Unsteady | Park Jihoon

Chapter 3

It took a good 2 hours before the rest of the trainees arrived. Not that there were many to start with considering how small Maroo Entertainment is. There were a few trainees missing but it was normal for trainees to skip practices.

Once everyone had arrived, we gathered in front of Park Jihoon like a flock of birds waiting to be fed. It was tradition for a new trainee to introduce his name, age and how he got into the company; Jihoon was no exception.

"Hello!" he bowed 90 degrees and flashed a smile, "My name is Park Jihoon, I'm 19 this year and I transferred here from Fantagio Entertainment, I was also previously from SM Entertainment."

SM? Fantagio? The names of these companies were thrown about in whispers among ourselves as Jihoon stood in front of us, red flooding his cheeks. I gave Jihoon a confused stare, Fantagio Entertainment wasn't incredibly huge but it was certainly bigger than the anchovie-sized company that is Maroo. With the recent success of Choi Yoojung and Kim Doyeon on Produce 101, Fantagio was doing as good as ever. Why did he leave? Maroo hasn't debuted an idol group in years, in fact most of us here were here because the other companies we auditioned for didn't want us. Now there's a trainee here that trained under SM? This guy was going to be competition to a lot of the other male trainees. Jongyeon looked clearly threatened considering the daggers shooting out his eyes.

Eventually, the dance instructor came in and training had started again. The room hushed and the subject "Park Jihoon the ex-sm trainee" was dropped.

I tried not to pay attention to Jihoon who had walked over to stand next to me like it was instinct. I mean, it was natural for newcomers to approach the people they were more familiar with. I was the only non-alien that Jihoon knew.

I had to admit, he was good.

"Probably from training under one of the big three companies" Hayoon whispered into my ear as the instructor called out Jihoon to showcase the dance routine we learned.

Well, if he was never a threat to anyone in the room when he first came in, he definitely was now.

Training ended at 11:30pm sharp, one of the earliest its ever ended to be completely honest. We were all shocked at the amount of "free time" we had left.

While everyone headed back to the dorm, I had pathetically lost a game of rock-paper-scissors with Hayoon and my other roommates - I had to run like an errand girl to the nearby convenience store and stock up on food.

"See you later!" Hayoon waved with a satisfied grin on her face as she turned around and walked down to catch up with everyone.

I was close to cursing, but I didn't; company rules. I was about to continue my treacherous walk to Lotte Mart when I felt a light tap on my shoulder. I jumped slightly, and turned around.

"Hey," Jihoon said softly, "Can I follow you to the store? I don't really know where it is and the other guys said they didn't have enough food for me." He broke eye contact with me looked down playing with an interesting piece of string on his shirt.

I smiled. The new kid feeling. Not like I wasn't familiar with that.

"Sure."

The walk to the store was relatively long because Maroo didn't have a great location by itself, the first few minutes of our walk was painfully quiet.

"So what did you think of your first training here?" I said finally, because it seemed the best out of all my very bad options. (Option 1: So like did both SM and Fantagio kick you out or something? Not like theres anything wrong, rejection is all part of life. Option 2: Are you always this quiet because you seemed be too busy to talk to me today. Option 3: Have you had plastic surgery? Option 4: So what did you think of your first training here?)