Close Your Eyes, Count to Ten: Chapter 4
안녕 여러분!!!! <3
어랜만이야!!! ^_^
Soo there has been quite a bit of trouble lately. I've been soooo darned busy to where I don't have time to sit down and type up my chapters. But no fear, I'll get them typed up. I even have the next few chapters hand written so if I went on a typing frenzy, I could get them all done for you to enjoy!!
Alright, there's one thing I want to express before I post this chapter. Maybe it's because I'm like really wanting to know how I'm doing, or that I'm really stuck up or whatever, but I'm getting kind of worried that I'm not getting any comments. There are people who get comments right away, right? What do I do? Maybe my little notes beforehand aren't so cool so I should probably either stop putting comments and just get to the chapter, or at least tone them down a bit. So with this, I won't say much. But please be anticipating the next two chapters after this one. I really had a lot of fun writing them, so you might have a lot of fun reading them. Possibly more so than these past few chapters?? I don't know. Anyways, I wish all of my readers well. I hope that life isn't too tough on you and that you are always looking on the brighter side! I love you all! Even if I have just one reader or millions and don't even know, I still love each of you mysterious ninjas! ^_^ <3
Master List for Chapters: 이거/This
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CHAPTER IV
The first night staying at my uncles’ house was extremely different from what I had grown accustomed to. The atmosphere that filled the place was what one would consider lively. No one seemed to stay in the same place for more than a few seconds. After the Chairman gave up on trying to figure things out with me, I was sent away to spend time with everyone else. But spending time with people who were engrossed in what they were doing was slightly hard, especially if they had extremely different personalities than that of my own.
Most of the night, my older cousin was either cutting into my uncles’ arguments, barking at Man Young, or laughing her head off hysterically as if she was insane. During those moments, I grew completely scared of who I’d be spending most of my time with. However, she wasn’t the only one that was out there. The younger of my two uncles was constantly flitting back and forth trying to do something, only to end up getting angry and throwing his projects across the room. This continued until his wife walked through the door with their eight year old son. Since it had been either eight years or more since I was last around, neither of us remembered each other. The little boy was a short and chubby rendition of his father; although, the boy seemed to be a bit smarter than the poor man. Upon his entrance, we took one look at each other and turned the other way, knowing that we would probably never get along.
When my little cousin declared that he was hungry, I had found out that no one in the household could truly cook. How they survived on the burnt cooking of the younger of my two uncles, I had no clue. Biting back my own protests, I offered to cook since I had been doing so for my mother for ages. Immediately after such words left my mouth, it was settled that I would forever be set on the cooking duty.
Believing that I didn’t know how to make any Korean dishes, my cousin pulled up a few recipes online and shouted off directions from the other room. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that Korean dishes were all that I knew how to make. Although I had been raised in America with a lot of American aspects, my mother’s stomach couldn’t process the country’s food correctly, and she unfortunately didn’t know how to cook. Deciding that it was best to let my cousin keep yelling, I ignored her directions as I worked on my own to create the dishes.
“Wah~” Man Young’s voice appeared out of thin air while I was in the middle of cutting some pickled radish. Practically jumping out of my skin, I dropped the knife and winced at the clatter it made. Giving the man a full out glare when I turned to face him, I waited to hear his reasoning for his presence floating about the kitchen. “It smells delicious!” he exclaimed, apparently not paying attention to the look I was giving him.
“What are you doing?” I finally hissed.
“Not you too…” he pleaded, his happiness rapidly fading. Not sure of how to react, I pressed my lips together and folded my arms over my chest. One minute it seemed as if the guy was all fun and games, but the next his mood changes to where it seemed as if he was pissed off. The constant mood change was as if he was set on the front seat of a never-ending roller coaster of emotions.
“Who was the one treating me like I’m not even human a second ago? Now leave, I can’t think when people are in the kitchen when I’m cooking!” I retorted, pointing towards the kitchen’s exit.
“Yah! Man Young! Did I hear that correctly?” my older cousin’s voice slit through the air, sending chills down my spine. The sound of her voice didn’t bode well for the poor guy either, for his face fell practically to the floor this time and he sulked out of the room. Relief filling my entire being, I slumped against the stove and sighed. Maybe the cooking duty wasn’t such a bad thing after all, since it would probably be one of the few times when I could be alone. ‘Then again, if I was left alone for too long, I’d probably start regretting being in this place,’ I thought to myself and voiced a sigh.
At the end of the night, I was told that I’d share my cousin’s room for the time being until they finished fixing up Man Young’s apartment that they had chosen for him. From the jet lag to the crying to dealing with such lively people, I was exhausted to the extremes, so wherever I had to sleep was perfectly fine with me. My cousin even offered up her bed multiple times, but I refused with as much enthusiasm that I could muster. The fact that I had to sleep on the floor didn’t bother me one bit, for even the floor could have been better than that of my cot back in America. Truthfully, I was slightly shocked that my uncles could afford beds in this place, but then I suddenly remembered that one was one of the two CEOs of an entertainment company and the other owned a chain of convenience stores. Either way, I settled onto the Korean mattress and fell right to sleep.
The next morning, I was woken up relatively early by Man Young who was dressed up in a fancy looking suit, and looked every bit like a businessman. However, as he shook me awake, his face was sullen as if the sight of me made his heart fall. Mumbling incoherently, I wiped the sleep from my eyes and sat up.
“Chairman finally handed over my first assignment,” he blurted as I continued to break from my sleep. Catching me by surprise, my mouth formed an “oh” as I waited for him to continue. “I’m supposed to be your manager…this is probably the first time that a trainee will receive a personal one, though. Which means I will have less work until your debut…” he sighed.
“But the company hasn’t even seen what I can do!” I whispered in amazement, catching sight of my cousin spread out on her large bed, soundlessly sleeping.
“Because your uncles were constantly curious about your well-being, they had your mother send them recordings of you from time to time. That means that they have seen what you can do,” he stated while crouching in front of my suitcase, ready to open it. Sleep clouding my thoughts, I blinked a few times before the realization of what he was doing settled in. “What is with your clothes?” he sniffed as he shuffled through a few articles of clothing that had been neatly placed on the top.
“It’s called lack of money,” I mumbled, slightly hurt from the fact that he was acting in such a way. “Stop acting like you’re extremely feminine and leave me in peace so that I can get ready,” I snapped, shoving him away. As the words left my mouth, the man stopped, disgust masking his facial features.
“I’m just doing my job,” he sniffed. With that, he stood up and headed straight for my cousin’s closet. Peeking quickly her way to make sure that she was still sleeping, he rapidly reached out and plucked an outfit out to throw my way.
“Man Young!” my cousin yelled, snapping to attention when the clothes hit my face. Shocked, the two of us jumped and looked in her direction. “Don’t you dare touch my clothes!” she hissed, eyes flaring.
“B-but…it was for Mi Kyoung-ah’s sake…” he stammered. The moment that my name was mentioned, her anger subsided. For a few seconds, her eyes trailed from her clothes in my arm to my own raunchy ones now tumbling out of the ratty suitcase.
