< 6 months later, Tori Hwang aka Hwang Young-Hee, Jellyfish Entertainment >

“The reality show is elimination based, with 14 girls who will be narrowed down to the new Jellyfish Entertainment girl group. There will be 7 episodes, the number of people in the new group has not been finalized but there will beat least 6 eliminations and the final episode will be around the final group and their preperation for debut.” I sat stock-still, my eye’s never leaving the talent director. An eliimination reality show? This was going to be worse that the last 4 years of training. I looked at Sally, We’re not going to be eliminated.

She nodded, not needing words to be able to understand what I was telling her.

“Filming will begin tomorrow where we will meet in this conference room again to film you recieving the news of the reality show.” They did this all the time, telling the artists before filming, and then filming the artists being “told” the second time around so that they could control their reactions.

“Dismissed.”

Sally and I walked out together.

“Hey, for the test tomorrow, are you ready?” She asked me, we both went to Yonsei University , majoring in Music Performance. I couldn’t tell Sally, but I had memorized the textbook and supplementary materials a longtime ago. This degree was considerably easier for me than the computer science courses at Stanford.

“Mostly, I’m still having trouble with recognizing Dorian scales still.” I lied.

“We can study together at CoffeeBean today since they’re letting us all go home early.” I agreed even though the prospect of studying for music again filled me with dread.

“You’re birthday’s this weekend right? Today will be my treat.” Considering that filming would take up our weekends every weekend for the next month, it’d be better to celebrate today, which is why I already ordered for her present to be delievered to CoffeeBean.

Micromanageing is and has always been my thing, so after a few years of knowing Sally, I’d gained the ability to guess some of her habits. I guessed that because of the test and filming tomorrow, she would want help from me since I was number 1 in the class. This didn’t mean that I was the best musician, but I did set the curve for all the tests because test taking is one of my strongest skills. So after guessing that she would ask for help at CoffeeBean, I went online shopping and organized for a skincare set to be delievered to us while we were studing at 8:25 PM.

“Where do you get the money for this Young-Hee? This is an entire set!” She almost spoke too loudly for the cafe but managed to control herself while we were indoors.

“My mom knows a guy, don’t worry, I barely paid for it.” Or not at all considering my mom was a VIP at Etude House and bought over $3000 worth of products a month to send to her friends back home on a regular basis. I didn’t even know that you could be a VIP there, but my mom spends enough to be a VIP every where else so it wasn’t really a surprise.

“I still don’t understand what your mom does, where does she get her connections?”

“Trust me, even I don’t know any more what she does.” Ever since I started a Korean app to teach English, my mom had taken that thing to the stars and back with development and editing for launch next year. With me being in college and a trainee, she had taken full rein after I finished the initial code and put together a team of the best app-developers in Seoul. I’m pretty sure she would be labeled as CEO if the app actually is able to fund the start of a Korean company.

“That’s not all I got you.” I handed her a small packet, “This is my study guide for the year. It’s yours to keep.” Or really the study guide I made last weekend to give her because last time I was told to use a study guide was 8 years ago when I started Stanford and I hated every word of it. Study guides are the devil to me when it’s just easier and more explanatory to reread the textbook.

“THANK YOU! Maybe with this I’ll be able to get a B in the class.”

“I use the Cornell format where there’s both notes and questions for you to be able to quiz yourself on what you need to know.” I explained to her as she flipped through a few pages.

“This looks so good, you even have notes for class we haven’t taken yet, how?” She asked, flabergasted at the extentent of my study guide.

“Not by a lot, I just enjoy the textbook so I read a little ahead of where we are.” It was better to lie than tell her I had actually helped do a brain analysis study on music at Stanford with a brainwave reading software I had created at the turn of the decade. So basically I had studied our course material when I was 11.

“Well thank you and let’s get back to studying, this place closes in an hour.” She really was the studious type, but naturally unable to focus on her work because of the reality show tomorrow.

“Since Hwang Young-Hee is the youngest, she will start individual teaser filming first while the next  youngest, Sally, does her interview.” The PD read off an itinerary for the, wrapping up the day with a montage of our practicing at 1AM.

