My phone buzzes as the cab lets me off at the corner of West 32nd Street and Broadway, where light snow drifts over bright signs in both Hangeul and English. I read the text from Secretary Park: A limousine service will pick you up from your hotel at 11:00 and take you to the airport tomorrow. I’ll be waiting when you arrive in Seoul. See you soon.
Okay, thank you, I send back, and sigh at the irony that I communicate more with my mother’s secretary than I do her.
Pocketing my phone and pressing my shopping bag to my chest, I look both ways before crossing the street. There’s a party arriving at the restaurant door before me, and I wait for them to pass—three guys wearing peacoats and puffy jackets over their NYU hoodies. The last, a dark-skinned boy with glasses, catches sight of me and holds the door open. I hurry forward, smiling at him and bowing out of habit. The boy’s ears redden, and when he moves to join his friends, they poke him with their elbows, throwing glances at me over their shoulders.
As I slip off my coat, a few people seated by a bar area turn to stare. Along with my booted heels and custom handbag, I’m wearing a bodysuit with high-waisted jeans. I would have changed after the show—the last of the events I was invited to for New York Fashion Week—but that would have taken time, and I didn’t want to waste any more. Not tonight.
I scan the restaurant, searching for a familiar face. The place is packed with foreigners, Americans, speaking English so fast it makes my head spin. The hostess, who’d been seating the group of university students, returns to the podium. “Eoseo oseyo,” she says. She must have picked up on my nerves, because she’s switched from English to Korean. I’m immediately put at ease. “How many?”
“I’m meeting someone,” I tell her. “She’s around my age and height, probably wearing a baseball cap.” She’s hardly ever without it.
“Ah.” The hostess nods. “Your friend arrived a few minutes ago. Follow me. I’ll bring you to the table.”
She leads me through a side door and up a stairwell strung with Christmas lights, though it’s February. We move aside to let a group of girls and boys walk down the stairs. They’re dressed as if going to a concert, in stylish clothes and heavy makeup, which is similar to how I’m dressed having come from a runway show. A few hold signs with messages printed in English.
XOXO’s #1 Fan
Sun-oppa, marry me!
Bae Jaewoo, I love you!
“It’s always more crowded when an idol group is in the city,” the hostess explains to me. “I think some fans not-so-secretly hope to run into one of their favorite idols at one of the restaurants in Koreatown.” I glance at her face, but she doesn’t appear to be speaking in judgment, just stating a fact. “It’s good for business.”
“Have you had many idols in the restaurant?” I ask.
“The owner keeps celebrity autographs above the checkout counter. I’ve never seated an idol, but my boss said last month Jun from 95D was here with a few friends.”
Jun-oppa! She catches sight of my expression and smiles knowingly. “A fan?”
“I have a poster of him on my bedroom wall.”
“Then you should be pleased to know that he’s a good tipper.”
We proceed up the steps to the second floor. The room here is narrower but just as crowded. Designed to replicate a pojangmacha, the circular metal tables are surrounded by seats that look like upside-down trash cans. Servers wind through the tables carrying trays
of Korean street foods served on bright green plastic plates. Several large screen monitors around the room play the same music video; currently it’s BTS’s catchy “Anpanman.”
Spotting my friend at a table at the back of the restaurant, I tap the hostess on the shoulder. “I see her,” I say, and the hostess nods, leaving me to make the rest of the way alone.
My best friend, Jenny Go, leans with her back against the wall, scrolling through her phone, her Dodgers ball cap—a gift from her father—pulled low over her eyes.
“Jenny!” I yell when I’m practically standing over her.
She looks up, startled. “Sori!” Jenny leaps from her seated position and flings herself so hard into my arms that we almost topple over.
The last time we saw each other was this past summer, when she came to visit her boyfriend in Seoul. We text every day, but it’s not the same. The few months she spent as my roommate, during my final year of high school at Seoul Arts Academy, were possibly the best of my life. I’d always dreamed of hanging out with friends between classes and after school, of having a best friend I could bare my soul to. That all came true when I met her. I’m horrified to find tears pricking the corners of my eyes.
“Oh no, Sori!” Jenny cries. “Your makeup!”
She grabs a menu and fans me as I blink upward until the tears dry.
When I’ve recovered, she takes my hands in hers, squeezing.
“You’re gorgeous!” she exclaims. At the same time, I say, “You look healthy.”
She laughs.
I love how I make her laugh. Everything I do seems to amuse her. When we first met, I thought she was laughing at me, but I soon realized it’s that she truly adores me.
My whole life I’ve had people pursue me because of my money or my family connections, but Jenny wanted to be my friend not knowing anything of my background. She would say it was because of my stellar personality. Which would only be half true. Even I can admit, I’m a bit prickly.
“Sori,” she says, “did you dress up just for me?”
“Jenny,” I say dryly, “I dress up every time I go out.”
She’s dressed comfortably in a sweatshirt and sweatpants, both printed with the name of the music conservatory where she studies: the Manhattan School of Music.
I place the shopping bag I’ve been carrying all over the city onto the table, taking the seat opposite. “I got you a few gifts.”
“Chanel!”