“Oh honey, we need to get you new clothes soon! Go ahead and wear that outfit for today,” she said, trying to hide her scrunched up face. When I nodded, she smiled and lay down once more. “Man Young, you’re an eyesore, get out,” she grunted while pulling her blanket over her head.
“Hurry up and get ready,” the man muttered, sending an ugly face my cousin’s way. When satisfied with making enough faces, he turned on his heel and fulfilled my cousin’s wishes.
“Hyun Ae...where is the bathroom?” I questioned in a small voice, knowing that she hadn’t fallen asleep just yet.
“Ah right.” Her reply was muffled by the blanket over her head. At once, she pulled it off and settled her eyes upon me. “Right next to the kitchen, there’s a small hallway that will head to the bathroom. Ajusshi tried designing the house when he was going to school for architecture. You can see that he failed at it though,” she informed, a small smile forming on her lips. Expressing my thanks, I gathered what I needed and shuffled out of the room.
After I had found the bathroom, I washed up and dressed in whatever had been thrown my way. My cousin had wonderful fashion tastes, but her extremely baggy cream sweater made my smaller figure look like it was swimming in fabric. It wasn’t that she was big, but she did have the curves I always wanted. There were times when I was extremely jealous of her and her figure.
Taking one look at the shorts, I set them aside and put what I had been wearing back on so that I could travel back to my cousin’s room to grab a pair of my jeans.
“Mi Kyoung-ah, are you almost ready?” Man Young’s voice whined from the living room. Still a bit upset from the night before and the fact that he made fun of my clothing choices, I quietly rushed back to Hyun Ae’s room to change. After I was done, I neatly folded my dear cousin’s shorts and set them upon her desk. Once they were nicely placed upon the pure white desktop, I turned around and assessed the chaotic mess that had belonged to me. Feeling like I should pay attention to fixing it up instead of worrying about being late, I knelt beside my suitcase and resituated the mess that Man Young had created. Patting the ever faithful item, I quietly tucked it into one of the corners of the vast room to move it out of the way.
Upon hearing the man’s heavy pacing, I shook my head and turned to the bedding mess. Unsure of where the mattress was normally kept, I turned in a full circle, eyes scanning the gigantic room. To me, I felt like it was silly to live in such a place. What would one do with so much space?
Eyes latching onto another closet tucked next to my cousin’s bed, I practically pranced up to it only to find more clothes. How could one person have two closets full of only clothes? Sighing, I decided to fold up the bedding and set it on top of my suitcase. With that, I made sure that the floor was clear and strutted out of the room to Man Young’s side.
“Yah! What took you so long? You didn’t even fix yourself up!” he snapped, his eyes flaring. Guilt slipping through me, I touched my matted wet hair. “You shouldn’t be walking around looking like that with a face like yours,” he grumbled. Slightly hurt by his words, I spun around on my heel to head back into Hyun Ae’s room. Aware of the hurt growing inside of me, I guessed that he would be lucky if I was to ever come out of my cousin’s room before she woke up. Either catching the mood I was in, or having some other motive, the man stopped me and headed towards the room himself. Setting my jaw, I turned back around and moved towards the window next to the couch.
As I stared out at the illuminated world, thoughts raced through my mind. Although my uncle expected me to follow Man Young about, I knew that following him would be very unlikely. I didn’t need a manager if I was going to be a trainee, and I really didn’t need such a man to be assigned as my manager if I truly needed one. I didn’t want to depend on someone who was a constant guess and acted raunchily more than half the time. Truthfully, I wasn’t even ready to depend on my uncles-let alone the people who had relations to them. I couldn’t depend on anyone in America, and it wasn’t going to start just because of a slight change in setting. This meant that I needed to stay on my toes around Man Young, stick to myself, and try my best to do most things on my own.
A hard smack on the side of my head snapped me back to reality. Rubbing where I had been hit, I glanced down at the brush that now lay on the floor. Dragging my eyes up to settle upon the culprit, I watched as Man Young was fighting with a fit of giggles. Heart hardening from his childishness, I confirmed what I had been thinking not a second before. Pushing back the annoyance, I bent down and picked up the lonely brush and ran it through my hair. When I was done, I shoved past the man who was still trying to control himself. In the room, I set the brush aside from the mess that the stupid one had created. Grimacing, I dug through it and pulled out the neatly pressed envelope holding the last thing I had received from my mother. Swallowing the feeling of losing part of the money, I took out what I thought would be enough and shoved it in my pocket. Afterwards, I slipped out of my cousin’s room towards the back door. Making sure that I didn’t catch Man Young’s attention, I slipped out and ran around the house as quickly as I could muster. When I had barely opened the gate to slip onto the street to find my way to civilization so that I could ask around, the one I was trying to avoid shouted after me. Slipping out of the yard and shutting the gate behind me, I then veered towards the left and continued to go. Upon hearing heavy footsteps behind me, I quickened my own pace. However, there was a time when the man had finally caught up with me, clasping his hand around my wrist and yanking me to a stop. “What are you doing?” he questioned. When I wouldn’t answer and tried to pull away, his grip tightened exceedingly and his eyes narrowed into miniscule slits. “Why won’t you look at me?”
“Leave me alone,” I mumbled in English through gritted teeth. Little memories here and there from the past floated back into my mind as the man nearly crushed my wrist with his own hand. Such memories were quite unpleasant, and I wanted to escape from them.
“What?”
“Leave me alone! Your childish actions are driving me insane. Who in their right mind throws a brush at someone and laughs? You haven’t changed, so how can I follow you around blindly? I can handle myself, since I’m not as childish as you are. I’ll find a way to CJES even if it takes me a year in this forsaken foreign place,” I hissed, reverting back to Korean. With that, his grip loosened and he blinked a few times in shock.
“So you still remember what happened back then?” he slowly asked in disbelief. Yet, he realized his mistake when I stared at him like he was an idiot before turning to face away from him. “Kyoungie…” he whispered, pulling me into a hug. Stiffening from his sudden action, I let the memories from the past swipe over me.
The first few times I had been to Korea, Man Young had been sweet to me as long as his friends were nowhere in sight. During the times that his friends were around, they bullied me to the extremes. For example, there were times when he would dump mud all over me, rubbing it in my hair before sitting back and laughing for hours with his friends. Other times, he would push me off of something so that I would fall flat on my face and get hurt. But no matter what happened during the times his friends were around, my little mind constantly declared that he would change. The times I had to go back to America had been the worst, for I felt like I would go crazy without seeing his face at least once in a few months. To keep my feelings under control, my mind would come up with little scenarios that could possibly happen when I went back. However, the last time I went, my cousin talked me into confessing my feelings for him. For hours the two of us planned out everything, such as when he would be on his own so that he would be himself. During the set time, I took a handful of handmade items that my cousin helped me construct and headed towards his usual hangout space away from his friends. After I had confessed to the older boy, he scoffed at what I had come up with. He took the lyrics to the first song I had ever composed in my life and tore it up in front of my own eyes. If that wasn’t enough, he whistled for his friends to come out from hiding. At once, they began throwing eggs at me, shouting as if I was some sort of animal. One even stuck up behind the petrified me and smeared dog poop in my short locks.
