Page 1 of I'll Be the One

Chapter One

FAT GIRLS CAN’T DANCE.

It’s something my mom said after one of my ballet recitals when I was a little kid. I’d already felt out of place. Even though we were all five, the other girls had somehow already lost their baby fat and had slender, angelic legs and arms while I had a jiggling cherub belly that could be seen from the balcony seats.

I guess a normal kid would have cried. Or gotten discouraged. Or maybe even quit ballet there and then. But instead, I stomped my foot on the ground with as much force as my five-year-old self could muster and yelled at my mom’s face, “OH YEAH? THEN I’LL PROVE YOU WRONG!” and stuck with ballet for several years before the snobby prima-donna types irked me enough to switch to hip-hop and modern dance.

I suppose the whole dance thing is a pretty good representation of the relationship I have with Mom. Which is why, instead of telling her aboutYou’re My Shining Star, the new K-pop competition survival show in LA, I skipped school androde the train to the audition. Sorry not sorry.

Thankfully, Dad came with me to the preliminary auditions when he was in town last week. He waited in line with me and signed all the parental permission forms, something Mom would never do.

While the open-call preliminary auditions were casual and quick, today’s audition line is moving at a snail’s pace—probably because everyone is being recorded with the potential of appearing on TV. It’s my least favorite time of year—late August, when LA is humid and hot, like the fiery pits of hell. After standing for several hours in the soul-crushingly long line that snakes down Wilshire Boulevard, I’m a panting, sweaty mess by the time I enter the fancy office building where auditions are being held.

“Hi,” I say to the lady at the front desk as I wipe away the sweat from my brow. “I’m here to audition forYou’re My Shining Star. My name is Shin Haneul, but my American name is Skye.”

For my Korean name, I make sure to say my last name first, like my parents taught me to do. I’ve always loved both my names, since haneul literally means “sky” in Korean. Skye was just a cool variant of Sky that Dad chose for me when I said I wanted an American name for school. And the name stuck.

The lady at the desk, a fortysomething middle-aged Korean woman who looks as if she could be one of my mom’s friends (really, she’s dressedexactlylike them... the same black blouse and everything) glances up at me... and does a doubletake. She doesn’t even bother to hide the utter shock—and even disgust—in her eyes as she gapes at me.

“Y-you’re auditioning?” she asks in Korean-accented English.

I switch to Korean. “Yes, I already got in at the preliminary auditions. Here are my papers, signed by my dad and fully notarized.”

“Ah... okay.”

Still looking doubtful, the lady takes my papers. As I wait for her to check me in, I take off my white-framed heart-shaped sunglasses so I can see the inside of the building better.

Without the rosy tint of my glasses, everything looks a bit stark. The building itself looks pretty old, like it was built in the 1920s. But nearly every inch of the lobby is decorated with brightly colored posters of the celebrity judges and Samsung LED HDTVs looping the promo video forYou’re My Shining Star. The judges are the usual bunch: Jang Bora, a now-retired member of Lovey Dovey, one of those OG K-pop groups from the nineties; Park Tae-Suk, the creator ofYou’re My Shining Starand the founder of a top entertainment company in Korea; and Gary Kim, a Korean American rapper who’s big in the LA Koreatown scene.

My skin practically buzzes with excitement over the fact that I’m about to see the three celebrities in person. During my audition in just a few minutes, I’m going to be so close to the judges that I’ll be able to see their pores—if they even have any pores. My mom always says that Korean celebrities pay extraattention to their skin because HD screens show everything. I don’t watch enough Korean TV to know this, but I make a mental note to see if she’s right when I walk into the audition room.

AlthoughYou’re My Shining Stardefinitely isn’t the first K-pop competition to have global auditions, it’s the first to hold auditions exclusively in America. I can never get over how big K-pop is now. Only eight years ago, people only knew about Psy and the memeable moments of humor in “Gangnam Style.” Now, BTS is everywhere, and people from all sorts of different backgrounds are lined up to audition.

On the TV screens, the judges’ faces fade to black, and suddenly I’m watching a nervous little kid standing on the stage. Her hair is up in curly pigtails, and she’s wearing a bright yellow SpongeBob SquarePants T-shirt. The crowd laughs and says “aww” at her, until she opens her mouth and bursts into a soul-crushingly good rendition of Adele’s “Hello.”

“Holy crap!” says someone standing in line behind me.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. We have to compete withthat?” says someone else.

I shudder. No one mentioned that we’d have to watch the other auditions as we waited in line, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. This is a competition, after all. And what better way to raise the competitive spirit than to make everyone watch what they’re up against?

“You’re all set,” says the check-in lady in English, bringing my attention back to the front. “Please go stand in line in frontof Door Three. The current wait time is twenty minutes. You can also go sit in the audience before or after your audition, just please let a staff member know where you’re going first.”

I’m confused as to why she’s speaking to me like I’m a foreigner—I already responded to her in Korean, which I speak without an accent. But then I notice the way she’s looking at me. Eyes drawn together in a slight wince, lips pursed together in a worried pout. There’s real fear and distrust in her eyes, like she’s afraid that I’ll somehow ruin the entire competition by justbeinghere. If a bunch of wild animals suddenly burst into the room, she’d probably give them the same look as the one she’s giving me now.

For a moment, I wonder if it’s worth it to call her out for being rude. Normally, I would, especially since if we were in an American social context, complaining would actually do something. But we’re smack-dab in the middle of Koreatown, where all the signs, restaurants, and even banks are Korean. At most, I’d probably get an evil eye from the lady for being a “rude American teenager.” It just isn’t worth it.

In the end, I try my best to ignore the lady and get in line, opting to stand and wait instead of going into the auditorium. Although it’s still annoying, strangers’ opinions about my weight are nothing compared to a lifetime of my mom’s disapproving comments.

At that moment, the doors swing open and two girls walk in. They’re both Asian, and one of them has dyed strawberry-blond hair while the other has a chic blue bob. Their wingedeyeliner and lipstick are on point, and they have colored contact lenses that make their eyes varying shades of amber and mahogany.

I stare at them. Everyone else is staring too. Every inch of them is perfect, and their clothes are bright and colorful without being flashy, somehow managing not to cross that fine line between tacky and stylish. Like they’ve just come from shooting a K-pop music video, the two girls strut toward the check-in counter, their heels clicking in eerie unison on the marble floor.

“Welcome!” exclaims the lady at the desk in bright, chipper Korean. “Right this way! I just need your papers and IDs so I can get you two situated.”

Surprise, surprise.I roll my eyes so hard that it’s a miracle I don’t catch sight of my brain. These girls are the type that my mom—and the front desk lady—would shave Satan’s body hair for. If Satan even has body hair.

After they check in, the girls separate so the blue-haired one goes to stand in line at Door Two—the dance line—and the strawberry blonde goes to the line for Door One—the vocals line. I’m auditioning for both, which is why I’m standing in front of Door Three. It seems overly complicated, but after watching people go in to audition, I realize they’re alternating between the lines in a neat and orderly fashion.

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