“Are you trying to convince me or yourself here?”
Jules drops her face to her hand. Her blond braids fall forward and I brush them aside before one falls into a salsa dish. “I don’t know. Bomi takes care of her sister and brother, so her relatives shouldn’t judge her. But I guess even if the majority accepted our relationship, it wouldn’t work out. We’re so different. Bomi would never come to a party like this.”
“Why not?”
“Because this isn’t her type of crowd. This is a fast crowd and one the older Koreans don’t approve of. In a lot of ways, Bomi is old-fashioned. She likes to dress conservatively, is afraid to show a little skin. She would not wear this.” Jules points to the cutouts in her sexy black one-piece.
“She doesn’t seem to mind how you dress or act or talk.”
Jules’s lower lip pushes forward slightly. “I know.”
She really adores Bomi.
“What are you two discussing so intently?” Yujun is alone finally. He leans back and stretches an arm across the top of the rattan love seat. The buttons of his loose-fitting cream embroidered shirt have given up at the midway point. Both the red silk cord of his necklace and the jade duck are visible, nestled between two hard, defined pecs. Mouthwatering, really.
“Swimsuits,” I answer when I roll my tongue back into my mouth.
“Mukbangs,” Jules says.
“Chuseok,” I add. I’m not sure if Jules wants to share what’s going on in her life, and it’s not my story to tell.
At the mention of the upcoming holiday, Yujun’s face hardens slightly. My own gut tightens as my friends’ words swirl in my head. When it is time to hold jesa during Chuseok and honor the ancestors, Yujun will be invited but Hara will not. At a wedding of his cousin or the baptism of a niece, Hara will be left out again. . . . Choi Yujun is an extrovert. He loves people. He loves his family.
Maybe I should be the one worrying about Chuseok, not Jules.
Yujun has other ideas. “Are you spending it with anyone, Jules-nim?”
He’s always so formal with Jules—well, with anyone other than Sangki and me.
“My roommates and I get together with some other expats and have Thanksgiving buffet at Route 66.”
“If you wish to do something different, you can come to our Chuseok. We won’t even make you cook.”
“I’ll think about it.” Jules stands up. “I’m getting in the water. There’s no way that I’m here at Summer Splash and I’m not getting wet. I didn’t buy a special swimsuit for nothing.” She hauls me to my feet. “Come on. I’m not going in alone.”
We dance in the water, drink too many piña coladas, laugh loudly—so loudly that the girls next to us start giving us sour side-eyes, but I don’t care. For one, they’re wearing heels in the pool so how can they be annoyed with us, and for two, when Sangki throws merch into the pool, an autographed T-shirt wrapped tight with rubber bands hits Jules in the face and knocks her off the unicorn floatie. How can I not laugh at that?
When Sangki’s set is over, we drag ourselves out of the pool and wrap up with the complimentary towels provided. Despite the mid-August heat, it’s chilly at night, especially here near Namsan. Sangki joins our table, and a roving photographer from the club snaps a few photos for publicity. Sangki and Yujun put their heads together and scrunch up their eyes in a way that I wouldn’t have been comfortable doing back home, but on them and in this setting, it looks adorable.
“We should go on a cable car ride,” Sangki suggests after the photographer leaves.
“No.” I huddle around a new drink; this time it’s pink and fruity. A chunk of ice hits the back of my wisdom tooth and I wince from the sensation.
“She’s afraid it’s going to crash,” Yujun explains. He reaches past my face to grab a glazed chicken skewer. His sleeves are rolled up and I get a nice flash of skin. Bare chest, exposed forearms, thick thighs cozied next to mine, his glossy black hair hanging over his eyes. It’s wonderful. Whoever invented pool parties is right up there with Einstein and his theories of relativity. Absolute geniuses.
“Have we ever had a cable car fall at Namsan?” wonders Sangki.
Yujun shakes his head. “Not that I can remember.”
“There was a crash at the platform because the operator didn’t put the brakes on. Rumor has it he was staring at his phone. No serious injuries.” Sangki tips his beer back.
“And what if the operator is busy looking at his phone and accidentally speeds the car up and it flies off the cable, plummeting to the ground?”
Yujun muffles a laugh while Jules rolls her eyes. “Then you hope in your next life, you’re rewarded with something special for the trauma you endured in this one.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Should we go home or would you like to see my apartment?”
Yujun has turned on the heat even though it’s August. Pool parties are fun in the moment, but when your ass is covered in damp Lycra for most of the night, the romance of the concept wears off. I pull the towel that Yujun paid for close around my frame and wonder if the shiver is from excitement or cold. “Apartment.”
“Let me text Eomma.”
It’s nearly midnight. “You think she’s awake?”
“She is, and even if she’s not, I don’t want her to worry.”
He’s so thoughtful, and even that comes off as incredibly sexy. I’m really gone. Under the towel, I clasp my hands together so I don’t attack him while he’s driving. The traffic is light and it takes us no time to get from Namsan down to Yongsan, where Yujun’s place is. The apartment complex is close enough to IF Group that Yujun could walk, but not so close that I can see the river—at least not from the ground.
He tucks me close to his side as we ride the elevator up to the ninth floor.
“Don’t expect too much. It’s small,” he says.
It could be a box and I wouldn’t care. We’re together. That’s all that matters; besides, Yujun’s concept of space is skewed. He grew up in a mansion, but as he leads me into his place, I realize it is small. The room is square, with the bedroom area partitioned off with smoky glass walls to give the illusion of more space. Once you pass the shoewell and entrance closets that are standard in every Korean apartment, there’s a door on the left leading to the bathroom. On the right are floor-to-ceiling wardrobes that give way to a tidy galley kitchen with a two-burner cooktop, a small but fancy-looking oven, and a sink. I presume there’s a refrigerator somewhere behind one of the cabinet doors. Approximately twenty feet from the end of the bed is a set of large windows overlooking a twenty-floor-tall office building.