“Bro, stop worrying! I know that face and it’s even uglier when you get all squinty.”

A punch to the arm later and Bobby’s feeling victorious. It only lasts for a few seconds before his nerves start to creep their way back in, though. He’s in New York City along with his best friend, Robbie. Their rhyming names were the catalyst to their friendship nine years ago, when Bobby and his family had moved to the US from Korea. (He’d been Jiwon at that time, right up until three days before school started. His mom had asked him if he wanted to pick an “American name” for school, and he’d pounced on Bobby right from the start.) Some of their classmates had made fun of them over it (it didn’t help that they’d been the only two Koreans in their class that first year either) but everyone sang a different tune about them now. Funny how growth spurts and athletic prowess could make all the difference. 

They’re in New York for an audition. Some Korean rap show that Robbie’s been trying to get him to watch on-line. Bobby’s not really a TV guy, though, and why should he care about a bunch of Korean rappers when he’s got easier access to all the American ones? After nine years in the US, he defaults to English now. 

But then Robbie told him about the prize money. If there’s one thing Bobby is hungry for, it’s money. Not to buy himself things, but to support his family. It’s been a struggle for the past four years—his parents both work, and even his older brother has started working now too, but they’re still barely staying afloat with the rising economy. Not to mention that his brother has gotten really serious with his girlfriend, and Bobby has caught him looking at engagement rings. He doesn’t think that Jiun should have to choose between his family’s survival and his own future. 

The only reason he’s here at the audition is because Robbie’s family offered to foot the bill for travel. Robbie’s parents have more money than Bobby’s have ever had, and he would have felt terrible about costing them extra except for the fact that Robbie’s sister works as a stewardess for US Airways, and she got Robbie on the plane for practically nothing on a family pass. 

Still. He’s conscious of the money they’re spending on him. He needs to do well. 

He was confident on their way here, even waking up this morning in the uncomfortable hostel bed, he still felt good about his chances. But the sheer number of people packing into the venue now are making him have second thoughts about the whole thing. This is a Korean show. Are his Korean skills good enough? He’s gotten sloppy over the years, though he’s been making a mad dash for the past month to try and tighten it all up. Standing here now and looking out at everyone else has him wondering if he’s wasting everyone’s time and money. He should have done more to prep. 

But as they stand around in line most everyone they hear is speaking in English. Maybe he won’t be so far off from everyone after all. His friends have all told him not to worry, that even if his Korean is a bit rusty, his voice and his energy would probably be enough to at least get him through the first round. 

Four hours in and it’s finally their turn. Bobby watches as the judge, some tall guy with a weird face who goes by the name San E, starts at the other end of the row. He turns to Robbie. 

“Is this guy one of the guys we wanted?” 

Robbie nods, whispering his answer. “Yeah, he’s really nice compared to some of the other guys. He’ll probably give us another chance if we screw up or something.” 

Bobby nods and turns back to watch San E for a bit. Like Robbie said, the judge is exceptionally polite to the competitors (even the s who pitch a fit when they’re dropped). There’s a grace in losing that not everyone has, and as much as Bobby hates losing, there’s no way he could live with himself if he acted as foolish as half of these guys are acting. 

Robbie’s got his audition first and Bobby watches on in silence, hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans. Robbie’s got a good flow, his voice is a bit smoother than Bobby’s, his pronunciation a bit sharper. But San E tells him he’s got too much English in his verse. He asks him for something else. 

Bobby panics a bit. He’s only got one verse prepared for today. What happens if San E thinks he’s got too much English? He doesn’t have anything else ready. Robbie does, though, and halfway through the second verse San E pulls out the gold chain and offers it to him, and Bobby can see the relief in Robbie’s posture. 

Bobby steels himself for his turn. He’s got this. 

“Please begin when you’re ready.” 

San E’s instruction is softly given and Bobby wishes he’d actually done some research on the guy beforehand. On any of them, really. But then it doesn’t actually matter that much. All he has to do is spit his bars well and show his explosive power. He’s sure to pass. 

