BTS: Beyond the Story

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Each in Their Position

V also had a less-than-smooth journey from his hometown of Daegu to theCheonggu Building in the fall of 2011.

 ______We were ripped off by the cab driver. My dad and I got on and paid38,000 won to go from Express Bus Terminal to Sinsa Station. Iremember clearly that we passed three tunnels.6 I still rememberwhat the cabbie said as we got off: "Be careful, lots of people heretry to force customers into premium taxis to rip you off." 

The moment V first entered the dorm was like arriving at a new andmysterious world. 

V remembers: 

______Jung Kook was at a lesson, so he wasn't home, and j-hope, RM, andSUGA were there. 

V didn't think his expectations from before he arrived in Seoul wouldchange. 

He says: 

________I figured I would not be in the same team as them. 'The three ofthem love music and do hip-hop, and I guess I'm just someonewho's only living here with them.' 

V, a high school fresher, had become a trainee at Big Hit only sixmonths after he had begun taking dance classes. 

Ever since he had sungonstage at his elementary talent show, he had wanted to become aperformer, and he had played the saxophone since his first year in middleschool with the goal of entering an arts high school. 

But K-pop dance wassomething he had learned in a hagwon over a period of six months. 

Thiswas why he'd had no intention of auditioning when the A&R team at BigHit had come down to Daegu to his dance hagwon to find new trainees. 

______Just the fact that an entertainment company would come down fromSeoul was a novelty to me, so I went just to watch. They hadauditioned only the kids who had gone to the hagwon for two, threeyears when at the end, one of the A&R people pointed at me andsaid, "Can we see that kid dance, too?" and then I got in. 

Around the time V entered the dorm, RM, SUGA, and j-hope werealready working at a recording studio provided by Big Hit Entertainment. 

The three were already posting songs on the BTS blog before their debut,having built up enough expertise in rap, composing, and dance to hold longdiscussions on these subjects. SUGA in particular was desperate to debut: 

______Father used to hate people in music. But ... once I passed myaudition and began showing up on posters, he would brag about mea lot. Which made me think I'd better debut soon. Even if I'd fail tomake a mark, I wanted to have debuted. 

In contrast, Jung Kook and V only began training in vocals and dance inearnest when they joined the dorm in 2011. 

To V, the trio of RM, SUGA,and j-hope were already artists. 

V recalls: 

______The three hyungs were so good at music, so dedicated to their work,and they seemed like experts to me. I was just happy to be a traineeby their side. 

Having just started as a trainee, the prospect of a debut seemed very faraway to V.But just six months later, when Jimin came up from Busan in May2012, the others—including V—struck him as being ready to debutimmediately.