That Kid
Circling Fireflies: First Love
—*—
I wish the darkness would swallow me up. Anything to get away from the glare aimed at me by my coordi noona. She’d spent hours tracking me down to go over my schedule for this week, and she wasn’t happy about it. Right now, she’s angrily jabbing her fingers at her cell phone, texting my manager to let him know about the trouble I caused. Great. I wish I could disappear.
“Wait here.” Coordi noona points to a row of green plastic chairs lined up along the wall outside the practice studios. “I need to go check with Manager Park about your training schedule. Okay, Jaejoong?”
I bow. Must show my manners. She nods brusquely at me and bustles off toward the director’s office at the other end of the building, the flat slap of her flipflops echoing down the hall. I’m alone again. Relief.
I lean against the wall near the benches, huddling deep into the warmth of my oversized hoodie. It’s always chilly back here by the dance practice rooms, but it’s extra cold after hours when SM turns the heat off. I tilt my head back against the wall and close my eyes. My breath sounds loud in the quiet of SM’s vast building, but it’s reassuring. I exist. I'm here. This is really happening. All those months of living on cheap ramen, donating blood to pay for rooms. All the long hours at odd jobs. Cold nights walking the streets when I had nowhere to sleep. All my sacrifices were worth it. I'm here.
SM had signed me on as a trainee after seeing my last audition tape. Now, I’d get the professional guidance I’d always dreamed of. No more charity voice lessons from Old Lady Neuk, the ahjumma downstairs in my apartment building. I’d learn from the best singing coaches Korea could offer. Singing! I’d get to sing all day long in real practice rooms with sound equipment and keyboards and decent acoustics. No more pretending mop handles were microphones while cleaning out grimy storage rooms. No more running scales in dark warehouses at night. I’d learn how to breathe properly, how to hold a long note without my voice cracking. Learn to make the most of the voice I’d been given.
“Your tone is beautiful,” Mrs. Neuk once told me in a rare moment of praise. “Don’t fight it. Let it shine through!”
I’d try again, try so hard to make it sound the way she wanted, but she’d shake her head. “Your voice is like a wild horse right now. Beautiful and strong, but always running away from you. You must learn to rein it in. Master it! When you do, it will take you farther than you can dream.”
I have so much to learn.
And so I’d stayed late in the practice rooms at SM tonight, doing vocal exercises and singing Painfully Loving You until Coordi Noona came and found me. Where had I been? She’d been trying to reach me all day. There were changes to my schedule, she said. She scolded me for forgetting my phone at home, and then told me to wait. That’s how I ended up here, standing in the dark hall by myself.
It’s been a while since noona left. I pace around in the dim light, peering through the narrow glass windows on the practice room doors. The lights are off, so all I can see is an expanse of glossy wood flooring and the faint gleam of mirrored walls. Boring. I study the bulletin board with its announcements of instruments for sale and room shares. Boring. I turn away, looking for something else to pass the time. I wish I had my phone.
There’s a line of black tiles down the center of the hall. I walk it heel-to-toe, like a tightrope. I imagine myself wearing a spangled costume, performing in front of a crowd. I can hear their applause, their gasps as I totter, arms flailing, then their cheers as I save myself. My vision is so vivid that it seems I really can hear their cheers. I stop tightrope-walking and stand straight, listening. From the stairwell near me I hear faint whoops and yells. Someone’s coming up the stairs. Several someones, judging by the noise they make as they get closer. I stare hard at the closed stairwell door, straining to hear what they’re saying. I make out several voices, mostly male. They’re saying something about a show. A showcase? Show King! And just as I realize who it is, the stairwell door flies open and they’re standing right in front of me: Dana and her backup dancers, fresh from their performance on MNet Show King.
“That girl with the sequins on her b—omo!” Dana yelps the final word in shock as she almost runs into me. She jerks back and stares. The guys behind her look at me wide-eyed, mouths startled into open Os. I bow low, embarrassed.