“I can never accept a fake Korean girl. You’re an American boy who needs to stay there,” the one who had forced this trouble upon me sneered before shoving me to the dirt and running off with his buddies. The rest of my stay, I remained locked in my cousin’s room, forcing her to room with my mother. Truthfully, I had no regrets when my mother never mentioned Korea again. For quite some time, the memory made me hold a deep hatred for the country, but the years slowly changed that as I realized I didn’t really fit in with the American society.
“You jerk,” I whispered, anger boiling up inside me for a few seconds before subsiding once more. “How could I not remember such a traumatizing event? Now let me go.”
“So this is clear before I let you go, I mainly stopped you because you were heading the wrong way,” he replied, not moving to let me go. Instead, he began to stroke my wet hair. “What can I do to fix at least the brush incident?” he asked a bit softer.
“Let me go and just take me to wherever it is were headed,” I answered with a huff. In truth, I didn’t want to forgive him-I wasn’t going to-but I knew that I’d literally be lost for days on end trying to find the place. When I was finally released from his arms, I made sure that I wouldn’t look his way. Instead, I folded my arms across my chest and waited for him to lead the way. Taking the initiative, he shoved his hands into his pockets and headed on. For a second or two, I stood there wondering if I should follow after him or not. But I pushed the thought away and started in the same direction as he was going, following him all the way back to the car.
The ride to the company was long and quiet. Man Young kept turning my way with a small intake of breath as if he had to say something, but then turned away once more breath expelling slowly from his lips. I sat back, trying to count down the minutes to how long I was stuck in such torture.
“So, Chairman thought this would happen at some point. He clearly expressed that he wanted us to be as professional as possible when at the company,” he finally managed out once we pulled into the designated parking area for employees.
“I’ll be professional if you are,” I retorted. He slowly nodded to my response and gave a heavy sigh. Not wanting to deal with the atmosphere longer than I needed to, I pushed out of the car and headed towards the building. No words expressed, the man caught up with me and tried his best to lead the way. “What is first on the agenda?” I asked, my eyes flitting like a madman as I tried to take in the entire building as we walked.
“Oh you know, meet with Chairman-the other won’t be able to make it today-and JYJ so that what has been planned can be explained to all of you at once. If he wants you to do more, then you do more, if not then we start with assessing your abilities,” he instructed, bowing to a few people here and there. Compelled to do the same, I followed every movement he made when approaching such people. I didn’t really have time to have the fact that I was really training under JYJ to settle in until we entered what looked like a meeting room with all three lounging in random chairs. When they noticed me, Jaejoong’s lip rose with a sneer, Junsu quickly looked away and his posture stiffened, and Yoochun shot a look that kill at Chairman. Not wanting to get into more trouble, I bit my tongue and sat as far away from them as possible.
“Alright, now that everyone is here, this is my niece Cha Mi Kyoung,” the Chairman stated, taking the time to walk over and set his hands on my shoulders. Yoochun took no time to snort his response while Jaejoong stared out coldly. “I know that she has done wrong to you, and has put the company into a predicament, especially since I wanted to introduce her to the company.”
“She caused an uproar among all of our anti-fans. We might not have the most, but they’re pretty vicious,” Yoochun growled. “If she ever debuts with this company-or at all-there will be more anti-fans for her than the number of fans we have ever had.”
“But of course! That is, unless we hold a press conference to state that it was intended. We wanted to give people a slight scare, and that she’s merely training under you,” my uncle retorted, squeezing my shoulders with the excitement that no one but him was feeling.
“What?” Junsu’s goat-like voice burst out. Clenching my fists, I waited for their anger to subside. Such an atmosphere was pricking at my being, and it was becoming unbearable. It wasn’t like I wanted this to happen either. As if my uncle felt the tension that was building up inside of me, he added a bit of pressure to his hold on me.
“Why do we need to go along with this?” Jaejoong questioned while he subtly reached over to console the furious goat.
“Either you go along with this or let the news spread even further. You know how many anti-fans you have in other places. They’ll hear about this and start up as well. At the moment, you’re only hearing from Korea.” The chairman then let go of me and left my side. “You three are one of the best groups within this company, and I can’t stand the fact that my niece detests the thought of you. I plan on changing that. You need to become her role model, make her finally look up to someone for once in her life. Anyways, she will also apologize at the press conference.”
“I am?”
“That doesn’t do much,” Yoochun grunted.
“Exactly! That’s another reason as to why we have to do more!”
“Chairman, isn’t this enough?” Man Young awkwardly coughed.
“Not at all. We’re going to go with a bang. We’re going to showcase her talents like what happened with Junsu’s musical press conference,” he responded, excitement filling his eyes.
“But you haven’t seen what I can do in person!” I exclaimed.
“How does that help us?” Jaejoong inquired, ignoring my protests.
“By showing that you helped her, of course! Fans will feel warm inside if they learned that their idols reached out their hand to a trainee and helped her out. This means that Yoochun will work with her to write a song. Jaejoong, you’re singing with her, and Junsu will dance with her. It’s simple.”
“Chairman, this is really going too far. Junsu’s musical was different. We haven’t learned what she can do at the moment, how can you assign her to such a feat? Wouldn’t explaining that she’s a trainee explain everything? No other trainee gets such privileges, so quit favoring her. I mean she also has a manager!” Man Young exclaimed.
“You may be a step above what you were, but you are still a manager to a trainee. You will all do as I say, so go work!” the Chairman demanded. But what did my uncle expect? Did he want all of us to agree to his ridiculous plans at once? Is this what he had spent so much time coming up with last night?
When the other three gracefully picked themselves out of their chairs and glared at me, I quickly stood. I guessed that even though I said a little bit, that amount had been just enough to hit them hard, or influential enough to cause an upheaval of anti-fans. Either way, I was also upset that I was forced into such a predicament. I didn’t really want to debut, especially because of my uncle favoring me. Truthfully, the whole favoring factor was slightly bothersome. It was odd actually getting such treatment, and I didn’t like it one bit.
“Hurry up,” Junsu snapped, forcing me to realize that they had already filed out of the room. Biting the inside of my cheek, I hopped up and quickly followed after them. Looking at them now with a clearer head than the day before, I observed that they had aged with emotions. Now, Yoochun and Junsu weren’t as close as they had been. Jaejoong had practically latched onto Junsu as if not having Yunho around tore him to pieces. It was an interesting sight, and a bit heart wrenching. I really did care for them as a person. I also envied their voices and charisma even if the break angered me to no end.
While we headed towards the exit, I received a few looks from the workers. Ducking my head in shame, I shuffled closer to the three men before me.
“May I ask where are we going?” I asked in the politest way I could muster.
