A Dream and A Bonus || BANGCHAN

1. Eye Contact

It's always so amazing to wish for something all your life and one day see it actually happen.

Blinking a couple of times to not cry, I pulled my short skirt down and look at myself in the only body-length mirror. I looked so good. My shoulder-length red-dyed hair in its natural curls with butterfly pins in. A simple silver necklace stood out on my honey skin. I wore a black tube top, a flowing mini-blue skirt, and black sneakers. I turn to my right and see Madison and Victoria, my best friends and bandmates, talking and getting last-minute things done.

We're a 6-year-old group that we started at 17 and called BLOSSOM. We decided after a karaoke night when we realized we could all sing and how amazing we sound together. People at school made fun of us, but look at us now. Our last meet and greet this year. Yes, we only had 4, and yes, the other 3 were in my country, but still... We're moving up.

We started doing covers on YouTube and had only 31 subscribers (our family members and friends) for a year, but as we continued, we got more and then started doing vlogs. One day in our third year, we did a cover of Beyonce's 'Listen, and somehow it went so viral that we gained twenty thousand subscribers. We started taking requests and did raps and dance covers. We even do movie week, where we sing songs from musicals. My favorite was Mamma Mia.

A year ago, we got a random request and did KARDs 'Cake'. We had backup dances from Vic's dance school, and that gained almost 3 million views. After that, we'd do a lot more dances to K-pop songs. Some we did the same choreography, and others we made our own. But when we reached 50 thousand subscribers, we got a manager, Ross, and a vocal coach to help us. We did a few gigs at our schools or at clubs, but this year we decided to do a meet and greet, and luckily for us, it was all sold out. 

Now, we're in South Korea for our last meet. We chose this place because it was K-pop that made us viral, and we were also going to go on vacation, but Ross thought it'd be cool to do our last one here to thank them as well. It wasn't sold out, but it was more than half, so that's good. I mean, even if one fan came, we'd still perform our hearts out for them. 

So here we are in our very small tent, with a random hair and makeup team we hired yesterday and Ross, who also does our sound for us. We love him. If I close my eyes, I can hear them outside talking and laughing, and it makes my heart skip a beat. I walk over to my girls, who are in the same outfit as me. Just Vic has a mint green skirt with her blonde straight hair that reaches her shoulder, and Madi has a purple skirt, a shade darker than her hair, that's in two space buns.

"Are you ready?" Vic asked me as she reached for my hand. Hers was shaking just as badly as mine. I reached for Madi's hand, and we leaned our heads in.

"I'm nervous. I mean, this is our first trip, and now it's also a performance." Madi whispered, her voice shaking. I squeezed her hand and smiled.

"I know. And I'm just as scared. But these are our blooms. They love us. They're our support." I said, using our fandom name. "And we're good with our Korean, so everything will be fine." We've been studying the language for a year now since we decided to vacate here, and now I was double glad we did.

I'm the leader of the group. Well, we don't have titles or anything, but I always end up doing the encouraging talks or making sure everything goes according to plan. I also make arrangements for how and what we sing, where Madi chooses most of the songs and Vic does the choreography. We're all equally important.

"We got this. We practiced hard, and they will love it. Just have fun and don't overthink or stress about anything, okay? You guys are amazing. We are amazing, and we're living our dream. On three, we scream BLOSSOM. One! Two! Three! BLOSSOM!!"

We did a group hug as Ross gets the music ready.

And on we went.

As I walked up, I did a quick scan. It was mainly teens and people around our age, a few older people, and one or two grandparents. We were basically in a parking lot since venues are so expensive. We rented out the mall parking lot, also with the hope more people who walk or drive past would see, like, and follow us. As our 178 fans stood in front of us, about 100 people were slowing down or watching what was happening.

"Wow. Look at you guys!" I started in Korean. "Thank you so much for coming. We hope you enjoy what we have  planned." Struggling here and there, they all had huge smiles on their faces and love and adoration in their eyes. I looked at my members and can see the emotions being mirrored.

So we started. We sang a few songs, leaving the one with the highest notes for last. Well, all actually have high notes since we chose them to show off our voices. And who better to sing than Little Mix? We had choreo to our songs as well. We took in a few questions and answered them before doing our next set, which was solo songs, one each. Another set of questions, some in English, some in Korean, but it was cute and funny seeing us accidentally say the wrong words and having the fans correct and help us. Then, on our last set, we did a dance. And for this, we only did K-pop songs. 

Since we loved dancing to Kard, we chose 'Red Moon' and had to pick two more from who we did. We did a few Le Sserafim, a few Ateez, and a few Stray Kids. So we chose to do 'Easy' and do our own choreography for 'Fire in the Belly'. We just hoped they liked it.

The music started, and my smile grew wider as even more people stood around watching us. We got into position, and as the music started, I went into another world of just happiness. We turned here, body-rolled there, and we'd even sing to some parts. We left 'Easy' for last because it's a harder choreo, but after another set of questions, we did it as a surprise: goodbye dance. They cheered, took videos, and even sang. It was magical.

And as we were saying our final thanks and goodbye, I did one last scan, a wide smile on my flustered face when I looked at a young, happy face and had to double take. And suddenly, I felt like I was going to collapse. Because the pair of eyes I met weren't just anyone's eyes.

It was Bang Chan from Stray Kids.