Chapter 2: We trained like K-pop Stars for a week ft. Youngjae

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Jackson finds out why Amber is blond, and meets Mark.

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As a Buzzfeed employee, Jackson’s pretty much duty-bounded to check Buzzfeed videos, even though sometimes that devolves into him reading comment threads that are hundreds of comments deep, and can go from being relevant to the video to talking about fluffy cats or something equally unrelated. But because Amber had told him that her new hair colour would be explained by a video that will be uploaded either yesterday or today (really, any time now), he has been meticulously checking the many Youtube channels Buzzfeed has every hour.

He had tried asking her colleagues after he dropped off the new project file, but apparently no one would let him in on the reason why Amber is now blond, because apparently, that is a secret, so he’s stuck with waiting for the elusive video for an explanation. Although Jackson knows a lot of the people working in this office, it seems like Amber knows more of them, and better than he does. He chalks it up to Amber having worked here longer, but it really isn’t fair that she has managed to get the whole office to collude with her in hiding the truth of her mysterious hair colour.

It was noon, during lunch break when he finally spots the video. We trained like K-pop Stars for a week ft. Youngjae. Jackson quickly clicks on it, barely registering the thumbnail of Amber and another Asian guy. The video starts, surprisingly, not with Amber or the Asian dude in the thumbnail, but a thin and tan guy dressed in a simple graphic tee, who introduces himself as Mark. Mark explains in the video that he recently got interested in K-pop, or Korean pop, and wanted to find out how the life of a K-pop star might be like. Although Mark said K-pop star, Jackson’s pretty skeptical at this point, because he’s seen a couple of videos of K-pop and this Mark guy doesn’t look anything like the picture-perfect metrouals who can sing and dance at the same time.

Judging by how the video is going, showing a couple of other Buzzfeed employees who are probably Mark’s friends or colleagues giving interviews and initial reactions, Jackson surmises that he’s not the only one who thinks Mark just seems like a pretty typical Asian-American guy, a bit on the thin side, too tan for the pale skin of K-pop artistes, and a bit nerdy looking. His hair is short and undyed, and he’s potentially inept at dancing judging by his skinny physique. Even if the comments sections of previous videos often have long debates on how much Mark resembles Ryan Higa, Jackson isn’t too sure if the facial resemblance to a famous and good looking youtuber is enough for Mark to suddenly transform into a K-pop artiste, let alone a K-pop star.

The guy who appeared on the thumbnail with Amber, Youngjae, is apparently a solo K-pop idol.  Jackson knows nothing about him, except for his name which was captioned in the video anyway, although he supposes Youngjae is nice enough. Youngjae speaks in slightly accented English, explaining how most K-pop stars start off as trainees. He elaborates on a trainee’s daily routine, and that it is not as easy as it seems, when K-pop is pretty much a whole package of song, dance, fashion and stage charisma. The genuine-looking smile Youngjae gives as encouragement after his brief speech makes Jackson revise his opinion of Youngjae from nice to pretty cute, even as he worries that he might be looking at .

Around a minute and half into the video, Mark had roped in Amber for the challenge of living a week as a K-pop trainee, because apparently he had sense enough to not suffer through this alone. Amber at this point still had her dark brown hair. Also, sadly for Mark, Amber received much more positive reactions from her colleagues in going through with the 1 week of K-pop life that they both have to undertake.

As the video shows snippets of their new routine, involving Korean lessons, vocal lessons and dance lessons, all of which happened after work and well into the night when normal people are sleeping (Insane, Jackson thinks), Jackson realizes that Mark isn’t actually terrible at dancing. Amber’s natural athletic abilities allow her to pick up the dance moves easily, but Mark is close behind. At some point, Jackson realized that Mark actually dances better than Amber once he got used to the movements. Well, who’d ever know?

Vocal lessons turned out relative decently as well, although it’s clear that neither of them will be singing professionally any time soon. At the end of the week of training, Mark and Amber were to sing one of Youngjae’s songs, and dance the same choreography. However, before they make a video of them doing that, they had to go through a K-pop styled makeover first.

When he sees Amber and Mark sitting in a salon with cling wrap and aluminium foil in their hair, looking ridiculous (never mind that he himself was in a similar situation sometime last week in Hong Kong), Jackson gives a short bark of laughter before quickly recovering and checking to see if he scared anyone in the vicinity. His burrito was set on the table, mostly gone and currently ignored while he watches the video, and luckily no one was around. He glances back at the video, drags the button a few seconds back and resumes watching.

After Amber got her hair bleached blond, and Mark a dusty pink, they had stylists chose their outfits, style their hair and apply makeup on them. Amber was in an olive green jacket, the lines straight and emphasizing her shoulders, with a plain tee underneath. The tee had a few rips, showing off what could be a black undershirt or the binder Jackson knows she wears to get a more boyish silhouette. Her slim and shapely legs were in fitting skinny jeans, ripped at the knees and matched with a pair of sandy brown boots. Even Jackson, who’s totally gay, has to admit that she looks pretty damn good, and the outfit actually suited her personality.

Mark was in a dark grey tee with a flannel shirt tied around his waist. His wrists were decked with a couple of bracelets, and his belt has a fancy buckle. The jeans were skinny, black, but not ripped. Jackson lets out a small sigh. It’s a pity they didn’t show more skin on Mark. Mark, who, until a few minutes ago wouldn’t be someone Jackson would have such thoughts on. Somehow, Mark’s diligence in the video and the style makeover really did their way in persuading Jackson that he had been so wrong about Mark not being potential K-pop star material. Although, if he’s being completely honest, Jackson has been thinking black haired Mark is already maybe kind of cute back when Jackson was trawling the Youtube comment sections. Maybe.

After the makeover, the two walked around in the offic