Time flew by and it was almost time for the audition for produce 101. I worked even harder than normal in order to pass the audition. There were 2 auditions that took place. One that determined if you were good enough to get selected to be in the show and one that took place in the show. That one was the level placement test.
I worked harder than usual until the day came for the pre-audition. I got up early and headed out.
"Jihoon? Where are you going?" My sponsor asked me.
I didn't know this while I was signing the contract, but appartenly part of the contract said that I had to live in the agency until the contract ended. FYI the contract didn't have an end date so I basically had to live in the agency with my sponsor until he kicked me out.
"Uhhh to the pre-audition sir," I replied.
The sponsor just laughed.
"Is there a problem sir?" I asked.
"Oh Jihoon, you are so innocent," the sponsor just kept laughing.
"I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you're saying sir," I said confused.
"You don't need to go to the pre-audition Jihoon," He said.
"But I need to in order to-,"
"You already got accepted into the show Jihoon. That's part of the things I do for you. I make sure you get into the show no matter if you pass the pre-audition or not. In conclusion, you don't need to go to the pre-audition," He cut me off.
"Oh," I felt a sudden twitch in my stomach. I felt guilty. This meant that someone who could have better skills than me could fail, just because I had a sponsor and they didn't. I felt like I was going to throw up.
"Go ahead, go back to practicing," He chuckled.
"Yes sir," I said, still feeling guilty and uneasy.
"Jihoon?" He said.
"Yes sir?" I responded.
"Call me by my name, would you?" He asked.
I didn't respond.
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Days went by and it was almost time for produce 101 filming. As my sponsor told me, I was automatically accepted into the show. Me, Kwon Hyeob, and Han Jongyeon were going out as a team. Technically we were not a team. We were just practicing together so we could get a decent level on the level audition.In fact, we didn't even like each other. The other two were some what friends, but I hated both of them and they hated me too. They were the ones who told me that I was filthy whore. I don't know how they figured out, but they knew that I was getting sponsored. I think that was the primary reason for them hating me. But I didn't really mind them hating me. I knew what I was doing was not right and I knew that when the show started, there were no such thing as "teamwork." I had to survive through the whole show by myself. There was no such thing as "working our way to the top together."
I was by myself.
But I mean, when was I not?
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<At the first filming of produce 101>
We were the first ones called. They were announcing us by agencies and for some reason, our company was the 5th company to be called. We sat down somewhere that was not to high and not to low. We basically sat in the middle section. We sat down and watched as the other trainees entered.
"MMO?" One of the staff members called for MMO.
5 guys walked into the studio. One of them had pastel tone pink hair. He looked like a huge, soft dog. I'm not sure if he caught me staring at him, but he smiled at me and winked at me. I immediately turned away from him, blushing. All of them walked past us and sat in the row behind us.
"Hey. You," someone tapped me on the shoulder.
I turned around to find the pink haired guy smiling at me.
The guy held up his hand and just waved at me.
Not really sure what to do, I also awkwardly held up my hand and waved.
The guy made a bigger smile, looking satisfied.
Very uncomfortable, I turned back around to face the front.
"Daniel wth? You clearly just made that poor guy uncomfortable," said one of the MMO trainees. I wanted to turn around but I kept still.
The pink haired guy, or Daniel, just laughed.
"CUBE?" The staff called.
Two trainees walked into the studio.
"Woah....," without even realizing, I awed at one of the trainee's visual.
He had to be the most beautiful guy I have ever seen. His visual was literally perfect. He was cute and he was hella tall. And he looked pretty young. I continued staring at him as he walked to his seat. Him and the other trainee sat down at the row at the bottom. This kind of disappointed me because I at least wanted to know his name. I thought about asking the MMO trainees about him, but I didn't have to because they were already talking about him.
"Dang CUBE has stepped up their game. Look at their visuals," said one of the MMO trainees.
"I think I've seen one of them on Instagram," said one of the trainees.
"Yea me too. Someone took a picture of him walking on a street because they thought he was cute. That picture blew up on Instagram," they said.
"MMO Please stop talking!" The staff yelled at the trainees.
"Yes sir," they yelled back.
I looked at the CUBE trainee one more time. I quickly looked away after I realized that he was looking at me too.
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Being in the show was harder than I expected. I legit had no time to sleep at all. I would wake up at 7:00 am and practice until 9:00 pm. We did have breaks in between but those breaks did not feel like breaks at all. During those breaks, we had cameras rolling even then so none of us could actually rest. But none of us even dared to complain.
Everyday was tiring and painful for me. Both physically and mentally. My body did not seem to rest and my mind was shattered into pieces due to extreme stress and anxiety. I was basically living in hell. None of the viewers knew that , of course. I knew that my votes will go down if I acted tired and stressed during the show. That's when my acting skills came in handy. I acted like I was cute and happy. My votes steadily increased as time went by. Sure, I was thankful for all the love and support I was getting, but that didn't cure my pain.
Surprisingly, the thing that helped my pain was Guanlin.
Guanlin always smiled when he saw me and he encouraged me greatly whenever he saw me. Even when he was on the rival team. He always told me my performance was great. He made it really obvious that he liked me, which I didn't mind at all.
Now that I think about it, I think that was when I started liking Guanlin. I started to like him more than as a friend.
-Hey y'all i'm back
-I'm really sorry I didn't update for like 3 months.
-I was busy with my midterm :(
-I'll hopefully update more often since midterm is over!
