JiEun's Short Stories

I’ve been dancing as long as I can remember and I remember a lot. I have danced my youth away. I was always free styling on the streets, well where else was I going to freestyle? I had my very own spot at the Han River train station, that’s where I earn most and where I made my friends, there were two other regular dancers there. Jackson, he had moved from Hong Kong lived a good life for 4 years then all of a sudden he was made homeless kind of like me. Then there was Jinyoung, who was cheerful, but he wasn’t homeless and he danced more because he liked it.

I’ve been dancing here for almost two years now, the locals know it is my spot. My spot by the Han River Train Station. I have danced all over Seoul as well. I took a small job in Hongdae where I acquired a bit more money and I found a nice new spot too. I dance to get money for new clothes, school stuff, and food and a place to stay for a night, I’ve been able to crash at school occasionally. I don’t have a house, sometimes me and Jackson stop at Jinyoung’s when his parents aren’t in for the night, which is a lot of the time really and this makes it easy for us, other times we go to the bath house and practice most of the night, but that’s only if we make enough money for the week.

They’re good company and I don’t blame them for their misfortune in life. Jackson couldn’t speak Korean well so at night when we were tired I taught him as much as I could and he started to pick up the basics, my Chinese is way better than his Korean.

I dance hard early morning and evening. Weekends I can dance all day and earn three times more than I would on a weekday. I go to school you see, that’s how I am able to teach Jackson, he pays me a half of what he has earnt that day and we spend an hour going over things I have learnt at school, but that’s only weekdays. Weekends we dance. Fourteen hours straight, we occasionally take breaks but that’s all. Jinyoung helps teach too, but he doesn’t need the money so doesn’t accept it.

I wake up this Saturday morning, in the Bath house Jacksons still asleep, he must have been up late studying. Again. I wake him up gently, without saying anything we get out and get dressed, we purchase a few snacks for breakfast before heading out to the station, we were going to meet Jinyoung there, dance for a few hours and then head to somewhere new for a bit, we could teach Jackson too. We barely talk unless we have to and this rarely happens, we get to the entrance of the Station, I head toward my spot. As I approached the ticket machine I realised someone had taken my spot.

“Whoa, who are you and what are you doing here?” I questioned the girl who stood dancing where I usually stood dancing every Saturday.

“Why should I tell you my name?” she threw back at me. “Is this your spot, sorry I don’t see a name on it.” She continued.

“Everyone knows it’s my spot, I’ve danced here for two years I’ve never even seen you in this neighbourhood.”

“What has that got to do with anything? why would that bother me? I’m dancing here now, and you can’t make me leave.” She was feisty and I felt like she already knew it was my spot she just didn’t care.

I grabbed her hand and picked her bag up and took her out to the front of the station, I saw the locals look at me as I did, she struggled through my grip and got loose.

“Okay, if you are so good Yugyeom, I’ll see you here,” she threw a piece of paper at my feet and walked off, before I even realised she knew my name it was too late to ask her how she knew it. She had walked off into the distance and I wasn’t going to waste my energy running after some random girl.

I picked up the paper, it looked like a flyer.

Dance Competition
Hongdae
18th July.
Prize: Cash reward- 500,000,000 W

I went down by the river and sat starring at the prize reward, with that me and Jackson could survive for years, we could get a house and buy actual food. I was lost in a dream life that I could have. Just then I heard footsteps behind me. Jinyoung and Jackson approached me.

“What happened?” Jinyoung asked. I just handed him the flyer that strange girl had given me.

“Omg! Where did you find this Yugyeom? We should all enter. I doubt I would, but if I did, I’d give it to you both, you need it more than I do.”

“Yeah and I’d split it with you Yugyeom, we would be able to buy a house for a while and continue dancing.”

“But that much money for a competition. Doesn’t it seem odd to you?” I asked.

“We may have to do some research but in reality no, it doesn’t seem strange at all, Isn’t Hongdae where they have YG auditions and I’m pretty sure JYP are holding auditions there later this month.”

I paused, *why would that girl have told me to go there?* I think to myself, should I tell the others about this or just leave it for a while.

“Hyung, you there?” Jackson questions waving his hand in front of my face.

“Oh uh yeah what?” I ask.

