“Dohee, look outside! It’s really pretty!”
Sujin, who had ended up in the same class as me again in sixth grade, sat beside me and spoke in an excited voice as she gazed out the window.
When I looked outside, the clear clouds were certainly pretty.
Sixth-grade school trip.
I was going to Jeju Island.
Of course, I had no intention of going on the trip.
.
.
.
“Mom, they said we’re going to Jeju Island for our school trip.”
“Wow, Jeju Island? Elementary school students these days get to go to nice places. When I was young, it was always Gyeongju or Gangwon Province.”
“—Old—”
I teased Mom and ended up getting smacked.
“But Mom, can’t I skip the school trip?”
“Why?”
“I need to go to the company and practice.”
The truth was, going to the company to practice was just an excuse. I wasn’t confident I could endure the kids’ energy for three days and two nights.
Of course, they were thirteen now and weren’t as rowdy as they used to be, but I still couldn’t handle it.
“A school trip is part of your classes, too. Just go.”
“Come on, I’m a trainee who gets paid. I should go to work with a professional mindset.”
“Good grief. Then go ask the team leader first and do whatever the team leader says.”
“Okay.”
The team leader would surely be pleased if I said I wasn’t going because I wanted to practice.
.
.
.
“A school trip?”
“Yes. Three days and two nights seems too long, so I was thinking of just skipping it and coming to work to practice.”
“What are you talking about? Go.”
“Huh?”
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.
“Go. You don’t have much of your school life left, so you should go while you still can.”
“But I need to practice…”
“What practice? Go have fun, then come back and work hard.”
Ah.
What was with this sweet team leader?
.
.
.
And so, for that reason, I ended up going along to Jeju Island.
When I arrived at the airport and stepped outside, the weather really was nice.
The weather was nice.
“Wow! Palm trees!”
Sujin seemed to be enjoying everything.
“Yeah.”
“Isn’t it fascinating, Dohee?”
“No, it is fascinating.”
Now that I had actually arrived in Jeju Island, even I felt excited by its unique scent.
After leaving the airport and taking a bus, the first places we visited were Yongduam Rock and Yongyeon Valley, the tourist attractions closest to Jeju Airport.
When we arrived at Yongduam and walked down the stairs, the sea opened up before us.
September.
The weather was still hot.
The sea breeze blew in and cooled my overheated body.
“Nice.”
The elementary school life that had seemed so daunting when I first entered was already nearing its end.
Come to think of it, I had lived quite a busy life from the age of five to thirteen.
And I was sure I would become even busier in the future.
For these three days and two nights, I should set everything aside, relax, and heal.
The scenery was pretty, so I should take some pictures.
I took several selfies with the sea in the background, chose one, and uploaded it to the family group chat.
[Me: (Photo)]
[Me: A radiant beauty even in Jeju Island.]
[Me: Good?]
[Mom: Jeju Island is prettier than my daughter. Have fun and come back~]
[Me: No jealousy.]
[Dad: Take lots of pictures, sweetheart.]
[Me: Okay.]
Doa must have been in class, since she didn’t reply.
Then I picked two selfies and sent them to Sister Jo Soyoung, one of the managers on the New Development Team.
[Me: (Photo)]
[Me: (Photo)]
[Me: Manager, here are today’s selfies.]
[Manager Jo Soyoung: Dohee, you’re in Jeju Island? Sounds fun!!!]
[Me: Yes haha.]
[Manager Jo Soyoung: But your expressions in the selfies are a little disappointing, aren’t they? Make a prettier expression and send them again~]
[Me: Yes, ma’am.]
Since I was bad at taking selfies, I had ended up taking selfie lessons at the company.
There was nothing special about them being called selfie lessons. I just had to send two pictures a day to my manager until she approved them.
I never imagined I’d take selfie lessons in my life.
I’d better take the pictures again.
“Everyone~ Let’s gather up so we can move on~”
Our homeroom teacher called out loudly.
It seemed to be time to go to the next tourist attraction.
.
.
.
After visiting Yongduam, Yongyeon, the Natural History Museum, a rail bike, Snoopy Garden, and various other places, we had dinner at a restaurant and headed to the resort where we would be staying for three days and two nights.
The exterior of the resort was different from what I had expected.
In my previous life, the accommodations for school trips had all been no better than cheap inns.
Dirty and cramped.
They had even crammed at least eight students into a single room.
I hadn’t known it at the time because I was young, but after growing older, I realized that the teachers had selected those accommodations after receiving kickbacks from the companies.
