At the end of every storm comes a rainbow, but your happy ending seems to be just too out of reach. The past few weeks have been increasingly tough on you – the assessors are more critical than ever and it seems that you are just not up to par. Will you let the demons in your head get to you, or will you fight them off and come back stronger than ever? Do you have a rock to keep you grounded, or will you continue to lose yourself in the seemingly endless fight to please the higher-ups? Hold on tight, soldier, the battle’s just begun.
Click. Click. Click. ❝ Ahn Kyungmi. Sixty-four points. You slipped once – fix it. With that attitude of yours, you’ll never get anywhere. ❞
Ahyoung kept her eyes fixed to the ground strands of matted hair plastered to the sides of her face with perspiration.
Click. Click. Click. ❝ Lee Hyeri. Seventy-seven points. You’ve made an improvement of eight points from last week – keep up the good work and you’ll be fixed for the line-up in no time, got it? ❞
Her heart beats against her ribcage like an erratic drum.
Click. Click. Click. A pair of flashy black Louboutins enter her peripheral and the trainee tenses almost visibly. ❝ Kim Ahyoung. ❞ A sigh. ❝ Look up, girl. ❞
After a couple of bears she finally gathers the courage to glance upwards through her lashes hesitantly, but when she senses the unmistakable disappointment reflecting against the light of her dance assessor’s pupils, a wave of premonition crashes over her and nearly sweeps her off her feet.
Park Seonsaeng-nim first dismisses the rest of the other trainees from the practice room, and Ahyoung has to dig her nails so deep into her palm to stop herself from springing off her feet to join them that she draws blood. But nevertheless she stays, rooted to the spot like a statue, waiting with bated breath until the older woman turns on her heels to face her.
Yet another sigh, and a pitying stare. At least her voice is gentle, though chastising. ❝ Kim Ahyoung, ❞ she merely says, studying the stern-looking clipboard grasped firmly in her hands. ❝ Forty-nine point five points. You’ve come in last – again. ❞
Park Seonsaeng-nim’s words reduces the breath in her lungs to a pile of ashes, so she only nods her head in response as a familiar weight settles in her stomach. Oh, is what Ahyoung wants to utter, but the room starts to sway and she clamps her lips tightly shut, lips parted weakly in terror. It is the third time in four months – is the company going to send her back to Ulsan now?
Her assessor’s next words answer her question, and she wonders if she’d actually accidentally spoken out loud. ❝ We won’t force you to leave. ❞ Park Seonsaeng-nimaddresses her softly, her kind words defying the stern twist of her lips and her sharp gaze. Ahyoung’s chin trembles and the tears pooling at the corners of her eyes threatens to fall but her cheeks remains dry and her stoic expression never once wavers. ❝ But I urge you to reconsider your path, Ahyoung. At this rate, I don’t think we’ll be able to debut you in the next three years – and you’ll have missed the peak of your potential by then. I think it might be the best for you if you thought about enrolling in art school again. I’ll leave you to think. Are we okay on this? ❞
❝ Yes, Seonsaeng-nim. ❞ The words sound faint and false, even to her, because she’s honestly the opposite of ‘okay’. Her reply is forced and she has a hard time spitting them out because they taste as bitter as strong black coffee. She feigns an unnatural, sorry excuse of a smile and bows respectfully as the assessor turns her back and approaches the exit of the practice room.
Click. Click. Click. The door swings shut with a loud slam. She stays frozen in position, but feels a pain shoot through her upper torso. Her shoulders, which have begun to relax, immediately pinch up again. She pounds a fist to her chest, and the smile that she has stuck on her lips like cement begins to crack.
And instantly, like the walls of Berlin, Ahyoung crumbles and falls.
❝ The river, ❞ she gasps breathlessly to herself, vision already blurring with something that can’t possibly be tears. She repeats her destination like a prayer she has forgotten long ago and off she goes – sprinting out of the practice room and company headquarters, barrelling past annoyed passers-by and honking cars in traffic as her feet takes her to where she wants to go even before her brain can stop to process her location.
A measly forty-nine point five points. The number seems to be ingrained into her consciousness and it haunts her with every step she takes – the merciless pounding against the confines of her head doesn’t stop until the Han River comes to a sight. Ahyoung slows to a stop and trudges towards the grassy banks of her favorite place to be.
She’s always found the Han River to be her only source of comfort during her lonely training years, and there she finds herself able to shed tears that only the glistening waters have seen. It’s a breathtakingly beautiful place, because to Ahyoung it seems as though the stars shine a little brighter there. She settles on a bench, her perspiration-drenched clothes in almost a sorrier state than her heart, and wishes for the salty wind to pass through her and cleanse her ill soul. Her hands remain tight fists, lumps of coal in her lap.
Nearly four hours later when she returns to the dorm room she shares with some of the other trainees, disinterested but heavy gazes follow her until she is blanketed under the dim lighting of the path leading to her tiny room. And there she sits in the darkness, blinking away the cold as her teeth chatters incessantly, feeling the iciness drag her spirits through the mud beneath her shoes. You’ll be okay, she tells herself, reaching out for a packet of jellybeans on her desk that she’s saved for emergencies and shoves a handful into her mouth, gulping it down. To her surprise, the candy tastes bitter, but it might just simply be the tears in her throat.
It’s hard to feed lies to herself, but maybe if she clenches her fists, grits her teeth and tries her best to believe, they’d go down easy, just like bitter medicine with a pinch of sugar.
You’ll be okay, Kim Ahyoung.
