Notes to my Heart | TAEIL

Chapter 22

Iseul stared at the message on her phone. She had received an audio file from Taeil.

A part of her felt bad, knowing that her words had came out much harsher than she had intended. She just felt terrible that night and in no way wanted to hurt Taeil.

But she did. She did hurt him. And that became more and more obvious as she listened to the song he had sent her, definitely one that he had written himself.

Curse his damn voice, Iseul thought as she sniffled. Taeil's song definitely got her feeling a certain way and his voice that she absolutely adored didn't help either.

Iseul threw her phone to the other side of her bed before shoving her face in her pillow, yelling at the top of her lungs.

Why do you make me feel this way, Moon Taeil?

When Iseul had finally calmed down, she removed herself from her pillow to see one of her roommates there, absolutely shaken by Iseul's actions.

"Sorry, rough day." Iseul said to the girl, who slowly nodded.

"Well, it's about to get worse." The girl said, earning a confused look from Iseul.

"What do you mean?"

The girl let out a deep sigh, looking away from Iseul.

"They're announcing eliminations."

...

Iseul hated eliminations. The stylists would get them all dressed up just to sit there, waiting for their rankings to be announced.

A big sigh left Iseul's lips as she sat between Jeno and Haechan, two of the highest ranking competitors and also her only friends.

It was quite interesting to see how she had somehow became friends with Haechan. It came from being on the same team while Haechan was also Jeno's roommate.

Iseul didn't talk much to Haechan about personal matters, but they talked quite a bit when it came to the competition. They would comment on the other competitors together, talking about ways they could improve their team's performance.

When Iseul was upset about messing up the riff-off, Haechan was actually the one that came up to her the day after, saying not to worry too much about it. He said it was an honest mistake, and quite common for songwriters.

Iseul still couldn't help but feel nervous as she sat there, watching Jungwoo appear on stage to announce their rankings, starting from 29th. She wasn't even the least bit surprised that she wasn't called for the first nine competitors.

"I probably didn't make it." Iseul muttered but Jeno and Haechan both heard her.

"Don't say that." Jeno whispered back. "Didn't you rank above 20th last time."

Iseul shook her head. "21st."

"I wouldn't worry too much." Haechan told her. "A lot of people went up and even if you went down, there's still 30th."

Before Iseul could reply though, Jungwoo had called the competitor that had placed 20th.

"Lim Iseul."

...

She made it.

Taeil was sitting with the other mentors around their meeting table, looking at the thirty remaining trainees.

Taeyong's team was still half-full, sitting with five competitors, while other teams were taking major hits. One team was at major risk, with only one competitor remaining. Taeil's team had lost one of the competitors, leaving him with only Iseul and Haechan.