“You just did ask, but we’re going to our practice space,” Junsu answered in a cold voice.
“But I thought there were practice spaces at the company…”
“Be quiet,” Yoochun insisted as we left the building. Clenching my fists and making a face behind their backs, I clamped my mouth shut.
“Yah! Why are you following them?” a few angry voices yelled. Turning to peek in the direction that the voices had come from, I noticed a handful of fans running our way. I knew that there were those fans that hung around entertainment companies just to see those they support, but I never saw it happen in real life. I had never really thought that I would be stuck in the middle of one of those situations, either. Once at the car, the girls were even closer, now holding a few things to throw. “Do you think you can do what you did to them and follow them around?” they yelled as the three idols entered the van. Wondering how they knew who I was so suddenly, I tried to keep the panic that was rising inside me from showing. As I moved to enter the van, the idols glared at me and made it clear that they had no intention to move so that I could successfully get in.
“Front seat,” Jaejoong grunted. I slowly nodded and went around to the other side as quick as I could without looking like I was growing frantic. As my hand latched onto the handle, the girls began throwing pebbles covered in paper among other things. Shocked that it didn’t hurt as much as I had anticipated, I pried open the door and hopped inside. Heart racing beyond control, I wondered how I could have let such a thing pass my mind. The girls were obviously upset that I had created such a scene at the airport, and seeing me around them once more would add fuel to their fire. “Let’s go,” Jaejoong commanded to the driver, making me remember that I was surrounded by other people. With that, the man started the car and we were off on the road to wherever their practice building was located.
“So what are we working on first?” I asked, genuinely intrigued to know what they were going to put me through.
“We’re going to do what the company should have done at first, see what you are talented at. First we will test your dancing and then your singing,” Jaejoong stated when no one had dared to answer. I nodded, my eyes gazing out at nothing.
“But she can’t dance in that! Can she?” Junsu exclaimed.
“If she wants to debut-or train under us at the very least-she will have to deal,” Yoochun piped up.
“I can dance in anything,” I cut in, not liking the fact that they were bringing down my skills with such words. Sure, it was a given that they wouldn’t talk highly of me if they never saw what I could do, but it wasn’t like they could tear me down either. Once the words left my mouth, I thought about what I had on. I had never truly danced in a sweater like the one I was wearing, but it wasn’t going to hinder me too much.
“Alright, let’s just see what you can do when we get there,” Junsu challenged. I bit my tongue and gave him a thumb up so that more words wouldn’t leave my mouth.
Once out of the van, Junsu looked me up and down before shaking his head and going into the building where they either rehearsed with their dancing and singing. Inside, Jaejoong and Yoochun stayed outside of the practice area with a couple of workers who had arrived a few minutes before we had. Taking the initiative, I ducked my head and made my way into the practice room where Junsu was waiting impatiently for me.
Immediately after the door had closed behind me, Junsu showed me a few moves that were sped up before stopping and challenging me with his eyes as if to say I couldn’t mimic him. Knowing that such moves were as simple as day, I repeated every movement that he had made a nanosecond ago. Clearly not impressed, he amped up with the intensity and waited once more. For quite some time, this occurred until the two of us collapsed at the same time, sweat pouring down our skin.
“You’re good,” he huffed.
“Thanks…you too. You’ve always been one of the top dancers,” I puffed, looking up at the big window to see what the other two had to say about my dancing.
“Really?” the man beside me beamed.
“Yeah, I have yet to meet someone with your skills,” I said, not really thinking it through.
“I think you already have, come on, let’s go cool down,” he said hopping up. Confused from the sudden change, I huffed out a long sigh and hopped up as well to follow him out.
“So you passed the dancing,” Jaejoong sniffed. At times, it was quite unclear as to whether he was still peeved with me or if he just didn’t want to associate with me because it was a matter of being unreasonable for him. I thought this through as I found an unopened bottle of water and guzzled it down at once. “Go sing,” he grunted, shoving sheet music right under my nose when I had capped the empty bottle. Glancing at what he had given me, I set the plastic item aside and took the sheets of paper in my hands. My eyes scanning over the notes and words, I nodded slowly. When the mike had been set up, I took my time to return to the room, my heart pounding. What if I messed up to the extremes? Taking a deep breath, I accepted the headphones that had been offered to me by a worker who was just leaving the room. When they patted me gently on the shoulder, I smiled a bit, my panic lessening for a slight moment. At the mike, I pulled the headphones over my head and held the music sheets to where I could see them. The music began when I gave them an okay, and my singing began. As the notes flew from my mouth, I felt like the whole world had dropped away with only JYJ sitting behind the glass to critique me. Near the middle of the song, however, they too faded away as I felt the words that I was singing wash over me in a wave of emotion.
“Okay come out,” Jaejoong’s voice cracked through the wall I had built up between me and everything else. The reality of it all crashed back into me, leaving me as a girl who led a depressing life. Whose life wouldn’t be depressing if they had to stand in a room and be tested by idols who they had once thought were gods? Wincing at the remainder of my shattered dreamland, I pulled off the headphones and reluctantly joined the three. The silence that had followed the door shutting caused my heart to stop. “Does she pass?” Jaejoong finally offered, turning to Yoochun. From the looks of it, he had decided to fully ignore the happy atmosphere that Junsu was trying so hard to create by his miniature excited movements.
“There were times when she got carried away when she shouldn’t have…” he started. “And there were points where her entire being portrayed a sadness that shouldn’t have been there, I wanted it to have a happy feel with no sadness within it-“
“But look! The words clearly state ‘you may walk away from me’ and ‘we have our trying times that end up in tears’! How can you put a happy feel to the song when the lyrics have sad elements to them?” I questioned, shaking the lyrics in front of his face.
“I wrote this, I should know what I’m talking about,” he said shoving it away without a care in the world.
“You wrote this, so you should know that there are sad lines in here!” I hissed and stepped away. “But it’s alright, one can’t argue with the song writer,” I sniffed.
“Right, as I was going to say…aside from those two parts, I think she did fairly okay.”
“I think she could fix a lot of things, but I didn’t hate it. So, pass,” Jaejoong concluded. At that, Junsu let out a whoop of excitement before throwing his arms around the man and pecking him on the cheek. The poor goat was like a little puppy. I gave him a treat and he was forever loyal, or on your side for a bit of time. “Anyways, Junsu and I are going to have our break, you and Yoochun will stay back and work on creating the song. We’ll come back in about an hour or so,” he added, pulling free from Junsu’s embrace so that he could stand up and leave.
“Wait, what?” the two of us being left behind asked in shock.
“Exactly! Now have fun,” the other stated, pulling the goat-like man away.
“Aish…I have to work with her?” I heard the one I was stuck with grumble once the couple was gone. Turning to face him, chills crept down my spine as I came upon the glare thrown my way. Swallowing, I quickly wondered how I’d survive the time that we were to spend together. All I wanted at the moment was to run away and not deal with this stressful atmosphere. “Let’s get started…” the man finally sighed. With that, I reluctantly took my place so that we could begin our work.
