𝔼𝕝𝕖𝕔𝕥𝕣𝕚𝕔 ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕥𝕤//𝐓𝐞𝐧 𝐟𝐟

1

I walk out on the stage while looking out on the cheering audience, finding my place in the center of the stage and looking to my right on my baby brother who stands solid with his microphone.

"1, 2, 3" I whisper to him and he starts singing while I begin to feel the melody and letting my body float with it. I quickly get lost in the dance, when I suddenly hear a frightening high pitched scream to my right, so I fall and look at my brother with an annoyed look.

"Chenle! I really hope that wasn't your attempt on a high note." I tell him with a judging tone.

"No no, don't worry I just think one in the audience died" he says as if I was the stupid one.

I look over the chairs that were placed neatly in two rows, which took us half an hour to set up. On the front row one of our old brown teddy bears has indeed fallen to the ground.

"Oh no Captain Poop was our biggest supporter..." I say with a not so convincing sad tone, continuing my brothers play.

"We need to make a funeral for him." Chenle says while holding a hand up to his heart.

"Yeah, you're right, he needs a proper goodbye." I answer.

We grab Captain Poop and run out to our garden to bury him.

——————————Present—————————

I smile to myself while thinking on the distant memory of me and my brother ten years ago.
It's been months since I saw him last.
He's very busy, because of the insane popularity him and the rest of his members in nct has gotten in the last couple of years.

Right now I'm sitting on the roof of one of the biggest entertainment companies in the world with my sketchbook between my legs and drawing random people I see on the street beneath me.

I'm so occupied in my own little memory lain that I don't even hear the footsteps nearing me behind me, so I get the biggest shock when my friend lays a gentle hand on my shoulder and I'm almost falling off the roof.

"Hey! Be careful Lia!" Jackson exclaims while steadying me, so I don't fall.

"Then don't sneak up on me" I answer him slightly annoyed.

"Why are you sitting up here all alone? Shouldn't you use your break with the other trainee girls?" He asks while sitting beside me.

"I just don't really feel like socializing with others right now" I say, closing my eyes when a mild breeze hits us and I breathe in the fresh air.

"Fair enough, I'll leave then" he says sarcastically with his hands up and starts standing up again.

"No no, you're alright." I say while grinning and grabbing his sleeve, so he'll sit down again.

"No I actually understand you." He says. "Some of those girls can get a little annoying."

"Hmm tell me about it." I roll my eyes.

Another breeze hits us, and some of my dark brown almost black hair gets in the way of my view, so I tie it up in a loose bun.

"How much time do you have left of your break?" He asks casually.

I look at my phone and sighs. "Only five minutes" I say.

"You have eaten right?" He then asks.

It's a question we keep asking each other as idols and trainees, because the pressure of being perfect and all the diets can make some go to extremes and stops eating at all, which isn't uncommon in our world.

My eyes widens and I realize that I've actually forgotten to eat.

"You didn't forget again right?" He asks with a judging tone.

"I didn't mean to, you know how much I love food!" I say almost panicking over it.

"Don't worry, just promise me that you eat something after your practice, and that you take a break if you feel dizzy." He says with a serious expression.
"Of course!" I say reassuringly, feeling slightly warm in my cheeks by his concern.

Jackson stands up and reaches a hand down to me, which I take willingly and stand up.
He insists on accompanying me to the practice room, which I allow him to, even so I'm slightly hesitant, because the other girls always gets annoyed when I'm hanging out with others in this building, I don't really know why.

We reach the door to the practice room and Jackson reminds me once again to eat after practice before he leaves. When he's gone I turn around and sees nine pairs of eyes starring at me and some after Jackson.

In my team we are ten trainees. There's three teams in total with ten people in each, which means we are thirty trainees, where only seven will get to debut.

The teams are divided into them with most dancing skills, the more rap based trainees and at last the ones with the best vocals, and then we switch so one team focus on dance one day, another on rap and the last at vocals. And we keep going like that every week, so it's been like that for me for almost three years now.

While the other girls keeps whispering about Jackson and glancing at me, I just roll my eyes internally and finds my spot in a corner to stretch, today our team fortunately will be dancing, which we're all happy about considering it's the thing we're best at.

Our teacher gracefully walks in and all the girls immediately shuts up and our attention is on her.

"Alright girls! Remember we soon will be picking the ones who will get to debut, so you have to do your best in the next couple of weeks." She says making everyone nervous.

"But enough of that, today we will continue with the choreography from last"

We all finds our position and the "class" starts.

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A/N
Thank you for reading the first chapter of my new book! I hope you enjoyed it and feel free to give me some feedback and vote and comment.