“Let’s go to the library, we can use the computers there” Jinyoung suggested and I go along with it, we get there and proceed to look up information about the dance competition and sure enough 50,000,000 Won to the winner and a trainee position at JYP or YG. The top ten all get a trainee position too and 2nd and 3rd get some money, but not as much.

“What is this, who has decided to hold a dance competition so suddenly?” Jackson says in perfect Korean for the first time. “And why so much money?” Jinyoung questioned.

I could not think of why or what, but who. That girl almost seemed like she was looking for me, and she knew my name, why and how?

*that girl* she was on my mind all day, I went back to dancing but I could only think of her. Jinyoung made a few phone calls, and finally got in touch with his mom and told her that we were going to practice at his house for a while when she heard the reason she agreed to let us use the back garden empty room, it was more like a shed. But it was big enough for me and Jinyoung and Jackson to practice in.

We practiced all night, we decided we were stronger as a team, we could include more moves and better choreography and this improve our chance, it was a unanimous decision.

I woke up really early in the morning and went to the station to my spot, but she was there again. *what on earth was she*

“Hey, you.” I call out to her, she just looks up at me and smiles and continues to dance. “How do you know my name?”

She points to the ticket guy. *of course, I should have paid Minseok to keep his mouth shut for once,* but I never would have knew I needed to keep my identity clean and hidden. I wonder if she knew everything else. She had managed to track my name and my hobby, what else did she know.

“What is your name anyway?” I ask her.

“Jieun, Hwang Jieun.” She replies without looking at me, smiling or stopping her dance.

“How do I know you aren’t lying?” she reaches into her back pocket and pulls out a passport and license.. “You knew I was going to question you?” she nods. “What else do you know?” I ask her finally.

She stops dancing and bends down in front of where I sat up against the wall.

“Everything.” She states, and then she stands up walks away and disappears again. Is she a ghost or demon?

I couldn’t believe what I was going through.

I hated her, who could someone do something like this, wasn’t it too obvious she was stalking me.

I began to practice dancing, solo parts, I wasn’t going to let any rival groups know my routine I had created with my friends.

I had been dancing for a while and that’s when they both turned up.

“I told you we should have looked here in the first place Jackson.” Jinyoung said.

“I thought he would have gone somewhere else though?” Jackson muttered.

“The library? His school? My school? Hongdae?” Jinyoung replied.

“Hyung, why did you leave so early?” Jackson shook off Jinyoungs questions.

“I had to get practice somewhere, I need improvements if we are going to win this thing, I couldn’t really practice with you two lying in the middle of our ‘studio’” I replied still a bit shook up after the meeting with Jieun.

The guys and I played a bit practiced dance a few times after they dragged me back to Jinyoungs house. There was only 18 more days left to this big competition and unfortunately it was getting bigger and bigger, we went to the library to check on updates and found out more than half of South Koreans aged between 11-22 were entering the competition, that means about 500,000 at least, and the numbers were growing. It didn’t make us feel down, Jackson was the best break-dancer I had ever seen and his technical skills were off limits to me or Jinyoung and I hadn’t noticed until now. Jinyoungs rhythm was perfect and matched the beats perfectly not to mention his style and look as he danced, so composed definitely one of the best I had seen.

We decided not to be too praise worthy of each other, we criticised each other a lot. If Jackson was out of time, we mentioned it, and he improved for the next time, a constant chain of events that would make us better and better each time.

Every morning, for 10 days I went out early, and every morning that Jieun would be there.

Day 2: I asked her how old she was. She replied ‘16’.

Day 3: I asked her what neighbourhood she lived in. ‘songpa-gu’ she wouldn’t tell me anymore than that.

Day 4: I tried to question her, but she just bent down again in front of where I sat facing me straight on. She bit an apple then tossed me another.

Day 5: A repeat of day 4.

Day 6: Repeat of day 4 and 5.

This continued on until I stopped coming here. Everyday she’d disappear, I ran after her once but she had already gone. Eight days to go. I could last a week, hard practice and continuous work outs.

This girl was intense and extremely mysterious. I couldn’t work her out at all. I was going crazy. I went home day 10 earlier than usual. I grabbed a pen and decided to research a bit more.

Name: Hwang Jieun
Age: 16
Songpa-gu

That’s all I knew. No date of birth, no nothing but somehow this girl was involved in my life. I had no connections to anyone in Songpa-gu and I knew nobody by the name of Hwang Jieun. Never came across it before, not that I knew of anyway.

