Dating Park Chanyeol

Chapter 3: Now what?

I did not officially begin my training with SM until I was 10 years old. It took almost 2 years for my parents to come to the agreement that my mother would follow me to Korea to begin my intensive trainings with SM. As for the rest of my family, they would remain in Singapore with my father, who works in the financial service industry.

My weekday schedule consisted of 7 hours of lessons at Korea Kent Foreign School, alongside with my now best friend and soul sister, Soojung of F(x), followed by 3 hours of dance practices and 2 hours of singing lessons. As for weekend, I had to attend intensive Korean and Japanese language classes.

I had been training with SM Entertainment for almost 2 years when the first opportunity to debut arose. After a week of showcases amongst the trainees, I was selected and placed in the earliest group line-up for Girls Generation.

I remembered Jung exclaiming, "Omg, congrats! I am so jealous of you and my sister! You guys can finally get away from the torturous trainings and lessons!"

However, my happiness came to an end when I was cut at the second showcase because of my age.

"She is too young to debut, I don't want my juniors to experience what I have gone through," BoA commented. "And, I don't think she's ready to take on the world yet."

I was 12 then and being cut out from the opportunity to debut felt almost like my world was crashing down on me. I felt suffocated and I could not breathe. I hid in a corner of the practice room for the entire night after the result and I cried.

It was around 3am when the door suddenly cracked open and the lights came on. I was blinded by the sudden lighting after being alone in the darkness for almost 4 hours.

A young boy, whom I could not recognised, entered the room.

"He must be a new trainee, I have never seen him before," I thought quietly to myself.

He seemed to be not much older than me. He had a jet black hair with short straight bangs that seemed to be cut with a bowl and scissors.

He started dancing to the music from the big stereo system at the opposite corner of the room. His moves were clean and smooth, matching every second of the beats. His body was overflowing with confidence. He knew exactly how much strength to exert, how much to control and which point to hit. In other words, his dance was perfect.

Watching him dance from the corner of the room reminded me of how much I enjoyed dancing and how much I loved being on stage with all the attention on me. It was an inspirational moment for my younger self.

Finally, when the music ended, I said, "That. Was. Awesome!"

He jumped and turned around in shock. "I... I didn't see you there..." he said with his mouth shaped like the alphabet 'O'.

"It's alright, I hope that I did not disturb your self practice," I replied. "My name is Kyung Jimin and I have been a trainee for 2 years."

He stuck out his hand, bowed and said enthusiatically, "I am Kim Junmyeon and today is my first day of training! It was nice to meet you, my senior!"

Shocked by his level of politeness, I bowed back automatically in response. "You don't have to call me a 'senior'! I am probably much younger than you are..."

"Yes, Senior!" He teased in reply.

We began exchanging small talks throughout the rest of the night about our backgrounds and our dreams. We had many similarities, like how we were scouted on the street and our family backgrounds.

"Can I call you 'oppa' now?" I asked innocently.

He blushed, appearing to be flustered and shy, "Su-sureee, why not?"

"Alright oppa! It's almost morning, I should head back home. See you around oppa!" I said as I gathered my belongings, grabbed my bags and left.