I’ve barely closed my eyes when I’m shaken awake at four a.m.

“Hurry up,” says Binna. “We’re supposed to be at the gym already.”

“Seriously?” I blink up at the harsh fluorescent lights. I’m not exactly tired—all the adrenaline and stress from yesterday comes flooding into today—but still, the last thing I want to do is get out of bed to exercise.

I drag myself upstairs behind Binna to the gym on the hundredth floor, which is spacious yet packed with fifty girls stretching, lunging, and sprinting on treadmills. “Fire-Eyed Girl” by SLK is thumping. These girls are going hard. Some of us, including me, look like the walking dead, but others, like Aram, look as if they got eleven hours of sleep in a bathtub full of coconut milk and rose petals.

Right in the middle of the gym is a boy in an orange T-shirt doing bench presses, grunting loudly with each rep.

“Binna,” I whisper urgently. “How did a boy trainee sneak in here?”

Binna looks around, puzzled, then laughs when she sees who I’m talking about. “That’s not a boy trainee. That’s JiHoon-oppa. He’s one of the junior managers. He assists Manager Kong and Manager Shin.” She adds, whispering so softly it sounds like ASMR: “Watch out for him, he’s the biggest jerk.”

“Why is a boy a junior manager on the girls’ side?” I ask.

Binna shrugs. “I think JiHoon-oppa has connections at this company or something.”

JiHoon doesn’t look much older than any of us, although he must be. Oppa is the male version of unnie, what girls are supposed to call their big brothers or any boy who’s older than them. But oppa can have another meaning, depending on how it’s used; the only English equivalent I can think of is zaddy, something a girl might call a guy to flirt with him. Just laying eyes on JiHoon once, I can tell he’s the type of guy who’d like having fifty pretty girls calling him oppa a little too much. I vow never to give him that satisfaction.

Binna has me do an exercise where I lean over and crawl with my hands on the floor. “To improve your strength and flexibility,” she says.

JiHoon struts right up to us. “You’re the new girl,” he says to me.

I can’t bring myself to bow to him—there’s something about his whole vibe I really don’t like. I nod my head slightly. He walks in a circle around me, breathing wheezily through his mouth. I can feel his gaze slithering all over me.

“You’re not overweight,” he declares, “but you have no shape.”

Ex-squeeze me?! Binna sighs heavily as she lowers herself into a split but doesn’t say anything.

I want to clap back at JiHoon: Well, you’re shaped like a fire hydrant—is that the ideal shape for guys? But it’s too early in my K-pop career to put an authority figure on blast, so I get up and let JiHoon make me do so many squats I feel like my butt’s about to fall off.

As sweaty as I am, I don’t even get to take a shower after the workout, because as Team Two’s maknae, I’m the last to use the bathroom, and Aram spends a full twenty minutes on her beauty routine. When Aram finally emerges from the bathroom as glamorous and fresh as a Glossier ad, she says, “It’s your job to clear the drain after all of us have showered.”

I wanna snap, Clean it yourself, fam! But instead I bow meekly.

Our bathroom is tiny, and the shower isn’t separated by a door or even a curtain. The water just splashes all over the sink and toilet and drenches everything, including the toilet paper, so the whole room is always as humid as a Florida swamp, and there’s a drain in the middle of the floor, blocked by a massive mound of black and strawberry-blond hair. Even though it probably smells like flowery shampoo, I pinch my nose and hold my breath as I pick up the foot-long clump and plop it into the toilet.

The cafeteria is back on the hundredth floor, the top floor of the entire ShinBi headquarters. It’s split down the middle by a glass wall—the knife through the block of tofu—so the boys and girls can see each other during meals. Occasionally the trainees will bow to each other through the Gender Glass, but mostly, the boys and girls ignore each other because everyone’s dead tired and the orange-shirted junior managers, including a still-sweaty JiHoon, are keeping watch.

Breakfast is sweet potatoes and boiled eggs—a far cry from my favorite breakfast, which is sausage-egg-and-cheese McGriddles. Even though the junior managers watch us like hawks, we’re pretty much free to take whatever portion we want. I take one sweet potato and two eggs. JiHoon scowls from next to the serving line, his arms crossed, as if daring us to take more.

I spot Binna and JinJoo, who wave me over. They’re sitting at a table with two girls I haven’t met yet. I eye how much the other girls are eating. JinJoo has only half a sweet potato and no egg on her plate. Binna has one full sweet potato and two eggs, just like me.

