𝙌𝙪𝙚𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙙 𝙌𝙪𝙚𝙚𝙣

4. ꜰɪʀꜱᴛ ᴅᴀʏ. ꜰɪʀꜱᴛ ɪᴍᴘʀᴇꜱꜱɪᴏɴꜱ.

Over the months Sena developed a routine. 

She would wake up at 3 am, walk to the RSK Entertainment building, open the front door (with the keys she had convinced Daehyun to entrust to her), and trained. She spent five hours in Practice Room 301, clumsily singing along to English songs, following after Kpop dance tutorials, and attempting tongue twisters. 

At 6 am she would sneak back into the one-room apartment she moved into recently with her mother. It was a sad space with damp walls and a permanent, pungent smell. But it was better than sleeping on the streets so Sena learned not to complain. She wiped off her sweat with a damp towel (she would only shower thrice a week in fear of racking up a higher water bill than they could afford to pay), donned her uniform, and made two sandwiches (one for herself and one for her mother) before heading out. 

She would stay in school until 3 pm, and by the time she got home, her mother would be awake. They would chat for an hour as her mother got ready for her job. She worked the night shift at a convenience store nearby. Sena would stay with her mother until she left the house. Then she starts the familiar walk to RSK Entertainment, this time lugging her backpack with her. 

Sena trains and does her homework, in 60-minute intervals, for the remainder of the day. She runs back home, making it back minutes before her mother walks in. Despite the exhaustion that weighs heavy on her body, she stays up with her mother until midnight, listening to her rant about rude customers and making up stories about her 'friends' from school. 

She hates lying to her mother, and she knows internally that her mother would wholeheartedly support her efforts at RSK Entertainment. That's what scared her. Her mother would be worried, and would stay up at night thinking about the hectic life her daughter forced herself to keep up. She would blame herself, for their financial situation, Sena's exhaustion, and everything in between. 

Sena did not want that. So, she lied. 

.

.

.

And she continues this lie for the next year. 

But then she's told of her solidified debut, and lying is no longer an option. 

So, on the 20th of October, just days before the official announcement of ROSE's debut is released, Sena tells her mother. 

Her mother's face, darkened by exhaustion, switched between a flurry of conflicting emotions. Eventually, tears sprung from the corners of her eyes, but stubbornly her lips stretched into a wide smile. 

"I'm proud of you."

She didn't ask why Sena hid her involvement with the company for so long, or when her interest in the entertainment field had started. She made no such inquiries even when Sena knew those thoughts plagued her mind. She was too considerate of Sena to risk sulling what she must have thought was the happiest moment in her life. 

But Sena couldn't allow the possibility of such dark thoughts to live in her mother's mind. 

"I wanted to tell you -- really I did! I just never got the chance, we were both so busy this past year. I didn't even intend to do it for this long -- didn't even like it at the beginning. But I found out I'm actually somewhat good at it, and I started to like it. It became fun..."

Her mother nodded, never interrupting her or denying a thing she said. But Sena wasn't satisfied, guilt crept into her system, angrily burning her. She continued speaking, trying to justify her dishonesty to the person she loved the most. Eventually, she was the one crying, sobbing into her mother's chest, her desperate explanation giving way to a stream of apologies. 

.

.

.

While the actual confession was a teaful and stressful undertaking, after it was done, it brought much relief to Sena. For one she could now tell her mother the four girls she had been talking about nonstop the past few weeks weren't new classmates, but rather the girls that she would debut alongside. 

"Park Aera is the oldest in the group. She's also the visual of the group -- she's really pretty mom, I wish you could see her."

"You're pretty too Sena."

"Of course, you'd think so, but mom she's gorgeous. She looks like a model! All the girls are really pretty actually. They're really talented as well -- Choi Byeol has the most angelic voice every! Kang Hana is the other vocalist in the group but I've never heard her voice. She's a bit shy you see. Yun Kyungmi is the dancer. Our dancer instructor says she has really good body proportions -- she's really tall! She's a year and a half older than me..."

"What about you? What's your position in the group?" Her mother asks.

Suddenly, Sena's enthusiasm melts away leaving behind only bashfulness. "I'm the leader...and the producer and songwriter, Daehyun-PD says I have a gift for it...Byeol-unnie says I have a good voice as well, but..."

Chaeyong watches fondly as her daughter recounts to her everything about her time at RSK and the groups of girls she has admired. She speaks with such a genuine twinkle in her eyes that Chaeyong cannot find it within herself to worry or doubt her daughter's choice to go into the brutal entertainment agency.