Josephine Swan never thought she would be drawn into the world of K-Pop during her stay in South Korea. Every day she faces challenges that fate has in store for her and her four members.
"𝙇𝙚𝙩'𝙨 𝙬𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙚 𝙝𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙮 𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙣𝙤𝙬...
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My right hand, which still held William Shakespeare's masterpiece "Romeo and Juliet" between its fingers, remained motionless on my hip. Position marks, small dog ears and other signs of wear lined the paperback's pages, which were beginning to discolour, while a few deep tears that ran through to form straight lines on the spine indicated the book's frequent use.
In the margins, I could feel my grey eyes gliding over the fine lines of the illustrated page, stopped by my thumb at the bottom centre of the book. They passed over the words and phrases repeatedly and continuously, their perception and transmission of information finally disappearing in a dull fog of louder dominating thoughts that by now seemed to have built up like a great wall around my brain.
"She said our debut group was missing another important member."
Verses and phrases of tragedy disappeared beneath the Thai woman's sentence spoken several hours ago, which, despite its confusing, questionable and superstitious tendencies, chaotically revived a previously internally dormant theme.
The very words "debut group" and "missing member" caused inner anxiety and added worries to sprout and blossom within me like fertilised flowers.
"Is everything all right, Josie?".
I was startled by my thoughts when I noticed Lisa's worried voice on the other side of the bedside table. Her dyed blonde mop of hair tilted questioningly, her brown eyes regarded me intently. One of her headphones hung loosely down her torso, while the YouTube video of a makeup tutorial she was watching flashed brightly on her phone's screen, pausing.
Blinking, she pointed to the book in my hands.
"You've been pausing on the same page for more than ten minutes," she explained, straightening up in her bed.
"...Almost like you're thinking hard..." she added softly, carefully pulling the other headphones out of her ear while the phone's glowing screen went black with a simple press of a button on her part.
I had her full attention.
Similar to my last and first group, it was times like these, the familiar calm and quiet togetherness, when I struggled the most with the truth about myself. Although the curse of open competition for a successful debut was accompanied by competition, envy, jealousy and often doubt hung over each trainee at all times, the time of living together awakened friendship, respect, support and intimacy after a while.
One gets to know the stories, dreams and wishes and finally finds unity and agreement with oneself and one's ideas and goals for the future. A fact and commonality I could attribute to a large part of the trainees at YG Entertainment, including some members of my current group.
Rosè had a bucket list of her own from 2014, which included various matters of the heart and activities yet to come, such as becoming a singer and performing in public. Jennie and Lisa wanted to return to New Zealand and Thailand respectively as idols and perform in the biggest arenas there.
In contrast to this were my indefinable and non-existent desires and ideas that would come with life as an idol. Rather, they related to my self-proclaimed promise to the rest of the members until their debut or the end of my contract.
A promise that I was able to keep despite the initial difficulties that month.
And which, by the simply said phrase of a fortune teller, a strange woman but once again trembled in its steadfastness.
With a cautious glance, my head turned and faced the Thai woman, who was still sitting motionless on the edge of her bed, looking at me intently.
"I know I'm repeating myself...but..." I began to speak slowly as Lisa tilted her head to the side listening.
"...do you believe in this fortune teller's prediction?" I finished, getting quieter and quieter, as if, along with my troubled mind, my voice was also afraid of her reaction and answer. Her brown eyes began to avert their gaze from me, covered with a fine veil of thought, they focused on a vague point in the middle of the laid-out parquet floor.
"There is no reason for me not to believe the fortune teller." I heard them say after a while of silence and I lowered my head in understanding.
Each of them hoped that the fortune teller's prediction would come true for them.
The hope was great, as was the price in case of non-debut.
I saw Lisa smirk and her gaze slid around our shared room.
"We're already in the debut group after all...a big step..." she said waggling her head, her brown eyes meeting mine.
"Are these predictions the reason for your extensive thinking?" she echoed and the mattress began to creak under the sudden moving influence of her body as she rose and walked towards me. Her pink pyjamas crackled under her few steps as my legs and hips approached the white wall of the room and so soon I could feel the large-scale cold through the fabric of my nightgown.
Resting my left arm on the pillow, I looked at Lisa, my fingers covering half of my forehead, its thick layer of bone hiding the growing turmoil within.
"All in good time...Josie..." she began to say softly and a relaxed smile instantly appeared on her lips, making me struggle once more with my mental desire to pull the secrets surrounding my identity out of hiding and reveal them to the world. I could feel a deep longing slowly taking over my body through the power of my inner struggles with my thoughts alone, invading every living cell with an urgent desire to give in to them.
Almost as if in slow motion, her body moved unexpectedly before my eyes, her back gripped the mattress, her two legs placed themselves near mine, and her head slowly sank onto my pillow.
"You don't have to feel pressured to tell me...or us..." Lisa whispered interrupting my inward outburst of emotion as compassion complemented her relaxed fine features on her face. Her brown eyes began to wander, taking in the small paperback of Romeo and Juliet that still lay unmoving in my hand.
Carefully, her fingers reached for it and pulled it from my possession before flipping to the beginning of the story.
„Two households, both alike in dignity
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-marked love
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours'traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend."