Binna and JinJoo introduce me to the other two girls. BowHee is from Team One. She’s as small as I am and has big buckteeth, giving off strong tomboy vibes despite her long ringlets of violet hair. “Hi! You must be the American! What year were you born?!”

I wince, but Abba told me that it’s normal for Korean people to ask you your age right when they meet you—it tells them how to talk to you, whether to use formal language (jondaetmal) or casual (banmal), and how to treat you in general.

“Ah, so you’re the maknae of this table!” BowHee exclaims with a laugh. For a person so tiny, BowHee’s voice is surprisingly husky and loud. For some reason, I have a mental image of her kicking boys in the shin on a school playground.

The last girl bows wordlessly to me. She has a bowl cut and thick glasses and reminds me of a cute cartoon turtle—not an idol type at all, which makes me like her right away.

“That’s RaLa!” pipes BowHee. “She’s from Team Six and never talks!”

Through the Gender Glass, I see the boys eating in their identical half of the cafeteria, except their breakfast looks way better than ours: porridge, scrambled eggs, and sausage—even if their portions are small, too. I briefly catch eyes with a super-cute boy, taller than all the boys around him. Not everyone here looks like an idol yet, but this guy definitely does. I might be wrong, but he nods at me.

I quickly look back down at my sweet potato, thinking of Iseul and HyunTaek—their promising K-pop careers in jeopardy, just for being caught holding hands.

I ask Binna why the wall is see-through in the first place—why even tempt us by letting us see but not talk to each other? Binna shrugs and says it’s probably because the company thinks girl trainees will eat less if boys are watching.

My mind reels over how messed up that is. But I have no doubt that Binna’s exactly right.

I spot Helena and Aram at a table with what must be all the most gorgeous girls from the other teams. “Are those the Plastics?” I ask.

My whole table laughs. Thank goodness they’ve all seen Mean Girls.

“We call them the Visual Table,” says JinJoo, giggling behind her hand.

I blink at her, confused. But then I remember how Imani explained that every K-pop girl group has a Visual member, the one the company decides is the most beautiful.

Looking around the cafeteria, I realize that the girls at my table look the least like typical idols; if this is K-pop high school, we’re the geeks. That’s probably why I feel so at home.

A female junior manager drops my weekly schedule off at my table. I gasp out loud.

CANDACE (TEAM TWO) TUESDAY SCHEDULE

4:00 a.m.–5:00 a.m.: WORKOUT / SHOWER

5:00 a.m.–5:30 a.m.: HEALTHY BREAKFAST

5:30 a.m.–11:30 a.m.: KOREAN LANGUAGE CLASS

11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.: HEALTHY LUNCH / FRESH AIR TIME

12:30 p.m.–7:30 p.m.: TEAM TWO GROUP PRACTICE

7:30 p.m.–8:30 p.m.: HEALTHY DINNER / FRESH AIR TIME

8:30 p.m.–12:00 a.m.: TEAM TWO GROUP PRACTICE / SELF PRACTICE

My schedule changes up a little day to day—I sometimes have something called a “Behavior and Manners Class,” and on Saturdays I have a five-hour “Dance Class with Miss Yoon”—but the six hours of Korean Language class and the nine hours of practice and the inhumane amount of sleep are every day except for Sunday.

How am I going to survive one week of this, let alone three months? Normally, I’m super grumpy if I get anything less than eight hours of sleep, and I’m really worried that Manager Kong somehow forgot what a terrible dancer I am. And when I think of the literal cost of me failing, and how much my parents sacrificed to bring me here, and how excited my friends are …

BowHee gives my shoulder a sympathetic pat. “The first few weeks are the hardest! You’ll get used to it eventually.”

“Yeah,” says JinJoo cheerily, “I had so many meltdowns my first month, but now look at me.” I can barely understand her because her mouth is full of her own pigtail. Her half sweet potato stays untouched.

For my first Korean Language class, all of us foreign, non-native Korean speakers file into a bright white classroom with no windows on the corporate floor. Boys and girls are escorted in separately by junior managers. The classroom is literally split down the middle by a Gender Line: two strips of tape—one pink and one blue—girls on one side, boys on the other.

I’m assigned a seat at the very front of the class. Right across the boy-girl divide from me is a boy who has to sit sideways because his legs are too long to fit under his desk—it’s the super-cute boy from the cafeteria. He flashes me a friendly smile; I look away quickly, remembering Manager Kong’s lecture about how getting friendly with a boy will ruin my future and bring down the entire company and lead the world to a fiery apocalypse.

