Revolution

STEPHAN LEE
  TO ALL THE YOUNG CREATORS WHO KEEP CREATING
DESPITE THE ODDS. FORGET THE HATERS.
화이팅!
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book.”

Copyright © 2022 by Stephen Lee

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Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data available

ISBN 978-1-338-75113-0

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 22 23 24 25 26

Printed in the U.S.A.  23

First printing 2022

Book design by Stephanie Yang

K​-­PopCentral​.­com Idol Group Bio

THE GIRLS
THE GIRLS’ Official Fandom Name: CRUSH
THE GIRLS’ Official Fan Colors: Pastel Rainbow
THE GIRLS Social Media: @THEGIRLS.say.official

Name: WooWee
Age: 22
Birth Name: Kang WooHee
Position: Leader, Lead Vocal, Lead Dancer
Zodiac Sign: Leo
Height: 5′ 7 ″
Blood Type: A
Hometown: Seoul, South K­ orea
Signature Color: Heaven Blue
In­t er­e st­ing Fact: WooWee used to eat meat but does not like the
taste anymore!

Name: Aram
Age: 18
Birth Name: Kim Aram
Position: Sub-­Vocal, Sub-­D ancer, Visual
Zodiac Sign: Libra
Height: 5′ 7 ″
Blood Type: A
Hometown: Ansan, South K­ orea
Signature Color: Strawberry-­M ilk Pink
In­t er­e st­ing Fact: Her members say Aram is the messiest one!
Name: ShiHong
Age: 19
Birth Name: Deng ShiHong
Position: Main Dancer, Main Rapper, Sub-­Vocal
Zodiac Sign: Scorpio
Height: 5′ 6″
Blood Type: O
Hometown: Shanghai, China
Signature Color: Vibrant Green
In­t er­e st­ing Fact: ShiHong has an identical twin!

Name: Helena
Age: 18
Birth Name: Helena HyeRin Cho
Position: Main Dancer, Lead Rapper, Lead Vocal
Zodiac Sign: Taurus
Height: 5′ 7 ″
Blood Type: A
Hometown: Newport Beach, California, USA
Signature Color: Sunny Yellow
In­t er­e st­ing Fact: Helena grinds her teeth when she sleeps!

Name: BowHee
Age: 19
Birth Name: Shin BowHee
Position: Main Vocal, Sub-­D ancer
Zodiac Sign: Cancer
Height: 5′ 2″
Blood Type: B
Hometown: Daegu, South K­ orea
Signature Color: Sherbet Orange
In­t er­e st­ing Fact: BowHee has a black b
­ elt in karate!

Name: Candace
Age: 16
Birth Name: Candace MinKyung Park
Position: Center, Main Vocal, Sub-­R apper, Sub-­D ancer, maknae
Zodiac Sign: Virgo
Height: 5′ 1 ″
Blood Type: B
Hometown: Fort Lee, New Jersey, USA
Signature Color: Dreamy Lavender
In­t er­e st­ing Fact: Candace has a stuffed w
­ hale doll named MulKogi
she carries everywhere!
PART 1
THE FALLOUT
 CHAPTER 1
K-­POP WARRIOR

­Here’s the ­thing about blowing up your own life: The moment the bomb
has left your hand and ­you’re watching it make a slow-­motion arc through
the air, you feel euphoric—­it’s a thrill, a fountain of fireworks ­behind your
eyes, to say goodbye to the real­ity you once knew.
It’s not ­until a­ fter the explosion that you see the full extent of the blast.
You realize that every­one close to you, even p
­ eople you d
­ idn’t see, got hit
by the shrapnel, too.
It’s been four days since my public disaster—­what my friend Ethan
from home has dubbed “The Tea Spillage of the ­Century”—­but I prob­ably
­don’t look like someone who’s just obliterated her own life, shattered the
hopes and dreams of five other girls, or made herself Public E
­ nemy
Number One of a multibillion corporation.
Instead, I’m in a king-­size bed that feels like a cloud made of marsh-
mallows and cotton candy, nestled in an ocean of creamy white sheets. I’ve
just devoured a breakfast of bean sprout soup, seasoned cod, purple rice,
fried eggs, and kimchi (Koreans ­aren’t afraid of savory in the mornings).

