There are shitty people on both sides of the ocean, and just because Wansu doesn’t have a stainless steel refrigerator with my childhood art on it doesn’t mean she doesn’t care. I know she does. We’re in a terribly awkward stage right now where we are afraid of offending each other and so we tiptoe around each other, saying almost nothing, like all my coworkers here at IF Group. They won’t say what they really feel in front of me because they don’t want to get fired, but I know they are eaten up with justified resentment.
I don’t have a solution. All I know is that even though I have two mothers, a brother, and an assortment of new friends, I feel more alone than ever. I thumb the red cord again. I miss Yujun so much.
CHAPTER THREE
“My adorable Hara.” Sangki’ s arms are stretched wide and I nearly burst into tears as I collapse into his thin frame. “What’s this? Are you crying?” He pats my back awkwardly.
“No,” I mumble into his chest. I push away and brush a drop of wetness off his expensive cream-colored cotton T-shirt. I’m sure the moisture is rain and not my tears, regardless of the cloudless evening sky. Seoul’s a big city. It’s raining somewhere. “I never cried before I came to Seoul.” Now all it takes is one sad song before I’m reaching for Yujun’s Hermès tie, which he once let me dry my tears with.
“It’s the pollen. All those cherry blossoms the city has planted are the problem.” He takes a tissue that his manager, Lee Taehyun, is holding and hands it to me. Mr. Lee is Sangki’s ever-present companion. Sangki never goes anywhere without the man, who looks more like a bodyguard with his all-black outfit and his dark-tinted sunglasses. When I first started hanging out with Sangki, it felt odd to always have this other person with us who refused to eat or drink or often even sit down, but the more time I spend with Sangki, the more I realize how indispensable Lee is.
For one, Sangki has a handful of dedicated stalkers, or sasaengs, who follow him everywhere—from the studio to broadcast stations to home. Not only do they follow him, but they take photos. Sometimes they use buildings or trees as cover, and once we even saw them hide behind an umbrella on a clear night. Other times, they brazenly point their thousand-dollar lenses in his direction.
He persists in going out, though, refusing to allow a few bad apples to imprison him in his home. “If I didn’t have fans, I wouldn’t be where I am now,” he once explained.
Wansu actively encourages my activities with Sangki, leaving me envelopes of won, Korean money, with “food” neatly written on the outside. From the amount of cash inside, Wansu likely believes we’re eating at the expensive restaurants in Cheongdam or Apgujeong, the high-class neighborhoods in the Gangnam district. What Sangki and I are really doing is gorging ourselves at as many cheap food stalls as possible.
Another reason why the manager is always here is because Sangki has a memory that is so bad it rivals Dory’s. Half the time he doesn’t know what day it is or where he has to be in the next hour. He often doesn’t even remember to bring an ID or wallet. If he didn’t have a manager, I’m convinced we would find him halfway to Busan picking wild strawberries and living with a local villager who lured him to their home with slices of milk bread.
“It’s August. Cherry blossoms bloom in April.” I blow my nose and pocket the used tissue. Unlike Yang Ilhwa’s pork food truck, there isn’t a trash can here.
“Minor details,” he scoffs. He eyes the chalkboard menu hung on the side of the truck. “What do you want? Rice cake? Spicy rice cake soup? Corn-cheese balls?”
“Corn-cheese balls. Yang Ilhwa-nim serves corn cheese in a cup. I want to see if this is better.” I sound out the Korean words in my head so I can make my order without appearing too dumb. Tteokbokki. Gukmul tteokbokki—
“Yang Ilhwa?”
“She’s the owner of the fried-pork-ball food truck in Yongsan near IF Group. We went there a month ago after I started working for IF Group, remember?”
Sangki taps his chin. “The one that serves the really bad yachae twigim?”
“It’s not that bad. I eat there all the time. Almost every day.”
“Hara, please,” he groans in dismay. “I take you to different delicious places every week, but you return to that food truck? You will get a bad idea of Seoul and become unhappy, and when Yujun comes home, I will hear nothing but complaints from him.”
“It reminds me of ho— Iowa,” I quickly correct, but it’s too late. A flash of pity zips across his face.
“Should we order?” he suggests, without commenting on my slipup. One thing that Sangki and Yujun have in common is good listening skills. They don’t badger you for details you’re not ready to share, and I really appreciate it. Home for now is Seoul, not Iowa. If I start fantasizing about how good Iowa was, I’ll never allow myself to view Seoul as anything but temporary.
Our food comes quickly. Sangki carries the corn and two beers and I follow with the two servings of rice-cake soup to the table that Lee has saved for us. When Sangki sets down his cell phone between us to pick up his chopsticks, I notice a new charm dangling off the case. I touch the familiar blue turtle with my finger. He has a key chain with this same character. He even wore Crocs one day with the blue turtle buttons.
“You’re very fond of Squirtle.”
“Not really,” he says between bites.
“But you have so much of it. I’ve seen you wear T-shirts and hats with the mascot. You have shoes with the same design.”
“I made an offhand comment on a show once about how Squirtle was cute, and now that’s my whole life. All my fans buy me the stuff. At this point, I own more Squirtle stuff than they have at the Nintendo headquarters in Kyoto.” He wipes his mouth with a napkin and continues. “You have to be careful. Once I said I didn’t like mint chocolate, and now I’m branded as one of the celebs that is an anti. Every article on Naver about mint chocolate calls me part of the banmichodan. You know who else is on that team? My nemesis Dave Kim. I can’t be on the same side of anything as Dave Kim.”
Dave Kim is almost as well-known for being a virulent homophobe as is he for his singing.
“The only solution is to kick Dave Kim out of our anti–mint chocolate army.” I take a break from the spicy rice-cake soup to pour some water down my throat. There was no false advertising here. The soup is hot.
“Oh, you hate it, too?”
“I don’t have any strong feelings about it, but I’ll be an anti with you so that you aren’t alone in the squad with Dave Kim.”
“That’s the spirit.” Sangki pumps his fist. “What do you hate? I want to repay the favor.”