He passes. 

San E doesn’t say anything, he just nods appreciatively and holds out the chain, but Bobby can see the unspoken praise in the judge’s eyes. He bows and accepts his token, can’t help but pump his fist before turning to Robbie and sharing a tight hug. They made it to the next round. Both of them. 

Bobby does his homework. 

He looks up all the judges, plays through their discographies. He scouts on-line for information about other contestants. He doesn’t really find that much, only a few big names. Robbie tells him about a few others, and before long Bobby’s got a neat little list of who they might encounter if they make it to Korea. He doesn’t do anything with the list, though. He’s never really been the type to plan things out so far in advance. 

The second round of auditions is held in LA and it’s a much smaller affair, held at some expensive beach house. Bobby’s never been somewhere so glamorous before, and he can’t do anything except stare around in a daze. 

“Just imagine if we ever make it big, bro,” Robbie says beside him, “bet you could throw some killer parties in a place like this. Get a ton of hot girls. It’d be like heaven.” 

“The only way you’d be getting hot girls at your party is if you paid them to come.” Bobby teases him. 

“Well, I figure if I have enough money for this place, I’d probably have enough money to pay for that too, so I’m all set.” Robbie keeps on talking about living the lavish LA lifestyle, but all Bobby can think about is how he’d rather buy a place like this on the coast for his parents. Let his dad retire and spend his days painting the ocean, sunrises and sunsets over the water, while his mother can cook to her heart’s content in a huge kitchen with all those fancy kitchen tools she looks at when they go shopping, but never buys herself. That’s what he wants most in life. Just to take care of his family. Robbie wants a car, but Bobby wants to give his brother money for a fancy engagement ring. 

It’s good that they’ve got each other, though. Robbie’s family never struggled, so he’s got loftier dreams than Bobby does, and sometimes you need to think with a freer mindset. Bobby reigns Robbie in when he gets out of hand, and Robbie emboldens him to dream a little higher. 

The majority of the people here at this round have a good grasp on Korean, but Bobby’s still surprised to see a couple of them here and there who can barely speak a few words. What were the producers thinking, passing people who don’t know the language? They couldn’t possibly think about bringing someone who would only be rapping in English, could they? What would be the point of doing the show in Korea if you don’t use Korean? 

The whole thing makes it seem just a little off-putting to him. Why give people false hope like that? It’s not right. 

They’re finally ready to get things underway and the show producers explain things to them and introduce the judges. Each team has a representative here: a Korean-Canadian guy named Tablo who graduated from Stanford (Bobby enjoyed the poetic quality of his lyrics, but he also feels a little intimidated by him at the same time); YDG (the only producer working on his own on the show); San E; and Dok2, CEO of Illionaire Records. So far, Bobby’s leaning towards Illionaire. He likes their beats the most. 

They go out one by one to the outdoor pool area that overlooks the California landscape to rap in front the judges. The first three guys all flunk out right away, even though they all actually did pretty good. But there are only five spots available, so the judges are being way more selective this time around. 

Robbie gets called up fourth, and Bobby prays for him the entire time it takes him to get outside. They watch the proceedings on a screen set up in their waiting area, and Bobby feels sick to his stomach as he watches. Robbie appears confident in front of the judges though, they seem to like him. 

But midway through his verse he forgets his lyrics, and Bobby drops his head into his hands. After San E’s criticism in the first round, Robbie was conscious of all the English he used, and he’d been working to translate a lot of his English stuff into Korean lately. Clearly his brain hadn’t had enough time to memorize the Korean versions of lines, and it cost him in the end. 

He comes back in after his failure and sits down beside Bobby again, disappointment etched on his face. Bobby doesn’t know what to say to him. This whole thing had been Robbie’s idea. He’d gotten in his own way. 

Twenty guys get called before Bobby (three of them get those coveted plane tickets to Korea, and it’s made the rest of them waiting nervous). There are only two spots left. Bobby has to get one. 