“Sorry! So sorry!”
We’re all bowing now. We’re all startled. Caught off guard. I’m too nervous to look directly at Dana. The backup dancers are a tall blur behind her. Then Dana gives a breathless laugh. “Oh, you made me jump! I didn’t think anybody would be here this late.”
I bow again, and manage to raise my eyes to her face.
“Sorry. It’s my first free day since I got here, and I was singing—well, doing voice exercises—and I didn’t notice the time until Coordi Noona came and yelled at me and then she left for the off-office…”
I stutter to a halt as I see her glance at one of the dancers and smile. They all exchange looks. I hear a few muffled snorts. They’re laughing at me. Heat prickles in a wave up my neck as I blush. I can barely look at them. They’re too glamorous.
Dana is wearing a pleated short skirt under a jacket. Her hair is long and shiny, and she still has her stage makeup on. Her skin shimmers in the low light of the hall. The dancers are wearing blue vinyl jumpsuits, with their hair styled to perfection. I must look wretched next to them, in my faded jeans and gray hoodie with a hole in the right sleeve. Envy spikes through me. Dana has a hit song. They were on TV, performing in front of the entire world. They’re stars. I can’t imagine belonging in a group like this. Me? Be like them? You and your stupid daydreams, Jae. I bow my head, hoping they’ll just walk past and leave me alone.
I feel a gentle touch on my shoulder. Someone’s hand rests there. I look up into the face of one of the backup dancers. His glossy dark hair spikes into a fringe around his face and he shows sharp canines when he smiles at me. Tiger teeth. But his eyes are kind. When he speaks, his voice rumbles low and warm.
“Practice is good. It’s the only way to get better. You’ll see.” He motions with his head toward Dana and the others. “We all started where you are.”
He gives my shoulder a final reassuring squeeze, then drops his hand. His smile turns mischievous. He swivels slightly and calls over his shoulder to the others “Yah! We’d better watch our backs! Or…” He looks back at me. “What’s your name?”
“Kim Jaejoong.”
“Or Kim Jaejoong is going to steal the spotlight from us!”
Dana and the dancers hoot with laughter, but there’s no mockery in it now. I feel the uncomfortable prickling of embarrassment ease. The friendly dancer gives me a small wink. He’s changed the mood and he knows it.
Dana’s seen enough. “Come on, let’s get these clothes back to wardrobe and get out of here. I’m starving.”
The group shuffles past and heads down the hall. Dana smiles at me as she walks by, and the dancers follow her lead. “Aja aja, Kim Jaejoong!” yells one long-haired guy over his shoulder. Then they’re back to talking about Show King again.
Tiger Teeth leans in close to me. He raises his hand and for a second I think he’s going to touch me again, but he only clenches it into a fist and whispers, “Kim Jaejoong hwaiting!” He grins. Then he turns and sprints down the hall after the others. They vanish around the corner.
I stand still for a few minutes, waiting for the sounds of their chatter to fade in the distance before I relax. A thin film of moisture beads my upper lip, and I suddenly realize that my heart is beating madly. I put my hand on my chest and breathe deeply, trying to calm down. What just happened? Logically, I know I’m overreacting. Some performers stopped by the studio after a show to drop off their stuff and ran into a new trainee. Big deal. It probably happens all the time at SM. But I can’t shake the feeling that something important happened. This moment feels huge, portentous. Standing alone in the dark silence of the studio with a racing heartbeat and a memory of kind eyes, I think: It's started.
—*—
The next day, I walk into the practice room and find a group of trainees viewing a video of Dana’s Star King performance on the wall-mounted TV. One of the girls from my voice class is there. When I walk up, she turns to me and sighs. Her eyes are dreamy.
“Dana is the best. I’ve been her fan since Until the End of the World. But this song’s even better because of Yunho.”
“Because of what?”