I rest my chin on my hand as I watch her exclaim over each item. They’re mostly samples I picked up at shows, plus a few Korean brands that I know Jenny likes. She takes out a cylinder of lip gloss. Uncapping the top and using the obsidian walls of the restaurant as a reflective surface, she sweeps it across her lips.
I pick up a corn chip from a bowl on the table, examining it between my nails before popping it into my mouth. “How was the concert last
night?” She’d told me she was going to see XOXO a few months ago, when the group had announced the US stops for their world tour. “Did you sit in a VIP box?” I tease.
The many XOXO fans in the restaurant would be eager to know that my best friend is dating the group’s main vocalist, Bae Jaewoo. They’d made it official when they were classmates at SAA, with me and Jaewoo’s other bandmates—except for Sun, who had graduated by the time Jenny enrolled.
“Manager Nam got me the tickets,” Jenny says, naming XOXO’s manager, Nam Ji Seok.
“Ah.” She doesn’t have to explain further. Ji Seok would never put a girlfriend in a VIP box, where she’d be too visible. While idols do date, it’s considered bad publicity to flaunt it, let alone publicly admit to it.
“They were good seats though,” she says. “I took Uncle Jay, and he kept on striking up conversations with random fans. It was super embarrassing.”
Even as she says the words, there’s a glow to her cheeks, and I know that she not-so-secretly loved it. Her “uncle” Jay was her dad’s best friend before he passed away.
“Have you seen Jaewoo?” I ask, picking up another corn chip. “Besides at the concert.”
She shakes her head. “Our schedules haven’t worked out, but we have plans to spend the day together tomorrow. He wants to go to a baseball game.”
“That sounds nice.” And like something Jaewoo would want to do. I’ve known him since we were in middle school, and he’s always been absolutely wild for baseball. In fact, the one and only time I’d been to New York before this trip, I’d gone to see a baseball game with him and another of our friends, Nathaniel. It was the summer between middle and high school. I’d never been interested in the sport, but watching them get so excited, cheering and hugging each other after a particularly daring play, I’d felt a slice of their joy. I still remember that warm feeling.
“You want to come?” Jenny asks, drawing me back to the present.
I lift an eyebrow. Jenny would invite me to hang out with her and her boyfriend.
“I have a flight back to Seoul tomorrow,” I tell her and make a mental note to let Jaewoo know that he owes me one.
“I wish we could’ve spent more time together,” she says. Then she seems to remember something, because she leans forward excitedly. “Oh, wait! I forgot to tell you. Remember that quartet I was telling you about, the one with the residency in Tokyo? I’ve decided to go for it.”
“Really?” My heart leaps at the thought of her being so close. From Gimpo Airport, the flight to Tokyo is only two hours. Much shorter than the sixteen-hour flight from New York to Incheon.
She’d told me about the opportunity a few weeks ago, that her school was auditioning a cellist for a string quartet that would tour Asia. If she gets the spot, she’ll be in Japan for six months.
“It’s still a long shot,” she says nervously, pulling at the brim of her ball cap. “Most of the cellists auditioning are older than me, and maybe more deserving . . .”
“Stop that.” She looks up, and I hold her gaze. “You work so hard, and you’re
talented. You are as deserving of this chance as anyone. I’m proud of you.”
“Yes, okay.” She blushes, then nods. “You’re right. Thanks, Sori.”
“We need to celebrate,” I say firmly. “I’ll buy you a drink.”
I press the call button on the side of the table and a bell sound pings overhead. A server appears within seconds.
“Two ciders, please,” I order.
When our cans of ice-cold Chilsung Cider arrive, we pop open the tabs and clink the cans together. “Geonbae!” we shout together.
The cider is sweet and bubbly and leaves a tingling sensation in my mouth and throat.
“What about you?” Jenny says. “I want to know everything you’ve been up to. Has your mom finally decided to debut a girl group?”
My mom is none other than Seo Min Hee, CEO of Joah Entertainment, the record label XOXO is signed to, and one of Korea’s “Top Most Influential Women of the Decade.” The tight feeling in my chest, which started a few months ago and has only gotten worse in the past few weeks, returns at the thought of my mother.
“Sori?” Jenny frowns. “Is everything okay?”
“I don’t want to debut anymore.” It’s the first time I’ve spoken the words aloud. “I’ve been feeling this way for a while now.”
Jenny’s brow furrows, but she doesn’t interrupt me.
“I was hoping it would pass, that it was just fatigue from having been a trainee for so long . . .” I’d been working with the goal of becoming an idol since graduation, even before then. When I was in high school, I would wake up three hours before school every day just to practice my dancing. In middle school, I would spend hours studying choreography. It’s always been my goal, my dream. “But the closer it came to becoming a reality, the more I dreaded the idea of it, of having to live my life entirely at the whim of others and be judged for every action.” Memories from middle school stir in the back of my mind: whispers following me in the halls, the shuttering click of a camera as one of my classmates snapped a photo of me.
“Even then,” I say, drawing in a breath, “if I loved performing enough, if I was passionate about the music, then it would be worth it, but I’m not.”
