“Yes, so I didn’t get into K-pop until a couple of years ago? Yeah, about a couple of years, maybe pushing three years, and I stumbled onto Trickshot. Granted they were rookies at the time, but I could tell right away that they were special, different. And then I started watching their content online, their livestreams, their performances, and my eye kept drifting over to Jaeyong here, and I kept looking at him, and looking at him, and looking at him until I realized why he looked so familiar. It wasn’t until the livestream that you did...”

  I turn to Jaeyong, pointing at him with my chopsticks before I realize that it’s an incredibly rude thing to do, bringing them back down to my plate, wiping at my mouth with my napkin. Mr. Min is eating some more, but Mrs. Min is slowly sipping at her third shot of soju like a champ.

  “You know the one where the fandom went kind of crazy ‘cause you started swearing in French? And I realized it was Québécois French, and I finally Googled you and found a wiki that said that you lived in Montreal for most of your childhood. I swear my whole body got goosebumps, and the more I kept looking at Jaeyong’s face, the more I was sure of it, that it was my—that it was Lucas, one of my old friends.” I shake my head, sighing at all of the good food, wanting to eat more and more, but knowing I won’t be able to.

  “So how did you end up coming to Seoul?” Mrs. Min asks, and I wipe at my mouth, making sure I’ve gotten everything all off. My lip gloss was sacrificed during this meal and I’m more than okay with it.

  “I knew I wanted to travel here one day, and teaching back home... I thought I would enjoy it more, and I just didn’t. So I was trying to see if I could get more certifications elsewhere, in the States, in Europe, anything really, and then it clicked that I could come teach English here. I didn’t think I would get a position, honestly, they usually hire college students who’ve just graduated, so I didn’t get my hopes up. But then I was accepted into the program.”

  Jaeyong leans back in his chair, bringing an elbow back and hooking it over the back of it, turning his body towards me.

  “What about the fansign?” he asks, eyebrows raised, disappearing underneath the curtain of hair on his forehead.

  I nod, because yeah, important part of the story.

  “I applied for the raffle of fansign tickets, and you know how slim those chances are, especially for us international fans. I knew it was going to be close to a miracle to get in, to be able to see you in person. It wasn’t like I thought anything was going to happen. I would’ve sent you that manga somehow, through the company as a gift or something, I don’t know. Although I guess everything is screened like ten times over, right?”

  Jaeyong smiles small, careful. “But you were there, you did come to see me. Eomma, I thought I was having a stroke, seriously. I couldn’t believe it.” Jaeyong clutches at his head for the extra dramatics, shaking his head from side to side, more animated than I’ve seen him so far here in Seoul.

  “I’m sitting there, right? Just sitting there, talking to fan after fan, thanking them for coming today, nervous, thirsty, God, so thirsty, and I drop my water bottle and then when it rolls under the table—”

  “Jaeyong, eomma doesn’t have all day for this story...” There’s a smile on Mrs. Min’s face, her head cradled into the palm of her hand, staring at her son with all the love in the world, making those sharp, sharp claws of homesickness and longing rake their way down my rib cage, leaving tatters behind.

  “I’m setting the mood, the atmosphere for context. I’m bitching about the bottle running away from me, not in Korean obviously, and then I finally pop up, sit up straight, scared as hell that the stylist-noonas are going to kill me for moving too much and I’ve somehow gotten my hair all ruined, or maybe I ripped some of my clothes by accident since it’s happened before—”

  “Son—” Mr. Min interrupts.

  “I’m getting there, appa, I’m getting there. So, I’m not really paying attention, just focused on drinking water, my throat was so dry. You end up talking so, so much during a fansign, you have no idea.”

  I snort, because yeah, this is the Jaeyong I know, the Jaeyong I knew, overexplaining everything, painting you the picture, sharing it in 4K and surround sound, instead of staticky, pixelated nonsense that barely registers.

  I find myself smiling at him as he talks to his parents, as Jaeyong keeps glancing over at me to include me in the conversation.

  “And then I glance up, surprised, obviously, because she’s a foreigner.”

