by Jessica Jung
Kyungmi throws her arms around my shoulders, nearly whipping me in the face with her high ponytail. “You must have so many mixed feelings about the duet. Are you okay? You know I’m here for you if you need to talk, right? You can tell me anything about your trainee life.”
“Thanks… Kyungmi…,” I say, extracting myself from her surprisingly viselike grip. “But I’m fine.”
“Really? Are you sure? Hey, we should take a selfie together in our tennis clothes!” She pulls out her phone.
“No phones on the courts!” Coach Sloat says, stomping over to us. She points to Somi and Kyungmi. “You two, get out there. You’re next on doubles.”
Somi grumbles and drags her feet onto the court. Kyungmi shoots me a regretful look as she follows after Somi. Sloat whirls on me next, her eyes narrowing.
“Sorry, Coach,” I say hastily, bouncing into some jumping jacks. “Warming up for my game now!”
“Wait,” she says. She glances over her shoulder at the rest of the students and then leans in and whispers, “Is it true that Mina and Jason are dating?”
I gape at her. Seriously? Even famous tennis champions and magazine cover stars?
She notices my expression and chuckles, scratching the back of her head. “I’m just kidding. Obviously.” Clearing her throat awkwardly, she turns her attention back to class. “Good serve, Kyungmi!”
* * *
Seoul International School was built on the edge of Hannam-dong, across the Han River from Gangnam, one of Seoul’s trendiest neighborhoods. It’s surrounded by three of the city’s most exclusive residential areas, all highly prized by Seoul’s elite not only for the suitable selection of designer boutiques and hotspot restaurants, but by the fact that Hannam-dong, unlike the rest of Seoul, has the luxury of space. Which might explain why our school sits on five and a half acres of pristine, uninterrupted land in one of the world’s most crowded cities. Aside from our regulation clay tennis courts, Olympic-size indoor swimming pool, a full track, and soccer field, the school has outdoor and indoor amphitheaters, a movie screening room, and ice-skating rink. The horticulture club plants bright-fuchsia orchids that line the main driveway all the way up to the central school building, and every Wednesday the pyrotechnics society and the AV club put on a fireworks display worthy of any Fourth of July celebration.
As the twins and I head for the locker room after class, I see a huge poster advertising next month’s career day. HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT YOUR FUTURE? MARK ZUCKERBERG AND MEGAN ELLISON ARE HERE TO HELP YOU! I wince. I know my mom would want me to go to that. It’s part of the reason she and my dad sacrificed so much to send me and Leah to this school. Halmoni left Umma some money when she died, and I know that most of it has gone to paying our tuition—instead of helping Appa get more business for his boxing gym. “Think of the opportunities,” she said, shushing me, when I told her I was fine going to the public school down the street from our apartment.
What is my future? I think to myself, warm water rushing down on me from the waterfall showerhead in the locker room. It’s been three days since the audition and I have no idea how I’m going to get noticed. I think back to tennis class and the way Somi and Kyungmi talked to me for the first time. But that was because of DB’s Instagram post. There’s no way they’ll ever post about me. Will they?
After we wash up, I follow the twins out of the locker room, nearly coming nose to nose with a boy with floppy brown hair parted straight down the middle and wire-rim glasses. His face is deadpan as he raises a hand in greeting.
“Daeho!” Hyeri says. Her cheeks grow pink as a small smile spreads across her lips.
“Hi.” He looks past my shoulder. “Ready to work on our project, Hyeri?”
“You didn’t have to come escort me. I could have met you in the engineering wing.”
“It’s fine,” Daeho says. He glances at Juhyun. “I don’t mind. How are you, Juhyun?”
“Fine, thanks,” Juhyun says. She links an arm through mine, wiggling her eyebrows at me. “Shall I escort you to the student lounge while Hyeri nerds it out in the engineering lab? I hear the patbingsu bar is back now that the weather’s warmer.”
Daeho’s ears perk up. “You like patbingsu? I just so happen to be an expert patbingsu maker. I’ve created a perfect recipe based off a scientifically proven ideal ratio of shaved ice to red bean. I even invented my own ice-shaving machine.”