어랜만이야!!! ^_^
Soo there has been quite a bit of trouble lately. I've been soooo darned busy to where I don't have time to sit down and type up my chapters. But no fear, I'll get them typed up. I even have the next few chapters hand written so if I went on a typing frenzy, I could get them all done for you to enjoy!!
Alright, there's one thing I want to express before I post this chapter. Maybe it's because I'm like really wanting to know how I'm doing, or that I'm really stuck up or whatever, but I'm getting kind of worried that I'm not getting any comments. There are people who get comments right away, right? What do I do? Maybe my little notes beforehand aren't so cool so I should probably either stop putting comments and just get to the chapter, or at least tone them down a bit. So with this, I won't say much. But please be anticipating the next two chapters after this one. I really had a lot of fun writing them, so you might have a lot of fun reading them. Possibly more so than these past few chapters?? I don't know. Anyways, I wish all of my readers well. I hope that life isn't too tough on you and that you are always looking on the brighter side! I love you all! Even if I have just one reader or millions and don't even know, I still love each of you mysterious ninjas! ^_^ <3
Master List for Chapters: 이거/This
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CHAPTER IV
The first night staying at my uncles’ house was extremely different from what I had grown accustomed to. The atmosphere that filled the place was what one would consider lively. No one seemed to stay in the same place for more than a few seconds. After the Chairman gave up on trying to figure things out with me, I was sent away to spend time with everyone else. But spending time with people who were engrossed in what they were doing was slightly hard, especially if they had extremely different personalities than that of my own.
Most of the night, my older cousin was either cutting into my uncles’ arguments, barking at Man Young, or laughing her head off hysterically as if she was insane. During those moments, I grew completely scared of who I’d be spending most of my time with. However, she wasn’t the only one that was out there. The younger of my two uncles was constantly flitting back and forth trying to do something, only to end up getting angry and throwing his projects across the room. This continued until his wife walked through the door with their eight year old son. Since it had been either eight years or more since I was last around, neither of us remembered each other. The little boy was a short and chubby rendition of his father; although, the boy seemed to be a bit smarter than the poor man. Upon his entrance, we took one look at each other and turned the other way, knowing that we would probably never get along.
When my little cousin declared that he was hungry, I had found out that no one in the household could truly cook. How they survived on the burnt cooking of the younger of my two uncles, I had no clue. Biting back my own protests, I offered to cook since I had been doing so for my mother for ages. Immediately after such words left my mouth, it was settled that I would forever be set on the cooking duty.
Believing that I didn’t know how to make any Korean dishes, my cousin pulled up a few recipes online and shouted off directions from the other room. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that Korean dishes were all that I knew how to make. Although I had been raised in America with a lot of American aspects, my mother’s stomach couldn’t process the country’s food correctly, and she unfortunately didn’t know how to cook. Deciding that it was best to let my cousin keep yelling, I ignored her directions as I worked on my own to create the dishes.
“Wah~” Man Young’s voice appeared out of thin air while I was in the middle of cutting some pickled radish. Practically jumping out of my skin, I dropped the knife and winced at the clatter it made. Giving the man a full out glare when I turned to face him, I waited to hear his reasoning for his presence floating about the kitchen. “It smells delicious!” he exclaimed, apparently not paying attention to the look I was giving him.
“What are you doing?” I finally hissed.
“Not you too…” he pleaded, his happiness rapidly fading. Not sure of how to react, I pressed my lips together and folded my arms over my chest. One minute it seemed as if the guy was all fun and games, but the next his mood changes to where it seemed as if he was pissed off. The constant mood change was as if he was set on the front seat of a never-ending roller coaster of emotions.
“Who was the one treating me like I’m not even human a second ago? Now leave, I can’t think when people are in the kitchen when I’m cooking!” I retorted, pointing towards the kitchen’s exit.
“Yah! Man Young! Did I hear that correctly?” my older cousin’s voice slit through the air, sending chills down my spine. The sound of her voice didn’t bode well for the poor guy either, for his face fell practically to the floor this time and he sulked out of the room. Relief filling my entire being, I slumped against the stove and sighed. Maybe the cooking duty wasn’t such a bad thing after all, since it would probably be one of the few times when I could be alone. ‘Then again, if I was left alone for too long, I’d probably start regretting being in this place,’ I thought to myself and voiced a sigh.
At the end of the night, I was told that I’d share my cousin’s room for the time being until they finished fixing up Man Young’s apartment that they had chosen for him. From the jet lag to the crying to dealing with such lively people, I was exhausted to the extremes, so wherever I had to sleep was perfectly fine with me. My cousin even offered up her bed multiple times, but I refused with as much enthusiasm that I could muster. The fact that I had to sleep on the floor didn’t bother me one bit, for even the floor could have been better than that of my cot back in America. Truthfully, I was slightly shocked that my uncles could afford beds in this place, but then I suddenly remembered that one was one of the two CEOs of an entertainment company and the other owned a chain of convenience stores. Either way, I settled onto the Korean mattress and fell right to sleep.
The next morning, I was woken up relatively early by Man Young who was dressed up in a fancy looking suit, and looked every bit like a businessman. However, as he shook me awake, his face was sullen as if the sight of me made his heart fall. Mumbling incoherently, I wiped the sleep from my eyes and sat up.
“Chairman finally handed over my first assignment,” he blurted as I continued to break from my sleep. Catching me by surprise, my mouth formed an “oh” as I waited for him to continue. “I’m supposed to be your manager…this is probably the first time that a trainee will receive a personal one, though. Which means I will have less work until your debut…” he sighed.
“But the company hasn’t even seen what I can do!” I whispered in amazement, catching sight of my cousin spread out on her large bed, soundlessly sleeping.
“Because your uncles were constantly curious about your well-being, they had your mother send them recordings of you from time to time. That means that they have seen what you can do,” he stated while crouching in front of my suitcase, ready to open it. Sleep clouding my thoughts, I blinked a few times before the realization of what he was doing settled in. “What is with your clothes?” he sniffed as he shuffled through a few articles of clothing that had been neatly placed on the top.
“It’s called lack of money,” I mumbled, slightly hurt from the fact that he was acting in such a way. “Stop acting like you’re extremely feminine and leave me in peace so that I can get ready,” I snapped, shoving him away. As the words left my mouth, the man stopped, disgust masking his facial features.
“I’m just doing my job,” he sniffed. With that, he stood up and headed straight for my cousin’s closet. Peeking quickly her way to make sure that she was still sleeping, he rapidly reached out and plucked an outfit out to throw my way.
“Man Young!” my cousin yelled, snapping to attention when the clothes hit my face. Shocked, the two of us jumped and looked in her direction. “Don’t you dare touch my clothes!” she hissed, eyes flaring.
“B-but…it was for Mi Kyoung-ah’s sake…” he stammered. The moment that my name was mentioned, her anger subsided. For a few seconds, her eyes trailed from her clothes in my arm to my own raunchy ones now tumbling out of the ratty suitcase.