Teacher Lee enters the room, greeting the students in a voice that’s way too energetic for five thirty a.m. Everyone jumps to their feet to bow. “Good morning, Teacher Lee.” Teacher Lee, who barely looks older than some of the trainees, motions for us to sit back down.

Right away, Teacher Lee gives me kindergarten-teacher vibes. She has an innocent, dimpled face and wears an outfit that looks like it was taken off a life-size doll: a plaid dress with a Peter Pan collar and Mary Jane shoes with knee-high socks. When she sees me, she says, “Oh yes, we have a new student today, don’t we? Park Candace, is it?”

I nod and stare at my desk. I haven’t felt first-day jitters like this since … ever.

“Welcome, Candace-shi. Why don’t you stand up and tell us the year you were born, where you’re from, your main K-pop skill, and … your favorite food!”

I stand up and look around the room for the first time. There are two single-file lines of desks. Four boy trainees and six girls, including me … and Helena. In the back, Helena shoots me an evil look for no reason I can think of.

My heart races; everyone’s going to laugh at my crappy Korean. For the first time ever, I curse my parents for not forcing me to go to Korean school on Saturdays.

I begin with a bow. “Hello, everyone. My name is Candace. I’m from New Jersey and I am fifteen years old. And … I’m not sure what my main K-pop skills are yet. I’ve been a trainee for less than twenty-four hours.” This gets a little laugh. “But I like to sing and play the guitar. And what was the last one? Oh, yes. My favorite food is … jokbal.”

There’s another titter around the room. Long Legs applauds my answer. “An American girl who loves pig’s feet,” he cracks. “I’m in love!”

Everyone laughs. Blushing, I sit back down, and Teacher Lee says, “Wah! Candace, your Korean isn’t as bad as I was told. You just need some more confidence.”

I look up at her and smile. I have no idea why Manager Kong warned me about how strict Teacher Lee is.

The rest of the class stands up to introduce themselves to me, too. On the girls’ side, there’s ShiHong, a tomboy with a pixie cut from Shanghai; Luciana, a stunning Brazilian Korean with the thickest, shiniest, most wig-worthy hair I’ve ever seen; a girl from the Philippines, named Zina; and a girl from Osaka. Then there’s Cho Helena from Newport Beach, of course. Helena’s main pop skills, according to her, are “dancing, singing, rapping, Visual, and charisma.” Her favorite food is mangoes.

When it’s the boys’ turn, I listen while keeping my eyes fixed on my desk until it’s Long Legs, whose name turns out to be YoungBae. He’s the same age as me. He’s from Atlanta and has only been training for two months.

The class starts up. It’s not a regular language class like you’d take in school; everything’s framed in terms of our future careers as K-pop idols. Teacher Lee asks, “Helena, if I’m a journalist who wants to know where you went to school, what do you say?” (Helena says in perfect, prim Korean that she went to elementary and junior high in a sunny private school next to the ocean.) Teacher Lee asks YoungBae, “If I were a fan who asks where your first job was, how would you answer?” (“Well, dearest fan, first I would thank you for being a fan—I love nothing more than my fans. Then I would tell you I worked at a movie theater. The best part of the job was getting to watch Fast and Furious 8 sixteen times in one summer.”)

I actually didn’t know the word for movie theater until YoungBae put it into context in his American accent, which is just as strong as mine. I write down not only the new vocab words, but also, for some reason, I write “YoungBae Fast & Furious” and underline it.

“Candace, I’m a variety show host who asks where your parents work,” says Teacher Lee. “What do you say?”

I freeze up. I rack my brain for the word for convenience store—I’ve obviously heard Umma and Abba say it millions of times, but it doesn’t come to me. “They own a place that sells items,” I say like a three-year-old. “Their place that sells items also sells bubble tea.”

“Daebak!” exclaims YoungBae. “I love bubble tea.”

The six-hour session actually goes by pretty fast. After the first two hours, Helena and a couple of the more fluent trainees leave for other practice sessions. By the final hour, YoungBae and I, the most beginner-level language students, are alone in the classroom.

For the last fifteen minutes, Teacher Lee lets me and YoungBae chitchat in Korean together, since we “probably have a lot to talk about,” because we’re both from America. We stare at her incredulously; this much interaction between a boy and a girl is definitely not allowed. But she just points to her eye, then points at the door.

Just like that, I decide Teacher Lee is my favorite grown-up at S.A.Y.

I get my first decent, close-up look at YoungBae. Even under the gross fluorescent lighting, YoungBae’s face glows. He has pouty, kinda heart-shaped lips, a fresh haircut that’s buzzed on the sides but tousled and swoopy on top. He’s wearing a white button-down that’s halfway tucked into his holey jeans.

