I'll Be the One Read online

  Dedication

  TO MY FRIENDS. I COULDN’T BE

  LIVING THIS DREAM WITHOUT YOU.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Books by Lyla Lee

  Back Ad

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  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 about You’re My Shining Star, the new K-pop competition survival show in LA, I skipped school and rode 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 for You’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 dressed exactly like them . . . the same black blouse and everything) glances up at me . . . and does a double take. 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 for You’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 of You’re My Shining Star and 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 extra attention 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.

  Although You’re My Shining Star definitely 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 with that?” 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 front of 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 just being here. 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 Kore
an. 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 winged eyeliner 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.

  The strawberry-blond girl turns around and stares at me.

  I unflinchingly meet her gaze. That usually does the trick when people rudely stare.

  But instead of looking away, she cocks her head to the side, smacking her violet-colored bubble gum between her blue-painted lips. She doesn’t look appalled like the lady had, just . . . curious.

  “Hi,” I say with a pointed eyebrow raise. “I’m Skye. Can I help you?”

  Without missing a beat, the girl gives me a bright smile and extends a perfectly manicured hand in my direction.

  “Hi,” she says. “I’m Lana. What are you auditioning to do: sing or dance?”

  Her voice is bright and clear, almost bell-like in a way that human voices shouldn’t sound. It reminds me of all those announcers on the Korean news programs that my parents regularly watch. If it weren’t for her Valley girl accent, I’d think she was from Seoul.

  “Both,” I say.

  “Ooh, a double talent.” Her shiny blue lips widen into a grin. “How interesting. Is that what the third line is for?”

  I nod. “How about you?” I already know the answer, but I ask anyway, just to be polite.

  “I’m mainly vocals,” she says. “I can dance . . . just not well enough that I’d want to compete with dancers like her.”

  She gestures at the girl she entered the building with. The other girl shoots a wary look at me before she grins and waves at Lana. If Lana notices the look, she doesn’t say anything as she waves back.

  “I’m the other way around,” I say. “I’ve been dancing all my life, so I’m honestly better at that. But I sing, too. I’ve been in choir since I was in elementary school.”

  “Ooh, nice!” She looks genuinely impressed.

  Slowly, I let my guard down and give her a small smile. I’m relieved that this conversation is going better than I expected. I hate to admit it, but some part of me was waiting for her to make a comment about my weight like people often do. It’s usually only a matter of time before someone like my mom asks, “How is it that you don’t lose any weight even though you’re so active?” or “Shouldn’t you quit dance and focus on singing? You can’t honestly expect to be a dancer with your body type.”

  Okay, so it’s mostly Mom. But as long as I can remember, there’ve been at least a handful of people per year who ask me similar things. When I was younger, I tried my best to answer these questions, telling people about how everyone was big on Dad’s side and how genetics determine body shape more than anything. I told them how my doctor said I was healthy. But no matter what I said, people didn’t believe me. Then, I stopped trying to explain myself. It simply wasn’t worth my time and energy. And honestly? It shouldn’t matter why I’m a certain weight. Being fat doesn’t make me any less of a person.

  Lana and I watch the TV as some guy gets totally wrecked by the judges for singing off-key. I feel really sorry for him, because it’s clear that they only let him through preliminaries so he could be a laughingstock on camera. I’m still thinking about how badly that must suck when I notice that Lana’s not looking up at the TV anymore.

  Instead, she’s staring at me.

  “Okay, so,” she says. “Sorry if this is, like, totally rude, but . . .”

  I hold my breath. Don’t ask me about my weight. Please don’t ask about my weight. Things were going so well between us, and I really don’t want them to go south now. I brace myself, expecting the worst.

  But then she asks, “Isn’t auditioning for both things kind of a big risk? I heard that for people who audition for both, the judges won’t let you move on to the next round if you’re not good at either one of the things. Or they might make you choose one or the other on the spot. No offense, but I could never do that. Too scary.”