“Oh honey, we need to get you new clothes soon! Go ahead and wear that outfit for today,” she said, trying to hide her scrunched up face. When I nodded, she smiled and lay down once more. “Man Young, you’re an eyesore, get out,” she grunted while pulling her blanket over her head.
“Hurry up and get ready,” the man muttered, sending an ugly face my cousin’s way. When satisfied with making enough faces, he turned on his heel and fulfilled my cousin’s wishes.
“Hyun Ae...where is the bathroom?” I questioned in a small voice, knowing that she hadn’t fallen asleep just yet.
“Ah right.” Her reply was muffled by the blanket over her head. At once, she pulled it off and settled her eyes upon me. “Right next to the kitchen, there’s a small hallway that will head to the bathroom. Ajusshi tried designing the house when he was going to school for architecture. You can see that he failed at it though,” she informed, a small smile forming on her lips. Expressing my thanks, I gathered what I needed and shuffled out of the room.
After I had found the bathroom, I washed up and dressed in whatever had been thrown my way. My cousin had wonderful fashion tastes, but her extremely baggy cream sweater made my smaller figure look like it was swimming in fabric. It wasn’t that she was big, but she did have the curves I always wanted. There were times when I was extremely jealous of her and her figure.
Taking one look at the shorts, I set them aside and put what I had been wearing back on so that I could travel back to my cousin’s room to grab a pair of my jeans.
“Mi Kyoung-ah, are you almost ready?” Man Young’s voice whined from the living room. Still a bit upset from the night before and the fact that he made fun of my clothing choices, I quietly rushed back to Hyun Ae’s room to change. After I was done, I neatly folded my dear cousin’s shorts and set them upon her desk. Once they were nicely placed upon the pure white desktop, I turned around and assessed the chaotic mess that had belonged to me. Feeling like I should pay attention to fixing it up instead of worrying about being late, I knelt beside my suitcase and resituated the mess that Man Young had created. Patting the ever faithful item, I quietly tucked it into one of the corners of the vast room to move it out of the way.
Upon hearing the man’s heavy pacing, I shook my head and turned to the bedding mess. Unsure of where the mattress was normally kept, I turned in a full circle, eyes scanning the gigantic room. To me, I felt like it was silly to live in such a place. What would one do with so much space?
Eyes latching onto another closet tucked next to my cousin’s bed, I practically pranced up to it only to find more clothes. How could one person have two closets full of only clothes? Sighing, I decided to fold up the bedding and set it on top of my suitcase. With that, I made sure that the floor was clear and strutted out of the room to Man Young’s side.
“Yah! What took you so long? You didn’t even fix yourself up!” he snapped, his eyes flaring. Guilt slipping through me, I touched my matted wet hair. “You shouldn’t be walking around looking like that with a face like yours,” he grumbled. Slightly hurt by his words, I spun around on my heel to head back into Hyun Ae’s room. Aware of the hurt growing inside of me, I guessed that he would be lucky if I was to ever come out of my cousin’s room before she woke up. Either catching the mood I was in, or having some other motive, the man stopped me and headed towards the room himself. Setting my jaw, I turned back around and moved towards the window next to the couch.
As I stared out at the illuminated world, thoughts raced through my mind. Although my uncle expected me to follow Man Young about, I knew that following him would be very unlikely. I didn’t need a manager if I was going to be a trainee, and I really didn’t need such a man to be assigned as my manager if I truly needed one. I didn’t want to depend on someone who was a constant guess and acted raunchily more than half the time. Truthfully, I wasn’t even ready to depend on my uncles-let alone the people who had relations to them. I couldn’t depend on anyone in America, and it wasn’t going to start just because of a slight change in setting. This meant that I needed to stay on my toes around Man Young, stick to myself, and try my best to do most things on my own.
A hard smack on the side of my head snapped me back to reality. Rubbing where I had been hit, I glanced down at the brush that now lay on the floor. Dragging my eyes up to settle upon the culprit, I watched as Man Young was fighting with a fit of giggles. Heart hardening from his childishness, I confirmed what I had been thinking not a second before. Pushing back the annoyance, I bent down and picked up the lonely brush and ran it through my hair. When I was done, I shoved past the man who was still trying to control himself. In the room, I set the brush aside from the mess that the stupid one had created. Grimacing, I dug through it and pulled out the neatly pressed envelope holding the last thing I had received from my mother. Swallowing the feeling of losing part of the money, I took out what I thought would be enough and shoved it in my pocket. Afterwards, I slipped out of my cousin’s room towards the back door. Making sure that I didn’t catch Man Young’s attention, I slipped out and ran around the house as quickly as I could muster. When I had barely opened the gate to slip onto the street to find my way to civilization so that I could ask around, the one I was trying to avoid shouted after me. Slipping out of the yard and shutting the gate behind me, I then veered towards the left and continued to go. Upon hearing heavy footsteps behind me, I quickened my own pace. However, there was a time when the man had finally caught up with me, clasping his hand around my wrist and yanking me to a stop. “What are you doing?” he questioned. When I wouldn’t answer and tried to pull away, his grip tightened exceedingly and his eyes narrowed into miniscule slits. “Why won’t you look at me?”
“Leave me alone,” I mumbled in English through gritted teeth. Little memories here and there from the past floated back into my mind as the man nearly crushed my wrist with his own hand. Such memories were quite unpleasant, and I wanted to escape from them.
“What?”
“Leave me alone! Your childish actions are driving me insane. Who in their right mind throws a brush at someone and laughs? You haven’t changed, so how can I follow you around blindly? I can handle myself, since I’m not as childish as you are. I’ll find a way to CJES even if it takes me a year in this forsaken foreign place,” I hissed, reverting back to Korean. With that, his grip loosened and he blinked a few times in shock.
“So you still remember what happened back then?” he slowly asked in disbelief. Yet, he realized his mistake when I stared at him like he was an idiot before turning to face away from him. “Kyoungie…” he whispered, pulling me into a hug. Stiffening from his sudden action, I let the memories from the past swipe over me.
The first few times I had been to Korea, Man Young had been sweet to me as long as his friends were nowhere in sight. During the times that his friends were around, they bullied me to the extremes. For example, there were times when he would dump mud all over me, rubbing it in my hair before sitting back and laughing for hours with his friends. Other times, he would push me off of something so that I would fall flat on my face and get hurt. But no matter what happened during the times his friends were around, my little mind constantly declared that he would change. The times I had to go back to America had been the worst, for I felt like I would go crazy without seeing his face at least once in a few months. To keep my feelings under control, my mind would come up with little scenarios that could possibly happen when I went back. However, the last time I went, my cousin talked me into confessing my feelings for him. For hours the two of us planned out everything, such as when he would be on his own so that he would be himself. During the set time, I took a handful of handmade items that my cousin helped me construct and headed towards his usual hangout space away from his friends. After I had confessed to the older boy, he scoffed at what I had come up with. He took the lyrics to the first song I had ever composed in my life and tore it up in front of my own eyes. If that wasn’t enough, he whistled for his friends to come out from hiding. At once, they began throwing eggs at me, shouting as if I was some sort of animal. One even stuck up behind the petrified me and smeared dog poop in my short locks.