I danced hard. I needed her to see me, and with 600,000 people already signed up to this who knew how far I had to go for her to see me on the stage. Was she competing too?

I needed a break of thinking about her… 5 days to go.

I practiced harder and harder.

Four days to go.

Continuous practice, Jinyoung and Jackson are working harder than I’ve ever seen, and we still manage to teach Jackson.

Three Days to go.
Practice. Practice, practice.
I can’t remember the last thing I ate.

Two days to go.
We practice all day, Jinyoungs mother stops us a few times and makes us eat and stay healthy.

Day before the competition.
800,000 signed up, 3 of them are sitting in this room. Jinyoungs mother tells us to rest up and drops us off at the bath house, I hadn’t been here for 18 days, it was unusual for me to be away from this place for so long considering every staff member knew me and I knew them. It was basically my home, or the closest thing to my home.

We sat around and drank water and ate fruit and generally rested. I don’t think I could have practiced any more anyway. My legs and started to tighten up and then they felt like jelly due to the amount of practicing.

We spoke a lot more than we usually did, well, they did. The mysterious girl was on my mind a bit too much and I think Jackson and Jinyoung could tell something was on my mind, but like good friends they didn’t ask, they knew me quite well in this case.

I checked the time on my only possession I actually had that was my ipod, 8:40pm it was getting late and I wanted to be fully rested so I suggested an early night and went to sleep just after 9 O clock.

The complete darkness of sleep and night all merge into one for the good 8 hours I was asleep for. I wake up just before 5 o clock and go for a run. Then we would head back to Jinyoungs house take a shower and get ready to go. I didn’t need much looking after I have had years of experiences, since I was what 12 I’ve been doing this – mostly alone, until a year ago when these two came into my life. Don’t get me wrong I appreciate everything they do, for me for others and I wouldn’t be where I am without them, and Ms Park too.

The hours of the dance slowly approached us and even I couldn’t think of anything else but the competition. Not even thinking of Jieun. We went behind the scenes to practice our dance once before we were called up, this was going to be long week. We were in the first day, but would have to sit and watch the rest of the dancers for the next four days then they would have one day where they would confer and announce the top fifty dance groups or dancers then they would have a day to prepare a second routine and perform, forty would go home, but the last ten groups would have a place at an entertainment business and money to go with that.

They were slowly dwindling down the numbers, there were a lot of staff walking around, I had a feeling that this was going to be a 24/7 thing, when once judge got tired they would swap and nap, everything was recorded and they would watch the ones they hadn’t seen backstage in their own hotel rooms. We were sharing our hotel room with another boy group four of them, Jaebeom, Mark, Youngjae and someone from Thailand, I didn’t think it was polite to ask where and how they all met. It was quiet to begin with but when we decided to watch the auditions we soon became used to each others presence. It was unusual, particularly for me and I guess that’s why I held back, but the Thai guy soon revealed his stage name was Bambam, unusual too. Jackson and Jinyoung became close to Bambam, as much as the rest of the strangers, I thought to myself, *they are actually nice people, I hope they at least make the top ten*

Our auditions had been done and our interview forms completed. If we made it to the next round we’d have to have a full on interview with people from companies that could possibly sign us. Don’t get me wrong it was awesome that they would go through all this to sign some dancers, but I wasn’t keen on the idea of dancing for somebody, I wanted to dance for myself. I just wanted the money, not even for me, for Jackson, winning this thing was just proof, proof to my family that dancing isn’t a waste of time.

We had grown really close the seven of us guys and were on first name basis by the second night. I wondered around after the competition on my own, I tried to look for her.

I couldn’t find her.

I headed back to the hotel room. Jaebeom handed me a note and said it was for me
---Don’t look for me Yugyeom, we are rivals now, enemies, --- I paused she must have been watching me from a distance. – May the best man win – J ---

I couldn’t work out whether she was doing this to wind me up. Or confuse me or something, for some reason I didn’t like the girl, and I gathered she didn’t like me.

She just wanted to prove that she was worthy, she could hold out. What if she was like me, trying to prove to someone.