  “What did you think when you saw Raleigh, again, after all this time?” Mrs. Min asks, leaning forward onto the table.

  I swallow hard, watching the exchange, my heart lodged up somewhere underneath my tongue, throbbing, even as I struggle to remember to breathe.

  The first impression after all this time. What was it?

  Was it as goosebump-inducing for him as it was for me?

  Jaeyong grins, glancing down to his lap.

  I hold my breath, waiting.

  FIVE

  Jaeyong glances up, catching my eye and then shakes his head.

  “Eomma, I didn’t know it was her, I just knew she was a foreigner, and I was nervous because I couldn’t assume she would speak English, and then I had all the other languages in my head fighting for dominance. I couldn’t even form words until Raleigh started talking to me, in French, handing me over that manga I thought I had lost.”

  Mr. Min rolls his eyes. “Always with the manga with you. Go on, go on.”

  Jaeyong coughs into his fist, rubs his hands along his thighs, peering over at me more often than not.

  Oh, oh, he’s getting uncomfortable now. Why?

  “And Raleigh just handed it over, said something like ‘you forgot this’, and I glanced down at it, my brain sort of hurting in a weird way as I grabbed at the manga, seeing how beaten up it was, thinking it was odd that it wasn’t new, that it looked so old and used up.

  “My heart started to beat so fast, and so hard, and then I opened it to the first page and saw my name there, it was like I travelled back in time, and I remembered that I had lent this to Raleigh, and she was giving it back to me now, in the present, and it was crazy. I thought I was going crazy for a little while there. I mean, why would she suddenly show up in Seoul, of all places? Why would she still have the manga?” Jaeyong shakes his head, looking at me, a smile on his lips, looking soft and sweet, and my heart gives a painful twist just by looking at him.

  It’s the dimples, they have magic powers, I’m sure of it.

  “And then we started talking, well talking for as much time as we had, there was still a whole line behind me and I knew I couldn’t take up all of his time, so I just told him that I left my phone number on a certain page, and if he wanted to hang out around his extremely busy idol schedule, then I would meet him somewhere, if he wanted to.” I say, shrugging, the Mins giving me curious, assessing glances.

  “It’s not every day that you find out an old friend has become super famous.”

  Mr. Min nods, silent, and Mrs. Min takes down yet another shot of soju.

  “How is your mother doing? Her health is well?” Mr. Min asks, and that homesickness strangles me by the throat, hard enough that it’s a real effort to get the words out. I lie about everything being dandy back home, but they knew what it was really like way back when. I’m pretty sure they know that I’m lying.

  It goes like that, the back and forth of easy conversation, years’ worth of topics to discuss.

  I learn so much, and yet not enough, and by the time we’ve eaten the dessert I brought over (me abstaining as much as possible while the Mins try to stuff me with more food and I relent, obviously, I’m not stupid), it’s time for me to go back to my apartment.

  I have a regular day job and my eyelids are getting heavy from invisible weights, sand steadily creeping into each eyeball as it gets closer and closer to my bedtime.

  “I’ll get you a car,” Jaeyong says as I bite back yet another yawn, eyes tearing up with the strain of it along my jaw.

  I shake my head. “You got me one to get here; the guy wouldn’t even take my money. No, I’ll get myself a taxi, don’t worry about it.” I wave him off, knuckling under my eyes so my mascara doesn’t run.

  I stand up, start gathering dishes, diving into my energy stores to do this one last thing before I’m shooed away, and Jaeyong practically hip-checks me across the room with plates in my hands, and orders me to leave everything alone, but I’m not listening.

  “Where do you live, Raleigh?” Mrs. Min asks, as I shuffle plates and chopsticks and spoons and dishes into my arms, as many as I can carry from my years and years of being a waitress to pay for school and my eyeshadow palette addiction over the years. I give her my address, and the man nods, but it feels like there’s more to it than that.

