My Idol

Part 1

"Alright, let's go!" Bitna, head of monthly evaluations at the AThreat company, shouts through the comical, and unnecessary, megaphone she insists on bringing to every monthly evaluation.   

Team 3- a group of trainees not yet assigned a group in which they will debut- began to dance. As always, Huang started to dance perfectly. His stance was strong, his moves powerful and seemingly effortless, anyone watching could tell he would nail this evaluation.

 Then he opened his eyes. Huang looked at the crowd and for the first time since the beginning of the performance realized how many eyes were on him. The company CEO: Soo-A, Famous Producers: Dasm, Bitna, and Kija, and even Myung-Ok(the most legendary Idol to ever come from AThreat) were all watching him. Judging him. Distracted by that thought Huang tripped and fell to the ground, taking two other trainees with him.

The music stopped.

"Everyone all right?" Bitna yelled as the trainees all scrambled to get up and into position. Huang didn't even bother, knowing at this point he was so nervous he wouldn't manage to dance at all. Then to his horror, he began to tear up. In front of all the trainees, producers, and the company's CEO.

 Kija, the man who originally recommended Huang to the company, stood up clearly noticing his predicament. "Huang, my office. The rest of you finish up."

Huang followed Kija to his office, cheeks burning. He doubted he would be kicked out, Kija was too nice for that. But he was disappointing the one man that believed in him, not to mention embarrassing him in front of all his coworkers. Kija had never recommended anyone to his boss before Huang- and Huang was doing nothing but make him look bad.

"Listen, Huang, we need to talk," Kija said in a troubled voice, as he and Huang entered his office "You are an incredible dancer and a wonderful vocalist. But we can't continue like this. If you don't want to be an idol you don't have to. But if you do we need to do something about your stage fright.

"I know I know," Huang said, mortified to find himself crying again. He knew how lucky he was to have Kija as his manager, but knowing that made him feel guiltier.

Kija sighed "Soo-A doesn't like to pressure Idols. He thinks that stress only hurts an Idol's performance and we must give all trainees the time they need to improve, but he has seen little to no progress from you. Unless you want to switch to training to become a choreographer or producer we will need to take action."

"I understand" Huang answered "Will I need more therapy?" He honestly wouldn't mind- the therapist had helped a lot. Before seeing her he could barely even step on stage.

"Possibly, but that's not what we had in mind," Kija said, he slid toward Huang a paper. The paper showed a picture of Billie Robinson, a famous K-pop idol that debuted under AThreat Entertainment in the K-pop boy group RoyaltA. Underneath was an announcement for his solo debut. 

Huang had heard of Billie of course. As a Chinese boy invited to participate in the racist K-pop industry, he had spent a lot of time looking up non-Korean Idols under AThreat, to see if he would be mistreated. He was surprised and thankful to find multiple American members in the AThreat company, mostly residing in group RoyaltA. Billie was one of these members.

"Billie is debuting solo?" Huang asked, "After the whole breakup with Min Jee?" Billie and Min Jee(Another Idol under AThreat, Belonging to the group ImaginarA) were one of the few couples under the AThreat label that were dating openly. After the two broke up three months ago, there had been a lot of rumors circulating and a lot of hate directed at both idols.

"Yes. We're attempting to distract the fans from the drama and monopolize the attention he's been getting" Kija explained

"So what does this have to do with me?" Huang asked "Is this like a pressure tactic cause he's my age? cause it won't work. unfortunately, I know I'm still young for an idol"

"No, Huang," Kija told him, he sighed and leaned back in his chair "You are going to perform as a backup dancer during Billies' performance"

"What!" Huang yells, his voice uncharacteristically squeaking at the end "I-I can't perform! isn't that what this whole conversation is about? I'm not ready! I'll humiliate myself in front of hundreds of people!!"

"Yes, we know," Kija said "The plan is to pressure you into breaking past your stage fright- however we wouldn't risk your and Billies humiliation for this. So we will be training an Idol to take your place if you aren't ready for the competition"

"Oh, good," Huang said. However, he was a little confused. If he has an understudy why would he feel pressured at all? In fact, he's already considering purposefully bombing the practice in order to escape the risk of ruining his career by messing up Billie's performance.

"Don't thank me yet" Kija said a sadistic smile appearing on his face "If you don't perform- Geon gets the part and we all remember how upset you were when he background danced for Jong-in "

Huang froze. He too remembered how upset he was when Geon was chosen to dance and play the drums in Jong-in's solo debut. Geon was known for stealing all the attention when he went on stage. When he performed with Jong-in not only did he add a drum solo that (judging from the confused looks on Jong-in and the other members' faces) was not meant to be part of the original show, but Jong-in was also distracted the whole time, and kept glancing nervously at Geon. It was later revealed they had fought before going onstage.

And as if his selfish attention-grabbing wasn't enough, Geon just plain sucked. He visited the training dorms sometimes and always walked around with this annoying 'holier than thou' attitude. Every Trainee hated Geon, and Huang was no exception.

"What the heck are you doing King?!" Huang yelled. King was Kijas' stage name a few years ago when he was an idol under AThret. People rarely called Kija by his old stage name, and Huang was hoping it would remind Kija of the hardships they face and convince him to help Billie. "Geon will ruin Billie's solo debut. You can't do this. Especially not just to motivate me"

"We aren't doing it just to motivate you," Kija told him "Geon's fans, and Geon himself, have been upset about the amount of screen time he has gotten lately. Soo-A decided to let him perform. I, as RoyaltAs producer, convinced Soo-A that you would be a better fit than Geon and he agreed to the plan I just told you. I know you're a fan of Billie. Will you accept this challenge and perform with him?"

Huang sighed "Fine, you freaking stalker. Why the hell do you know how much I like Billie and hate Geon?"

Kija smirks "I know everything, never forget that. You're excused"

Huang stood up and walked backward out of the room, his eyes never leaving Kijas smiling face.