A week had passed and it was beginning to dawn on me that there would be hundreds and thousands of people going home today after they have lived here for just under a week. I prepared myself for the worst, the best ten groups from each day would be put through 5 x 10 = 50. This was cleverly thought out. We were called up in groups of three. *Why can’t they just announce it over the speaker phone like they did with our numbers* I saw hundreds of people leave within 3 hours and then it suddenly doomed on me that not one group had been accepted from our day yet. An hour and a half passed and our names got called out a long with a girl group and a male solo dancer a Korean American. They made us wait a little while in the small white room, then a man wearing all black came into the room, and he was followed by another man, slightly taller than himself, and again wearing all black, there were two girls too. They looked similar wearing white tops and coloured skinny jeans. The only difference was that one girl had super curly middle brown hair whilst the other was straight long black hair. I didn’t know who these people were, but I had a feeling they were of some importance. They called us out and then told us what we were waiting to hear, whether we had passed or failed.
……

…….

Passed!

We were the first to pass from day one. We all walked out happily and waited to hear if our new friends would pass.

Sooner or later there were barely any people left, well that’s what it seemed like as we actually had space to breathe now. Me Jackson and Jinyoung went up to our room and waited, we spoke about our routine and decided we would practice it when all the groups were announced this should be fun, we had prepared numerous amounts of routines, one from each of us and then a couple we decided together, so we would be okay if we have to do more than one.

We were prepared, well they were. I had only gone round to view the hotel a bit more and that is when I ran into her.

“Jieun,” I called as she walked away from me.

“Yeah,” she turned and faced me head on, like she always does.

“How have you done?” I asked her, would she be in the final 50, Would she make it to the top ten dancers in Korea.

“I don’t know, I am going to find out now.” She was so blunt and almost emotionless. That made her so mysterious and unusual. She wasn’t a friend, she was more like a rival, we were competing for my spot at the Han River Station.

“Good luck,” I smiled sarcastically and walked off. I put my headphones in, there was no music playing, so I heard her say, what’s his problem?

*Two can play that game Jieun.* I smiled and put on some 2PM music.

Two hours later, Mark, Jaebeom, Youngjae and Bambam came up to out hotel room and announced they had been chosen to go to the next round. * I wondered how my *friend* had got on*

A full list of fifty people were announced: yeah it was true she had succeeded and made her way through to the last round. All of us were separated into different rooms, us three were now completely against the four boys that we had just spent five days in the same room, and unknowing to Jinyoung and Jackson, we were up against Hwang Jieun too.

Although I had never seen her dance. I wondered what kind of dance she did, my group and I did street dance and break dance. Jieun, didn’t really seem to be the type of girl who would dance like that. She had long thin legs and her posture was very good, her arms were long too, I drew an outline of her body on a piece of paper. And on the outside I wrote the types of dance she could possibly do; ‘tap dance’ ‘ballet’ ‘street dance’ ‘contempory’ ‘ballroom’ ‘latin’ I just wanted to know who we were up against, but she was so secretive.

We slept and then woke up and practiced all day. We went through all the routines we knew and chose one for tomorrow.

Tomorrow was a much easier day, we had breakfast, and got in line to show our dance and left. Our dance was recorded, everything was going to be done by 5 o clock that afternoon, then the top 10 would be announced at 10 o clock that night.

We had it really easy, mush easier than the first 5 days that we had been here. I loved hanging out with Jinyoung and Jackson, and this experience was helping Jackson out with his Korean a lot.

10 o clock was drawing really close and this made me nervous. We needed the money, Jackson more than I did. Jinyoung probably needed it more than me, but I needed dance. I needed dance more than stupid money, that’s what it has always been for me, dance over all the money in South Korea, all the money in ASIA. Nothing was going stop me from getting what I wanted, and that was to dance. Even though the thought of me dancing in a company was horrifying and I didn’t know how I was going to cope, it would be better than before I started dancing properly, on the streets.

9:32 pm, less than half an hour to go, we had finished eating a while ago, and just stood around and played and listened to music. Jinyoung got a guitar and started playing around with it, we pretended we were in a band and made a song up. Jackson, took the rap, and me and Jinyoung took vocals. By the end, the song sounded really good, and I decided to get some paper and we wrote the draft of it down, we were so anxious that we had created a song and played music. I had calmed down, Jinyoung was nearly there, but Jackson was still nervous I think it was because he needed the money the most, he had nothing left, Jinyoung and I still had something left.