“Uh… wow, Daeho. Who knew you had such hidden depths?” Juhyun says. I bite my lip, stifling a laugh while Daeho looks on, beaming at Juhyun’s comment.
Hyeri glances between Juhyun and Daeho. “I love patbingsu too,” she offers. “Maybe you could make it for me sometime? Your recipe sounds excellent.”
Daeho nods, his hair flapping around the sides of his face. “Definitely.”
Hyeri perks up.
“I’ll make it for you, and you can share it with Juhyun.”
“Oh… right. Well, sure. Sounds good, Daeho.” She gives us a half-hearted wave as she follows Daeho down the hall. “See you guys later.”
I give her a sympathetic wave and glace over at Juhyun, who’s checking her eyebrows on her phone, totally oblivious to the love triangle that just played out in front of her eyes. For a smart girl, she can be really noonchi ubssuh.
“Come on,” she says, throwing her phone into her gym bag and steering me down the hall. “Patbingsu awaits.”
I drag my feet as we walk down the hall, sunlight streaming in through the school’s gigantic glass and steel windows. The student lounge is the last place I want to be right now. It’s always teeming with students all crowded around big-screen TVs blasting the latest K-pop music videos. I’m really not ready to be bombarded with questions about Jason and Mina.
“How about we go hide in the Stained-Glass Library instead?” I turn around, trying to lure Juhyun to the cavernous library on the other side of campus, so named for the stained-glass replica of the opening scene from Beauty and the Beast that an art student did for their senior project years ago.
“What, so you can sulk alone in some library corner?”
“I wasn’t planning to sulk,” I say. Which is technically true. I was planning to curl up in one of the library’s squashy armchairs and watch reruns of Vampire Diaries on my laptop.
“Sorry, Rachel, what you need now is tough love. Not Klaus-and-Caroline-shipping emotional therapy.”
Damn. She knows me too well.
As we approach the student lounge, I hear the unmistakable buzz of excited students. “Put it up on the big screen!” I recognize Kyungmi’s squeaky voice and freeze. Are they putting up the photo of Jason and Mina? I just managed to escape my Instagram shame spiral and I really don’t need to be sent down another one right now.
“So about the library…,” I start, but before I can finish, Juhyun pushes me through the door of the lounge. A big crowd of students is gathered around the flat-screen TV, sitting on plush leather sofas with bowls of patbingsu on their laps, leaning forward to watch… a YouTube beauty blogger? Huh. That’s not what I was expecting.
Kyungmi turns around to see me and Juhyun approaching. “Look at this new beauty blogger! Some girl down in Suwon. She can do things with eye shadow that I’ve never even seen.”
Next to me, Juhyun freezes. “How many hits does she have?” Juhyun asks.
“Oh, it’s wild—almost half a million hits in twelve hours. It’s totally viral. And she has almost four million followers!”
“But… I don’t even have four million followers,” Juhyun stammers in disbelief, stalking away to the patbingsu bar.
I watch as the girl on the screen coats her face in smooth, silvery foundation before transforming her eyelids into a dazzling array of vivid-pink cherry blossoms bursting off tiny branches, each one topped with a small jewel. Juhyun shoves a bowl of shaved ice into my hands, but even as the ice melts, forming a soup with the condensed milk and fruity syrup, I can’t look away. This video is mesmerizing.
“Isn’t t
hat wild? One second she’s just a normal girl, playing around with makeup in her bedroom, and the next she’s a celebrity.”
I blink, taking in the comment from my classmate. It is amazing how much impact one viral video can have. The wheels in my mind begin to turn as Juhyun loops her arm around mine. “Ugh. It sucks here. I’m ready to go to the library.”
I laugh, leaning over to kiss her on the cheek. “That girl isn’t half the beauty blogger you are. Did you notice the products she was using weren’t even organic? Hyeri would have a fit!”
Juhyun smiles, looking mollified, as I dig into the last of my melting patbingsu.
“Delicious, right?” Juhyun says. “Isn’t this exactly what you needed?”
“Oh,” I say, smiling over my spoon. “You have no idea.”