3
I’ve pushed the silver tray to the foot of the bed and now I’m u
­ nder the
covers again, hugging MulKogi, my stuffed ­whale doll, trying to go back
to sleep and forget every­thing that happened since I came to Seoul. This
five-­star ­hotel suite is the last nice t­ hing I’ll ever have in my life. I might as
well enjoy it for as long as I can.
But I only get to wallow for two more minutes before the sheets are
ripped off me.
“Time to get up,” says Umma, tsking as she moves my dirty tray to the
nightstand, setting it down as noisily as she can.
“Umma, whyyyy,” I moan. “Just let me have my sleep—­it’s all I have left.”
“Helena’s been up and dressed since seven.”
“Well, whoop-­de-do for Helena. Maybe you should take her back to
Amer­i­ca and just pretend she was your d
­ aughter all along. Kind of like one
of ­those TV shows where they switch out an actor without explaining why.”
“Candace, I d
­ on’t understand a word y­ ou’re saying.” Umma sighs. She
throws the curtains open, f looding the ­hotel room with ultra-­bright
sunlight.
“Umma!” I groan, folding my pillow around my head like a taco shell.
“Why are you like this?!”
At this point, I’m fully aware I’m being an over-­the-­top brat. Umma
­can’t help but laugh a ­little as she hauls me out of bed by my wrists. “Just
look out the win­dow,” she says. “It’s a beautiful morning. It’ll make you
feel better.”
I stumble to the win­dow, my legs and feet still torn up ­after a summer of
brutal training. I rub my eyes and squint at the view of Yeouido. It’s nothing
but a forest of office buildings gleaming in the morning light, which is beau-
tiful in its own way. Then I look down at the street and rub my eyes again.
It takes a second to realize what I’m looking at. I see my own face look-
ing up at me from twenty stories below. A huge group of ­people, maybe

4
close to a hundred, has gathered in front of the h
­ otel. Each person is holding
up a square of poster board, which add up to form one ­giant mosaic
image—­it’s a photo, a thousand times the original size, of me giving my
now-­infamous speech.
The fans and paparazzi have been gathering outside for days, but t­ oday
is by far the biggest crowd. And ­they’re loud, too. Even through the closed
win­dows, I can hear them chanting, “Candace, hwaiting! Candace, K-­pop
warrior!” A few in the front are chanting into bullhorns, “S.A.Y., debut
Candace Park now!”
I hear a chopper overheard—it c­ ouldn’t be a news he­li­cop­ter, could it?
“­They’ve been ­there all morning?” I ask, the air gone from my lungs.
Umma nods. My mind races as I think of all the work ­these fans must have
put into printing a massive photo of me and cutting it into hundreds of pieces
and coordinating it just so. “How did they . . . ​they did this just for me?”
“­These K-­pop fans are something e­ lse,” Umma says matter-­of-­factly.
“Nobody knows how to band together like Korean p
­ eople can.” I hear a
hint of pride in her voice.
Abruptly, I recoil from the win­dow, remembering again the enormity of
what I’ve done.
I can feel my throat tightening, my vision ­going splotchy. Images from
that night f lash in my mind: ­t hose thousands of shocked f­ aces glowing
in the light of their phones; Madame Jung slapping me across the cheek,
screaming that I’d destroyed the most impor­tant K-­pop rec­ord label in the
world; CEO Sang vowing that he’d stop at nothing to ruin my life. E
­ very
time I remember that ­there’s no ­going back to life as it was before, an almost-­
claustrophobic feeling overcomes me.
Just then, Helena, looking fresh as a K-­beauty influencer in a pink
skirt-­suit, a full face of dewy makeup and head flowing with white-­blond
hair, breezes into my room, and I snap out of my anxiety spiral.

