Stay - Yang Jungwon 양 정원

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐘-𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄

"Wait, Chae, how did you become a trainee?" Jake asked as I sat down on Jungwon's bed. Our whole unit was in the blue room after finishing up our practice for the night. Tomorrow was test day. So we only had the hours in the morning to practice. Jake had just finished talking about his experience in Australia right before becoming a trainee.

I shrugged, "I got casted off the street. It was a Tuesday," I said, vividly remembering the casting agent who approached me after my volleyball game.

Jungwon looked at me, "You never wanted to be an idol before then?"

"Nope. I mean, I thought being an idol was cool. I listened to kpop just as all my friends did. But, I was never really interested in being one," After hearing about Seungmin's time in JYP, I didn't exactly want the trainee life. Especially since the chances of debuting were small, and the chances of being successful and known were even smaller.

"They just casted you off the street?" Geonu asked.

I nodded, "Something about my visuals and academic performances," I said, waving my hand. I never even knew I was known around my school for having "idol" visuals. And I didn't even know academic performance was something K-pop companies looked at.

"I believe that. The visual thing," Jungwon said, hugging a pillow. "Your cousin convinced you to go to the audition, right?" He asked. I hummed, remembering when Jungwon and I had our first late-night practice together.

"Yeah. I honestly didn't have any expectations. But then I made it through all the audition rounds and got accepted as a Bighit trainee," I explained. "Now I'm here."

Daniel sat up, "What did you perform? For your first audition?"

"Insomnia by Stray Kids sunbaenim," I said, earning a small smirk from Jungwon. He was the only one who knew that Seungmin was my cousin. Unless the producers aired that clip to the entire world. Then it was only eleven I-Landers who didn't know. "I didn't know how to dance at that time, so I just did the vocals."

"And now you're one of our best dancers," Geonu laughed. "I can't imagine a Chaeri who doesn't know how to dance."

I grinned, "Yeah. I wish I tried learning how to dance sooner. I really fell in love with dancing when I started learning. And then I started coming around to being like... 'I want to dance and perform on stage all the time!' So, then the company gave me an offer, become a full-time trainee for this survival show, or continue where you are now. So, here I am," I said, gesturing to the room.

"Debuting must be really important to you if you agreed to be in a show with all boys," Jake said with amazement.

I snorted, "Well.. they kind of left out that fact. They said it would be," I held up finger quotes, "'Co-ed.' So on a technical basis, it is co-ed, but you know... they forgot to mention it'd be just me," I said earning shock from everyone but Jungwon.

Jungwon grinned and leaned on my shoulder, wrapping his arm around my waist, "Well you're stuck with us!"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I wouldn't have it any other way," I assured him with a small laugh.

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On the last day, stage rehearsals went... not what we wanted. When we finished our first run-through, I already saw the disappointment and dissatisfaction on Sungdeuk and Doobu's faces while they were monitoring us through the screen.

"Is this the best you can do?" I felt my heart drop. I could hear the pure disappointment in his words as Sungdeuk approached our group. "The problem is you guys need some sorrowful emotion in it."