9:45 pm, this was getting tedious, why is it when you need time to go fast, it goes slower than ever. In fifteen minutes we would be called down stairs to hear the results, I decided to get dressed into something more casual, but still as fashionable as the other two guys. I chose my black baggy sweatpants and my boy London top I throw on a cap and some Nike shoes, I decided to borrow one of Jacksons bandanas (with his permission of course) and then I looked at the time.

9:53 pm, *we have still got 7 minutes left * but Jackson insists he wants to go down early. When we get to the conference room, we find the other four guys who we used to share a room with, we sat by them and asked them how they were we made small talk, I could tell they were really nervous.

10:00 pm, the room was full and everyone was waiting, suddenly the four figures appeared to the front of the conference room.

“We are going to call out the names of the ten acts that have gone through, as soon as your name is called out, I want you to stand up and make your way to the front of the room.” The man with the cap said.

“First act through consists of: Mark Tuan, Im Jaebeom, Kunpimook Bhuwakal and Choi Youngjae” I congratulated them as they walked past us and went to stand at the front, they looked super happy. Especially Bambam, he was really happy.

The list of acts were going through, they all looked really good, “the sixth act going through” the taller man began “is Hwang Jieun of the performing arts school of the United Kingdom” The girl I had been speaking with was from the UK, and she was a performing arts student. That was amazing, I had found out more about her from that one sentence then anything she had told me.

The seventh and eighth acts were chosen, there were still 42 acts who hadn’t been picked and there were only two more spaces left for the winners.

The woman with curly hair began to read out act number nines names “The ninth place goes to a trio of people, who I have absolute faith in, their endless charisma and courage to get through what they have gone through and their endless talent and friendship, I am looking forward to working with you – Jackson Wang, Park Jinyoung and Kim Yugyeom”

My face must have been a picture I couldn’t speak, I had pretty much given up by the fifth act.
That was amazing. Jackson seemed so happy. He would be actually earning money as a professional dancer, I wonder what company we would go under. The last group was another group of boy’s similar age to us but with five members.

The forty people that were left went home, a couple of girls were crying and I wanted to hug them and reassure that they were okay.

Then, the last woman spoke, the one with the straight black hair, “Hello, my name is Shin Bona, and I am going to announce the first place winner, we all had a tough time deciding who was going to win, two groups particularly stood out, along with two solo dancers. Although everyone of you will get a choice of going under the company either JYP or YG I want you all to know how good you are. The prize money has doubled because we plan on merging two groups into one. Mark Tuan, Im Jaebum, Kunpimook Bhuwakul and Choi Youngjae, we want you to form a group with Jackson wang, Park Jinyoung and Kim Yugyeom.” The girl stopped talking.

“We watched over you and think you would play an excellent role in whichever entertainment company you choose. Therefore you are the winners of this seasons prize money.- Thank you”

That night we spent mostly with our new dance partners, we were actually going to be an *idol group* according the YG and JYP, it was all a matter of choosing which company to join.

Both companies were well liked and this made it harder to decide. I wonder what company Hwang Jieun would choose. I still wanted to see her dance because I wanted to know what type of dance she did. I had a lot of questions and these were not answered as I wanted them to be, then I had a thought.

----FLASHBACK-----
I wondered around after the competition on my own, I tried to look for her.
I couldn’t find her.
I headed back to the hotel room. Jaebeom handed me a note and said it was for me
---Don’t look for me Yugyeom, we are rivals now, enemies, --- I paused she must have been watching me from a distance. – May the best man win – J ---
----END----

Does this mean we aren’t enemies anymore?

I got up and went to look for her it shouldn’t be too hard considering there were only literally half of what we had left yesterday. This meant we could talk as friends, and not enemies for once. I went down the stairs and I found her in the cafeteria with a coffee listening to music, I ordered and continued to sit down opposite her, and she didn’t realise for a minute two.

When she finally realised she took out her earphones, “Yugyeom?”

“Hey, how come you didn’t tell me all that stuff, like the UK or the world famous art school?”

“Well we were enemies, back then anyway, it is hard to tell people things when they are trying to beat you. Well congratulations on the prize money.” Jieun said quite plainly.