He’s praying the entire walk out to poolside, praying that he doesn’t up like Robbie did. Praying that what he’s got prepared is good enough for the judges. 

It’s not. He doesn’t fail outright like Robbie, but he also doesn’t get a plane ticket. He passes the round, but only by two judging teams. One of them isn’t Dok2. But what he does get is a lot of compliments, and advice that if he’d started out on fire the way he’d ended, he would have gotten an all pass at least, maybe even a ticket. 

It’s deflating and he’s disappointed in himself. How could he have come all this way and not make it? The producers don’t let any of them leave, even the guys who failed. Everyone’s around until the end, and Bobby can feel his dreams about the beach house for his parents slipping away every time someone else goes before the judges. 

The last contestant is up finally, and Bobby watches him with interest. There’s only one plane ticket left, and this last guy isn’t Korean. What happens when he doesn’t get selected? Do they only take four people over? 

Or is this why the producers didn’t let any of them leave? Is there some kind of sudden death match? 

The last guy doesn’t get the ticket, and the producers wait until everyone’s seated back in the waiting room before giving them the news. 

One ticket left. The judges are currently in talks, deciding what to do. They wait for nearly half an hour, and Bobby gets pummeled back and forth between highs and lows, expectations and realities. 

Okay, so he’d gotten a ton of praise and was told he could have been at the top had he not started out soft. But there are other guys who got all passes but didn’t get the plane ticket. Wouldn’t they pick one of them instead? 

The producer comes back with news. After spending some time looking over everyone again, the judges have selected two of them for a last minute competition, winner gets the plane ticket. The first name is a guy who only got passed by three of the judges, some heavily tattooed guy with a rough voice like Bobby’s. He figures that means that he’s out, since their styles are so similar. 

He’s wrong. 

Five minutes later and Bobby’s standing out by the pool again, adjusting his snapback nervously. It turns out that out of the four judges, the one who’d campaigned heavily for Bobby’s inclusion in the sudden death round was actually Dok2. 

The other guy’s older, so Bobby lets him rap first. His flow is hard and aggressive and his lyrics are rough, but he’s got a lot of English in his verse, and the Korean he does use is nothing exceptional. Bobby wonders if it’s something he actually prepared for today, or if it’s something else he picked from memory. 

Then it’s Bobby’s turn, and before he starts he looks at Dok2, who’s not giving anything away behind large sunglasses and an imposing posture. Bobby nods to the beat and thinks about that beach house with the painter’s room and professional kitchen, thinks about the expensive engagement ring. He has to do this. His family needs him. 

The words explode out of him, a freestyle about the struggle of growing up poor in a foreign country, and he raps about the beach house he wants to buy his parents. He remembers reading about Dok2’s past, how the producer also grew up poor, sacrificing his own youth to work for some small label writing music every hour of the day. Bobby hopes that maybe he’ll secure his spot by sharing his own similar story. 

He gets through the round with no errors and he feels amazing, he feels like he’s just delivered the best performance of his life. San E’s smiling, Tablo’s trying not to smile (and failing), and when Bobby faces his competitor, the other guy has a look of resigned loss in his eyes, like he knows that there’s no way they’ll pick him over Bobby. 

They don’t. Bobby gets the plane ticket, and right away tears come to his eyes, because that house is one step closer, it’s actually a possible reality now. The judges have nothing but compliments for him, and after looking stoically on during the performance portion, Dok2’s got nothing but a smile for Bobby now. Bobby’s not going to forget this lifeline when he makes it to Korea ( to Korea, for the next round) and as soon as he gets back to the waiting room Robbie envelops him in a huge hug, screams in his ear about how it was all worth it, about how Bobby’s going to destroy everyone on the show. 

This is one of those times when he gladly lets Robbie get carried away, because he’s never felt such a high before, he’s never been so proud of himself. He did it. He’s going to do it, he can feel it. 

