Diamond in the Rough (Seventeen and Bangtan Fanfic)

35: Icy Blue

"Rika-ah, look who's at your left." 

"Yah! Ae Ri, stop stealing my meat!" 

The elder girl with short, styled purple-grey hair giggled and stuffed the piece of meat into her mouth while Rika simply smiled and shook her head. Ae Ri was a trainee at BigHit, and had been for quite a number of years now since she entered when she was really young. Rika thought it odd that she should be so joyful and optimistic despite her having trained the longest, yet Ae Ri was a good friend. A little tomboyish, very playful, and perhaps that was why she took so long to debut. The company was likely trying to find a good time and a good concept to fit Ae Ri's unique personality. 

The day Rika sang on stage for the first time, Ae Ri had tackled her on the way back to their dorm rooms, and then they hung out in Rika's room setting up a playstation, and then that was it. They became inseparable friends. 

"Come on," Ae Ri mumbled with her mouth full of her last spoon rice, and the two rose from the table to put their trays away. 

"Annyeonghaseyo unnies," Rika bowed politely to all the beautiful,tall trainee girls, with beautiful straight hair and varied, unique looks who were gathering in the halls chatting, a little apprehensively. All the female trainees at Pledis had always been at the very least cruel to Rika. 

"Oh!" they all turned around and smiled, "New dongsaeng with the amazing voice!" 

"Ah..no.." Rika tried to deny.

"What are you talking about?" Ae Ri laughed, "You do have a pretty voice." 

"I heard sajangnim talking about you debuting as a solo" one of the unnies smiled.

"Really?" another one asked, "That means you really are a very strong singer, Rika-chan."

Rika looked cautiously trying to decipher if the trainees were jealous or simply making a passing comment. 

"Ahh...But I'd rather be in a girl group," A wavy haired short one said.

The other girls all started laughing, and one of the trainee girls who looked like their leader patted Rika and said, "Don't worry about her, Ji Hye's so lazy. Its really good to debut as a solo artist; means you're really good already. We're already set to debut as a 7 member girl group though. I'm Hee Jin." 

Rika decided that they were actually nice, and generous, and kind. 

"Thank you," Rika nodded, and smile genuinely, "You're all really pretty."

"You're a pretty girl too Rika-chan," the first one spoke again.

"Oh!" Ae Ri suddenly jumped happily, and they all turned to look at her, "Unnies, aren't most of us trainees going to the hair salon finally today? Can Rika come with us? Can she can she? Pleaaaaaase." In some ways Ae Ri was very alike to Taehyung, these two aliens. 

"Yah yah," Ji Hye pushed down on Ae Ri's head to stop her from jumping, "You yourself said all the trainees are going."

"So?" the purple haired girl asked nonchalantly.

"Is Rika not a trainee?" Ji Hye deadpanned. 

"Ohhhhhhhhh" Ae Ri nodded, bobbing her whole body up and down. The other trainees all giggled at her and shook their heads.