translated by laymerence and elaysium.

Hopelessness

While I threw my entire body and heart into the life of a trainee, an accident happened, I fought, and the consequences were serious. Because of this fighting incident, I was sent back to my country. Without even having the chance to reflect on my initial determination to grasp every opportunity, I left Korea for the second time.

At that time the company had prepared various classes for us, dancing classes, vocal classes, language classes, everyday besides training there was more training. I would train till I was exhausted, when I returned to the apartment, without thinking about anything else I would fall asleep immediately, and sleep till the next day. I remember one morning when I woke up, my stomach was extremely hungry, when I saw a pot of rice on the table I ate all of it.

Who would have thought that because of eating this rice, I ended up in a fight! Now that I think about it, perhaps at that time everyone was very uptight, everyone’s heartstrings were wound together tightly (t/n: everyone was on edge). Sometimes due to one impatient sentence, as boys, all our emotions boiled over. While striking out, my movements were greater, causing the other party to be hurt. This incident, is considered a serious mistake on my part, and afterwards I was sent back home.

The company has its rules, everyone must follow them, and I must pay the price for my own actions, except to me at that time, this price I paid was really too great.

Now that I think back on this incident, I am still very regretful. The regret was not just towards the fact that I nearly personally ended my journey of music that I strove for with difficulty, but also because of what had resulted from me losing control of my emotions.

I immediately recalled, when I was very young, grandfather taught me what it was to be careful in both speech and actions, at that time I didn’t understand. So at this moment now, I have to pay the price for my youthfulness and impulsivity.

But, this is youth I suppose, during the days of blinding sunshine, it is precisely because there is such a price to be paid whilst growing up, that allowed me to understand more clearly, that dreams are not so easily realised. The more one experiences, the faster one will grow.

A note from the translators:

Originally we were going to wait till some of us have translated the whole book, but we decided to translate this part first because we’ve seen some false translations floating around that have caused a lot of confusion. A few things we’ve seen which we want to clarify:

1. “Yixing stole another trainee’s food.” There’s no mention of that. The words in the excerpt literally say “When I woke up, my stomach was extremely hungry, when I saw a pot of rice on the table I ate all of it.”

2. “Yixing beat up another trainee.” Also no mention of that. He says, because he ate the rice, he got into a fight. His movements were greater than the other person and it caused them to be hurt. There is no mention of who dealt the first blow.

3. “He did not regret beating up the other person.” He said nothing of that sort. He says the incident was “a serious mistake” on his part, and “the regret was not just towards the fact that I nearly personally ended my journey of music that I strove for with difficulty, but also because of what had resulted from me losing control of my emotions.”

True, we are neither Yixing nor the other party, so other than what we have translated we cannot say anything about what he felt at that time or feels right now. But, while we may be xingmis, we have added nothing nor omitted anything in our translation. We have reproduced his exact words to the best of our ability. If any other “translation” attempts to present a different version of things or colour the events differently, we’d honestly question the translator’s intention and credibility. You’re free to make your own inference and judgment if you want, but please don’t pass it off as fact based on his original writing.