Jamais Vu

Chapter 1

2010

Baek Sunhee stared onto the wall in front of her. This was her temporary haven.

She was good at dancing. Her voice was clear and she could hit the high notes effortlessly as she executed rigorous dance routine. Her looks were passable in the K-pop industry. Not that overly stunning and she was tall and slender. She really had to starve her way to get there, under the watchful eyes of the manager. She was chosen to be one of the permanent trainees in line for the girl group that would be debuting early next year. She only had to survive the final cut to do so.

Sunhee lowered her face to the curve of her elbow in the corner of the dark storage room. Others would be joyful but she was really miserable.

She had a love hate relationship with the agency. She loved it when she could dance the day away at the studio but right now hated the place with all her being. She couldn't do anything about it. It had been five years since she passed the trainee audition and lived her life as an idol trainee. She didn't mind the grueling routine, the never ending tests and so called dance battles in between the trainees. She could handle that part but as years gone by and seeing how other trainees being mean and toxic to each other just to get the attention of the big guns in the agency, she just needed a breather from all those at that moment

There were some really nice trainees but those are the ones that were assigned to other teams. Going home was out of the equation when her mom kept on pushing her to stay at the agency. Not to mention the amount of money her family spent so that she could be there in Seoul. The industry was harsh. Until a trainee debut, the cost of being at the agency is being covered by the trainees' own family and it was definitely not cheap. She tried persuading her dad to let her return home and quit the agency but here she was, still stuck doing the same routine over and over again.

Friends her age were already in their freshman year in the university. Her CSAT score would be enough for her to get into the school that she wanted. Did she want to pursue that academic path?

She was scheduled for English lesson at that moment but she was really fed up with the antics pulled by Aera, one of the trainees in the final cut. Aera was the youngest in the group being 14 years old and she was the personification of cuteness. Behind the cute façade lies the most cunning and meanest person Sunhee had ever seen. She knew Aera was the one who put bubble gum in her favourite trainers when the dance instructor told her to learn more from Sunhee. Every trainee knew about Aera's behaviour but no one could do anything about it. Aera's father was one of the agency's biggest shareholders. She was practically invincible and she was definitely going to debut.

When Aera started whining at their good-looking English Language coach before the class began, Sunhee couldn't take it anymore that she left the room. She knew she was going to get an earful from the manager after this but she couldn't care less.

She regretted her actions few minutes later as she planned to join the English class when she twisted the doorknob.

It was loose.

Sunhee jiggled and jangled the knob again but to no avail, she couldn't open the door. Her hand went to her back pocket to retrieve her phone only to realize she left it in her locker before class started. She only had her stationery and her pencil case in her bag. The agency had a strict policy for trainees on their mobile phone usage. No mobile phones are allowed during dance classes, tutorials and lessons. Sunhee was truly trapped in the storage room until someone opened the door from outside. She looked at her watch. It was 3 p.m. and someone from the cleaning staff would come in to get something from the storage room now, won't they?

What if they don't?

Sunhee started to panic and banged the door with the hope that someone would hear her and open the it. She went for a long time until her hands bruised but there was no response. She felt like breaking down and crying at the same time but she knew it would do her no good. She took a deep breath and thought of a way to get out. There were no windows and other than the ventilation airway on top, there were no other way to escape. She looked around for something she could climb on to. There were some stools at the corner of the room, and a rack full of cleaning materials. It was quite a distance from the air vent. She tried moving the rack but it was too heavy. It would be worse if the rack fell on to her in the moving process.

Sunhee sat and tried to think of a way to get to the vent. There were cleaning cloth that she could link together and climb on to get to the air vent. Then she started laughing, she had no place to hook the cloth link even if she did. She looked at the heavy rack. That was her only chance to get out of the place. She went back to the door and banged on it with a rubber mallet that she found inside the room since knocking it with her hand would hurt a lot. There were still no response.

She went to the rack and started to clear off the items from it for a while until someone opened the door and went inside. She was about to warn that someone to hold the door open until she heard the loud thud of it closing again.

"No!" exclaimed Sunhee exasperatedly. She pushed the person aside and went to the door again to see it was shut close. She jiggled and twisted the knob again knowing it was useless. "Congratulations, you have just locked us in this room," announced Sunhee drily.

"Sunhee sunbaenim? What are you doing in here?" asked the guy who was obviously one of the trainees in the agency. Being one of the oldest trainee around, most of the juniors would know who she was and that came as no surprise. She didn't know him well but she knew he was younger than her and definitely one of the most diligent person around. He's tall and good looking too. She always saw him dancing in one of the studios when she started her day and was still there at the end of the day when she made her way back to her dorm.

"I'm enjoying myself in my time of leisure here," snapped Sunhee. "I've been stuck here and trying to get out until you came in and trap us back inside," she answered. Being inside the room surely made her lose her cool.

"Have you tried calling for help?" he asked.

Sunhee looked at him sharply. She was not a rude person but being confined there made her want to scream. She knew he wanted to help, but asking an obvious question at that moment just triggered her sarcastic mode all the way.

She was about to open her mouth as the guy held his hands up and conceded. "You don't have to answer that sunbaenim. You won't still be here of you could," he replied quickly, saving himself from Sunhee's forthcoming scathing remark.

"That's really smart of you... what's your name again? Seok Hee? That's your name right? Sorry I'm bad with memorizing names."

"Jung Hoseok at your service Baek Sunhee sunbaenim," saluted Hoseok to Sunhee. "You can call me Hoseok," he beamed brightly.

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Sunbaenim: A term used to address someone who is older than you in the work force or in an education system. They are older, but not quite out of your age range