I wasn’t sure whether kickbacks were harder to receive these days because of stricter crackdowns, or whether the teachers had simply improved enough to refuse them, but our accommodation this time was clean and seemed to have good facilities.
There were even four people to a room.
When I entered our room with high expectations, it was more than spacious enough for four people to sleep in.
There were even beds instead of bare floors.
This was way too nice.
I was beginning to like the school trip more and more.
I ran over to a bed and lay down.
Ah, this was nice.
Without realizing it, I had gotten excited and wandered all over the tourist sites, so fatigue had built up.
Meanwhile, my roommates didn’t seem tired at all. They had music playing on their phones and were running wild around the room.
One of them, Sujin, jumped onto my bed.
“Dohee, are you asleep?”
“No. I should wash up first and then sleep.”
“Then do you want to wash up first, Dohee?”
“Okay.”
When I entered the bathroom and soaked myself in hot water, some of my fatigue melted away.
Standing beneath the hot water made me enjoy the trip even more.
Traveling was fun.
When I had more free time later, I should travel more often.
After drying myself and getting dressed, I came out to find the kids still playing music, singing along at the top of their lungs.
Young kids really didn’t get tired.
“Everyone, I’m done washing up. Someone else go next.”
After saying that, I went and lay down on my bed.
Lying beneath a fluffy blanket and watching YouTube was heaven.
By the time I finished watching YouTube, the others must have washed up too, but instead of lying in bed like me, they started playing music again and running wild around the room.
Ugh, they were draining me.
After having fun among themselves, they must have noticed me lying there alone, because they came over and began pestering me while I was trying to rest.
“Dohee, don’t sleep. Let’s play together~”
“I’m tired.”
“Let’s plaaay~”
In the end, I figured they would probably whine until dawn if I didn’t play with them at least a little, so I gave up and decided to humor them for a while.
“So what are we going to play?”
Sujin spoke up.
“Let’s play truth or dare! Truth or dare!”
“Sure, go ahead.”
Sujin turned on her phone and opened a roulette app.
“Whoever it lands on has to answer, okay?”
“Sure.”
I’d play along for a bit, then hurry up and go to sleep.
The first person it landed on was Yuna, one of my roommates.
Strangely, she wore an expression full of anticipation, as though she had wanted it to land on her.
Yerin, another roommate, asked her a question.
“Yuna, is there anyone in our class you like?”
At thirteen, they were at the age when interest in the opposite sex began to flourish.
“Yeah…”
“Really? Who is it? Who?”
Sujin and Yerin asked excitedly.
“Jinyong…”
“Eeeek, seriously? No way!”
They were at a good age.
“Dohee, did you hear that?”
Sujin said to me with exaggerated excitement.
“Yeah, wow, that’s amazing.”
Ugh, I was sleepy.
This time, the roulette landed on me.
“Yay! What should we ask Dohee?”
“I’ve always been so curious.”
“Dohee is totally mysterious! She never tells us anything about herself.”
“That’s why the boys like her so much.”
You guys were that curious about me…
“Let’s decide on an order and have one person ask her something every time it lands on Dohee.”
Sujin went so far as to decide the order.
“Yeah!”
Yerin asked me the first question.
“Dohee, is there anyone in our class you like?”
As if.
“No.”
“Then someone you’re even a little interested in!”
I hadn’t even memorized all the kids’ names.
Who was there that wasn’t annoying me?
“Jeongu?”
He had never spoken to me even once, so he was relatively tolerable.
“Oh my gosh! Do you like Jeongu?”
“Seriously? Why him?”
“No, it’s not that I like him.”
“No way! No way!”
“It’s just that I dislike everyone else because they’re annoying.”
“You really like Jeongu? Wow.”
Did elementary school students have filters in their ears?
They were twisting my words however they pleased.
Anyway, after the question was over, we spun the roulette again.
It landed on me yet again.
Sujin said with an excited expression,
“Yes! It’s my turn to ask a question!”
Sujin thought for a moment before asking,
“Hmm, Dohee, what do you do after school? You don’t only go to piano lessons, do you?”
Sujin thought I attended piano lessons every day.
Should I just lie?
No.
Once I became a middle school student in six months, I would frequently have to explain my situation to the school and leave early.
Then it would soon become known that I was a trainee.
I might as well tell them.
“Don’t go spreading this rumor everywhere.”
“Yes!”
Looking at their expressions, I wondered if I could really trust them.
“I’m just a trainee at an entertainment agency.”
“Really!?”
“A trainee? Then are you going to become an idol?”
