Chapter 1
Seojun picked up her bag as she walked out of the house, walking through the same streets she had been using for the last who knows how many years. Waking up today had been a little better than usual. For starters, she’d been mostly ignored by her parents because they’d been busy focusing on her perfect older brother.
She’d only received a few taunts here and there from her mother but that was fine. It was all manageable. Surprisingly her good luck streak had followed through the whole day at school because she’d managed to avoid all the people she needed to and make it out of the school without any major problems.
She was in her last year of school. The only motivation for her to finish school was that she’d leave the hell hole in about a year. Seojun was a great student, and yes, all modesty put aside she was a great with a capital G, great student. She got outstanding grades and was overall perfect in her academics. She worked the hardest she could and stayed away from all kinds of trouble even though trouble always seemed to find its way to her.
Seojun let out a sigh once she made it away from her school to her usual isolated route and took out a pair of earphones and plugged them into her phone. The one thing Seojun loved the most was music. Music was the only thing that gave her a way out. Out of her miserable, wretched life. It was one of the very few things that were keeping her alive and giving her the power to fight against life and all its hardships. Plus she had a pleasant voice. And even though Seojun loved music more than life itself, she’d grown to accept that it would never get a chance to be something more. Something that could actually become her life.
Moving on to her music choice, Seojun was proud to say that she listened to all kinds of music. But like everyone else, she had a few favorites which were namely hip-hop and ballads. Rapping was her favorite aspect of being a music lover. It was a challenge and Seojun wasn’t kidding when she said that she loved challenges.
Challenges made her feel alive in a completely different way and she loved it. Rapping was one such challenge. The giddy feeling when she nailed all the rap in Cypher by Bangtan would become the highlight of her month. It was just something about being able to hit the notes in a ballad and rap with the same speed as the original artist, that made her heart burst with sheer exhilaration.
And as Seojun scrolled through the list of songs she’d downloaded- what? She didn’t have enough data to listen to music online!- she knew what song she wanted to listen to. Usually, Seojun wouldn’t care about what song she played but some days like the one today, she felt the urge to listen to a specific song. Nothing was wrong with it though. And when she felt that urge, it usually came along with the urge to sing along.
Yeah, singing loudly while walking down the street would be a very strange sight for someone to witness and probably embarrassing for Seojun too. But wasn’t it great that she was walking along an isolated road where no one would be present to listen to her? It was! And so, Seojun wasted no time as she clicked on the song her heart urged for; Tomorrow by- you guessed it right- Bangtan. Seojun liked a lot of groups but nothing came close to her love for Bangtan, they were close to her heart.
Even though some might say she’s overreacting, this song had saved her on multiple occasions. Seojun played the song as she sang along, her emotions pouring out into her singing. She walked down the isolated street, singing and rapping. Seojun smiled to herself as the song faded.
The song never failed to lift her mood up. And as the song faded, Seojun frowned. Something felt off. She turned around, carefully scanning her surroundings before walking again. A sense of paranoia filled her. Something just seemed off. And as Seojun reached a turn, she paused and turned back one more time just to flinch in shock and take a step back. Taking a step back hadn’t been a good choice for Seojun as she ended up tripping over her own leg.
“Oh my god! I’m so sorry!”
Seojun winced at the slight pain in her leg which was probably gonna bruise as turned her attention to the woman standing in front of her, offering her hand. Seojun reluctantly accepted her hand and let herself be pulled up and dusted off her clothes as the woman spoke.
“I’m so sorry for scaring you like that. Um, I’m Min Jangmi and I was wondering if you could spare me a few minutes.”
Seojun raised her eyebrows in confusion as she nodded and motioned for the woman- Min Jangmi- to continue.
Jangmi gave Seojun a hearty smile, “Thank you! Okay, so the reason I want to talk to you is that I’ve been watching you for the past week- and I know it sounds very creepy but please hear me out. I’m from BigHit Entertainment. And I’ve been watching you because you are someone our company would love to take in as a trainee.”
Seojun shook her head instantly, “I’m so sorry ma’am, but I’m not looking to become a trainee. I, I can’t.”
A look of disappointment flashed on Jangmi’s face for barely a second before being replaced by determination and slight desperation, “Okay, I know you’re probably suspicious of me because I’ve heard how the fake company scamming thing is increasing but I swear on any and everything you want that I’m not trying to scam you. You have some serious talent and I really don’t want it to go to waste. Please just do me a favor and show up at this address at 9.00 am. I’ll wait for you there. You can think it over tonight. If you don’t like it tomorrow you can leave, I won’t try to make you stay. Please?”
