The DB execs didn’t really go for Umma’s arrangement at first, but for some reason, Mr. Noh decided to bend the rules for me. Umma thinks it was because of her “American female empowerment” (as she calls it), but I know I’m just one of the lucky few Mr. Noh favors—one of the lucky few he has decided to pluck from trainee obscurity and pay extra attention to. (Although in the trainee program, extra attention really just means extra pressure.) Still, the situation was pretty unheard of, and it wasn’t long before I was known as “Princess Rachel,” the most pampered trainee at DB; the full-blooded Korean whose American passport (and American attitude and American dislike of Spam…) put more distance between me and the other trainees than the entire Pacific Ocean had. Now, six years later, even though I’ve been here longer than almost all the other trainees, the nickname still lives on.
You’d think they’d judge me based on how hard I train. How I work my body to the bone at DB headquarters on the weekends. How I sleep four hours a night during the week because of the hours of practice I put in after finishing my homework. How I begged my school to give me an independent study in music so I can have fifty minutes alone every day in the music room, practicing scales to keep me sharp. But instead, they judge my clean clothes, my neatly brushed hair, and the fact that I get to sleep in my own bed at night.
And the worst part is? They’re right. Every single one of them puts in twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Most of them live at the trainee house and go home once a month (if that). They eat, sleep, and breathe K-pop. No matter how you look at it, I can’t compete with that. But that’s exactly what I have to do.
Digging the heels of my palms into my forehead, I try to take calm, even breaths. As I got closer and closer to debut age, I begged my mom to let me train full-time, but all I ever got back was a resounding refusal. How can I tell my mom that it’s almost unheard of to debut in a girl group if you’re out of your teen years? How can I explain that I’m three years away from being past my prime? It’s been almost seven years since DB debuted Electric Flower, right before the last big DB Family Tour. They haven’t debuted another girl group since. Rumors that DB is looking to debut a new girl group—and soon—have been swirling for months, and I can’t afford to wait another seven years. I can’t afford to wait seven months. By then it might be too late for me. Debuting is everything I’ve been working toward, and there’s no way I’m going to let myself be passed over. No matter what Umma says.
“Rachel!”
I jerk my hands away from my face and plaster on a pleasantly neutral expression, bracing myself for another confrontation with Mina. I exhale and smile, however, when I see Akari bounding down the hall, her thick black ponytail streaming behind her.
Akari Masuda moved to Seoul with her parents when she was ten years old, after her father, a Japanese tech genius, was recruited to work at the Osan Air Force Base. She had been on the short list to start training at L-star Records, a huge J-pop label in Tokyo, but her parents didn’t want her living on her own at such a young age. Instead, her dad pulled some strings to get her into the DB program. Maybe it’s because we both understand what it’s like to be an outsider in Seoul, but we’ve gotten along since the day we met. It’s not easy making friends when everything here feels like a competition, but Akari is one of the few people at DB I can really trust.
“Where have you been?” she asks, linking her arm smoothly through mine. She has the natural grace of a dancer, having been in ballet since she was four years old.
“Media training,” I respond lightly. Akari takes in the dark circles under my eyes and my red, splotchy face and gently starts to ease me away from the practice rooms.
“Well, I’ve been looking everywhere for you. I was worried you might miss the newbie bowing ceremony!”
I groan, stopping in my tracks. “Um, no. Please don’t make me go to that. You know I hate it.”
“Hate it or not, ‘the bowing ceremony represents family—and at DB, family comes first.’ ” Akari giggles, her face contorting into a disturbingly accurate replica of Mr. Noh, DB Entertainment’s CEO—or, as he would say, the head of the tight-knit DB family. Ha. She wiggles her eyebrows. “Plus, I heard there’s catering.”
My stomach rumbles at the thought of food, and I remember I haven’t eaten anything all day. “You should have led with that,” I say, letting her drag me down the hall. “You know I never say no to free food.”
“Who does?” Akari shouts as we step out into the main lobby. It’s teeming with people—trainees rushing to classes and staff rushing to their offices, prepping for the big Electric Flower concert in Busan next weekend. We pass the cafeteria—famous for being the only Michelin-starred corporate cafeteria in all of Asia. Even international superstars like Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner have come here just to eat the food. Too bad it’s wasted on most of the trainees and idols who are actually repped by DB, as we’re meticulously weighed each week. Can’t afford to pop out of our costumes onstage (sarcasm intended).
The auditorium is one of my favorite places on campus, all gleaming blond wood and faux-industrial iron chandeliers dangling from the ceiling. The stage rises dramatically in the center of the room (to more accurately reflect the experience of a stadium tour, of course) with plush, velvet-covered seating surrounding it.
Mr. Noh is already standing onstage with the new trainees lined up behind him as we slide into the first row of seats. I look at the kids onstage; they are fidgeting and smiling with the excited, nervous energy that other kids might feel on their first day of school. Mr. Noh, tacky as ever in head-to-toe Prada, looks the way he always does: narrowed, critical eyes hidden behind mirror-tinted glasses, able to spot an underperforming trainee from a mile away, but with hands resting gently on the newbies’ shoulders in a failed attempt to seem fatherly.
As he drones on about the challenges that await this fresh batch of future K-pop stars, my eyes wander over to the food set up on tables at the side of the auditorium. It’s a lavish Western-style spread of prosciutto and fig sandwiches, rosewater doughnuts, and fruit platters bursting with fresh mango and lychee. A small group of DB execs and senior trainers have already set up camp around the banquet tables, stuffing their faces. I see a familiar flash of neon-pink hair among them and wave at Chung Yujin, DB’s head trainer. Yujin was the one who first scouted me while I was singing “Style” inside a noraebang in Myeong-dong. I was eleven years old, and Leah and I were visiting our halmoni in Seoul for the summer. I’m seventeen now and Yujin’s still the person at DB I look up to most—she’s my mentor, my unni. No one but Akari knows about our history, though, and how close we really are. Yujin always says my life as a K-pop trainee is already hard enough (what with Mr. Noh’s interest in me and my special schedule), that she doesn’t want to pile on by telling everyone I’m her favorite. She waves back discreetly, pretending to look interested as a wrinkled old exec grabs her by the arm and starts gabbing in her ear. She catches my eye from across the auditorium and mouths, Help.
I giggle to myself, my eye sliding to a big orange-and-white sign displayed on the table: ON BEHALF OF CHOO MINA AND HER FATHER, WE ARE PROUD TO BE PART OF THE DB FAMILY. BON APPÉTIT! My grin vanishes. Maybe I can say no to free food after all.