“Haru. Are you even listening to me? You sounded amazing – exactly like you did fifteen times ago,” Hyemi’s voice was full of exasperation as she reclined lazily on Haru’s couch and watched her best friend bury her face into her hands behind the keyboard positioned in front of her.

“No, no, no hang on a minute! That note in the middle was still out of tune, plus I struggled to hit that last high note too… This is not okay!” Haru fretted.

“Look, we’ve been doing this since school ended and I don’t know about you, but this girl right here is starving. You’ll hit that high note after you eat something and give your voice a break,” Hyemi sat up and gestured for Haru to sit beside her.

Haru collapsed on to the couch, her fingers rubbing her temples, “I’m so stressed out,” she groaned.

“I can understand that,” Hyemi wrapped her arm around her best friend’s neck and pulled her in towards her. “But you’ve gotten to a point of paranoia, because as far as I was aware of, your notes were perfectly in tune and you sounded like an angel. Papa YG would be a moron to not sign you.”

Haru gave Hyemi a deprecatory smile, “Sorry for making you listen to me that many times… I get overanxious.”

“Don’t be sorry! Just go easy on yourself okay? Promise me you won’t practice anymore tonight. You have to save your voice for tomorrow.”

“I promise… Want to go get food now?”

“Hell yes, I’m there. Let’s bounce.”

The next day, Haru spent the entire morning languishing in her bedroom, checking the time every ten minutes. Damn this audition. Why is it so late in the day? She cursed to herself, wishing more than anything to get it over and done with. Over the past month the audition process has made Haru feel like she’s aged twenty years.  She couldn’t recall another time in all of her 17 years where she felt nervousness to this level. The weight of the audition was crushing but was nothing compared to the anxiety and self-doubt that gripped her and threatened to rear its ugly head whenever she let down her guard.

Haru stared at herself in the mirror and said out loud, “Anxiety, my old friend. I’m not going to listen to you today. You will not screw this up for me, you understand? Nope, not today… Not today.”

She reminded herself that she needed to make an impression. Not only should she sing well, she should speak brightly, smile often and not appear nervous. Just be you Haru. But don’t stay anything stupid…

After a pep talk, Haru put on a simple outfit of cuffed denim jeans, a cream knit sweater, black Chucks and threw on a warm olive duffel coat. She wanted to adorn herself with hooped earrings, attempting to go for the ‘effortlessly composed and just a little bit glamorous’ look, but ended up feeling ostentatious and uncomfortable. In the end she resorted to just giving her long brown hair a few more curls using an iron and applied an apple red lip stain to the center of her small lips.

With half an hour to spare, Haru picked up her cross-body bag and headed downstairs.

“Haru-ya, I’ll give you a lift,” Jongshin was putting on his shoes at the front door. “I’ve got to go tutor a student and he lives around the area. Plus, I want to see my daughter off.”

Haru smiled weakly, “Thanks Dad, that’d be great.”

“You look like you’re about to pass out,” Jongshin observed and put a hand on Haru’s shoulder as if to steady her.

“Pretty close to it. That or I’ll spew everywhere, not sure which is worse. Probably the spewing,” Haru blathered and clutched the strap of her cross-body bag to her chest so tightly her knuckles went white.

“Neither of which is going to happen, stop saying that. Come on, let’s go,” Haru’s Dad told her reassuringly and prodded her out the door.

For the entirety of the car trip, Haru listened to her audition song over and over with her eyes shut, feeling her stomach clenching into a ball as she revised all the difficult parts of the song in her head. When she opened her eyes, her Dad was already pulling into the wide entrance of the YG Headquarters in Mapo-gu. The knot in Haru’s stomach tightened even more as she looked up at the looming main building coming into view. The building itself was an imposing, colossal steel structure with a modernized design that produced a curved face lined with windows from top to bottom.

Haru’s Dad pulled into a parking spot in the parking area beside the main entrance of the building.

“Well, here we are,” He gave his daughter an encouraging smile and grasped her hand tightly.

Haru breathed in sharply and let out the breathe in a long sigh, “We’re early.” She forced herself to smile back at her father and managed to say, “Thanks Dad,”

“Come here,” Jongshin pulled his daughter towards him into a tight embrace and said firmly, “I have every faith in you Haru-ya. And I just want to let you know that, whatever the result, I’m proud of you.”

Haru squeezed her Dad’s shoulders gratefully and nodded.

When they pulled away, Jongshin flipped his daughter’s hand over and dropped a small gold necklace into her palm. Haru picked up the necklace inquisitively. Suspended from the thin gold chain was a pendant that depicted a crescent moon embracing the sun.  Haru immediately recognized the necklace as the one her mother used to wear. As she watched it swing back and forth gently in front of her, her memory flashed back to a dream-like summer evening with marmalade skies and wisps of cotton candy clouds. A warm breeze caressed her cheek and blew the white curtains inside, sending them swirling and dancing towards the ceiling like smoke. She was holding a melting ice cream and her mother was beside her. Haru could feel the warmth of her chest against her shoulder and her hands reached up to finger the gold pendant that rested below her mother’s collarbones.

Wordlessly, she put the necklace on and felt the pendant sit under her own collarbones in the same way it did on her mother. Jongshin watched quietly and smiled with eyes of sadness and pride.

“Your mother is always there for you. I thought I’d give it to you today,” He told Haru and sighed before saying, “Your mother found this necklace in a market during our honeymoon in France. At that time she was already heavily pregnant with you and you were still unnamed. It was our last day there and your mother was sad to leave and feeling wistful. We were wandering this market to beguile time before heading to the airport and came across a stall selling all kinds of antiquated jewelry. Your mother found that necklace and wanted to buy it but we didn’t have enough money left over. She felt so attached to it she asked the old man if there was anything she could give in exchange. The old man said he was impressed with her French and asked her if she knew any French songs. She only knew one. It was one she would always sing absentmindedly at home whilst she was painting. “La Vie en Rose”. So she sang, right there in the middle of the cobblestone pathway in front of that stall. I’ll never forget that moment in Paris and the way she looked... After hearing her sing, the old man handed her the necklace without skipping a beat, and told her that he hopes her child will be blessed with the same beautiful voice that is capable of mending the weariest of souls. On the plane home, your mother told me she knew what she wanted to name you. She said, “I want to name her Haru.”

“As in