Han Soorin rocked on her heels, clutching her bag strap until it bit into her fingers. She only noticed when they tingled, bone-white.
The fluorescent lights buzzed faintly, making her nerves feel louder.
The hall reeked of burnt coffee. Under that, perfume. Cheap. Heavy. The kind that sticks in your throat until you want to gag.
She caught her reflection in the glass door and, for a second, looked at herself the way strangers probably did—real blonde hair, not bleach, falling in loose waves, and those blue eyes most Koreans never believed were real.
She'd heard it all before—unnatural, show-off, whispered in corners. But she'd made her peace with it.
In Seoul, where colored lenses and wigs came and went like weather, at least hers were real. At least they were hers.
And today—today—they might actually be the reason she'd landed here.
Twenty-five, back from the States a year, and still getting used to street signs in Hangul.
Back when she couldn't sleep, she'd loop their bootleg clips until the sun came up. LUMEN made Seoul feel less lonely.
Those stage clips—the way they made everything easy. She'd watched them until sleep left her like a bad habit. God, she'd fangirled hard. Now? She had to act like she didn't.
And now she was going to work with them.
She already had a desk, a real paycheck, even a terrifying NDA that she'd signed with shaky hands yesterday, but she would have signed it twice if it meant this opportunity.
The door beside her opened with a creak, and Manager Park stepped out.
He was a man in his forties, tie slightly loosened, glasses perched low on his nose. He carried the permanent expression of someone who had dealt with more tantrums and disasters than one human should reasonably endure.
"Soorin, right?" he asked, flipping through a clipboard.
"Yes, sir," she answered quickly, bowing slightly. Her palms were already sweating.
He glanced at her once over the top of his glasses. "New stylist. Makeup artist. You signed the NDA yesterday."
"Yes, sir," she repeated, nodding.
His lips pressed into a thin line, then he sighed as if her presence already exhausted him. "Look, I'll be straight with you—you're not gonna last."
Soorin blinked. "Excuse me?"
"Don't take it personal," Manager Park muttered, rubbing his temples. "You're number nine this month. The rest? Quit. Cried. I hauled one out myself. These boys..." he barked a humorless laugh. "....they'll chew you up. One week, tops. Hell! Maybe less."
Her heart skipped a beat. She had expected harsh schedules, maybe the need to cover dark circles and conceal blemishes, but this—his tone made it sound like she was being sent into battle.
Still, she straightened her shoulders. "I'll try my best, sir."
His eyes narrowed slightly, as though amused. "That's what they all said. Anyway, they'll be here any minute. Stand straight, don't say too much, do your job, and maybe—maybe—you'll survive."
She swallowed, nodding again.
A murmur of voices grew louder at the end of the hall. Laughter, sneakers hitting tile, a low hum of energy that made her pulse quicken.
Manager Park muttered, "Here we go," under his breath.
The door swung open, letting in a burst of sound and motion. A group of boys walked in together, the kind of entrance that seemed natural only to people who'd lived under spotlights their whole lives.
LUMEN.
Five of them, casual but impossibly flawless. Perfect hair, clothes that looked effortless but screamed expensive. Their presence filled the hallway in a way that felt almost unreal.
Soorin's breath caught. Her eyes darted from one face to another before landing on him.
JungHaejin.
The leader. Her bias.
His black hair gleamed under the lights, sharp jawline, eyes that carried fire even offstage. He looked nothing like the guy she had seen on posters—he was more. More commanding, more intimidating.
She had to remind herself to breathe.
'This can't be real. Don't trip. Don't—ugh. Just... don't make an idiot of yourself, Soorin.'
It hadn't been easy.
Most nights, she passed out at her desk with brushes still in her hands. The mannequins didn't care, but she kept going anyway.
She'd taken gigs so small the models themselves didn't bother remembering her name. And through it all, she kept her family's money tucked away like a dirty secret. Better broke than branded spoiled. At least then they'd keep her for the brushes, not the bank account she never spoke of.
And now she was standing in front of the boy band of her dreams, her heart racing like a fan who had snuck into the building.
She wasn't just a fan anymore. Manager Park had picked her. Out of god-knows how many. And somehow she was the idiot standing here, sweating through her blouse like it was her first day of high school all over again.
The members filed into the waiting room, and Soorin straightened her posture.
She stepped forward, hand out before she could stop herself, reflex from home, from a thousand polite handshakes in the States.
"Hello," she said carefully. "It's an honor to meet you all. I'm Han Soorin, your new makeup artist."
Her hand dangled there, wrong, wrong, wrong. Korea. She should've bowed.
Pulling her hand back now felt even dumber than leaving it hanging.
The silence that followed stretched far too long.
Haejin's eyes dropped to her outstretched hand, then back to her face. He tilted his head, slow, like she'd just stepped on stage at the wrong show.
"We bow here," Haejin said, voice flat. His eyes flicked to her hand like it was offensive. "Not… whatever that was. You didn't know that much for a rookie?"
'Shit!'
Heat hit her face so fast she saw stars. She would have dived under the tiles if she could.
She yanked her hand back and bent forward too fast, hair swinging into her eyes. "I-I apologize," she murmured.
The other members looked anywhere but her face. One of them muttered, "Hyung, chill, she doesn't seem like the others," but he was ignored.
But Haejin wasn't done. His gaze stayed locked on her. "You look like you don't know how things work. How old are you—what, five?...Six?"
Soorin forced herself to meet his eyes, even though her heart pounded. "I'm TWENTY-five," she said carefully.
He snorted, like the number meant nothing.
She had dreamed of this moment, of meeting them, of standing in their world. But instead of the warm welcome she had imagined, she was being dismantled piece by piece—first for her handshake, now for her age.
Still, standing under Haejin's glare made it feel like she had already failed some invisible test.
"You look like you wandered in," he went on. "Not staff. A fan. Can't even manage proper manners? Don't expect to see next week."