#kt.ent

staying on her seat as other trainees scatter out of the room, she waits until the room is completely empty except for her and her trainer. clicking her pen and putting it inside her pencil case, she rises from her seat and beelines for the teacher. “min-seonsaeng, can i talk to you for a second?” giving her a small smile, the young rapper waits for a response. it’s hard not to overthink at times where she’s required to reflect over her growth and achievements. a nagging thought at the back of her mind always tells her that she’s not accomplishing enough. as much as that is a fuel, it also gets her down at times.

“yeah seungmi, what’s up?” the teacher looks at her with a broad smile, his snapback on backwards. lyric writing is something she’s taken for a while alongside her rap classes, hoping to wow everyone with her ability to write impressively. classes are always interesting and challenging, and she cannot express in words how grateful she is to have coach min as her guide.

“can i do the reflection with you? this month’s evaluation is a bit different, as you probably know already... and i feel like you’ll be a great listener to my current train of thoughts.” small smile on the young female’s face, she folds her arms on the table. in her head, there are already a few questions she’d like to ask, and a few ideas she’d like to propose.

“of course. you can start talking and i’ll listen to what you have to say first.” with an encouraging nod, the older woman tells her to begin. a torrent of thoughts quickly fill her mind and she finds it hard to sort everything into coherent pieces of information she can easily break down. humming, she scratches the side of her cheeks.

“so far i feel like kt has been a great decision i took. training here has allowed me to improve in a lot of skill areas, and i will never forget how thankful i feel right now. there are times when i thought i should give up, but i realized that giving up in the middle will only make me a quitter.

the staff asked us to tell our coaches how we envision our future with the company. i say, i can imagine myself as an in-house producer. i know it sounds silly, but i’ve been having tons of fun writing lyrics lately, and i hope to be able to use all the midi recorders and learn about chord progressions in the future. that’s why i hope i can get your insight on this coach min.”

a proud smile blooms on the older female’s face, and the rapper can’t help but smile along. no matter how much she improves in dancing and singing, her passion rests within the magics of writing and creating. you can give her the choice of being a great dancer or a slightly better lyricist than she already is, and she’d pick the creation over the expertise.

“with your progress so far, i can see producing becoming one of your fortes. it’s still a long way though, and i hope you’ll stay long enough with the company to see your dreams come true. for now, i feel like you’ll need to put a hundred percent to your idol training and make sure you’re not well behind others. won’t want a rapper be ashamed in front of the public won’t we?”

then just like any other month, an evaluation is due at the end of the month. the only difference this month is that it would be held during the summer camp, which is a bit weird. at first, she thought she’d have to dance to a certain song or showcase her worst skill in front of other people. thankfully, that’s not the case and only other trainees would see what she has to offer. that only makes her a tad more nervous though, as it means that the people that would be watching her would actually know what she’s doing, and know exactly what she’s doing wrong and messing up. all the professionally makes her nervous and weirdly intimidated.

proposed to her was yet another maknae trio stage, which she had been getting to name a major as ‘maknae trio’ sounds like a boast of their youth. she doesn’t mind collaborating with her two best friends in the company, in fact she feels a lot more comfortable that way. they only problem was that high chances they would do another dance-heavy song that does not have a rap break. alas, that was true and the ever popular orange caramel song was bestowed upon her in the most convenient way possible.

cute, was what she had said about the performance over two years ago. despite how easy it seemed though, the vocals are quite hard, and she’d die if she’d have to do a live rendition of the song. with her fingers crossed, the rapper can only hope she won’t take too much lines and instead just smile there brightly as if her life wasn’t hard or a confusing mess at all.

in no time they were practicing together. after all the hard dances kt basically spoon-feeds her on a daily basis, she no longer has trouble following the basic steps of dancing. her flexibility classes have also helped her become a lot more free in her movement. technique aside, she also has to focus on her facial expressions as each song has a different vibe. thankfully, catallena is a cute song so all she has to do is basically be herself, smile, and occasionally wink when deemed appropriate.

as she waves her arm around and lip-synchs to the song when she has to, the girl finds herself somewhat more at home with dancing than she has ever did. if it hadn’t been for their lame jokes and endless laughter, the girl might actually cry because of her pent-up feeling on being able to rock a choreography without tripping over her own feet. thankfully, she’s strong enough to hold it in and keep it together during practice. god knows what would’ve happened if she bawled out of the blue and scare the socks off everyone.

pulling her hair back to tie it into a high ponytail, she pauses before she gets on stage for the real thing. being a trainee has opened so many doors for her and this is one of them. preparing herself for the set, she takes one last breath before turning her worried expression to a cute smile. getting nervous is a normal reaction, but as an idol, she has to react in the most professional way possible.

kt’s holy trinity is not to be messed with.

despite being the youngest trainees under the company, they all can pack a punch or two when it comes to performances. a collab is long overdue, and the evaluation gives them the perfect excuse to prepare something of their own.

when they first got the lyrics printed, yeri and yul both giggled fervently. due to what, the oldest is not sure, but if she can comment on the lyrics, she’d say they were shallow. a sigh was one of her first responses, not only because of the lyrics, but also because of the fact that it is yet another dance related track. barely any korean pop songs are lacking of dances really, but this particular one they chose even has a dance break halfway through the song.

if anything can kill her, it’ll be this stage.

countless session after session, she grasps most of the english pronunciation, even if her thick accent still coats the words like gravy. but most importantly, she gets more and more familiar with the dance. although in the end she doesn’t really get to impress as much as she would, she’s still glad that she didn’t fall once.

of course, some moves she execute awkwardly, and some others she just completely messes up. but she makes up for it with her expressions and lack of shame. if she suddenly jumped, so what? make it look intentional and everything’s alright.

being asked to join the all-kt-girls eval performance is an honor. it feels like home, the air suddenly changing around her when she finally realizes that she’s accepted in the company for who she is. even with the bad dancer and bad singer title stuck on her, no one thought of kicking her out of the group and excluding her from the set. in fact, the others even tried to help her become better instead of leaving her to fend for herself in front of the panel.

at first, she felt bad for the others. both yulhee and her were the worst dancers of the batch, and it didn’t help that they were both quite new compared to the other trainees. her growth is rapid, she has to admit, but it wasn’t quite enough just yet. she still struggled, a lot, and sometimes extra effort is needed for her to be able to get the whole choreography right. if it wasn’t her not knowing what to do with her foot, it’s her forgetting where she’s supposed to be within the formation.

it gets repetitive after some time though, and she slowly learned the whole dance. it gets easier, she thinks, and it shows through her movements that are a bit more relaxed. definition, maybe not, but she’ll get to it one day. so with pertinence and dogged determination, the rapper does it.

of course, no girl group is ever without its conflicts, even if they weren’t an official group. hyeri and tiffany’s endless squabbles breaks the silence of the room, and the maknae line is always together in one corner, laughing over something completely random. piper slays, and taeyeon slays as well, both in dancing and singing respectively. and while people like sunyoung struggle with charms, yul is overflowing with it. every single person has their own specialties, and she’s proud to say that she’s okay with not being the best at everything.