I suppress the urge to throw my textbook at his head.

Suddenly, Jason looks at me, his expression sheepish. “Rachel, I really am sor—”

But he quickly turns away as my phone pings with a Kakao message, and I pick it up, grateful for another excuse to ignore Jason. I look down and see that Appa’s sent me a selfie of him holding his law school diploma with a big cheesy smile on his face.

Your old man’s finally graduated!

My heart squeezes and I type back quickly.

I’m so proud of you!

I sigh and lean back in my seat, wishing I could be there with him. I settle for sending as many heart emojis as I can find. He deserves them all. He’s worked so hard—hustling to night classes after long days at the gym and keeping it all a secret from Umma and Leah, just so he doesn’t get their hopes up. I wonder if he’ll finally tell them now that he’s graduated, or if he’ll wait until he secures a job. Knowing Appa, it’ll probably be the latter.

Almost by reflex my hand reaches for my phone again, wanting to share the good news with Akari—but my fingers curl up into a fist before I even start typing the message. Between practice and school and Jason, we have barely spoken in weeks.

I mean, the last time I saw her, it was like I was talking to a stranger.

It was last weekend and Yujin called me into her office. Akari was already there, watering the plants on the windowsill. In that moment, I wanted nothing more than to sit on Yujin’s couch and eat Pepero and drink banana milk and talk to her for hours, just like when we were kids. I wanted to tell her about Tokyo and Jeju and Kang Jina and Jason and even those girls at Lotte World. But before I could say anything, Yujin grabbed me.

“Your song with Jason and Mina has been such a hit, DB is sending you to Toronto to promote it!” Yujin announced. “You’re going international!”

“Wow, what great news,” Akari said, with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “You must be so excited.”

“Excited. Yes.” I forced a laugh, pumping my fist in the air. “So excited! Woo!” There’s no way I could tell Yujin what I was really feeling. At best, she would tell me to suck it up and not let Jason stand in the way of my career. At worst, she would go to Mr. Noh herself and have me kicked out of the program. So I smiled until my cheeks ached and let Yujin toast me with a glass of sparkling raspberry juice.

It wasn’t until later, as Akari and I were leaving Yujin’s office, that the smile slid off my face. I turned to her, biting my lip. “Akari, listen, I need to tell you something.”

She hesitated outside the door. “I should really get back to training…,” she said, looking down the hall.

“Please?” I begged her. “I need to catch up with my best friend. There might even be some free food in it for you.”

She turned to me, a small smile playing on her lips. “I’m not the one who can never say no to free food, goof.”

I clasped my hands under my chin, giving her my best puppy-dog eyes.

“Okay, okay.” She laughed. “Ten minutes. You know, I have something I wanted to talk to you about too—”

“Rachel Kim!” A voice rang out in the hallway, and we both turned to see Grace marching toward us. “You better be prepared to lose a few more inches off that thigh gap! Fitting room! Right now! And do some jumping jacks on the way.”

I turned back to Akari. “I’m sorry. I guess I… have to go.” I said, my voice laced with guilt.

“Right,” she replied. But her voice sounded flat, hollow. “Of course. We all have important things to do.”

“I’ll text you tonight?” I said hesitantly, but she was already walking away and didn’t seem to have heard me.

We haven’t spoken since.

I scroll through my phone, looking at the days’ worth of messages I’ve sent her, all unanswered. Tears unexpectedly fill my eyes. Since the day Akari came to DB, we’ve been best friends. Our lives have always been hectic, but we would find time to catch up between training sessions, and at night we’d stay up texting each other. I know I’ve been busier than ever recently, but if anyone should understand that, it’s Akari. That’s just how it is when you’re a trainee. But ever since this whole song thing started, it’s like there’s this wall between us and I don’t know why.

My phone beeps again and I look down.

I love you too, daughter.

“Everything okay?” Jason’s looking at me, his expression softening. He seems to have noticed the shift in my mood. For a moment, I contemplate showing him Appa’s photo. “You know,” he says, before I can reach for my phone, “Macbeth isn’t really that complicated. Just the story of an innocent guy who gets fooled by a pretty girl.” I see a flash of hurt in his eyes, but it’s quickly replaced by his signature cocky smile as he jumps up and heads over to the PlayStation console on the other side of the plane.

I blink. Moment gone.

Rolling my eyes, I jam my headphones onto my ears, dialing up the volume and blasting Lemonade, letting Queen Bey reel me in before I lose my mind.

* * *

We’ve barely touched down in Toronto before we’re sucked into a nonstop whirlwind of hair, makeup, and outfit changes. “We’ve got a solid list of press and performances lined up for you three here, and then we head north to perform at a music festival,” Mr. Han says, running through our schedule. “By the end of this tour, everyone in the country will know your names.”

“I’m sure everyone already knows our names,” Jason says. A confident grin spreads across his face. “Now they just won’t be able to forget them.”

It’s day four of the tour, and the three of us are in a brightly lit studio, filming an interview for a local morning talk show. The host is a middle-aged man who reminds me of our media trainer at DB. All grease and sleaze, only with whiter teeth and an uneven spray tan. Mina and I are perched on stools in leather jackets and camo skirts while Jason sits between us in an armchair, decked out in coordinating camo pants and a black tee. It feels like there are cameras on us every hour of the day, but truthfully, I can’t keep track of them all. Maybe it’s because all my energy is going into avoiding Jason when Mr. Han has us practically glued at the hip, or maybe it’s because of the kinds of questions the interviewers insist on asking Mina and me.

“Mina and Rachel,” the talk show host simpers at us, and I have to clench my face muscles to keep from wincing. “Who takes longer to get ready for a show?”

I resist the urge to roll my eyes, and beside me I can feel Mina stiffen. It’s been like this all week. Just yesterday during a radio show, a fan had called in to talk to us.

“Rachel, your English is so good,” they had said. “You must be really proud of that!”

“Well… I’m from America,” I had answered with a polite laugh in my voice, but inside I was boiling. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard “your English is so good!” on this tour, I’d probably have enough money to buy my own private plane.

At least it’s better than the female magazine reporter who couldn’t stop mooning over Jason. We were in the DB suite at the Four Seasons hotel in downtown Toronto on our first day, and she was practically drooling, asking question after question about his meteoric rise to success and how he continues to challenge himself creatively. When Mr. Han stepped in and suggested she direct some questions to me and Mina, she could barely tear her eyes away from Jason before asking us if we ever fight over who gets more attention from him.