20 cm || Choi Yeonjun

27

Days passed and I think my body's gonna shut down any time now. I was beyond exhausted.

Our schedule never seems to end. Us girls have been juggling learning language, training, and attending endless meetings with the management for our debut. We barely even sleep anymore. More or less the only time I get for myself was four hours and that was just for sleep.

We wake up at 6:00 am and go home at 11:00 pm being the earliest. Our diets even became stricter now. Only eating an apple for breakfast and a pack of salad for lunch and dinner.

I didn't know how much longer my body could hold but I have to keep it together. This is what I chose to do. A little more crawling and I'll be able to debut.

That was my everyday mantra to keep me sane and going.

"Another round?" Eunbi spoke loudly, her voice resonating in the entire room. We all nodded, our hair being unruly and matted because of sweat.

The choreography for our title track has been released yesterday. We have yet to record the vocals but we've started learning the moves by using the demo song as a guide.

"Jiwon, you okay? You look pale." Ga eun came up to me and held my cold hands. I was panting heavily and my head felt like it was about to explode. It was throbbing painfully.

The other girls immediately froze. They circled around me and gave me water.

"No, no. Let's continue practicing. I'm fine!" Lie.

I forced a smile on my lips. I bounced on my feet a couple of times to let them know that I was fine. We couldn't afford to lose another day of practice. This would only slow down our progress.

The choreography and positions to the song was so different than the ones we've been trained with. It was a lot faster and required a lot of strength. So more or less we would be finished in a month. That is if we didn't miss a day of practice.

"Jiwon, look at you! You don't look fine at all! You have bags under your eyes and even you're lips are chapped. Are you still drinking water?" My eyes widened. This was the first time Eunbi raised her voice. She was usually the calm one out of the four of us but seeing her like this made me extremely emotional. All of my bottled up feelings and stress were slipping out one by one.

"Unnie, we can't afford wasting time! We haven't even gotten to the first verse of the song!" I frustratedly pulled at my hair. Tears began heating the sides of my eye. "I have to debut, unnie.... I need to make it to the final cut!" I was full on crying now. I shut my eyes tight. My headache seem to have gotten worse.

"Hey, hey... Look at me. We are all gonna make it out together. Do you trust me? Hmm?" Eunbi's voice cracked. She pulled me to her arms and hugged me. I just nodded my head. I was hiccuping obnoxiously loud.

"It's a naturally hard process for rookies to debut, Jiwon. Believe me. It will smoothen out in the future." Ga eun was tapping my back, slightly sniffling.

"I think we should head home early. Ga eun help me clean up." Eunbi stood up and slowly packed up our things. I was about to say something but she already beat me to it. "Jiwon, don't worry too much. I texted our manager already. Now, let's head home."

"Unnie, you all go ahead. I'll buy Jiwon unnie medicine for her headache." Our maknae said fiddling with her hands.

"Alright don't forget to turn off the lights." We all headed out. The cold air making us shiver. Our slightly damp clothes didn't help us with the nearing days of winter.