Two months later he’s tearing up at the airport, about to leave his parents for longer than a weekend for the first time in his eighteen years of life. He’ll be staying with an aunt in Seoul, who’s got her own restaurant. He hasn’t seen her in four years, and he’s excited to see family members he hasn’t seen in even longer. He’s going to miss his parents, though, and his brother. His mom’s in tears at the gate, and Bobby tries to tell her to stop crying, but instead he chokes on his own tears, can’t even bring himself to say goodbye. 

He’s got to do this, though. His family needs him.

The car ride to the venue feels unusually long, and Hanbin is certain it's because he's by himself. In the entirety of his time at YG he's never done anything alone before (except for the occasional “leader only” meetings he has with Yang). But he's alone this time, and his nerves are churning in his gut.

He misses Seungjae especially, feels guilty that he's here while his partner isn't. This entire thing was Seungjae's idea, after all. Hanbin didn't really want to do it to begin with, but Seungjae always had a way of talking him into things. What he hadn't expected, though, was Yang's decision to allow Hanbin to do the show—but not Seungjae.

“ It's great for exposure. You're going to be busy over the summer with something else, but I think this would be a good experience for you. Unfortunately I don't think it's a good idea for Seungjae. To put it bluntly I don't trust his ability to police himself on a show like this, and I worry he'll say something that will get him in hot water. ”

Seungjae had taken it better than Hanbin had expected him to, and he'd been the one who'd walked Hanbin down to the car this morning, giving him a tight hug and making him promise to do well, making him promise to give updates and take pictures of anyone famous.

Hanbin would give anything for Seungjae to come with him, but he understands where Yang’s coming from. He also agrees with the decision, though he’d never say it to Seungjae’s face. His Team B rap partner has always been a bit of a loose cannon and his mouth has gotten him into more trouble than it's gotten him out of.

But Seungjae is more of a people person than Hanbin is, he's better at making friends and talking to strangers. Hanbin's pretty terrible with new people. He's not too worried about performing in front of whoever ends up judging him (though he really hopes it's not Swings, because Hanbin remembers watching him win not too long ago and he's been a fan ever since) but what he is concerned about is having to spend his entire day at the audition with no one to talk to.

He assumes other contestants will know him, won't they? Not everyone, but enough to make him awkward about it. What if the people he ends up in line next to know him and don't like him? He doesn't want to have to spend his whole audition day walking on eggshells around guys who resent him for being there when he's already famous . Doesn’t want to be on the receiving end of angry glares because he’s an idol .

He's pleasantly surprised with how it all turns out, though. More people know him than he expected (and he gets a lot of attention, especially from the girls) and he ends up in between two guys who are really friendly and not caught in the trappings of social awkwardness the way he is. His answers at first are short and curt, but by the time they're heading inside he's laughing and offering stories. He takes a picture with them and uploads it to the group chat before sending more personal updates to Seungjae and Jinhwan.

The nerves come back when he's inside and waiting for his turn. His mouth drops in shock as he watches Vasco, one of his favourite rappers, perform his own audition. He grew up listening to Vasco's music. How on earth is he supposed to compete with him?

The nerves don't subside for the rest of the wait, because while there are a lot of disastrous performances, there are also a lot of decent ones, and quite a few really good ones. For a moment he questions whether or not he should really be here. Then it's his turn to audition and he breathes a sigh of relief because it's not Swings judging him, but instead it's Dok2. He'd be more nervous if Tablo hadn't told him about the Illionaire CEO, hadn't reassured him that Dok2 would probably go easy on him if he got him, because he likes to support young artists.

Hanbin hypes himself up so much for the audition that he's barely even aware it's finally happening, not until he freezes mid-sentence and forgets everything.

But if there's one thing Hanbin is rather good at doing, it's digging himself out of disastrous situations. Instinct takes over and instead of shrinking under the shame of forgotten lyrics he delivers what's probably going to be viewed as an arrogantly freestyled verse, and in the moment Hanbin can't even remember what he actually said.

But Dok2 nods and hands him the chain and Hanbin feels like sinking down to the floor in relief, wants to hug him and kiss his feet and thank him for not failing him.

