prove it • stray kids

30 | mission five

nyla asher

[english]

With the busking mission coming up in only a few days, we've been working on perfecting our three performances. According to PDnim, this will be judged by himself, some artists he knows, and the audience's reactions.

Chan told us that one of the key things about busking is talking to the crowd in between performances. It is a known fact that I am awful at socializing, so it looks like I need to learn how to overcome my nerves.

I figured a good start to conversing with the audience would be learning what the crowd would be like. I went online to see what people that watched '321' were thinking of the three of us.

Scrolling through my phone, I notice some uplifting comments talking about how nice it is to see artists of different ethnicities in the Korean music industry. However, as I kept looking through, I noticed some viewers saying that K-Pop should stay within East-Asia, and people with darker skin shouldn't be in Korean Media.

"Hey, Nyla, could you help me practice Korean?" a familiar, deep voice calls out to me.

I look up from my screen, "Sure, Felix."

"Something feels off," he skeptically states, "Is everything alright?"

He sits beside me, and I think about how to phrase my words so that I don't sound too insecure.

"What does the general public think of you being Australian?"

He gives me a questioning look, "I think most people are okay with it. There's some criticism on my poor Korean I guess. Why?"

"No reason," I reply, reaching for my laptop, so we can practice Korean.

He takes my laptop and places it on the other side of him, out of my reach.

Turning his attention to me, he seriously tells me, "If something is wrong, you can confide in me. It isn't good to bottle up emotions."

I figure the quicker I talk to him, the sooner this conversation ends, so I start speaking, "I just saw quite a few comments on the internet saying that it is wrong for someone of my skin tone to be in K-Pop. I guess I'm worried people that watch our busking performance may think that."

"You're worried about hate comments?" he asks in confirmation.

I shrug, "It doesn't matter to me much online, but I wouldn't know how to react if someone said it to me in person."

"You've worked hard, and you deserve to debut with Suwei and Riley, regardless of your skin tone. I can't say the hate will stop, but always remember that you have the same drive other people do for joining the K-Pop industry," he tries to comfort me.

"I guess so, but sometimes I really wish I had lighter skin," I honestly tell the boy.

Felix seems somewhat shocked, "You aren't going to do anything to change your skin, right?"

I shake my head to show I won't, "I wouldn't change it now; I just wish I was born lighter."

"Nyla, your skin tone is pretty, and beyond that, it doesn't even matter how you look. Your personality and skills are great. As your fan base grows, more and more people will see that," Felix says, looking in my eyes for a sign that I believe him.

"Thanks, Felix. I hope you're right," I lightly smile at him to reassure him that his words helped.

He smiles back and returns my laptop, "I know I am."

»

[korean]

I shove my hands in the pockets of my jacket as I observe the crowd growing around our set up. Our busking performance will start in about ten minutes, so we've been doing our best to greet the crowd. Well, I've been doing my best. Suwei and Riley are great at this. I thought Riley would be bad like me, but I guess she is so excited that the talking comes naturally.

Sighing, I notice an area of the crowd that Suwei and Riley haven't spoken to yet. I suppose now is my chance to show some confidence and talk to people. I introduce myself to a group of teenage girls and thank them for coming to watch.

One girl laughs, "We know who you are! Your show is so fun to watch."

"Yeah, and it is super cool to see people from different ethnicities in a group," another girl agrees.

My eyes widen a bit in surprise, and the girls chuckle. I quickly bow and thank them, flustered at the unexpected compliment.

"You're welcome," the first girl says, "Your performance is going to be great. Good luck!"

I thank them once again before running to the center of the floor in which we will be performing.

"Hello, everyone!" Suwei greets the crowd through her microphone, earning some cheers, "I'm Suwei Lin."

"I'm Riley Smith."

"And I'm Nyla Asher."

Suwei continues, "We don't have a group name at the moment, but we are from JYP Entertainment. Some of you may know our show '321.'"

A few people in the audience cheer, signifying that they know the show. Suwei is really good at talking to the crowd: I'm impressed.

She briefly explains the show and the meaning of the title; then she goes into today's performance, "Nyla, who makes our songs, will explain the first performance."

Suwei really caught me off guard with that.

I hesitantly begin speaking, "This is an upbeat song about how quickly our lives changed from practicing music for fun in California to actually performing for people here in South Korea. We hope you enjoy."

I glance at the girls I met earlier, and they give me the thumbs up sign for encouragement. I smile, and our performance begins.

We perform our other two songs with small explanations and talk to the crowd a bit. As the crowd disperses at the end of our performances, I sigh in content. That went quite well.

I stumbled a bit on the dance in our second song, but hopefully it wasn't bad enough for PDnim to be upset. Riley also messed up on her pitch in the third song, but I don't think it was too noticeable to the audience.

We were told to go into a tent where some of the people PDnim had asked to watch our performance were waiting. Jaebum and Jinyoung from GOT7, Jae and Dowoon from DAY6, and Jihyo and Dahyun of Twice were all there.

All three of us were quite shocked to see all of them were monitoring our performance.

"You girls were great!" Jihyo compliments.

Dahyun agrees, "I'm so happy to see we will have a younger girl group soon! And that there's a great rapper among them," she nudges Riley's shoulder with a smile.

The others greeted us and gave us some compliments. Then, Jaebum and Jinyoung came to us.

"Good job out there," Jaebum pats my shoulder.

Jinyoung steps up, "It was good, but there still were some mistakes. The show is almost over, so give your practices more attention to ensure that your final performances are some of the best."

We nod at him, relieved that our performance was generally well received, at least from the people we talked to.