My stomach cramps as a collective gasp rises throughout the auditorium. Akari turns to me, her mouth open in shock. “Can you believe this?” she asks excitedly.
I shake my head, focused on last night and Mina. “I really can’t,” I respond.
“Rachel!” Akari nudges me hard in the ribs. “Pay attention! Did you even hear what Mr. Noh just said?”
I stare at her blankly, my stomach and my head a swirling mess of champagne and anger and dried cucumbers.
“Rachel. Focus. The execs, Mr. Noh… they’re choosing a female trainee to sing a duet with Jason. A real song—not some training exercise. The appraisal today is an audition. This is it. You could be chosen!”
That last word sticks in my mind as I process what she’s saying. I could be chosen. This isn’t just a typical monthly assessment. This is a chance to sing with Jason. For a trainee—for me—to sing with DB’s biggest star. I could be chosen.
She’ll never be chosen now.
I gasp and sit up straight. Mina knew all along. She knew what today was. She set me up.
Akari pokes me again. Hard. “What?!” I say, startling before I notice that Mr. Noh has called up the first group for dance auditions, and the other trainees are making their way to the stage.
In a way I’m grateful. If something didn’t force me to act normal, to move through the motions by rote, I might never recover. But I have to. I have to keep taking one step forward. And so I do—trying to hide the fact that I’m shaking.
We line up along the back of the stage. The execs are sitting in the front row with iPads (a few years ago DB went fully digital when it comes to tracking trainee progress) and stern expressions, calling us up one by one to perform. Mina slides into the spot next to me, looking me up and down with her forehead creased in mock pity.
“Rough night, Rachel?” she says. “You look terrible. Cute pajamas, though.”
An image of myself tackling her to the ground and yanking out her fake eyelashes flashes through my head. But Mr. Noh calls my name and I step forward onto center stage.
The spotlight falls on me. I can just imagine how my splotchy, half-made-up face looks in the glare. But I shove the insecurity aside and plaster a smile on my face, just like I’ve been trained to do. I bow to the execs, then straighten up. Head up. Legs turned in, ever so slightly. Tummy tucked, shoulders back. I smile wide—like the whole world is my best friend.
A few of them smile back, but most are blinking in confusion at my wardrobe choice and my rumpled hair.
Make them forget how you look and care only about how you move, I tell myself. Easier said than done, though. At least there are no cameras on me today, I think ruefully, remembering yesterday’s media class.
The music starts, one of Leah’s favorite Electric Flower songs, and my body immediately responds. It’s muscle memory. I’ve practiced this routine a thousand times. But my head is still pounding and I’m sloppy. I keep missing the beat, stepping left when I should be stepping right.
The frustration is building in my chest, weighing me down even more. I’m getting too much in my own head, but the more I try to let go, the worse it gets. I can’t get my movements to pop as much or my legs to kick as high. By the time I land the last offbeat step, I’m out of breath and a light sheen of sweat dots my forehead. I fight the urge to wipe it away. Don’t bring more attention to your flaws. K-pop dancing is all about luring listeners into the song—but by the expressions on the execs’ faces, ranging from awkwardly smiling to looking like they want to run out of the auditorium screaming, I know I’ve done the exact opposite.
“Ouch,” Mina whispers to me as I retake my spot in line. “That wasn’t pretty.” She leans in to take an exaggerated whiff of my breath and gasps. “Omo, are you hungover? You really shouldn’t party so much the night before an important day like this. Or at least brush your teeth.”
I don’t look at her, but I’m absolutely seething. I will not stoop to her level.
Still. The image of ripping into her hair is the only thing keeping me from screaming onstage. I wouldn’t take it all, just a big patch at the front so she’s half-bald for a few weeks.
One by one, the girls go up to dance. Akari is graceful as always and, as much as I hate to admit it, Mina is the best of the bunch, her powerful moves hurtling her across the stage in perfect time to the music. Some of the girls make little mistakes, but none as badly as me. It’s quickly becoming apparent that I’m the worst.
I’m never the worst.
I can’t afford to be the worst.
I don’t come alive in front of the camera, shiny and adorable like Mina and so many of the other trainees. When I first got recruited to DB, I was so excited—a whole program full of kids who felt the same way about K-pop and Korea as I did—or so I thought. It wasn’t long before the constant “Princess Rachel” insults and subtle comments about my American background made me feel just as rejected as I used to feel back home in the States. Their words were like this constant buzzing in my brain. While Mina and her minions strutted around in front of the cameras with this innate sense of belonging, when the camera was on me, that buzzing was all I could hear. Even after years of training, I still feel like the camera is my enemy—reminding me of all the people out there who look at my face and think, She doesn’t belong here. So, instead, I focused on my skills, making them as close to flawless as possible—not one step offbeat, not one note out of key. And so far it’s worked. I may not be perfect, but I’m talented enough that month after month, year after year, I’ve earned my spot.
And now it could all come crashing down. Will this be the end for me? Will I get kicked out of the trainee program? I try to tell myself to calm down, that they have to take my past performances into account, but I’m lying to myself. One year they cut a girl because she wouldn’t agree to get double eyelid surgery. Another year they cut an entire trainee group for posting a single picture on Instagram. They can do whatever they want, whenever they want. And they are ruthless.
A lump wells up in my throat, and I struggle to swallow it down. Crying onstage—showing any emotion of any kind—will only further anger the execs.
I take another deep breath as they call me up again to sing. This is my time to redeem myself. I have to be the best I’ve ever been, right now, or it’s over.
Someone hands me a microphone as the instrumental starts. It’s a slow song, a K-pop classic from the early 2000s. I take a deep breath and start to sing and my voice cracks on the first note, the trapped emotion coming out and bumping me off-key. The execs’ faces are unreadable, but one of them is clearly trying not to wince. No. I can’t let this happen. I won’t.
I close my eyes and keep going. I think of that day in bed when I was a kid, watching K-pop videos with my mom. How growing up, Leah and I would go to the whispering gallery at Grand Central every chance we got, whispering the songs to each other, back and forth, for hours. And then, when I was a newbie trainee, how Yujin would pick me up after school and take me to her favorite noraebang, the two of us singing cheesy K-pop love ballads from the early ’90s all afternoon. Since I was a kid, music has been my happy place. K-pop has always been there for me, showing me my place in the world, giving me a reason to be proud of who I was even when the world told me I shouldn’t be. Through everything, it has always felt right. Felt like a part of me.