One of 10 - Nicole Lee Snsd

16.Lion Heart

We didn't release any music or do any activities for months and months and people started to wonder.'Have Girls Generation lost their prime?' I was just grieving my friendship. It is difficult when there is this type of shake up with a friend. You go over good and bad moments in your head over and over.And when you add it up to see that the good memories are more you get sadder and more confused.I think it was harder for Hyoyeon and Sooyoung. The knew her in like 2000 and 2001. Previous year Hyoyeon and Tiffany supported Jessica on her reality show "Jessica & Krystal" and now Hyoyeon was going over in her head how on earth she could come to the conclusion that we never supported her solo stuff.

The more the weeks went on I was sure Girls Generation was over. SM's new girlgroup Red Velvet had just added new member Yeri and was making their re-debut."Ice Cream Cake" both song and EP was received really well.It became their signature song for years. Their member Irene got compared to looking like me and Tiffany. I saw it too the first time I saw her as a new trainee. We keep going back. Here comes the new younger replacement I thought.Don't get me wrong we all loved Red velvet. They reminded us more of ourselves than f(x) somehow.

Tiffany spoke to me
"Opening "Hoot" , then "Kissing you"...
"Mmh" I say and watch iZombie on the tv.
"We then said "Gee",with "Can't take my eyes off of you".
"Mh" I say and wonder If I would have problems eating brains.
"Nicole, you are freaking me out. Setlists are your favorite thing."
"Mmm, well it used to be." I missed a creative meeting.The ones I used to basically hold.
"Why are you so depressed?" she asked ,I take the remote and lower the volume.
"Because EXO is hotter shit then ever,Red Velvet is growing, we are old dated and history.And then there is other girl groups like Girls day ,Sistar and Apink. We are over."
"That's not true we will have a comeback!" She said.
"We haven't recorded a single demo." I said looking at Liv at the morgue.

"I know but, no actually 2.Doing this show will be nice to be back again with everybody doing SMtown"She stated.
"No it's not ,because everybody got new songs and we don't" I say still looking at the tv.
"SHINee members even doing solo songs I heard. The boys that debuted after us."
Sunny comes in.
"We have all have solo songs we can do,don't you wanna do a song?

"No because it would add to the already 3 h long show."
"The shows are always long" A low voice say next to me under a pile of pillows- Yuri.
"I just feel out of place,what's Suju's last song?" I ask and Tiffany looks in her notebook.
"Mamacita"
"Ours?" I ask.
"Mr Mr" Taeyeon say behind Tiffany.(Where did she come from?)
"Mr Mr? Well there you go, the song that's 1 year and 3 months old ,happy birthday
 America it's a boy" I say stoned faced in English.

"Who ends the show?" Yuri ask muffled.
"Super Junior followed by,TVXQ and then everybody Hope"
"Led by Kangta, great still a man's world" I say. 
"Yoona is not going,obviously" Tiffany adds.
"Two down,ok" Taeyeon say.
"Two?" Tiffany asks confused .

When it was time to leave.I didn't want to get up from the couch. Taeyeon gave me a look.
'You promised you would be there with me always' it said. I got up packed my bag and off to Taiwan we went. In Taiwan, we weren't there. Our performances were done with the right dance moves but we lacked the passion. 

Suddenly one day we got called together.SM had heard  concerns and we were told we were going to release "Catch me if you can" as a single that April.Re-doing "Catch me if you can"music video and song felt as cozy as returning to a car crash where the car had flipped over and sit in the car and drive off.SM also sent out a twitter competition and that was it for the promotions.

"Come with me to the studio don't  you want to see what's up?" Sunny asked me.
"Ok fine" the only person who could have brought me to the studio was Sunny.
Our Yoda,when she was happy and uplifting she took you to that state of mind with her.
Oddly SM was off my back and didn't call me into a crisis meeting to yell at me to go record. 

I sat on the couch as Sunny was in the studio recording "Green Light".
"I don't want to go without you"  came out of the speakers.
"HERE WE GOOO!!!" Taeyeon sang. The song was like a cleanser for my spirit.
It moves on.'This is our future I'm hearing and I love it' I thought.
I had to let go of the structure of how things were in my mind which wasn't so easy.
It's a bit like a sailboat that been going for 7 years . One of the big sails that brought power forward is now gone. Now the other sails has to patch up the missing areas.While in different shapes and colors.It's still the same boat but different. The way we ride the waters shouldn't matter as long as we move forward.