“Thanks, Have you given any thought to what company you might join.” I ask her.

“No, I haven’t I wasn’t going to join either of them in the first place. Why, have you?”

“I was thinking of joining JYP, but I am, well we are, going to have a talk with the CEO’s of both the companies and then we will decide, I like the look of both of them so I am not too bothered which one I join as long as I get to dance that’s fine with me.” I reply I have never been so interested in anyone before, but Jieun was unusual.

“I suppose I would go with JYP too they would allow me to dance more, it is all I really want to do. Anyway what did you come here to ask?” she replied.

“Well I want to know more about you other than you name and age. Like your favourite animal? Favourite colour? What dance type do you do? Where are you actually from? School? Why have you singled out me and persuaded me to join this competition in the first place?” I asked her it was true, I wanted to know all of that.

“Panda, Pink, Ballet, contempory, jazz, tap, street and freestyle, South Korea originally, moved to England, studied dance, moved back to Songpagu and I’ve been watching you for a while, when I came to find my brother in Han river Police station, I’ve caught the train from Han River as much as possible to see you there, I’m fascinated with how your body moves, and your facial expressions.” She replies and gets up to leave, just as she does, I grab her arm.

“What is your phone number?” I ask.

“I- I don’t have one, sorry” Jieun said.

“That’s a poor excuse, I’m homeless and even I have a handphone”

“No really, I don’t have one, I would give you my number if I did.”

Then she left. I decided I would have to go and persuade the boys to hurry and make our minds up. That afternoon we spoke with both of the CEO’s of both companies in the end it was decided that we would be signing a contract with JYP entertainment.

We would have the money in 2 instalments. The first one would be in my bank account first thing tomorrow morning.

It was decided, I would buy Jieun a phone and she would feel safer, although I’m not sure how safe she felt already. That night past and I woke up Bambam and Jinyoung and they came to find a phone with me. They didn’t know who it was for just that I was buying it.

I remember her telling me that her favourite colour was pink, so I bought a Pink version of the phone I had, Bambam and Jinyoung looked at me weirdly and then they shook it off a little. We wondered around the streets of Hongdae for a while and then Bambam found a small indie shop, and we proceeded inside.

It was very pretty, crystals and sparkly things everywhere, that’s when I noticed the phone charms and hair bows. They were cute and I looked at them and thought of Jieun, I went into a deep gaze trying to figure out which one she would like, I don’t even know why I was thinking of buying her something else even after the phone, I was about to give up but when I saw a sparkly panda phone charm I agreed to myself that would be perfect for her. I continued to look at the bows and picked out two pretty ones and purchased them.

“Yug, why are you buying girly things, have you got a girlfriend we don’t know about.” Jinyoung asked.

“Or a sister?” Bambam concluded.

“No, nothing like that, just a friend, and she doesn’t have a phone, stop asking me these things.” I pouted and continued to walk back toward the hotel.

Bambam pulled out bracelets from his bag and gave me and Jinyoung one, It had both of our names on. “I got 7 of them, one for each of us. Yours has Jr. on instead of Jinyoung because our CEO is Jinyoung so you could be JR instead. I got mark, JB Youngjae and Jackson one too.”

I put my bracelet on and then we walk back into the hotel. I went upstairs and hung out with Jackson and the rest of them, but at 7 O clock I went to look for Jieun again. She wasn’t in her room, maybe she was downstairs again in the café, I searched but didn’t find her. I asked at the front desk where she may have gone. They told me she went out with a friend of hers, but they said she would be back later on.

I went back upstairs but into her room and I put the two boxes on her bed, the phone was wrapped up in light pink paper with a white bow and ribbon and so was the other small box which contained the two hair bows I bought her. The phone charm was attached to the phone and inside I had put all of my new group’s numbers, just in case she wanted to get in touch with us all.

I didn’t wait long, I went back to my room and fell straight to sleep. My phone went off in the middle of the night.

Text message received: 1:37 am –Hwang Jieun.
Hey Yugyeom, did you by any chance come into my room today?

I replied
Yes, I’m sorry, Do you like your new phone?

She replied
You didn’t need to do it for me, you don’t need to do anything for me. I am grateful, thank you so so much. The bows and charm are really pretty too.

I replied
I am glad you like it, and you don’t need to thank me. I just wanted to help you in one way. Good night Jieun.

