always tasted the best when my mom had made them. I could go to a 5 star restaurant and still think my mom's food was better, she would always laugh when I told her that her meals were better than all the other restaurants, and that I was only saying that to get more food. I suppose that was partially true. But once I realized that if I left Canada to train in South Korea I wouldn't know how long it would take to come back and have one of the meals she made or see her laugh, her smile, her frown when I came back with my sweaty basketball gear and gave her a hug. God, I love my mom so much, more than anything in the world, and I was considering leaving her in Canada just so I could get some girls to wave a light stick my way and say they loved me when they had never spoken to me once in their entire lives. I was being selfish.

I gave her a hug and a kiss replied to her question of how my audition went. I had told her prior to going that there was a slim chance of me getting in so she didn't have to worry about me leaving her. So once I told her that I passed she was shocked. But instead of the tears and the pleas of me not to go I got a bright warm smile. She was proud of me. This was probably the biggest thing I had ever achieved since my team won 1st place in the Chinese Junior NBA tournament. She said that she would be fine on her own, she had plenty of friends here already, my mom was a social butterfly after all. She wished me luck and made me promise her that I would call her everyday and if I was finding it too hard that I would come straight back even if it meant opposing with my contract.

After a tearing eyed goodbye from both sides. What? Men can cry too. I left with my suitcase of essentials, my mom said she would ship my other stuff over once I got there. She said that she had already told my school that I would be dropping out, they were obviously surprised but also wished me luck saying that I better succeed as I had ditched my basketball team and that they were now captain less. I laughed and thanked them saying that I would debut for sure.

Saying goodbye to my best friends was easier than I expected it to be. We exchanged bro-hugs and they joked around saying that if I managed to get popular that I should get the numbers of some of my fans to give to them. My friends and my mom saw me off at the airport and I made my way over to the other person that managed to pass the audition.

I was on the plane to Korea to become an idol. I had a long way to go but I was prepared, or so I thought.