All this is to say: YoungBae is young and totally bae.

He’s also definitely not shy. “So, Candace-shi … is that the name you want to debut with?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. I don’t think there’s another Candace in K-pop, so probably.”

“That’s cool. There are a few other K-pop YoungBaes, so the company might make me change it.”

“You can go by your American name if you have one.”

YoungBae smiles. “There’s no way I can use my American name. It’s the worst name. It’s so bad that I go by ‘YoungBae’ even in America.”

“Okay, now you have to tell me.”

“Promise you won’t laugh?”

“Promise.”

“All right.” He pauses. “It’s Albert.”

I bust out laughing.

“You promised you wouldn’t laugh!”

“I’m sorry! But Albert is so not an idol name.”

“Yep, it’s unfortunate. What is it about Korean American parents giving kids old-people names?”

For the first time, I forget that I’m in a K-pop training facility, or even that I’m speaking Korean. It turns out YoungBae and I have a lot in common: We both play guitar; we both like jokbal; we both go to big Korean churches back home. In fact, YoungBae got discovered when a S.A.Y. recruiter found a YouTube video of him rapping about Jesus in his church’s praise band.

A chime sound effect comes from the speakers in the wall, signaling the end of the session. Teacher Lee waves goodbye cheerily and says, “Good job today, Candace.”

YoungBae shoves his books into his backpack. “Well, nice to meet you, Candace.”

Out of nowhere, Teacher Lee pounds her desk, turns bright red, and shrieks, “THE TWO OF YOU, FOR THE LAST TIME, NO TALKING!”

I practically have a heart attack. I make a note to self: Watch out for Teacher Lee, because she’s clearly a two-faced psycho.

But then I realize YoungBae’s manager and Manager Kong have arrived to escort us to our next lesson. On my way out, I turn back to Teacher Lee when the managers aren’t looking. She smiles and shrugs at me in apology.

Manager Kong attends my first Team Two group practice. We sit cross-legged on the floor as Manager Kong writes each of our names on the whiteboard next to a bracket. Then she writes the word PROBLEM in huge English letters across the top. For a second, I’m convinced she’s referring to me, the big PROBLEM.

“Girls, this is the song I’ve decided you’ll be performing for your next monthly assessment,” she says. “ ‘Problem’ by Ariana Grande and Iggy Azalea.”

There’s a squeal of excitement. “Daebak!” says Binna.

Aram looks horrified. “Another song in English? We already did ‘Worth It’ last month.”

“Well, since it’s our American friend’s first assessment, I figured we should do something in her comfort zone,” says Manager Kong.

Aram flashes me a stunningly beautiful glare. I bow apologetically, but I have to admit, I’m relieved.

“Now, this song has a very challenging vocal line, and because it’s so energetic, the dance will also have to be hard-hitting,” says Manager Kong.

Oh, snap. Stupidly, I haven’t been thinking about the possibility of singing and dancing at the same time, even though that’s literally what being a K-pop idol is all about.

“That said,” says Manager Kong, “who wants to be Center?”

Four hands immediately shoot up in the air. I notice that the girls cover their armpits in a show of modesty.

“Candace, you’re not interested?”

I shake my head. I know from Imani that the Center is extremely important. They should embody the essence of the song in some indefinable way. In an MV or live performance it’s the Center’s face that’ll be the camera’s focus at the beginning and end. But I have exactly zero confidence that I can carry a performance of this or any song.

“Really. Huh,” says Manager Kong.

I keep my eyes down and shake my head again.

“Suit yourself. Binna, you were Center for ‘Worth It,’ so let’s give someone else a turn. Aram, you were just complaining about the English, so put your hand down. Helena and JinJoo, let’s have a sing-off to decide.”

I lean forward; I’m eager to hear what these girls can do. Helena and JinJoo jump to their feet to sing a line from the hardest part of the song, the pre-chorus. Helena’s voice is clear as a bell, but she cheats by switching to falsetto on the high notes. JinJoo sings the same line, but much more powerfully. She has a thick Korean accent, but her voice is money, a cool throwback to old-school diva vocals, like Christina Aguilera or Mariah Carey in her prime.

“Wahh, I think Ariana suits JinJoo really well,” says Manager Kong. “JinJoo, let’s make you Center this time.”

JinJoo does a happy dance. Helena looks pissed.

“Candace,” says Manager Kong, “let’s hear you sing the same line. Just so we know what we’re working with.”