What kind of trainee isn’t passionate about music? But that’s why I don’t think it’s right for me. I love dancing, but I don’t know if that’s enough anymore.
I study Jenny’s face, which has remained expressionless the whole time. What is she thinking? Music has always been her passion; it’s what brought her and Jaewoo together in the first place, it’s what brought us together when we both attended SAA. Does she think I’m making a mistake?
“That’s fair,” Jenny says. “You of all people would know what it’s like to grow
up in the public eye. I could see why you’d choose to stay out of it.”
Heat stirs the back of my eyes, but I refuse to cry for a second time tonight.
“There’s nothing wrong with changing your mind,” Jenny continues gently. “It’s never too late to try something new. You’ll find something else that you’re more passionate about.”
If only my mom thought the same. For many reasons, some of which I don’t even know if I can explain to Jenny, she’ll be the most disappointed that I’ve changed my mind. But that’s for me to worry about when I return to Korea.
“Thanks, Jenny. I needed to hear that.” I pick up the menu and—surreptitiously—fan my face. “After not seeing each other for over six months, are we really giving each other pep talks?”
She laughs. “What are best friends for? But seriously, Sori, let’s not wait another six months to have a heart-to-heart.”
I flip over the menu. “You’re right, and I’m starving. Should we order some food?”
She grins. “I thought you’d never ask.”
An hour flies by, then two, as she tells me about her classes and family, and I tell her about our friends in Seoul, as well as my most recent modeling job in Singapore, all while devouring our favorite foods we used to have while at school. Tteokbokki, the sweet and spicy rice cakes covered in melted mozzarella cheese. Garlic fried chicken, deep fried and coated in a sweet and sticky soy garlic sauce. And thick rolls of gimbap stuffed with seasoned vegetables and sliced into pieces.
The crowd in the restaurant gets rowdier as the night goes on. In the middle of the room, a group of businessmen are playing drinking games, dumping their shot glasses into pints of beer.
“We should go!” I shout over their loud cheers.
“Let me use the restroom first!” Jenny hops up from her seat, weaving around the tables. Once she’s disappeared into the stairwell, I call over our server to pay the bill. Jenny will be upset when she gets back, but what’s the use of having money if you can’t spoil the people you love?
For a moment, the noise level in the bar dies down as the current music video ends. Then a small cheer erupts as the logo for Joah Entertainment appears on all three monitors.
“Didn’t you try to get tickets for their concert tonight?” the girl at the next table over asks her friend.
“I did, but they’ve become so popular, it was impossible.” They’re speaking in Korean, their voices carrying over the opening bars of XOXO’s newest single.
The song opens on a rap shared by XOXO’s two rappers, Sun and Youngmin, their voices complementing each other’s. Then it leads into the pre-chorus, sung by Jaewoo alone, his vocals smooth and powerful.
The girl across
from me sighs dreamily. “Bae Jaewoo is so handsome in this comeback.”
I smile, wondering what Jenny would think of these girls swooning over her boyfriend. Though she’s probably used to it by now.
The music video changes to a different set for the chorus and my eyes stray to the monitors. The concept for their comeback is a nightmarish wonderland, where each member offers a temptation.
“It’s Lee Jihyuk for me,” the other girl says, calling Nathaniel, XOXO’s other vocalist, by his Korean name. “The way he moves his body is downright sinful.”
I’m only half listening to her words, unable to tear my eyes from the screen. Nathaniel is at the front of the formation, as he always is in any of their more difficult choreography. As I watch him, I’m struck with a series of memories, of when we were in middle school and he chased me around the schoolyard with a frog in his hand, and then later, in high school, watching him play soccer on the field, his eyes that found mine when he made a goal, and then later, his hand sliding down my waist, the other moving back my hair as his lips pressed against the curve of my neck.
Jenny slides into her seat.
“Sorry I took so long,” she says. “Jaewoo called.”
“Oh?” I pick up the menu again, which has far surpassed its original intended use, as I fan myself for the third time tonight. I glance at the clock on my phone. XOXO’s concert must have ended.
Jenny fidgets with her ball cap, and I raise an eyebrow. “What’s wrong?”
All in one breath, she says, “The members were scheduled to go back to the hotel after the concert, but they decided last minute to go to a restaurant. It’s down the street. Jaewoo invited me over.
“He invited you too,” she adds hurriedly. “I told him we were together.”
I feel my heart racing in my chest, a feeling I haven’t felt in such a long time that I can’t exactly place it. Is it nerves?
“All of the members are there,” I say, not a question, more a seeking of confirmation. Sun, the oldest, lead rapper, and leader of the group; Youngmin, the youngest and main rapper; Jaewoo, the main vocalist . . .
“All of them,” she confirms.
Or is it . . . excitement?
“You know what?” Jenny says. “This is our night. I’ll text Jaewoo that we can’t make it.”
I reach out and place my hand over hers, my heart filling with warmth. She wants to see Jaewoo, but she’s thinking of me. For her, I’d do anything, even face Nathaniel—lead vocalist, main dancer of XOXO, and my ex-boyfriend.
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Copyright © 2024 All Rights Reserved
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