“I can never accept a fake Korean girl. You’re an American boy who needs to stay there,” the one who had forced this trouble upon me sneered before shoving me to the dirt and running off with his buddies. The rest of my stay, I remained locked in my cousin’s room, forcing her to room with my mother. Truthfully, I had no regrets when my mother never mentioned Korea again. For quite some time, the memory made me hold a deep hatred for the country, but the years slowly changed that as I realized I didn’t really fit in with the American society.
“You jerk,” I whispered, anger boiling up inside me for a few seconds before subsiding once more. “How could I not remember such a traumatizing event? Now let me go.”
“So this is clear before I let you go, I mainly stopped you because you were heading the wrong way,” he replied, not moving to let me go. Instead, he began to stroke my wet hair. “What can I do to fix at least the brush incident?” he asked a bit softer.
“Let me go and just take me to wherever it is were headed,” I answered with a huff. In truth, I didn’t want to forgive him-I wasn’t going to-but I knew that I’d literally be lost for days on end trying to find the place. When I was finally released from his arms, I made sure that I wouldn’t look his way. Instead, I folded my arms across my chest and waited for him to lead the way. Taking the initiative, he shoved his hands into his pockets and headed on. For a second or two, I stood there wondering if I should follow after him or not. But I pushed the thought away and started in the same direction as he was going, following him all the way back to the car.
The ride to the company was long and quiet. Man Young kept turning my way with a small intake of breath as if he had to say something, but then turned away once more breath expelling slowly from his lips. I sat back, trying to count down the minutes to how long I was stuck in such torture.
“So, Chairman thought this would happen at some point. He clearly expressed that he wanted us to be as professional as possible when at the company,” he finally managed out once we pulled into the designated parking area for employees.
“I’ll be professional if you are,” I retorted. He slowly nodded to my response and gave a heavy sigh. Not wanting to deal with the atmosphere longer than I needed to, I pushed out of the car and headed towards the building. No words expressed, the man caught up with me and tried his best to lead the way. “What is first on the agenda?” I asked, my eyes flitting like a madman as I tried to take in the entire building as we walked.
“Oh you know, meet with Chairman-the other won’t be able to make it today-and JYJ so that what has been planned can be explained to all of you at once. If he wants you to do more, then you do more, if not then we start with assessing your abilities,” he instructed, bowing to a few people here and there. Compelled to do the same, I followed every movement he made when approaching such people. I didn’t really have time to have the fact that I was really training under JYJ to settle in until we entered what looked like a meeting room with all three lounging in random chairs. When they noticed me, Jaejoong’s lip rose with a sneer, Junsu quickly looked away and his posture stiffened, and Yoochun shot a look that kill at Chairman. Not wanting to get into more trouble, I bit my tongue and sat as far away from them as possible.
“Alright, now that everyone is here, this is my niece Cha Mi Kyoung,” the Chairman stated, taking the time to walk over and set his hands on my shoulders. Yoochun took no time to snort his response while Jaejoong stared out coldly. “I know that she has done wrong to you, and has put the company into a predicament, especially since I wanted to introduce her to the company.”
“She caused an uproar among all of our anti-fans. We might not have the most, but they’re pretty vicious,” Yoochun growled. “If she ever debuts with this company-or at all-there will be more anti-fans for her than the number of fans we have ever had.”
“But of course! That is, unless we hold a press conference to state that it was intended. We wanted to give people a slight scare, and that she’s merely training under you,” my uncle retorted, squeezing my shoulders with the excitement that no one but him was feeling.
“What?” Junsu’s goat-like voice burst out. Clenching my fists, I waited for their anger to subside. Such an atmosphere was pricking at my being, and it was becoming unbearable. It wasn’t like I wanted this to happen either. As if my uncle felt the tension that was building up inside of me, he added a bit of pressure to his hold on me.
“Why do we need to go along with this?” Jaejoong questioned while he subtly reached over to console the furious goat.
“Either you go along with this or let the news spread even further. You know how many anti-fans you have in other places. They’ll hear about this and start up as well. At the moment, you’re only hearing from Korea.” The chairman then let go of me and left my side. “You three are one of the best groups within this company, and I can’t stand the fact that my niece detests the thought of you. I plan on changing that. You need to become her role model, make her finally look up to someone for once in her life. Anyways, she will also apologize at the press conference.”
“I am?”
“That doesn’t do much,” Yoochun grunted.
“Exactly! That’s another reason as to why we have to do more!”
“Chairman, isn’t this enough?” Man Young awkwardly coughed.
“Not at all. We’re going to go with a bang. We’re going to showcase her talents like what happened with Junsu’s musical press conference,” he responded, excitement filling his eyes.
“But you haven’t seen what I can do in person!” I exclaimed.
“How does that help us?” Jaejoong inquired, ignoring my protests.
“By showing that you helped her, of course! Fans will feel warm inside if they learned that their idols reached out their hand to a trainee and helped her out. This means that Yoochun will work with her to write a song. Jaejoong, you’re singing with her, and Junsu will dance with her. It’s simple.”
“Chairman, this is really going too far. Junsu’s musical was different. We haven’t learned what she can do at the moment, how can you assign her to such a feat? Wouldn’t explaining that she’s a trainee explain everything? No other trainee gets such privileges, so quit favoring her. I mean she also has a manager!” Man Young exclaimed.
“You may be a step above what you were, but you are still a manager to a trainee. You will all do as I say, so go work!” the Chairman demanded. But what did my uncle expect? Did he want all of us to agree to his ridiculous plans at once? Is this what he had spent so much time coming up with last night?
When the other three gracefully picked themselves out of their chairs and glared at me, I quickly stood. I guessed that even though I said a little bit, that amount had been just enough to hit them hard, or influential enough to cause an upheaval of anti-fans. Either way, I was also upset that I was forced into such a predicament. I didn’t really want to debut, especially because of my uncle favoring me. Truthfully, the whole favoring factor was slightly bothersome. It was odd actually getting such treatment, and I didn’t like it one bit.
“Hurry up,” Junsu snapped, forcing me to realize that they had already filed out of the room. Biting the inside of my cheek, I hopped up and quickly followed after them. Looking at them now with a clearer head than the day before, I observed that they had aged with emotions. Now, Yoochun and Junsu weren’t as close as they had been. Jaejoong had practically latched onto Junsu as if not having Yunho around tore him to pieces. It was an interesting sight, and a bit heart wrenching. I really did care for them as a person. I also envied their voices and charisma even if the break angered me to no end.
While we headed towards the exit, I received a few looks from the workers. Ducking my head in shame, I shuffled closer to the three men before me.
“May I ask where are we going?” I asked in the politest way I could muster.
“You just did ask, but we’re going to our practice space,” Junsu answered in a cold voice.