I feel the pinpricks of cold sweat breaking through the skin of my armpits. Other than at my audition, I’ve never actually sung in front of strangers before. Besides, I’m so used to singing at barely above a whisper in my room; with an Ariana song, you have to go full volume or go home. I stand up, hiding my trembling hands behind my back. Here goes. I squeeze my eyes shut and let loose on a song I’ve heard millions of times but have never actually sung.

I open my eyes to everyone making an O shape with their lips. Binna, JinJoo, and even Aram slow clap. Helena looks more pissed than ever.

“Daebak, this is why I picked you, Candace,” says Manager Kong, giving me a thumbs-up.

A nuclear blast of heart-eye emojis detonates in my brain as I sit back down. Manager Kong assigns the rest of the roles on the whiteboard.

I can’t describe how giddy I feel seeing my name up there with assigned roles—I remind myself that “Main” is above “Lead” in K-pop language, which is super confusing, but still, being part of a real singing group is thrilling. This is how Tommy must feel being on sports teams.

My giddiness flames out fast, though, because Manager Kong says we should focus on figuring out the dance before adding vocals.

The song blasts from the speakers and Binna tries out dance moves in front of the mirror, making up choreography as she goes along. The rest of the girls hang back and try to copy what Binna’s doing, which seems impossible to me. It blows my mind how she’s making up such legit choreo on the spot. After going through the song only three times, she’s already created a full routine. “Looks good,” says Manager Kong, before leaving to check on other teams.

“All right, everyone,” says Binna. “Let’s give this a shot!”

What comes next is the most torturous seven hours of my entire life. It’s not just the physical exhaustion of twisting my body into positions it’s never attempted before, or using muscles I never knew I had. What really gets me is the pure humiliation of not being able to do the simplest thing. The very first move of the routine, before the beat drops, is all of us putting our hands on our hips and jutting them out—a simple America’s Next Top Model pose. But immediately, Binna catches me messing it up in the mirror.

“Oh, Candace, it seems you’re a little behind the beat,” says Binna.

“Am I?” I ask.

“Yeah. Just three, two, one, POP! And really POP that hip. Oh. Does your hip not want to pop? That’s okay, let’s try it again. Okay, now you’re a little ahead. Really exaggerate that movement. POP! Oh, gosh. That’s not it, either.”

No joke, we spend an entire hour starting and stopping the song while Binna tries to get me to do that one pose right. Aram is tugging her lustrous black hair in frustration. Helena is throwing hatchets at me with her eyes. JinJoo is off in her own little world, staring at her reflection, mesmerized by her own pores.

Every time Manager Kong comes back to check on us, she’s stunned by my lack of progress. “Candace still hasn’t gotten the first move right? Is that even possible?”

Somehow it is. I can’t explain why I suck. Just like my little stubby fingers weren’t built to fly over viola strings, my body wasn’t built to move to music. I just zone out, dissociating my mind from my body, letting my arms flail and hips do everything except POP.

Eventually, Helena and Aram put in their earbuds and practice on their own, JinJoo hasn’t moved in hours, and even Binna, who apparently has the patience of Mother Teresa and Michelle Obama combined, starts to get a little frustrated. “What’s going on here, Candace? You can tell me.”

“I don’t know,” I say quietly, letting my hair cover my face. “I just can’t do it.”

“Come on. Lift your head. Look at yourself in the mirror when you move. How’s your brain supposed to know what your body’s doing if you don’t look?”

I can feel myself shutting down. I can’t bear to look at my body while it looks this stupid. If my body is my instrument, it’s clearly broken. This song I used to love starts to sound like the soundtrack to my tragic demise; the line “I’ve got one less problem without ya” sounds like a demon whispering in my ear.

I look dumb, like something’s seriously wrong with me. I can’t explain why I can’t do the simplest thing. We skip forward to other moves, but nothing’s working. I can’t. Maybe I should just shut down in all my dance rehearsals so they’ll kick me out. If they kick me out before I quit, my parents don’t have to pay for my trainee costs. Coming here was a huge mistake.

At the end of the seven-hour group practice, Manager Kong checks in again. Helena says, “We didn’t get to practice as a group at all because of her. Can’t we trade her to one of the other teams?”

Manager Kong ignores her and fixes me with an intense look. “Candace. Look at me.”

I unstick my eyes from the floor.

“Is being an idol really what you want?”

I nod, even though I’m not sure it’s true anymore. I don’t think I can survive another seven-hour session after dinner before going to bed at one a.m.

“Find a way to get better,” says Manager Kong. “Otherwise … kun-il-nasseo.”

We’ll have a big problem on our hands.