He doesn't though, he calmly adjusts the chain around his neck, wants to take a picture to upload to the group, but there's a strict ban on photos, so instead he leaves his phone in his pocket and manages to catch Wu's eye, who gives him a thumbs up. Hanbin smiles back at him, relieved for the little slice of home in the midst of all the chaos.

The second round of auditions go much better for him.

It's a smaller group and this time everyone will be giving an individual performance to the whole judging team. After discussing strategies with Seungjae, Hanbin has decided to give a cheeky performance, dissing the producer teams. He tests his rhymes on Seungjae, who gives him the all clear. Hanbin's feeling confident going into it.

But sitting around and waiting for his turn isn't the easiest. The remaining contestants are nowhere near as nice as the guys he met on the first day (none of whom survived the audition) and it's an extremely awkward affair. No one talks to him. He doesn't necessarily think it's because anyone hates him (though there are a few suspect personalities he catches glaring at him throughout the day) but everyone is focused and Hanbin's social ineptitude in situations like this prevent him from making conversation with anyone.

So he texts Seungjae, who's supposed to be training, and Hanbin kind of feels bad because as the leader he shouldn't be distracting Seungjae from his daily tasks. But the tension is thick in the audition hall, and he can't sit in silence anymore.

Seungjae sends him a scolding text about how he ought to be making friends, and when Hanbin pointedly ignores it, Seungjae Facetimes him just to wag his finger in Hanbin's face.

It's comforting, and Hanbin feels a little better after it. His life is too busy to be concerned with making friends right now. He's got s. They're all he needs.

About halfway through the auditions is when the first hint of a problem springs up. They pipe everyone's auditions over the speakers, so they've been listening as each contestant performs. There's a guy in there now, Hanbin forgets his name, but he's been spouting hate at the fact that there's an idol rapper here, and Hanbin can feel everyone's eyes on him as the other contestant goes off.

He knew it was bound to happen, sooner or later, and he expects that this one won't be the last. Now that someone has officially opened the floodgates, Hanbin's pretty confident that this won't be the last veiled insult or threat he hears today.

But he takes it in stride, reminds himself that he is good enough to be here. Everyone will have their preconceived notions of him, and that's fine. He's here to tear those opinions down. He's here to show that he's not just an idol who raps because he can't sing . People might not be receptive to it right away, but that's fine.

When it's his turn he walks into it confidently, not concerned with the whispers and sniggers that chase him down the hall. Everyone will see in just a moment.

Maybe it's a sign that he's spent too much time training, because as soon as he steps onto the stage in front of the judges he feels more confident than he's felt all day. This is something he knows. This is something he's good at—presenting himself directly to judging staff and making a good impression. This is his occupation right now.

He greets them all politely and when Swings asks him about the verbal slight of the earlier contestant, Hanbin just smiles at him and gives a cheeky response— ah, he must have been a Team A fan, so I hope he's anticipating Winner's debut in the coming months —Swings laughs outright, Tablo almost chokes on his water, and the smile on Dok2's face is enough to give Hanbin an extra boost of confidence.

He might be at making friends, but he's outstanding when it comes to making a good impression.

He starts his rap confidently and surprises the judges by jumping down off the platform and sitting casually. He might be on a rap show, but he's still a performer by nature, and there's more to rapping than just delivering a good flow of words. He launches his attack on the judges and makes direct eye contact with all seven of them and no one looks bored with him—on the contrary they're all smiling and enjoying his performance.

He gets high praise when he's done and Swings in particular has Hanbin feeling like shouting out in joy— I have to say I wasn't expecting much, since you're an idol rapper, but you really exceeded my expectations! Everyone back there should be worried about you —and when he leaves the room he can't help but let out a happy scream as he makes his way back to the hall where everyone else is sitting.

He specifically looks for the contestant that tried to diss him before, but Hanbin's not here to be intimidating, and instead of flashing the guy an arrogant smirk that says did you hear that, Swings thinks I'm better than you , instead he just flashes him a happy smile.

No one else talks about him today.