When She Became A Pledis Trainee

CHAPTER 4: AUGUST 23RD

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This is a work of Fiction. Names, characters, places and incidences are either products of the author's imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

Please refrain from reproduction, transmission, or storing in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the author. Thank you, and enjoy!!

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I felt like listening to an alien language! but that's good. I kept mishearing the Korean lyrics and it is therefore successful in distracting me from my own dark thoughts. The beats were engaging, but there were songs I didn't like, especially those from girls. I listen to the ones which catch my interest, without looking at the title or artist, knowing I won't understand or know who they are anyway. I swipe right on my closed screen to skip songs which doesn't match my taste. I remembered Twice's 'What is Love' which I once really liked, but I haven't stumbled upon it yet, so maybe it wasn't one of the songs Will sent me. Just like that, skipping over uninteresting songs, I got home without taking another ride on my dark train of thoughts.

At home, I decided to listen to the Kpop songs according to Artist as already grouped by Google Music. I observed that there is this particular group that I liked (just based on listening to their music). There was this one particular voice I kept distinguishing, or maybe I was wrong, given the variety of artists Will shared with me. I scrolled through the songs and searched for the Artist with the greatest number of songs, assuming that it is the group Will liked the most. Scrolling along, there was this long stretch of unreadable Korean song titles, with the artist name SEVENTEEN written below each song, in all caps. 'This,' I thought, 'is a group name I can read.' I went to their folder and pressed Shuffle.

"Seventeeeeeeen, yep!" the first song was 'Pretty U'. I smirked at the title. Are these guys jejemons? Jejemon is a type of slang language once famous in Filipino teens which involves excessive use of numbers, symbols, Random capitalizations, changed spellings and shortened words in written text. I really liked the blending though. It was a great song! And actually, I heard this one earlier on the ride home, when I was listening through all of the Kpop songs in shuffle. There, in the bridge was that distinct voice I was talking about. The one which went up four high notes, eight seconds long. Along the night, I came to conclude that majority of those songs I liked, the ones which I didn't skip on the way home, were mostly from them; this group, 'Seventeen'. I was still listening to their songs while walking outside that night, on my way to a nearby Internet café. I had to download references for a scientific paper due next week, and maybe I'll search about this group as well.

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It was midnight when I got back home. It took me five hours in the internet café to wrap my head around Seventeen. I had downloaded my references and checked for assignment announcements in my first twenty minutes online. The remaining 4 hours and 40 minutes were spent learning about this group. Apparently, some of them were the same age as me. They are made of thirteen male members under the PLɛDIS entertainment agency in South Korea. From what I can recall, two of them were Chinese, one was Korean-American, and the rest were Koreans. After five hours, I can't even remember any of their names except for the one whose stage name is The8. It was easy enough to remember because he was Chinese and he explained that Chinese people love the number eight as a symbol for infinity, but I can't remember the face it belonged to and the real name of that person. I watched dance practice videos, but the one I repeated on loop, and miraculously had me watching it for four hours was the dance practice video of 'Mansae'. The choreography was fun, unique and very detailed. I was familiar with the chorus because Q Park featured it once in his funny video.

Their synchronization is amazing! And one particular member kept snatching my attention within those four hours. Well, two members actually, because, I bet everyone noticed the smallest guy with the pinkish hair... the other guy I'm talking about is the guy with brown hair, who is center during the chorus. He was wearing shorts and a huge shirt which is black in front but white at the back with a large number three on it. I love him already. Apparently, he was behind that enchanting distinguished voice I kept hearing. I didn't catch his name though. Foolishly enough, I haven't thought of printing out their profiles so I can review them later. How stupid of me. I'll just search again tomorrow. But today, I became a Carat, just one small diamond in a sparkling ocean of Rose quartz and Serenity Blue! Even the fandom colors are perfect! I want to see more of that guy whose smile is just so precious; it made me smile within those five hours, even now, lying in bed waiting for sleep to come. The longest I've ever smiled in months.

I slipped hard into the diamond life; I might have hit my head and forgot most of my problems since then. I walked home that night, probably learning my first bit of Korean words. I sang to myself: "Seventeeeeen ding ding ding ding....yap! Halmari maneunde, jeongniga jal andwe. Dowajo SOS. Hana deul, set, net."