“Yunho. Jung Yunho? The rapper?” She turns to the screen and waits a moment, then gestures to the video. “Him.”
She’s pointing to the kind dancer from last night. I almost don’t recognize him. There’s no trace of the gentle guy I met. I’m mesmerized by how fierce he looks on stage. He’s energetic and strong, synching with the other dancers and delivering the rap lines in perfect English. A pro, already. A pro. My stomach twists. His encouraging words from before seem laughable now. Like indulging a child’s fantasy. As if I could ever be like him!
I watch every second of the song. And then refresh the video and watch it again. And again, despite protests from the other trainees. One by one, they wander off, until I’m alone in front of the screen. I keep watching. I watch him perform under the hot lights of Star King until I’ve memorized every move. Yunho.
—)(—
“Your admirer’s back.”
I turn to see who Heechul is talking about. It’s that kid. He’s peering in through the glass of the practice room door. When our gazes meet, he lights up, smiling and waving. I want to laugh, he looks so much like an owl, with his hair sticking up in scraggly tufts from a bad cut and his huge, dark eyes. Instead, I wave back. The kid starts to bow and hits his forehead on the glass. I can hear the solid whack sound it makes from where I’m standing and wince. That had to hurt. He freezes for a moment, eyes wide, while red creeps up his neck into his face, then ducks his head and disappears from view. For a moment it’s quiet, and then everyone in the practice room bursts into laughter. Even the dour dance instructor chuckles.
I try not to laugh too, but I can’t help it. That kid is unbelievably clumsy. He’s always dropping papers, spilling drinks, running into walls, tripping over his own feet. I’m amazed he hasn’t broken a leg yet. I hope for his sake he sings only ballads, because I can’t imagine him trying to keep up with the complicated choreography of a pop dance routine. He’d probably knock the other performers offstage. I shake my head and turn to find Heechul looking at me with a speculative glint in his eyes.
“Every day he comes by. I wonder what he wants from our Yunho…” Heechul lets the sentence trail off suggestively, his lips and letting his eyes slowly scan the length of my body. I elbow him in the ribs. Hard.
"Pabo." I say. I know what Heechul thinks. Hell, I’d think the same thing if the kid were doing it to him and not me. When someone shows up to watch you dance every day and follows your every move with stars in their eyes, of course you’d think they have a crush. But I know better.
A few days after I met him in the dark hall after MNet, I went to grab some shrimp crackers from the SM canteen and there he was. Kim Jaejoong. He was sitting at one of the long cafeteria tables with a group of girls. They were all huddled around a netbook. Looking at videos, I guessed. As if he sensed someone watching, Jaejoong looked up and scanned the canteen. As always, he blushed and lowered his head when he saw me. How will someone so shy perform on stage? I waved hello and started to turn away, when he scrambled up from his chair and hurried over to me. He reached out and touched my arm, like he was afraid I’d walk away while he was speaking. He didn’t grab me. It was a feather-light touch, his fingertips skimming across my skin for a moment before he withdrew his hand. But the skinship surprised me and apparently embarrassed him, because he immediately hunched into his jacket and stared at the ground. Awkward.
“Hey,” I said.
He nodded and looked at my feet silently. Okaaaaay.
Then he spoke. “I wanted to say…to say thank you,” he stammered.
“For what?”
“For the other night. Standing up to them.” He finally raised his gaze to mine. “For me.”
“Ah, it was nothing. Those guys don’t realize how they come across sometimes. Don’t hold it against them.”
“No, no!” he rushed to say. “I wouldn’t dream… I mean, I wouldn’t presume…” I could see him struggling with the right words. Finally, he spoke low, “It’s not my place to judge my sunbaes.”
“Your place? Your place is what you make it here. Earn respect and you’ll get respect. Work hard and you’ll be rewarded.” I smiled. “But you already know that. That’s why you were practicing so late the other night, right?”
The kid nodded hesitantly.
“Well, there you go. For me, I wouldn’t wa
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