  “Well,” I say, trying to relax again, “it’s double the risk, but it’s also double the reward. If you do get in for both vocals and dance, you get one more chance later on when you’re eliminated from one category. Yeah, it sucks that they can eliminate me altogether during auditions if I’m only good at one, but if I do get in for both and were to get eliminated from one category during the competition, I can still stay for the other.”

  Again, Lana doesn’t question me. She just stares at me with a curious, wide-eyed look. “Wow, you’re really brave,” she says. “Best of luck!”

  I smile. “Thanks, you too.”

  Lana turns back to the other line to chat with her friend, and I face my own line. Someone must have gone in, because there’s only one person ahead of me now.

  Although I rarely get stage fright, I can feel my hands tremble just a tiny bit. I didn’t mention this to Lana, but the biggest gamble I have to make at this competition is whether or not they’ll even take me seriously in the first place. Thanks to Hollywood, body standards are already bad enough in LA, but they’re even worse in the world of K-pop, where even already-straw-thin girls are regularly asked to “cut a bit off their chin” or “get double-eyelid surgery.” I’m neither straw-thin nor do I have double eyelids, so I can only imagine the long list of “suggestions” I’ll probably get from the industry professionals.

  Lose one hundred pounds! they’d probably say. Get a nose job! Run up five thousand flights of steps every morning! Feed yourself to the sharks!

  Okay, they probably wouldn’t include the last one. But I’d rather do the last one over any of the others on that list.

  The thing is, I’m perfectly fine with the way I am. For the longest time, I wanted to be the “perfect” skinny daughter that Mom always wanted. I endured years of diets, strict exercise regimens, juice cleanses, and whatever other health-nut mumbo jumbo she discovered every week. I grew up in Orange County. That sort of thing wasn’t really hard to come by.

  But now, I’m over it. All of it. And if my mom couldn’t change me for the last several years, no one can.

  Just then, the outside doors burst open again. Screams erupt from outside, and I half expect some bizarre tornado to come rushing into the building. But instead, a massive, almost-seven-foot-tall bodyguard dressed in a full suit and shades steps in, holding the door for someone.

  “Ugh,” groans Lana. “It’s him.”

  The blue-
haired girl, whose name I realize I still don’t know, also groans.

  Whoever this “him” is, he’s apparently bad news.

  I’m about to ask who he is when it turns out I don’t have to. I know who he is. In fact, it’s really hard to not know who he is, because almost every Korean person in LA and most definitely in Korea knows the boy who walks through the doors.

  In a way, it’s kind of ridiculous how famous Henry Cho is. Unlike other celebrities, he isn’t a member of a boy band and he hasn’t appeared in a single Korean drama.

  I vaguely remember reading an article on a Korean news site about how Henry comes from a really powerful jaebol family, like the ones that appear in K-dramas. Jaebols are basically huge family-led companies that do business across multiple industries like tech, food, and hospitality. That, plus the fact that Henry’s mom is a famous actress, definitely explains why people know who he is in Korea.

  But it’s weird how well known he is here, where most people don’t know who his parents are. In the States, the only notable things about Henry himself are that he’s rich and ridiculously good-looking. And somehow, this is enough for him to get hired as a model for luxury brands, and his Instagram has over five million followers from all over the world.

  Heck, even I follow him on Instagram (in my defense, his white Siberian husky is really cute) and just know about him, like everyone in the United States just knows about the Kardashians.

  Let’s be real. People probably only follow him because he’s hot.

  Easily six feet tall, with broad shoulders and high cheekbones softened by doe-like eyes, Henry Cho is just as attractive as he looks in his photos. He was blond in the last selfie he posted, but he’s—in my opinion, anyway—impossibly more attractive now with his natural brownish-black hair. Everything from his casually swept-back hair to his pastel-pink button-down and white chino pants exudes “effortlessly cool,” while the navy-blue blazer slung over one shoulder makes him look like he just walked out of a shoot for a fashion magazine.

  It’s close to a hundred degrees outside. Why does he have a freakin’ blazer?

  The lady at the check-in counter squawks—yes, squawks—and nearly trips over her own feet as she rushes to greet Henry at the door.