“But I thought there were practice spaces at the company…”
“Be quiet,” Yoochun insisted as we left the building. Clenching my fists and making a face behind their backs, I clamped my mouth shut.
“Yah! Why are you following them?” a few angry voices yelled. Turning to peek in the direction that the voices had come from, I noticed a handful of fans running our way. I knew that there were those fans that hung around entertainment companies just to see those they support, but I never saw it happen in real life. I had never really thought that I would be stuck in the middle of one of those situations, either. Once at the car, the girls were even closer, now holding a few things to throw. “Do you think you can do what you did to them and follow them around?” they yelled as the three idols entered the van. Wondering how they knew who I was so suddenly, I tried to keep the panic that was rising inside me from showing. As I moved to enter the van, the idols glared at me and made it clear that they had no intention to move so that I could successfully get in.
“Front seat,” Jaejoong grunted. I slowly nodded and went around to the other side as quick as I could without looking like I was growing frantic. As my hand latched onto the handle, the girls began throwing pebbles covered in paper among other things. Shocked that it didn’t hurt as much as I had anticipated, I pried open the door and hopped inside. Heart racing beyond control, I wondered how I could have let such a thing pass my mind. The girls were obviously upset that I had created such a scene at the airport, and seeing me around them once more would add fuel to their fire. “Let’s go,” Jaejoong commanded to the driver, making me remember that I was surrounded by other people. With that, the man started the car and we were off on the road to wherever their practice building was located.
“So what are we working on first?” I asked, genuinely intrigued to know what they were going to put me through.
“We’re going to do what the company should have done at first, see what you are talented at. First we will test your dancing and then your singing,” Jaejoong stated when no one had dared to answer. I nodded, my eyes gazing out at nothing.
“But she can’t dance in that! Can she?” Junsu exclaimed.
“If she wants to debut-or train under us at the very least-she will have to deal,” Yoochun piped up.
“I can dance in anything,” I cut in, not liking the fact that they were bringing down my skills with such words. Sure, it was a given that they wouldn’t talk highly of me if they never saw what I could do, but it wasn’t like they could tear me down either. Once the words left my mouth, I thought about what I had on. I had never truly danced in a sweater like the one I was wearing, but it wasn’t going to hinder me too much.
“Alright, let’s just see what you can do when we get there,” Junsu challenged. I bit my tongue and gave him a thumb up so that more words wouldn’t leave my mouth.
Once out of the van, Junsu looked me up and down before shaking his head and going into the building where they either rehearsed with their dancing and singing. Inside, Jaejoong and Yoochun stayed outside of the practice area with a couple of workers who had arrived a few minutes before we had. Taking the initiative, I ducked my head and made my way into the practice room where Junsu was waiting impatiently for me.
Immediately after the door had closed behind me, Junsu showed me a few moves that were sped up before stopping and challenging me with his eyes as if to say I couldn’t mimic him. Knowing that such moves were as simple as day, I repeated every movement that he had made a nanosecond ago. Clearly not impressed, he amped up with the intensity and waited once more. For quite some time, this occurred until the two of us collapsed at the same time, sweat pouring down our skin.
“You’re good,” he huffed.
“Thanks…you too. You’ve always been one of the top dancers,” I puffed, looking up at the big window to see what the other two had to say about my dancing.
“Really?” the man beside me beamed.
“Yeah, I have yet to meet someone with your skills,” I said, not really thinking it through.
“I think you already have, come on, let’s go cool down,” he said hopping up. Confused from the sudden change, I huffed out a long sigh and hopped up as well to follow him out.
“So you passed the dancing,” Jaejoong sniffed. At times, it was quite unclear as to whether he was still peeved with me or if he just didn’t want to associate with me because it was a matter of being unreasonable for him. I thought this through as I found an unopened bottle of water and guzzled it down at once. “Go sing,” he grunted, shoving sheet music right under my nose when I had capped the empty bottle. Glancing at what he had given me, I set the plastic item aside and took the sheets of paper in my hands. My eyes scanning over the notes and words, I nodded slowly. When the mike had been set up, I took my time to return to the room, my heart pounding. What if I messed up to the extremes? Taking a deep breath, I accepted the headphones that had been offered to me by a worker who was just leaving the room. When they patted me gently on the shoulder, I smiled a bit, my panic lessening for a slight moment. At the mike, I pulled the headphones over my head and held the music sheets to where I could see them. The music began when I gave them an okay, and my singing began. As the notes flew from my mouth, I felt like the whole world had dropped away with only JYJ sitting behind the glass to critique me. Near the middle of the song, however, they too faded away as I felt the words that I was singing wash over me in a wave of emotion.
“Okay come out,” Jaejoong’s voice cracked through the wall I had built up between me and everything else. The reality of it all crashed back into me, leaving me as a girl who led a depressing life. Whose life wouldn’t be depressing if they had to stand in a room and be tested by idols who they had once thought were gods? Wincing at the remainder of my shattered dreamland, I pulled off the headphones and reluctantly joined the three. The silence that had followed the door shutting caused my heart to stop. “Does she pass?” Jaejoong finally offered, turning to Yoochun. From the looks of it, he had decided to fully ignore the happy atmosphere that Junsu was trying so hard to create by his miniature excited movements.
“There were times when she got carried away when she shouldn’t have…” he started. “And there were points where her entire being portrayed a sadness that shouldn’t have been there, I wanted it to have a happy feel with no sadness within it-“
“But look! The words clearly state ‘you may walk away from me’ and ‘we have our trying times that end up in tears’! How can you put a happy feel to the song when the lyrics have sad elements to them?” I questioned, shaking the lyrics in front of his face.
“I wrote this, I should know what I’m talking about,” he said shoving it away without a care in the world.
“You wrote this, so you should know that there are sad lines in here!” I hissed and stepped away. “But it’s alright, one can’t argue with the song writer,” I sniffed.
“Right, as I was going to say…aside from those two parts, I think she did fairly okay.”
“I think she could fix a lot of things, but I didn’t hate it. So, pass,” Jaejoong concluded. At that, Junsu let out a whoop of excitement before throwing his arms around the man and pecking him on the cheek. The poor goat was like a little puppy. I gave him a treat and he was forever loyal, or on your side for a bit of time. “Anyways, Junsu and I are going to have our break, you and Yoochun will stay back and work on creating the song. We’ll come back in about an hour or so,” he added, pulling free from Junsu’s embrace so that he could stand up and leave.
“Wait, what?” the two of us being left behind asked in shock.
“Exactly! Now have fun,” the other stated, pulling the goat-like man away.
“Aish…I have to work with her?” I heard the one I was stuck with grumble once the couple was gone. Turning to face him, chills crept down my spine as I came upon the glare thrown my way. Swallowing, I quickly wondered how I’d survive the time that we were to spend together. All I wanted at the moment was to run away and not deal with this stressful atmosphere. “Let’s get started…” the man finally sighed. With that, I reluctantly took my place so that we could begin our work.