  I researched the shit out of my neighborhood, and while any neighbourhood can have bad things happen, I’m in a pretty good area of Seoul, and overall the city is safer than back home in terms of crime. It doesn’t mean that I’m not vigilant or aware of my surroundings, but still, having Mr. Min heavily nod his head like he’s being understanding of my situation has my stomach twisting, my eyes narrowing like I’m trying to figure out a jigsaw puzzle from hell.

  “Jaeyong can see you there,” Mr. Min says with finality, and Jaeyong sighs, long and loud.

  “No, no, honestly, it’s not necessary.” I place dishes in the sink after throwing out leftover food in the compost, taking care of the waste. “I’ll be fine, I promise.”

  Jaeyong’s frowning too now, looking between me and his dad as if we colluded to put him in this situation.

  I smirk at him. “I’ll be fine. Have another chapssaltteok on me, okay? I promise I’ll be fine.”

  Jaeyong bites at his bottom lip, hands stuffed in the pockets of his sweats, shoulders slumping. “I can drive you, actually. If you want.”

  I tilt my head at him. “You sure you don’t want to rub it in my face how far up in the world you’ve come?” I grin, saying it in jest, but Jaeyong’s shoulders hike up to his ears, transforming his big body into a turtle. Huh.

  “I’m joking. You know I’m joking, right? It’s late, too, the drive back’s gotta be long, no?”

  I’m trying to let him off the hook, trying to give him an out, but it doesn’t look like he’s going to take it.

  “Nope, I’m putting my shoes on, let’s go!” he yells over his shoulder, heading towards the door where both of our shoes are and I’m doing the best imitation of a baby deer caught in a beam of headlights, paralyzed on the spot.

  I glance back between Jaeyong and his parents in his kitchen who are cleaning up after us, feeling bad that I won’t be able to finish up. The exhaustion of the day is already making my limbs and muscles heavy, dragging me down, and making me lazy.

  Mrs. Min comes to my rescue, some motherly sixth sense that places her hands on my shoulders to steer me in the direction of where my shoes are, where Jaeyong is waiting, humming a song that I don’t know under his breath.

  “Please, go. We’re in town for the week, so maybe we can do this again, unless you’re too busy?”

  I snort. Me? Me? Too busy?

  It’s not like I’m going to tell her that I don’t have any friends, haven’t gone out with the people I work with yet, but I wouldn’t pass up the chance to be here again, if Jaeyong wants me, of course.

  “I would love to see you again.”

  “We go back to Daejeon at the end of the week. I’ll have Jaeyong call you, yes?” Mrs. Min smiles at me.

  “Yes, of course.” I nod, letting myself be steered towards Jaeyong. I shove my feet into my sneakers, turning around to give Mrs. Min a hug, calling out a ‘goodnight’ through the apartment to Mr. Min. Haneul whines as he comes to stand by Mrs. Min, tail wagging a little sadly then stopping altogether when Jaeyong pulls the door open and ushers me outside without touching me.

  It’s weird now, I know.

  Honestly, I didn’t think this was going to go as well as it did, mulling it over as I follow Jaeyong down the stairs (instead of taking the elevators all the way down to the basement). I follow along behind him, marveling at the broadness of his back, shaking my head because I never thought he’d be so much bigger than me, broader and bigger—so much of a man now instead of the boy I knew.

  I wonder if Jaeyong looked at me once tonight and saw the same thing—girl to woman, the changes that have happened over the time we were apart, and the things that have stayed the same during that time.

  I stop when we get to his car, an unassuming black Hyundai Sonata (of all things). He beeps the car doors open, and I stumble after him to the passenger side, watching him round the car to the driver’s side, the car moving just a little as he takes his seat.

  “I can tell your parents that you drove me home the next time I see them, if you want, and I can take a bus. I’m aware of how much of an inconvenience this is.”

  Jaeyong glances over at me, blinking, hands on the steering wheel once he’s turned the ignition, Bigbang’s “Bang, Bang, Bang” blaring from the stereo before he hastily shuts it off.

  “It’s not an inconvenience, I swear. My parents think I’m still able to go out like this, though, so you might want to lean all the way down in your seat. Sasaengs aren’t going to take it very well if I’m caught driving a female.”

