Future Traded Yestoday

15

We honestly had no clue what was going to happen after the release of 7th Sense and Without You. So I guess it was a good thing the people running us new exactly what was going on.

From our dorm we watched the five of them perform on live television and we watched every single interview or video that was released of the behind the scene footage. We had to put the shows we were watching on hold to watch the released content together.

The Thai guy- Ten- never watched them with us. Unless it was a performance. Other than that, he stayed as far away from the videos of himself as he could.

We only watched the stages for Without You when the older Chinese guy- Kun- was out somewhere else. He never said it, but we knew he got kind of upset whenever they did something without him because of his almost invisible presence in the Chinese version.

So when the Chinese music video came out we made sure to listen to it a whole bunch, learning his parts the best we could so we could sing them. Except we weren't singers. My best friend, the youngest and I- Jaemin, Jisung and I- had all been trained in the opposite.

That didn't stop us from doing our best to put a smile on Kun's face.

But then he was gone. Gone to film another season for the show they filmed before the rookie showcase in Bangkok. NCT Life.

He went off with our unspoken leader, Taeyong, the guy who claims to be my dad, Doyoung, the guy who went to America but isn't American, Jaehyun, the Japanese guy, Yuta, and the Chinese guy who is really good at dancing, Sicheng.

Which left practically just three of us in the dorm. Again.

So one night we snuck out. We're technically supposed to share with our manager whenever we want to go someplace and then maybe permission is granted, but we just went for it. Besides, we only went a couple floors down.

We hadn't really been to the other dorm since we moved in, so it was a lucky guess purely on the sound level coming from the door as to which one it was. It wasn't even locked to stop us from inviting ourselves in.

The Chicago guy- Johnny- and our oldest- Taeil- were the only ones there; the noise coming from the speakers they were blasting electronic music from. Both of them were dancing around and didn't notice us come in until Jisung tried to steal a piece of their pizza on the kitchen counter.

They weren't even in sight of the pizza, they just sensed someone was going to take it.

We were invited to join their two person party after having learned the guy the same age as me- Donghyuck- and the Canadian- Mark- had gone to the practice room together. Apparently Mark had wanted to work on his rapping in peace and Donghyuck went with him to work on his dance cover knowledge collection.

Having nothing else to do and having already snuck out, we glady joined the two of them in their dance party. We didn't ask why it was happening, we just went for it.

At first, it was weird. It was dancing without being judged or having to remember constantly the techniques we were taught. We hadn't done that in what seemed like forever. I wouldn't question anyone that said I hadn't done that since I was a kid.

After we got over the weird sensation and let loose, we didn't stop until we were on the floor and exhausted. But we were smiling. Or, at least, I was, and nothing could've stopped me.

We snuck out a few more times after that to hang out with them, Donghyuck and Mark joining us when they realized what we were doing. Eventually the crew filming NCT Life in Seoul came back and we all got to hang out together-- those times with manager approval.

Eventually, we didn't have time to hang out. Yuta, Mark, Haechan, Sicheng, Taeyong, Donghyuck, Jaehyun and Taeil started preparing for a comeback of their own under the unit NCT 127. If we had met up we never would've let them live down their hair for the Firetruck era.

At one point I heard a rumor that Johnny and Doyoung would join the unit later in the year, but I didn't share that with them in case it only served to get their hopes up.

I later learned the rumor was true. I also learned that Johnny was the student with the rumor around him that he had been a student in the school before it was even an idea.

Firetruck ended up as good as a comeback as we would've ever expected. We once again watched every performance and interview from our living room.

Until we were told two new kids would be joining Mark, Donghyuck, Jaemin, Jisung and I in a unit called NCT Dream. It wasn't often we were told of what was happening before it happened.

We were also told the demos for our first mini album were in our email and we were going to start recording and learning the choreography to the songs the next day. We were given a whole schedule we haven't had time to look at and decipher because we've been too busy wrapping our head around the fact that we were going to have our chance.

I'm finally getting my chance. Tomorrow the schedule will start and we'll probably be overwhelmed and this feels like we won't ever be the same with the other guys, but we're finally going to have made it.

Sure, we're going to need more than Chewing Gum to make it, but it's a start. And that's all we've ever worked for.

It was at this moment that I was brought back to the week where it was just me and two other guys in a classroom with a teacher learning lessons way above our level. And now Jaehyun and Taeyong have already made their debut and I'm so close to making mine.

We're almost there.