“No way, that’s amazing.”
The kids went into an uproar.
“Yeah. I can’t tell you which company it is, but I am a trainee. I’m saying this again, so don’t spread it around. It’s our secret, okay?”
“Yes!”
After humoring the kids for a while longer, I fell asleep.
The next day.
The rumor that I was a trainee had spread throughout the entire grade, not just our class.
As a bonus, Jeongu from my class came up to me and confessed.
“Dohee, I like you too…”
What the fuck did he mean, too?
“Ah. Okay, thanks. But I don’t like you. It was just a rumor.”
Jeongu stared at me with a shocked expression.
Fuck.
It was my fault for trusting elementary school kids’ mouths.
The more irritating incident happened during the evening recreation.
I had been clapping mechanically along with the host while looking at my phone and following the proceedings in moderation.
The host shouted loudly,
“All right~ It’s time for the talent show you’ve all been looking forward to the most!”
The children’s cheers showed just how eagerly they had been waiting for this moment.
“Before we get into the main talent show, we can’t skip the class competition, can we? From each class, the student with the best grades, come up to the front of the stage!”
What?
I had been mentally recuperating while surfing the internet on my phone, but the kids pushed me forward and forced me onto the stage.
“All right, shall we have each class introduce themselves, starting with Class One?”
“I’m Kim Jongbeom from Sixth Grade Class One! Go, Class One!”
“Sixth Grade Class Two…”
.
.
.
“I’m Lee Dohee from Sixth Grade Class Five…”
“Wow, is Lee Dohee the best student in Class Five?”
“Yes…”
“And she’s so pretty, too?”
Voices erupted from among the children beneath the stage.
“Dohee is number one in the entire school!”
“They say Dohee is an idol trainee!”
Ah.
Stop.
Stop this humiliation.
The host asked me with a surprised expression,
“Wow, number one in the entire school? Is that true?”
“Yes… well…”
“And is it true that you’re an idol trainee?”
“…Yes.”
It was my fault. Please stop.
“Okay! Now that we’ve finished the introductions, we should watch the performances, right? Starting with the representative from Class One, dance to the music!”
The boy from Class One began doing a wild dance to the music.
“Wow, what passion! Dance, dance! Class Two can’t lose, can they? Class Two, start!”
The boy from Class Two also began dancing enthusiastically.
Before I knew it, it was my turn.
“I’m looking forward to this student the most. We can’t miss an idol trainee’s dance, can we? Start!”
A song by the girl group that currently held the number-one spot on the charts began playing through the speakers.
Naturally, it was a song I had practiced during dance lessons.
But did I really have to dance to it here?
When I looked toward the audience, all the children’s eyes were focused on me.
Even the teachers.
When I looked to the side, the host was staring intently at me, too.
Fuck.
With no other choice, I danced briefly to the song.
“Wow, you really are an idol trainee! Your dance lines are different. You’re the best dancer I’ve ever seen! Everyone, give Dohee a round of applause for her hard work!”
I was going to develop stage fright before even debuting, for fuck’s sake.
I had resolved to live like a gentleman and avoid swearing, but there was no way I could hold it in.
Fuck.
As I was coming down from the stage, the host called out to me through the microphone.
“Come give this uncle an autograph later, okay? You’ll be my very first autograph, got it?”
Too embarrassed to say anything, I just gave a slight nod and went back down to my seat.
“That was a wonderful performance. Now that we’ve seen the performances of the students with the best grades, shouldn’t we also see the performances of the most popular students? The most popular student from each class, come up to the front of the stage!”
At the same time, everyone’s heads turned toward me.
Ah.
No, that’s not right.
I don’t even play with you guys. I just sit alone and read books.
I’m a loner.
I turned my head and looked at the teacher.
“Go for it, Dohee!”
The teacher said it with a smile.
Fuck.
With no other choice, I went up onto the stage, and the host said with an insane grin,
“Good at studying, pretty, and popular. Dohee, you must be happy!”
Get lost.
The representatives from Classes One through Four danced, and then it was my turn.
I would just dance roughly and get off the stage.
“All right, everyone! We’ve already seen Dohee dance, so wouldn’t it be disappointing if she danced again?”
“Yes!!!!!”
“Now, a special performance for Dohee! Everyone, siiiing!”
“Sing!”
“Sing!”
“Sing!”
What the fuck had I done to deserve this?
Please stop.
Years later, after I debuted, videos circulated under the title “Lee Dohee’s Elementary School Talent Show.”
It was an absolutely fucking awful thing.