The UNIQ boys next door

Ins and outs of YG

At the gate of the building, an unexpectedly large group of girls had gathered. Sungjoo nudged me to the front and whispered from behind, 'Just move past the girls, go to the entrance and we'll be right behind you.' As soon as the girls saw us, they dashed to us and in an instant, we were surrounded with phones and cameras being shoved into our faces. I did as Sungjoo had told me and walked through the crowd. It was strange that I got through so easily at first until I realized that, well, of course it was easy...they were after the people behind me. I diligently made my way to the entrance and turned around to see how the guys were doing. I hadn't quite thought about how popular or well known they were as so-called idols until today. The crowd of enthusiastic fans took photos of their every move and screamed out the guys' names at the top of their lungs. Seungyoun and Sungjoo, without their face masks, freely smiled at some of them whilst the others just waved. Eventually they made it to the entrance, all of them with at least a gift of some sort and several cards in their hands and Yixuan let us into the building with his pass. Seungyoun kept walking backwards whilst waving at the fans at the door until we turned the corner and Wenhan pulled him back.

'That was quite the sight.' I said as we were walking down the corridor, passing several office rooms.

'It's usually not that intense...maybe it's because they knew our manager is away?' Sungjoo raised his eyebrow.

'Yeah maybe...' Yixuan

'How would they know that?' I asked.

'They know everything.' Sungjoo whispered creepily into my ear. He chuckled as I recoiled from him, flustered.

One by one, they all started heading in different directions and Sungjoo and I were heading up the stairs when someone called out from below us.

'Yah! Kim Sungjoo!' Two guys jogged up the steps and tightly hugged Sungjoo as if they hadn't seen him for years. They were both tall albeit just a tad shorter than Sungjoo and had good-looking faces with a fair complexion. Sungjoo was ecstatic to see them as well.

'Chi, these guys are my good friends Seungyoon and Jinwoo.' We all greeted each other with a bow.

'This is my friend, Chi from the US. She lives next door to us.'

'Woah, the US. That's really cool.' Seungyoon exclaimed, flashing me a cute smile.

'Nice to meet you Chi.' Jinwoo gently shook my hand before returning his attention to Sungjoo.

'It's been ages man. Come on, let's grab a drink.' Jinwoo asked. Sungjoo seemed hesitant at first but then nodded happily.

'Hey, can you let the others know I'll join them in a bit?' Sungjoo asked me. 'The practice room we're in is just down that end over there.' I nodded and bid the guys farewell as they went back downstairs, chatting and laughing away.

I found the others gathered in a large and brightly lit practice room with a mirror wall and polished floor. I was so fixated on seeing Yixuan and Wenhan discussing something in the corner that I was startled when Seungyoun came from the side, casually liding by on a skateboard. Why is there a skateboard here in the first place?

'Chiiii, you're finally here. Where's Sungjoo?' He asked.

'He's getting drinks with these guys named Seungyoon and Jinwoo.'

'Ah, I see.' Seungyoun nodded. 'Well, I guess it must've been a while since they've last seen each other.'

'So, are they part of some group? Seungyoon and Jinwoo I mean.' I asked out of curiosity. Seungyoun went on to explain that they were in a group called WINNER, one of the new groups under YG, who came from a reality survival TV show. He also mentioned that Sungjoo knew them from his trainee days under YG and that he was supposed to even debut with them at one point. I didn't want to ask why that didn't happen.