Go Big or Go Home - 이희승/Enhypen

三 17 is 4 too many

17 people squeezed into a spinning oversized egg was indeed a little too cozy for my taste as we were instructed to say our goodbyes to the OUT boys and get into what must be the entrance to ILAND. I was right in the back and incredibly glad to finally step out of the confined space and into a wide-open room. Monitors lined the walls to each side and a half circle of chairs stood facing us.

Chatter and sound of admiration broke out as we all glanced around, taking in the modern looking environment. "This looks so cool" a voice spoke from behind me and an elbow found my shoulder, leaning some weight onto me.

I only turned my head, trying not jerk my body away rom the pressure and let the person stumble from losing their newfound personal crutch.

Daniel, the youngest but still not the shortest member of our group, stood next to me, obviously filled to the brim with excitement and not afraid of forming new contacts. His elbow on my shoulder aligned his shoulder and arm in a perfectly horizontal line, his cheek resting in his palm, forming a triangle between his head, arm and my shoulder.

"Well, hi there to you too!" I giggled not expecting the openness.

"Hii!" he let out with a wide smile. "I'm Daniel, but you know that, right? And your Sooha, don't worry, I remember! I kinda thought you were EJ there for a second, sorry. But your cool too... I mean I really liked your performance too. It was like...so cool! And... oh, you're still carrying your bag, don't you want to put it down? Here, I'll just put it next to mine!" He broke his ramble and gripped the straps of my dark green travel bag that held all my essential to pull it off my shoulder that he was leaning on just a second ago, repeating the movement on the other side and setting it down next to one of the chairs.

I laughed, slightly taken aback by the slightly awkward waterfall of words falling from his lips, and said "Yeah, I'm Sooha. But everyone calls me Ava at home." I smiled and continued "And thanks, your stage was really cool too. And for the bag too, of course" pointing at the pile of baggage one or two meters to our left.

"Uh Ava, that's an unusual name around here. Where is it from?" "Oh I'm actually only half Korean, it's pronounced 에-이-바, I'm German, but my parents liked English sounding names." "Ahh, so you speak English too then? That's so cool, we can practice together!" "Sure", I laughed at his constant usage of the word "cool" that mirrored his easy-going bubbly energy.

I'm sure I could have talked to him for hours, happy to rid myself of the left-over nervous energy that still lingered deep in my bones, but the voice booming through speakers in the walls was back to remind us of the whole point of our first elimination stages.

Only 13 people could stay.

There were only 13 seats and 17 people, 13 empty flags portrayed on the long screen on the wall behind the limited seats. And there were only 2 hours for us to decide and vote 4 people out.

And then there was me, stressed once again.

"Great, that's it for me then" I thought as Seon gathered all of us in the living room of the building complex, that 13 of us would stay and practice in for at least the next week right after we had all stormed through the halls, investigating each room in as much detail in as little time as possible.

He wanted to talk about the voting system and proposed to all of us that we should vote according to who we thought would fit into the group the best. I knew that would automatically kick me out of ILAND as the only female within a radius of 500m.

Dread rushed through me as everyone nodded their heads attentively to his words and I knew I had to say something.

With a deep breath in to calm my nerves I spoke up "That does sound like a great Idea, sure. But that would only work if we actually knew each other well enough to tell who we wanted to end up seeing everyday for a few years if we debut with them. Right now, the only basis we can judge on is the performance we saw and other shallower categories like visuals, we can't possibly judge each other's personality yet. I think everyone should figure out their own voting system based on what's important to them, or what they think would benefit them the most, not just by how we could form a uniform group concept yet. That's what the training and the producer's judgement is for, you know...Everyone will have their own expectations for a bandmate anyway."