Six
When I first started my training at DB, I was homesick a lot. Whenever it got really bad, Yujin would hide me away in her office and let me cry. She would rub my back and I would breathe in the fresh smell of eucalyptus from the plants that covered her bookshelves and her desk. To this day, the smell of eucalyptus reminds me of home as much as the smell of those sugary roasted nuts that you can find on every sidewalk corner in New York.
“Take a seat,” Yujin says, ushering us through her office door after Akari and I bow our heads in greeting. She gestures to the white leather-backed seats in front of her desk. She squints at my face. “What happened to your eyebrow?”
“Oh, uh…” I offer her a sheepish smile. “Just trying out a new style.” Today’s beauty and presentation class was all about the importance of eyebrow grooming. Akari’s naturally thick, straight brows fit the teacher’s ideal Korean “boy brow” aesthetic easily, but mine required a bit more maintenance and I might have gotten a little carried away with the tweezers. I rub my left eyebrow, hoping I did a good enough job with the pencil to cover up the slight bald patch.
She frowns and leans back in her seat, crossing her arms. “How can I help you two?” she asks.
There’s an unfamiliar frostiness in her voice that makes me uneasy. I glance at Akari, who gives me an encouraging nod. Right. I can do this. I take a deep breath and dive in.
“I have an idea that might give me a second chance at singing the duet with Jason,” I say. I nod to Akari, who pulls out her phone. She holds it up and presses play on the viral video of the beauty blogger. “Have you seen this?” I ask.
“Of course. The cherry blossom festival was last weekend. This video was everywhere.” Her frown deepens. “What are you suggesting? You’re going to find some way to make up for your dance audition with some ridiculous eye shadow?”
I wince. I know things are different now that I’m so close to debut age, but sometimes I miss the days when Yujin would just let me sit on her couch and cry. “Not exactly,” I say, pressing on. “But you said so yourself. This video was everywhere. And now SKII wants to offer her a sponsorship and she has more opportunities than she could’ve ever imagined. When a video goes viral, people talk. And other people have to listen.”
I fiddle with the cuffs of my bomber jacket. I had pictured myself strolling out of Yujin’s office like Sandra Bullock at the Met Gala, all mastermind plotter with a specialized team of badass women to back her up. I take a deep breath. “We all know Mina’s voice isn’t up to a duet with Jason. I was thinking if I could get a video of me singing to go viral, the execs will notice all the attention we’re getting and have to give me another chance.”
Yujin is silent. Akari and I both lean forward expectantly.
“That is the most ridiculous idea I’ve ever heard.”
My shoulders slump. So much for my Ocean’s 8 fantasy.
“Your audition wasn’t just a disappointment, Rachel. It was a disaster,” Yujin says, narrowing her eyes. I sink down into my seat, but Yujin isn’t finished. “You’ve been at DB for six years. You know how this works. No one’s forcing you to be here. You have to choose it. You have to want it. How can I trust that you can sing a duet with Jason when I’m still getting reports that you can’t even get through media training class? And how will you make a viral video when you’re still afraid of a camera?”
A lump rises in my throat. She’s right. Of course she’s right. A wave of shame and embarrassment washes over me. How did I think this would be such an easy fix? I bite my lip and nod, looking down at my lap and trying not to cry.
“Look at me when I’m speaking to you,” Yujin says sharply. My head snaps up. “We all had such high expectations for you, Rachel. I had such high expectations. Not only did you humiliate yourself, but you humiliated me as well. Since I’m DB’s head trainer, my reputation is on the line! Your performance reflected poorly on both of us. So tell me, why should any of us give you a second chance?”
Shame presses down on my chest. “I’m so, so sorry, Yujin. I know I let you down. But I also know I can do better. Please give me a second chance because… because…”
Yujin’s cold gaze bearing down on me reminds me of the harsh, empty stare of a camera lens, and I hang my head, feeling my words slipping away. What can I say? There’s nothing that can make up for this.
“Because you remember what it was like hearing Rachel and Jason sing together.” Akari squeezes my hand as she jumps in. She looks Yujin straight in the eye, speaking with confidence. “I know you felt the electricity in the room. We all did. They were meant to sing together. Can you deny that?”
Yujin stares right back at Akari with equal intensity. “And how exactly do you plan on getting past DB’s social media rules?”
