JieMi
'Mommy! When I grow up, I want to be an idol!'
JieMi was seven when he knew for sure what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. He'd discovered his dream when he was four, on a stage that smelt like dust and old, wet wood. It'd been nothing special, a tiny wooden plank with plastic seats. But when the lights turned on, and dust motes eddied and churned, the music had drummed in his chest and pulled him to his feet.
He'd been in a trance that compelled him to move. It pushed his fear for people out of his head, pushed the anxiety that boiled in his gut. The eyes that burned into his tiny body were no longer unwelcoming gazes, sharp pointed ends of gilded arrows, but ropes that lifted him up to the sky.
It had been like dancing in the stars with wings attached to his back. He was on the clouds that hovered over the setting sun, soaring over the stars and the planets in the galaxy, coursing through the waves in the ocean. Colour saturated his world when he danced, and the grey was replaced by a powerful splash of vibrancy that touched his soul.
Performing was turning the lock over his chest and exposing his beautiful soul to the world, singing was streams of golden silk, dancing was his transformation into a golden phoenix from the heavens. JieMi loved it. He loved to perform, he loved it so much that he wanted more.
'Mommy! I want to audition! I want to be an idol.'
'Baby…You're still young. We can do that later when you're older.'
'Mommy please! It's my dream! It's my dream!'
He started then after tearful nights and consistent begging. His parents only complied because they saw the sincerity in his words. He entered, one foot into stardom. The contract? Another foot into his grave.
He was willingly tied, roped, mummified, and then dumped into harsh dirt as the sun shone over his back. He'd given up his freedom for a collar over his neck and a whip to his naked back. It was then when he realised that it wasn't all fun and games, not with the law that threatened everything. Not with the rules chaining him to their feet.
He signed the agreement under the watchful eye of a lawyer. He gave up 10 years of his life, earned rising debt that he couldn't pay unless he debuted. And competition against thousands just like him who were all aiming for a single spot in a role that could possibly never flourish.
He realised then, surrounded by thousands of eleven-year olds that they were all just like him, that he was a slave to a factory. One that churned out products each year tailored for the greatest profit. The factory didn't care about the defects, it didn't care about the rejects even if they were humans. They were koi fishes, desperately gobbling at the tiniest of bread, unknowing that it would poison their stomachs and kill them from the inside. He was just a small fry in a sea of millions.
Talent was everywhere.
Luck was abysmal.
Hard work brought him nowhere.
'You're gaining too much weight. Just 1000 calories a day is enough for you.'
But JieMi was hungry…He was so hungry that water down his throat hurt him when it swirled in his empty, cramping stomach. There were guidelines he had to follow, numbers on a chart of paper that dictated his goals. He needed to be this tall, this skinny, and with only this much fat. His face had to be chiselled, but it couldn't be with his youth. His teacher shook his head when the tape that wrapped over his thighs were inches over the green lines. His teachers scoffed when he whined about food, the growing boy in him begging for more.
And he was allowed more, because he was still growing, but he was still always hungry. But he couldn't complain, not when Sieon was only allowed a sweet potato a day, and Casper could only have a salad. MinJae was the chubbiest of them all, and all he could have for a week were cubes of ice to chew. It was that or a saw to his jaw, plastic surgery that they would have considered if not for how expensive it was.
They couldn't afford to cheat with liposuction and plastic surgery, not with the debt that clung to their ankles. Their looks were everything, and JieMi would cry over a pimple that popped over a spot that was too close to his nose to be hidden. His supervisors would scream at him, calling him a waste of good facials and creams that cost thousands.
There was once before their weekly assessment when JieMi's weight had tethered over the red line. He'd been so afraid that his team would be kicked out from the chance to debut because his weight exceeded what was necessary on the scale. He'd spent days on nothing but water, and later spent a few hours spitting in the sink, in hopes that he'd lose more water weight.
Those were the nights when he would lie in his bed and wonder if he would even live to see the next day. He wondered what it would be like to be a normal boy, living in his home, wrapped in his mother's embrace and feasting on whatever he wanted to eat. But it was what the people in the industry did, and they wanted to be the best. So they had to be better, skinnier, mentally stronger.
'You want to go out? That's not in the contract.'
He just wanted to see his parents, just once. He wanted to hug his Mom, just once.
'That's not allowed.'
'But it's just my Mom!'
He sneaked out that night, left the dormitory, promising in his head that he would come back before their morning run at 3. It'd all been too much and his thoughts had grown dark, his chest tight with breathless fear. He'd been unable to breathe and he needed her arms around him to tell him that everything would be okay.
He made it back in time, but their manager found out somehow. And then they had to run so much more. 10KM, 20KM, 40KM, 50KM. He'd cried when their teachers yelled at him for being a burden, a waste of space, and another useless trainee that would never make it big. They called him a hole in their pockets, a burn through their investments, a liability. It was a punishment that he would never forget.
He thought he would die in the sun. His muscles were so hot they'd turned boiling numb and his heart pounded so hard that it hurt in his chest. His lungs felt if they were on fire, and each gasp of air were needles down his throat and pain over his abdomen. He'd collapsed at the end of it, face first on the ground. The air didn't seem enough then and he'd had to gulp it all down again and again for an hour just to get his heartbeat to calm down.
He thought his team would hate him for the extra 30KM. But his brothers had been angry at their supervisor. They didn't think it was right to punish him for seeing his mother, but they couldn't do much then when they were trainees. But it was fine, it was all for their dreams. Anything for their dreams, anything.
Even if he had to sell his soul.
'You ever thought of a sponsorship?' The other trainees had smiled at him. 'It's easier that way.'
'Sponsorship?'
'The ones at the top do it all the time, see this actress? And this singer?'
'No way!'
'You can do it. Your features and body are the beauty standards of society.'
JieMi refused to do one, even if he had a pretty face. But he did feel bad for his team later on when he laid in his bed, wide awake despite the fatigue that clung tight to his bones. He thought about it, and then he decided that maybe he could try to do it as long as they could debut. If he did it, they might be able to come up as the top. They might be able to go on stage next year instead of dwelling in a waiting list that had no end.
It could open doors that could never open for people like them.
'You want to sell your body for us? Fuck no! We're working things from the bottom up; We're not going down!'
'Tell your bros if anyone asks you, we'll deal with it.'
'With a fist up their fleshy ass—'
'Ezra!'
He smiled at their words. They were right, they would go up the legal way. They would rise to stardom with just their hard work. They didn't need the extra help, they didn't need to do things that way. But when he met Ha-Eun things changed.
He fell in love hard.