I left it at that and went back to sleep. I was tired, but for some reason not as tired as I usually was, maybe because it was the first day in ages where I hadn’t danced. Although I enjoyed dancing, I can’t do it all the time, but today was an exception where I didn’t need to. I was beginning to find my way around and talking to new and different people. I felt at home with my new friends and my new group were awesome, there was five other boys who had signed with YG, they called themselves winner, we got on well with them too.

In the morning I got dressed and headed down stairs to the café. I ordered a coffee and something to eat and sat down listening to music whilst I wrote some music down. I noticed
Jieun walk in and order I waved her over and she came.

I took off my headphones. “Hey, you like your phone then?”

“Yeah, I do, thank you so much. Yugyeom, why did you bother?”

I paused I didn’t really know what to say “well you are alone a lot of the time aren’t you, I thought you might appreciate a way to get in touch with some of your friends and with me it might make you feel safer,”

“I do feel safer now, but I’m not hopeless, only a little, but not completely.”

“You like your bow too, I guess.”

“yeah, you know me more than I know you now. So you must answer my questions,”

I interrupted her “Blue, wolf, street, freestyle, South Korea and Gangnamgu, Does this answer all your questions?”

“Not all of them, would you like to come to my room and have dinner with me, so we can talk properly instead of these coincidental meetings.”

“What time shall I pick you up at?”

“It’s in my room, I don’t need picking up,”

“Why not make it at a proper restaurant? Ill pay.”

“It’s not the price that worries me, wont your friends think it’s a date?” Jieun asks.

“I’ll tell them it is, that way they wont ask too many questions. Trust me, I know them pretty well now.”

“Okay, how about 7 O clock tonight?”

“I know a great place to get spaghetti, not too far from here.”

“Perfect, see you then.” I wave goodbye to her. Ten minutes later the boys join me.

“Hey,” I say.

We talk about everything that’s happened and soon they say they are going to hold a party tonight.

“I won’t be attending the party.” I say.

“Why, have you got something more important?” Jackson says. He knew how much I didn’t appreciate parties anyway.

“well, sort of, I have a date, sort of.” I blush.

“OMG, who with, come on tell us.” Jackson said in his perfect English.

“Remember Hwang Jieun, who came in the top 10 with us, well she doesn’t really know anybody so I’ve told her I will introduce you all but she wants to talk to me a bit more, so I’ve offered to pay for dinner tonight.”

“Oh wow, is that who you bought the phone for?” Jinyoung asks.

“And the panda phone charm, and pretty bows.” Bambam asked.

“Shut up, you guys,” I pout. “Anyway, I’ve written a song, do you like it.” I handed them a piece of paper over.

They all read it.

“Wow, you are more talented than I expected.” JB said

They go on about it for a while and then decide we should produce our own music and become an idol group like Marks favourite Kpop group BigBang.

I followed them upstairs and got ready for my ‘date’ with Jieun, I text her to meet me in the lobby and when I got down there, she was wearing a dress, with my bow that I bought her. Her hair was in soft waves reaching halfway down her back, her dress was a light shade of pink and her shoes were small heels in white she held a matching white bag next to her.

We walked down the road to the small but posh restaurant and sat inside. I ordered a nice spicy spaghetti dish, and salad and she did the same. It was really nice, the atmosphere was good and it wasn’t awkward.

We spoke about generally random things, like the entertainment company being trainees. I told her we has signed our contract with JYP and she told me the same which was great to hear we laughed about being trainees together and this bought up many ideas, saying we could collaborate on some music together.

We joked and laughed, for a while and then we ordered another drink. “Do you want desert?” I asked her, as the waitress came over to us.

“Urm, okay, I’ll have strawberry cheesecake, please.”

“I’ll have strawberry sponge cake, please and a bowl of icecream to share.”

Notes

I'm so sorry it's long and only half finished, I thought I should just update one of my stories as soon as possible and as I got requested to do Yugyeom, I thought I should, I like this story a lot and I could make it go a long way, it's only half done. I'm a bit busy lately college entrance exams, etc... but I hope you all forgive me, I WILL update all of them in the next two weeks. I PROMISE I'm sure I can find time inbetween my studies.

Let me know how you think this story should end. :) I already have an idea <3