my first day as a trainee
A Seiya Morimoto Exclusive
New to Apple Hair? Start here for an introduction. Apple Hair’s a fictional Asian American boy band from Hawaii, but their universe expands to the fantasy along with the romance of everyday.
Or feel free to start here, where Seiya Morimoto writes about his first day as a trainee at AWE Entertainment. This is a member exclusive!
Yo yo YO.
So I heard… a certain member is claiming to be your favorite member. I don’t mean to be sassy, but can I get a “that’s BS” from someone?
Just jokes, Corrin! Corrin talked about his audition story. So I’m here to one-up him by talking about my first day as a trainee.
Now, my audition story was pretty cool too, but my first day was one for the books. Or whateva.
Now, I entered the AWE building, and I was pretty full of actual awe. My sister dropped me off, and the whole time she just kept gushing over me, which felt weird. But I guess she was just proud?
I was immediately brought to a conference room on the second floor. Man. It felt a little intimidating to be around fifty people who also made the cut. But I puffed my chest out. I was good enough to be here, right?
After we went over all the rules, we split off into two groups by age. I was in the older group, and we immediately went into a dance practice. The guy introduced himself as Mr. Bright, and he looked a bit like a young Channing Tatum.
I tried not to be distracted by his handsomeness. Now, I love freestyling dance as much as I do rapping, but it was a whole new experience to have every move laid out for me. I have to give a shoutout to my bro Corrin, who joined the company at the same time as me. I remember noticing him at this practice. We were in separate rows, but he was wearing this cute Dumbo shirt.
Anyway, we watched some dance routines on the projector, and then it was time for vocals with Mrs. White. Man… she’s definitely intimidating. We had some vocal warmups to test our ranges, and then all the trainees tried their hand at writing a rap. I still remember mine. Here’s a few lines:
I thought you couldn’t believe that I would ever make it
In fact even when I got a call, you thought I faked it
I thought a lot about my parents. Unlike my sister, they don’t really care. About nada. So it was an easy decision to leave home and head into the AWE dorm.
After vocals, where some of the trainees performed their raps (not me ‘tho), we headed off into lunch. I sat on a table that was almost full. There, I met Allen—he already gave me bad vibes from the very beginning.
After lunch, Merlin Kim addressed all the new trainees. He talked about it being a hard road. Damn. He made it sound like we were going off to war soon.
We headed into another dance session with another instructor, Mrs. Tori, who introduced herself as Japanese—like me—and Spanish. She gave us a presentation about hip hop and then impressed us all with a hard-hitting dance that looked like she was punching and kicking an invisible person.
Now… the day was already interesting. But here’s where it got a little cray. Merlin Kim split us into groups of five, and we had a few hours to prepare a performance that he would personally judge. To use to determine the groups that he’ll form later on.
Man. If I told you my heart raced at that very moment, doing acrobats like a hammah.
I wasn’t placed with Corrin if you’re curious, but the other four group members didn’t fuss when I said that I could be in charge of the rap verse.
We were the first group to go up in front of Merlin Kim. My heart just about exploded in my chest. But hey. I went out there and did it. In the second verse, I spat out the rap and then fell back into formation. We performed a dance that was beginner-level, but still kinda in sync.
Merlin Kim smiled after.
I think I impressed him?
So. That was the first of many days training in AWE Entertainment. I hope you found it a cool read? I won’t say anything cocky like Corrin did, but I will repeat something. Apple Hair’s got your back! Is there anything else you’re curious about that the other members can answer?
Best,
SEIYA