5
 “Candace, it’s about time you got up,” she says, clacking her long, pris-
tine nails against her phone screen. “Pak HanSoo at KLN News DMed
you for the fifth time for that interview. Other journalists are requesting
interviews, too. I think we should say yes—­a legit interview could reach all
­those ­people who d
­ on’t follow you on social media.”
I look at Umma. I expect her to say no, but instead she lights up. “Pak
HanSoo is a well-­respected journalist. An interview with her could help
our case . . . ​but it’s up to you, Candace.”
Before I came to ­Korea, the idea of me being on tele­v i­sion would have
horrified Umma to no end. But now that I’ve pretty much destroyed my
reputation in front of millions already, it’s like she’s given up trying to keep
me respectable.
I say to Helena, “Okay, I guess. If it’ll help.”
As of now, I’m contractually forbidden to leave the country while S.A.Y.
decides what they want to do with me. And, maybe more impor­tant, what
­they’ll decide to do with the other girls who w
­ ere chosen to debut in the
com­pany’s first-­ever girl group moments before I opened my big mouth. If
a TV interview could force a reaction out of S.A.Y., I’m all in.
Helena’s fin­gers clack, clack, clack away as she types out a response.
The now-­familiar sound smooths my nerves from a chaotic scribble to a
gentle sine curve. If you told me just a few days ago that Helena would be
the one person on the planet other than Umma who could calm my anxi-
ety, I would have said you w
­ ere crazy.
It was just a week ago, when we w
­ ere trainees, that we w
­ ere sworn ene-
mies to the point where my skin crawled whenever we w
­ ere in the same
room (which, unfortunately, was literally ­every moment of ­every day). But
when every­thing was blowing up around me, Helena stepped up like no
one ­else. She was right ­there next to me ­doing damage control as we sped
away from Seoul Olympic Stadium in a van, escaping the hordes of

6
paparazzi who ­were tailing us. She commandeered all my social accounts
from Umma’s phone, understanding right away that social media was our
best weapon against S.A.Y. She calmly told me, “You can still win, Candace.
­You’re never more power­f ul than when y­ ou’re trending for a good reason. Do
you know how rare this is?”
She was 100 ­percent right. Apparently, Helena is a social media genius,
which I never would have known when we ­were trainees and our phones
­were all locked away. Helena got #CandacePark and #KPopWarrior trend-
ing by calling for the public’s support from my Twitter and Instagram
­handles. She even got us this beautiful suite at H
­ otel LUXIANA for f­ ree,
­after she put up a post of my panic-­stricken face with a caption saying,
“Help!! S.A.Y. threw me out & I have no place to go!!!” It only took a few
minutes for us to get DMs from a dozen top h
­ otels offering the one and
only #KPopWarrior (and her mom and friend Helena) a place to stay.
Now, as we wait for S.A.Y. to make their move—­I’m assuming t­ hey’re
­going to hit me with a lawsuit my f­amily w
­ on’t be able to pay in twenty
lifetimes—­I have some hope that every­thing ­w ill turn out okay. If S.A.Y.
actually wants to ruin my life, thousands, maybe even millions, of fans ­w ill
have something to say about it, and it’s all thanks to Helena.
Suddenly, I’m starting to feel all mushy. I put my hand on Helena’s shoul-
der. I’m about to tell her how grateful I am for all her help . . . ​but she shakes
me off and crinkles her nose in disgust.
“­Shouldn’t you start getting ready?” she scoffs. “Pak HanSoo is coming
in a few hours. And maybe you should brush your teeth . . . ​twice. Your
breath smells like dried cuttlefish dipped in Parmesan.”
“Oh my God, it does not,” I say, cupping my hand over my mouth.
I look at Umma to defend me, but no such luck. “Wash your face well,
too,” Umma says. “Your eyes are r­ eally crusty.”
Ugh. An unexpected development: It turns out Umma and Helena are

7
the same person. ­They’re both no-­nonsense, focused, and good in a crisis—­
things I’m definitely not. In all the decisions ­we’ve had to make in the past
few days, it’s always been ­those two against me.
I stomp off to my marble-­tiled bathroom, muttering u
­ nder my breath,
but I actually take Umma and Helena’s advice. I double cleanse and brush
my teeth and tongue twice. I need to put on my armor for the day, since
I’m not just standing up for myself anymore. I’m also standing up for
them—­a ll t­hose ­people outside, all t­hose kids who tweeted hashtags in
support of me.
­A fter all, I am the K-­Pop Warrior—­whether I like it or not.

8
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