“Let’s get one thing out of the way: You don’t have any talent in dance, and you never will,” says Binna, looking into my eyes with her hands on my shoulders.

Way harsh, Binna. “Gee, thanks. The General already made that very clear.”

We’re in one of the individual practice rooms for our first one-on-one dance tutoring session. There’s barely enough room for two people to dance without smacking each other in the face.

“No, Candace, I mean this as a friend. What I’m saying is, I can’t give you talent, but I can help you build your skills. Skills will never fail you.”

I nod, but I’m doubtful. Many have tried to teach me viola skills and failed; why should this be any different?

“Second thing. If I’m really going to take you under my wing, you can’t be afraid to look stupid in front of me. I can tell that’s what you’re afraid of when we’re dancing with the group. I know we haven’t known each other for long, but if we’re going to debut together, we need to jump ahead in our friendship. You can even use banmal with me, if that helps.”

My jaw drops; it’s a huge step, I’ve learned, with Koreans, to be given permission by an older friend to speak banmal. “Unnie, I couldn’t possibly—”

“Okay, fine, but just promise me you’ll trust me like a friend,” says Binna, putting out her pinkie.

I hook mine in hers. “I promise.”

Binna cues up “Problem” on the sound system, which has all fifty S.A.Y.-approved songs preloaded. I’ve come to loathe this song; the saxophone run that loops through the whole song has started to sound like the herald of my doom.

“Just go nuts, Candace,” shouts Binna over the music. “Move your body!”

I nod my head. Shift my weight from foot to foot. This is already so cringey.

“Come on!” says Binna. She starts flailing her limbs wildly and popping her booty. It’s probably her best effort at dancing badly, but she still looks awesome.

I look at my awkward self in the mirror. I tell myself to wave my arms around like an idiot, but I can’t explain it—it’s physically impossible. I’m convinced that when I look like an idiot, I’ll look like an idiot to end all idiots. Whatever I do will be wrong. That she’ll take one look at me and say, “Never mind, I give up. There’s nothing I can do with that.”

Binna pauses the song. “Hmm. This is all mental, Candace. Tell me—what did you do at your audition? Clearly, Manager Kong saw something.”

I turn red. “Oh, that. No, that was a fluke. I made a fool of myself and fell on my butt.”

“Well, do that again, now.”

“I can’t. I think I could only do that then because I’d already given up. I just pretended I was dancing around with my best friends. Here, everything’s so—”

“What are your best friends’ names?”

“Imani and Ethan.”

A pang of homesickness throbs in my chest.

“Close your eyes and pretend I’m Imani and Ethan,” says Binna.

I close my eyes. I’m back in my room. Imani’s slurping kimchi straight out the jar. Ethan’s being extra, as always. I cue up “Problem” on YouTube. Imani’s whipping her hair. Ethan’s twerking against my bed. Then he does a duck walk. I’m jumping around, doing my faux-vogue moves, acting out the lyrics whenever I can. During the sax loops, I pretend I have an invisible sax in my hands and pretend to play it passionately.

When I open my eyes, the song is over, and Binna is rolling on the floor laughing.

I knew it. She might have told me she wanted me to look like an idiot, but when she actually saw it, it was too much.

She wipes tears from her eyes and looks up at me. “Candace, that was so good.”

I make a face and shake my head.

“No, I’m serious! You can move, and you have a lot of charisma. That saxophone—oh my goodness, you have to do that in the actual Stage. It’ll kill. And I can see you like doing voguing and waacking moves. That style isn’t common in idol choreography, but I can put some into our routine.”

We get down to business. She tells me to go ahead and mess up—“mess up big,” she tells me. Every time I almost clobber her in the face with my arm, or fall while doing a turn, she shouts, “Orlchi!” as if I’m doing her the world’s biggest favor. “We can turn too much energy into a good performance,” she explains, “but we can’t make a performance out of no energy at all.” Throughout our five-hour training sesh, she repeatedly shouts, “We’re having fun! We’re having fun!” And after a while, it becomes true. I’m having fun.

At the end, we plop to the floor, exhausted. Binna gives me a high five. “Pretty soon, you’ll nail this choreography. It will be like eating rice cakes lying down.”

“What?!” I say.

“Ha, I suppose you wouldn’t know that saying. It means that all this will become easy for you someday.”

“Oh, I see. We have a similar saying in English. We just say ‘it’s a piece of cake.’ ”

“Hmm.” She puzzles over this. “Just ‘a piece of cake’? But don’t you need to know what kind of cake?”

I bust out laughing. “Huh, that’s a really good point.”