BTS Eighth Member | The Life: Pre-debut Years

Chapter 5- The Reunion

Authors Note at the End :)

April 6th, 2012:

I walk into the trainee locker room to see a large group around the bulletin board, they must have released the trainee scores. I go to my locker and put my backpack in and grab a protein bar, my first meal of the day. Then I slowly make my way to the group.

"Hey! If you've seen your score, get moving! We wanna see too!" yelled a trainee beside me.

The crowd starts to get moving and I shuffle my way to the front. I look at the long sheet of paper with all of our names and I start at the top and make my way down. I stop at my name Fortin-Lee, Y/N. I slide my eyes right and see passed, 10/25.

Oh. My. God! I passed! I made it! All of my hard work paid off! I'm also in the top ten, I couldn't believe they thought I was better than 15 of the other girls. Who knows, maybe they will debut a 10-member group. One can dream, right? I couldn't stop myself from bouncing up and down.

I look a little farther down looking for the Eunbi's names.

Hwang Eunbi (younger Eunbi) passed, 6/25.

Jung Eunbi (97' Eunbi), passed 5/25.

Of course, they had passed, why was I worried, they were the most talented people I knew. I go to turn around and stop myself, thinking of Youngmi. Had she passed? I turn back to the sheet and look for Youngmi's name.

Bae Youngmi, passed, 11/25

She passed. I don't know if I'm relieved or upset. She had threatened my life and made it a living hell the two weeks leading up to the assessment. But after it, I started feeling bad for her. The assessment had boosted my confidence considerably and I realised that Youngmi's bullying was a result of her own insecurities and less about my flaws. I was happy that I had done better than her though, even if it was just one position.

We had been given new schedules yesterday, probably as a result of the assessment, and my vocal and dance classes were with different people, some of them I had never seen before. However, it made me feel good that I wasn't the butt of all the criticism anymore. I hadn't stopped practicing hard after the assessment and I could finally see the progress. In fact, I looked like a completely different person. I had lost almost 28 pounds and the muscle I had gained really changed my proportions. I'm not gonna lie, I thought I looked good.

After practicing the new dance our instructor taught us with the Eunbi's until 2am, we made our way back to the dorm. As we walk in, I notice that Soojin wasn't the one sleeping on the ground. Instead, it was one of the new girls in my lesson. Soojin must not have been as good as Youngmi thought she was. In fact, there were around 8 new girls. The company was not messing around, 8 out of 25 being kicked out, that's not a small number. I have to keep practicing hard or else I know I'll quickly become one of those 8.

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June 8th, 2012:

We had been given our first break from the 8th to the 12th of June. All of the other girls were just going home, but it was too long of a trip and too expensive for me to go back to Canada for just 5 days. Instead, I arranged to fly to Jeju to visit my grandparents. I called them roughly once a week and I could tell they were worried about me. They knew trainee life was no walk in the park and often didn't believe me when I said I was ok. They'd also send me food, that I usually wouldn't eat because of my diet, and little notes. Not only did I not want to stay in the dorm for the five days, but I felt like I should visit them to prove to them that I am ok. Also, who doesn't love the Jeju sun!