Off-Screen (무대아래에서) | Haobin

Interlude: Ricky POV Part 1

Author Note:

Here is the most popular request... Ricky POV. But I will also do other POVs later that readers asked about :). This chapter covers events that have already happened in the story, so if you are just here for Haobin you can skip this chapter and the next. Ricky POV will be 2 parts, like the Gunwook and Matthew POVs.

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When Ricky was fourteen, he told his mom he wanted to be an American pop star.

She was in her home office, her laptop open on her desk, when Ricky decided to tell her. She was always careful about maintaining a posh and untouchable appearance in public, but at home after hours she was more approachable. As the head of a fashion brand, even her lounge clothes were sleek and beautiful. She started dying her hair blonde when they lived in Los Angeles, which somehow made her seem... even more aloof. Ricky followed in her footsteps as soon as he became a teenager, bleaching his hair blond and slicking it back.

When Ricky told her what he wanted to be, she put her Dior glasses up on her head and looked at him for a long moment. Ricky knew he was being evaluated.

"You are handsome," she remarked after a moment. "And you have a beautiful voice."

Ricky swelled with pride.

"But." She put her glasses back on. "You can't be an American pop star."

"Why not?" Ricky asked her, his elation crashing. They'd left LA a year before and Ricky had been begging his parents to take him back ever since. He spent five years in LA, from eight to thirteen, and after such a long time in the U.S. returning to China was brutal. LA culture just fit him so much better. He liked the over-the-top fashion, the beautiful people, and the warm sun. He liked basketball and pizza. He liked the relaxed way Americans spoke to their elders. He'd gotten good enough at English before they left that his newer friends didn't even know he was Chinese. Ricky preferred it that way, and he'd become skilled at hiding his accent.

"Can you think of one Chinese-American pop star?"

Ricky paused, his mind whirling. It took him longer than he'd like to come up with a name.

After an uncomfortable silence, she added, "And it must be someone I've heard of before."

Ricky bit his tongue in concentration. Most of the artists he liked were White, Black, or Latinx. Why couldn't he think of any Asian pop stars from America, let alone Chinese American?

"The Far East Movement," Ricky finally landed on.

"Never heard of them."

"They're famous," Ricky argued, his cheeks flaring with heat.

Her eyes became more sympathetic and less business-sharp.

"I've heard of them." She typed something on her laptop, then turned it to show him her screen: a picture of BTS, the pop stars frozen in a laugh. "I listened to them on the radio when we were in LA. They were singing in Korean, not English. And they were on American TV shows when we lived there. One of them speaks English well, like you."

"...So?" Ricky asked her, frustrated but trying not to show it.

"If you want to be an American pop star, you need to make it in Korea first." She put her glasses on her nose and turned back to her laptop. "Jackson Wang is the pride of Hong Kong, a global sensation, and he started in a boy group in Korea. I hear that Lay Zhang is making hit music with American pop stars, and he started in a Korean pop group. The way into America is through Korean pop music."

Ricky switched to English.

"I'll just become American, if I have to. Why should I go to Korea?"

His mom responded in perfect English, too.