Across the World - NCT Chenle

Chapter 17

The next couple of days, Junseo and I are introduced to the company. We train, learning some of the basics of both vocal and dance - the vital things that we're going to need. The boys are also working hard, occasionally appearing on various shows to perform over the Christmas and New Year period. They're training like us, though obviously at a much more intense level.

It's around three days after Christmas that the girls come back as well. They seem brighter after seeing their families and yet happy to be back, as though they've missed the place dearly. For them, when they arrived back in the dorm, it was an explosion of colour and laughter. Let's just say that they were incredibly excited to see the people they work with day in, day out, once again.

Junseo also, for a short while, has moved in with the boys. That is, until we fly back to the UK in time for school to start again. And boy are we all getting ready for that.

We have three of the instructors coming with us including Instructor Kang - the one who helped audition me - and Instructor Wu and Instructor Min. Instructor Kang, who, if I had to guess is in his early forties, is incredibly experienced in what he does. Instructor Wu is probably mid thirties like my uncle and Manager Kim and Manager Lee whilst Miss Min, or Seohyun as she prefers to be called, is in her mid to late 20's - the youngest of them all. It'll certainly be refreshing to have another woman around the house.

However, that isn't all - since the programme was a success, Lee Soo Man has decided to let two more of the trainees fly out alongside Junseo. They're more experienced as trainees than us two but haven't been part of the smrookie programme as of yet. One of them is the same age as Junseo, meaning he'll be in the year above me at school with Junseo. His name is Chanmin, or Chan for short. The other is Jungwook who's slightly older than us - the same age as Yukhei so he's 18.

Luckily, we have enough room for six new people - it's a large house. All the biggest rooms on the 1st floor are already occupied by us though there's four free.. Add in the spare one on the ground floor and the five bathrooms throughout the house and we're sorted. Then again, it'll still be be a bit crammed for us. It'll mean that the room next to mine - in between Yukhei and I - will finally be in use, as well as the one between Yukhei and Jisung and the one at the end of the first corridor opposite Mark and Haechan.

It'll be nice - if a not hectic - to have some more people. 18 including the instructors, managers, the boys and I when Mark and Haechan aren't here - 20 when they are. Busy. Definitely busy. It'll mean that there's five of us my uncle needs to take to school now as well - Jisung, Chenle, Junseo, Chan and I. He'll certainly have fun with that.

Thankfully, they all seem quite nice from the couple of times I've met them.

However, I guess we'll truly know starting from tomorrow.

Yup, we're going home today. All 18 of us with Mark, Johnny and Haechan staying here for their upcoming NCT 127 promotions. I've packed up my stuff, bid fair well to the other girls and right now, we're in the airport waiting for our flight. We're past security and I've managed to hack into the free wifi so all is good. Then again, we are also sat in the VIP lounge. I'd expect some decent wifi. Luckily, it's also very quiet since it's a Sunday and early evening.

All of us are sat around in a big group - I say group, we're not all sat together but in smaller clusters but just in the same area since it'll make it easier for our managers and the instructors to organise us. I'm currently building up the courage however to ask my uncle an important question - one I've been thinking about for a couple of days.

"Uncle, I've been thinking..." I begin, approaching the adults who are sat around on a couple of the sofas with cups of coffee between them.
"Yes..." he replies, eye me up and down. I normally only act like this when I want something. Which I guess I kinda do.
"Ok, so" I say, abruptly sitting down on one of the single armchairs at the end of the sofas. "I'd like to tell my friends - I know that they won't tell anyone since it's not like we're in Korea and nobody cares. But that also means I want to tell them I live with the boys. If you're ok with that, that is? I don't feel like I can keep in lying to them - they just know that I'm living with a bunch of Korean boys from 'wealthy families' who wanted to be learn English better and that you 'look after them' but I don't know how long I can keep that pretence up" I explain rapidly.