“Numbers 111-120.” I heard the voice even through my headphones and immediately I felt that feeling when you don’t really know if you’re happy, nervous or excited in general.

I looked at oppa, he didn’t look too well. It looked like he was about to faint. Poor thing, he had a serious case of stage fright that he could only overcome after a few shots and a couple of pints. I know it was mean to laugh, but really, if he will puke on the stage or do something as ridiculous, I will be teasing him about it for the rest of my life.

As we followed the man inside what it seemed like a long corridor, there were ten doors that lead to ten different rooms. We were each assigned a room and we were told that there would be someone evaluating us inside, either a current star from the company or previous ones. I took a deep breath as I slightly knocked on the door and went in.

I was greeted by a man who looked quite young and had a pleasant smile on his face. This made me calmer, but I had to admit, if he was supposed to be a celebrity, I had no idea who he was. Either this company was not big enough to be known outside Korea or I was just too far back on my famous-Korean-idols list.

“Hello. I’m contestant number 115, my name is Lee Yura. I was born in 1993.” I gave a standard introduction and a 90 degree bow. Hey, if I had to impress, then I also had to be polite. As much as I was not used to that.

“Nice to meet you, Yura-sshi.” He answered and gave me one of those encouraging fatherly smiles. He slightly went through my paperwork and then looked back at me. “So shall we start with your first prepared song.” He asked and slightly waved in the direction of the speakers. I went up to plug in my mp3 player and selected the newly created playlist that had the 3 songs I would be performing with today. Obviously the first two were just the music, I had managed to quickly download one of them as we were outside preparing. I heard you can’t have anyone singing on top of the music as your background as that would ruin the whole song. My first song was actually self-composed, well partially. They hadn’t stated that it had to be a song by idols and this way I actually knew what I was singing. Plus it had plenty of English in it as well as Korean.

As the music started, I could see him raise an eyebrow. I didn’t know if it was for good or for bad, but I couldn’t care less. I just sang my heart out. To my relief he did not interrupt me once, that might be a good sign, right? But I wouldn’t let him interfere anyways. I had put on the songs in the playlist, so immediately after the first one, the second one came on. I’ve been a big fan of Beyonce ever since Destiny’s child days so my second choice of song was ‘Say my name’ by Destiny’s child. It was of my favourite genre – R&B – and it still had the beat I could slightly pop to along with rapping/singing. I could see surprise in his eyes, would this really be the main point I caught his interest? The last song was just something with a good rhythm that was good to dance to and this was the point where I showed off all I had. He might have thought that the slight popping I did to my second song was all I could do. But it was so much more than that. Dancing was one my life’s passions.

Once the music stopped, I stood back in my original spot and gave him a slight bow. I did not once avert my gaze from his. It was the time for his evaluation, time for me to know if I made the cut. I don’t think I would be too sad even if I got cut. I had fun, this was something new to try and honestly I gave my best. So in general, I had already had a lot of fun and felt proud of myself.

“You’re not from America, are you??” He suddenly spoke to me in English and he himself seemed to have an American accent. I had to say, this really threw me back a bit. I hesitated for a second to answer.

“Actually I’m from England. I was born here in Korea, Busan to be precise, but I’ve lived in England for the majority of my life.” I answered him and had to say I was so happy to speak in English. I was a bit worried that I might look stupid if I had to ask him to repeat himself at any point. I did not dare to ask about him. That seemed a bit inappropriate.

“So you still live in England? Or did you recently move back?” He inquired further with his eyes fixated on me. This now seemed to be a trick question. If I told him that I still lived in England, would that interfere with my results? That’s almost like saying that this place is very much temporary for me.

“I recently moved over here to pursue my dream of singing. My father gave me the permission, but also gave me only one chance. If in a year I do not debut as an idol, doesn’t matter in a group or not, I have to go back and continue my studies.” Damn, I had to admit I was good at lying on the spot. I know it was not a nice thing to do and in general I really did not lying (that’s probably why I couldn’t act as well), but in this case I had no choice. He just slightly nodded.

“Well, then next question about the first song.” He spoke again after going over the notes he had taken during my performance. “I’ve never heard this. Did you write it yourself?” He put his hand together and rested his chin on top of them, while fixing his gaze upon me again.

“Yes and no. I was one of the co-composers. It is a song my friend wrote for his girlfriend when he came over to England to study in university and since he was spending four years there, after a year they broke up. So he dedicated this song to her. I helped with the lyrics a little bit and just helped him arrange it. Also I was the one to sing it originally as we figured that it is more fitting for a girl’s voice.” I explained the background story as shortly as I could, without getting into the drama of the two lovers that reunited after this song was created and are now happily married with children. Oh sweet, sweet music - truly the most powerful influence on your emotions on the whole wide world.

“And how long have you danced for?” After nodding again he asked what seemed to be the last question. I had to think a bit how to properly answer this. It wasn’t a difficult question, but I couldn’t say there was a specific time limit for my dancing.

“Pretty much as long as I can remember myself, but professionally I trained after I moved to England.” I guess this was the best way to formulate it as truly, my father always told me that I was moving a lot even before crawling, I learned how to dance even before I learned how to walk as I often stood up and just sort of bounced to the music for a bit and fell down again. An then after I’ve learned how to walk, me and my brother often just jiggled to loads of songs and when I saw him later on starting to properly copy dance moves from the TV and start learning choreographies, I knew that I wanted to learn dancing with a teacher, properly. Learn the basic techniques to later apply it to my own style. He nodded once more and I sort of wished he actually spoke. This was actually a bit more nerve wrecking than I thought it would.

“Ok, Lee Yura-sshi.” He suddenly spoke in Korean again and I knew this was where I got the final answer – yes or no…