Seojun pressed her lips into a line as she stared at the card Jangmi had shoved into her hands for a few seconds before nodding, “Okay. I’ll think it over but I’m not going to make any promises.”
Jangmi grinned as she shoved her hand forward, waiting until Seojun reluctantly grabbed and shook it with an excited fervor, “Thank you so much! I’ll see you tomorrow!”
Seojun smiled politely and bowed as Jangmi left letting out a deep sigh. What had she gotten herself into?
Seojun felt her heart thump against her chest as she scurried over to the entrance of BigHit Entertainment. She managed to reach a few minutes before nine. A part of her knew that Jangmi wasn’t a fraud or a scammer, but she couldn’t help it. A subconscious part of her mind kept on spouting negative scenarios.
What if Jangmi had just played a joke on her? What if she had misheard the time and missed the audition? What if they had canceled the audition? What if she wasn’t selected? What if she was selected? All these what-ifs made her head spin as her eyes darted around, searching for Jangmi.
Seojun couldn’t help it, as a sigh of relief forced its way out of her once her eyes located Jangmi talking to someone by the entrance. She felt herself relax as she quickly walked over to Jangmi, trying her best not to break out into a run.
Seojun cleared her throat, “Um, excuse me.”
Jangmi instantly turned towards her, a large grin adoring her face, “You’re here! Come on, let’s go in!”
Seojun nodded and walked behind Jangmi as the older woman led her into the building. The place was much larger than Seojun had expected and the interior was quite simple too. Seojun marveled over her surroundings, making the best out of her first time at a proper entertainment company as Jangmi led her toward what she assumed was the auditioning room.
“Okay, listen. I’ll be here waiting outside. There are judges inside. All you have to do is introduce yourself and do whatever they ask you to. Okay?”
Seojun nodded, giving Jangmi a grateful smile before moving to enter the room. The room contained two judges at a table, a list in front of them.
“Hello. Welcome to Big Hit Auditions 2016. What is your name?”
Seojun bowed, “Good morning, I’m Seojun. Thank you for giving me your valuable time.”
One of the judges gave her a smile before he spoke, “Hello Seojun. We’re glad to have you here. Now, a quick question before we start with the actual audition.”
Seojun nodded as one of the other judges spoke, “Alright, how would you say your dancing skills are?”
Seojun shrugged, “I’d say I’m average at dancing. One thing I’m sure of is that I don’t have two left feet and have an ear for the beat.”
The judges nodded, “That’s fine. Now, we’ve gotten some input from Jangmi-ssi and would like to hear your singing skills. Feel free to select a song of your liking.”
With a deep breath, Seojun started singing, “Baby baby 그대는 Caramel Macchiato”
The audition went a bit longer than she had accounted for and so, Seojun found herself rushing back home after waving Jangmi a small goodbye. Luckily Seojun managed to reach home on time, without raising any kind of suspicion.
She kept her guard up the whole day, occasionally letting her thoughts drift until it was night and everyone had gone back to their bedrooms. She wondered if she had blown her audition and lost any chances of being selected. Getting scouted by a company as large as BigHit even if on the street was something extremely rare. These types of chances would come once in a lifetime.
Once she was done with her audition, Jangmi had let her know that she would be informed of their decision by 10:00 pm. Seojun held her phone in her hand as she watched the time tick by.
Maybe they hated her and decided to ghost her rather than have an awkward conversation with her about how useless her skills were and that she would make a horrible idol hated by fans the instant they saw her. Or maybe they would call her and insult her to their satisfaction.
She sighed as she rocked herself, holding her plushie tightly to her chest as she looked out from her balcony. Her grandmother had gotten her the purple-colored bear plushie a while back unaware that it was the last time they would see each other. Seojun, for some reason, refused to give the plushie a name and went ahead with calling it Teddy.
Teddy while being a non-living thing had always provided her comfort. She would always confide in Teddy at late hours of the night when the world around her was asleep, and she lay awake with her thoughts running wild.
Seojun checked her phone, it was well past 11:00 and there were no messages. Maybe they did decide to ghost her after all.
She went over to the couch as she lay down and fell asleep with the auditions still on her mind, unaware of how life can take a terrible turn within seconds.