“It’s against the rules for us to post,” Akari says, smiling mischievously. “But if the video doesn’t show up on Rachel’s social media, it’s technically not her fault. What can she do if a leaked video that she just happens to be singing in goes viral?”
Okay, I might not be the Sandra Bullock, but Akari is the Cate Blanchett of this scenario, I think, in awe of her ability to say exactly the right thing at exactly the right moment. All she needs now is a sparkly, perfectly fitted pantsuit.
Yujin’s gaze shifts to me, and I quickly wipe the tears threatening to spill out from the corners of my eyes, accidentally smudging my eyebrow pencil. Shit. I’m a mess. Maybe I was a fool for thinking Yujin would jump to my aid like she always does. Even my mentor has her limits, and I’ve clearly projectile vomited right past them.
I cautiously look up and hold her gaze. Her eyes soften and she sighs. “The performance was pretty amazing,” she says.
My heart leaps. “I promise if I get a second chance, I won’t mess it up,” I say quickly. I take a deep breath. “You’re the one who taught me to believe in myself. I know I can do this.”
Yujin rubs the small bamboo plant on her desk. Then she plucks a business card from a small tray and flips it over, writing something on the back in precise, blocky script. She slides it across the desk. It’s some random address in Itaewon.
Akari and I look up at Yujin, and she gives us a mischievous smile of her own.
“Meet me there after training tomorrow night,” she says. “Make sure no one follows you. Got it?”
Akari squeals. “Does this mean you’re helping us?”
“It means this conversation is over.” Yujin nods to the door. I take the business card and slide it into the pocket of my jacket.
“Rachel,” Yujin says as we turn to leave. I look back and she smiles. “Do something about that eyebrow by tomorrow, will you? You want to look your best in a video that the whole world is going to see.”
Hope balloons in my chest. I bow. “Thank you, Yujin-unni. I won’t let you down.”
* * *
I stand in front of my bedroom mirror, twisting my hair into a high ballerina bun to show off the Peter Pan collar of my lavender top. Ugh. I look like a librarian.
Tugging my hair out of its bun, I toss the shirt into the pile of already rejected clothes on the floor. Should I try all black with the leather jacket and ripped skinny jeans? Maybe the leop
ard-print maxi dress with the billowing sleeves? I hoist some high-waisted jean shorts up over my legs and throw on a matching oversize denim shirt, glancing at myself in the mirror. Definitely not. I want to wear something that says Hey, you can trust me. You didn’t make a mistake choosing me. Not Hi, I’m Rachel, the lost Smurf.
I swing open the closet, rooting around for more outfit options. A bunch of pictures are taped up on the inside of the door, and one catches my eye: I’m with some of my cousins at my first noraebang during a family vacation to Seoul when I was eleven. I had been looking forward to going to the noraebang all summer: the private rooms stocked with microphones and leather couches, the disco ball flashing neon lights against the walls, the tambourines, the endless snacks. Until then I had only ever sung in our tiny New York apartment—I couldn’t wait to feel like I was putting on a real show, like a real K-pop star, just like in all the music videos I had been watching for years.
That was the night I met Yujin. I had just finished singing “Style” by Taylor Swift and my cousins were all cheering, when I heard someone clapping behind me. I turned around and saw a woman with electric-blue hair leaning against the open door (my cousin had forgotten to close it when she came back from the bathroom). She asked me what my name was and told me I reminded her of a K-pop star she used to know. Then she winked and handed me her card and told me to have my parents call her.
I grab a pair of gray grid-print wide-leg pants from the top shelf of my closet, along with a cropped white turtleneck sweater. Shutting the closet door, I poke through the jewelry tray on my desk until I find my big gold hoops, sliding them into my ears as I tug half my hair into a messy topknot. Perfect, I say to myself as I grab my bag and slip on a pair of leather clog sandals.
Yujin’s been by my side ever since. As a kid, I’d loved K-pop. But she helped me turn my small, seemingly unrealistic dream into a reality. She showed me that there was an entire world of people who felt the same way about this music that I did—and that’s why being a K-pop singer is so special. It’s about storytelling, connecting with audiences all around the world. She told me how being Korean American would make me special in this industry. She made me fall in love with K-pop in a whole new way. I can’t let her down. Not again.