  Sasaengs, the same kind of obsessive fans that we have back home that stalk, endanger and do other weird shit to express their adulation to their favourite idols, would definitely rip me apart for being in the same car as Jaeyong.

  “Ah, shit. Really? Okay, let me just leave.”

  “It’s fine, just lean the chair all the way back and lie down. I don’t mind driving you. It helps that my car looks like every other one on the road, too.”

  I lean the seat all the way back so I’m practically horizontal while Jaeyong is driving, getting a little nauseous in this position, but I set up my GPS with my address and hand my phone over to Jaeyong so he can hook it up to his Bluetooth and get us going, leaving the parking garage behind.

  “I thought for sure I was going to come down here and find a Mercedes or something, the one with the pelican wings.” I flap my arms like a bird and do an admirable job of it despite the cramped space.

  Jaeyong snickers, eyes on the road, and not on me, which of course is exactly what you want someone driving you home to do. It also maybe feels like he’s shutting me out, too, and I let him.

  “Thank you for inviting me tonight. I don’t know if I said it enough.”

  Jaeyong turns his head at the glow of a red light, smiling down at me with those stupid dimples. “Yeah, of course. I’m still amazed at your Korean, though.”

  I squirm in my seat, wanting to risk the chance of sitting upright. It’s dark outside, too, and I don’t know about anybody else, but when I’m driving home and stopped at a traffic light, I’m more likely to fiddle with my radio or the next song on my ‘Driving’ playlist than look into other cars and see if it’s someone I recognize.

  But then again, no one ever said I was observant, and from what I read when I got into the Trixie fandom, that sasaeng obsession knows no bounds—who knows if someone is following us right now? Who freaking knows?

  “I still make a bunch of mistakes with the expressions, but I try hard not to. And I bet I’m going to get a lot better being in Seoul, hopefully. Your French has gone to shit, though, FYI.”

  “What the hell? No it hasn’t!” Jaeyong laughs, glancing down at me, eyes somewhere near my legs so he doesn’t have to twist his neck as far...this is not The Exorcist, thanks. “Shit, really?”

  “We can switch to French if you want. If you wanna practice.”

  Jaeyong nods. “I’m totally out of practice, completely. It was so hard coming back to Seoul and my Korean wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be since I had to be better in English and French to translate everything for my mom, yeah? And at school, it was primarily French. God, I had to re-learn how to read and write in Korean.”

  “I freaked out when I learned that there were two numbering systems. I still get them mixed up at times, especially when I’m reading the time out loud,” I confess.

  Jaeyong sighs, glancing over his shoulder to his blind spot, and I can feel us merging into a lane, the car speeding up—getting onto the highway probably. It’s weird seeing parts of Seoul pass me by at this angle, being able to glance up into the skyscrapers and buildings piercing the cloudy night sky, the starlight over the city extinguished by all the bright, bright lights.

  “I still can’t believe you’re here,” he says, shaking his head as he glances out the windshield.

  I lean over to swat at his arm. “Are you convinced now?”

  Jaeyong rubs at his arm even though I know I didn’t hurt him, just touched him enough to feel the muscle underneath, like a touch-starved pervert. “Yeah, yeah. I still can’t believe you’re here,” he says around a yawn, and it makes me feel bad that he’s going to get back home so late. “God, my parents nearly lost their shit when I told them I saw you at a fansign. My mom really liked you back then, thought you were a responsible girl.”

  Responsible girl—makes me sound like the most boring girl, if anything.

  I never rebelled, never did anything adventurous until I got to my twenties, not wanting to deal with the inevitable daily fights about it with my mom during high school, plus I was a wicked tomboy back then, more into sports than makeup, afraid of it and how it would look in my deep-set eyes. I snort, coughing into my hand when I end up choking on air.

  “Responsible. Please.”

  “You were the first friend I had, and you happened to be female. You were the candle I had to hold up to every girlfriend ever since.”

  “What?! But we weren’t like that, not at all.” I frown, wanting to do a crunch and sit upright, finally taking the chance and lifting my seat to a more upright position, hand on the lever in case I need to go back down quick.