It was about 2PM right now and we had finished filming being “told” the news and heading over to a photo shoot location in Myung-dong. I had sort of gotten over my initial nerves, but was kinda dizzy from lack of sleep (Mom had asked me to come home last night till 4AM because of a problem with the app format that the team was having trouble fixing), and of course going to school this morning was also a drag because I had to sit during the test with nothing to do for 40 minutes (when a student finishes a test in 10 minutes, it raises a few questions (especially when the test is a midterm).

Running on Iced Americano and nursing a second cup, I piled into a van with Sally, Ka-Eun, Sae-Ron, Yoo-Jung, and Min-Ah, the usual group. We all were kind of silent during the ride, we used more energy than normal trying to look super interested in the conference room.

My mind was racing with the news that I was filming first, that meant I could be the first to mess up! I tried to stay a little quieter during the filming because ifI drew attention to myself from the first scene that meant thatI would have more expectations from the beginning rather than slowly build it up at the end. Sally was kind of quiet too, but I think it was because she was trying to hide her Australian accent a little, she already stood out like a sore thumb in our room because of her height, a towering 175cm like me.

I felt bad for her too since she was also the first for interviews, I’d practiced them before and hated how I was told to show less emotions because it suited my image, sit a particular way, laugh a particular way, act like I hated the camera even though thereasonI wanted to sing was becauseI didn’t hate it, it got pretty bad sometimes with my acting teacher when she said I needed to practice my image.

“We’re here girls, hurry up and don’t leave the staff waiting.” Our manager/driver had pulled up to a curb and waited for us to get out. I waited in the back for my turn but already was able to see thru the window that we were in front of a professional studio, one that was used for filming VIXX-sunbaenim’s own MyDol show teasers.

“Young-Hee and Sae-Ron! Go into the studio, everyone else is to go to the second floor of the cafe across the street to watch each other be interviewed.” One of the staff directors told the 14 of us collectively when we were inside the studio.

I walked quietly with one of the managers, keeping up the charade of my shy persona even off camera.

“Change into this,” I was told by the stylist. It was a silver and white outfit, simple skinny jeans and a crop top.

“Sit here.” I was told by the makeup artist. I didn’t say anything, just following all these orders like a doll that I was supposed to be.

This madness, why are we even here. I thought to myself, trying to squeeze through the fans into the cafe, racing to the stairs with the other members to avoid being trampled.

“Hello, my name is Sally and I’m from Australia.” Upstairs, it looked like a girl was being interviewed. She sat facing all the cameras in a corner booth with a bunch of other trainees watching her. I somewhat recognized her, but I didn’t pay attention to girl trainees as much as the others, I sometimes thought of them as too distracting (especially to Hyuk).

“1, 2, 3,” Hakyeon said,

“Real VIXX! V-I-X, we are VIXX, hello” the rest of us joined naturally.

The girls instantly turned around and all of them got up.

“Hello VIXX-sunbaenims” They were of course super respectful, there was nothing less that I would have expected, and judging from the many faces that were there, it seemed that the company was serious about the elimination show again.

I scanned all the faces, but couldn’t really find who I was looking for. I tried to think of why I was looking for someone, but drew a blank.

“Oh good, you guys are on time. Can three of you head over to the studio across the street? There are cameras there to film you helping the girls on their teaser shots.” One of the staff members grabbed Wonshik, Hakyeon, and me and lead us out the door. I looked at the funny arrangement and figured they just wanted one person of each specialty, rap, dance, and singing.

< Hwang Young-Hee, In Studio 4 >

I feltbad for Sae-Ron, she was messing up big time, making mistakes I’d never seen her do before.

“Again.” The choreographer told both of us. “1 and 2, 3 and 4 and, 5, 6, 7- Kim Sae-Ron!”

I stopped in the middleof my turn to see Sae-Ron on the ground, clutching her left ankle and wincing looking like she was about to cry.

The cameras came in close to see the two of us.

“Some one get the car, she needs to go to the hospital.” The manager on standby immediately picked up Sae-Ron and ran with her to the door a camera went with them but one stayed on me and the choreographer. I knew my face would be ugly with worry on the camera but I didn’t care.

“Who’s going to dance with me then?” I asked hesitently, the first intro clip was supposed to be the two of us as the strongest dancers and then goto individual cuts.

“Why don’t I dance with her?” A familiar voice from the door that Sae-Ron had just been carried out from.