Twenty-Three
Alone in my room, I take stock of my surroundings. It’s a homier version of an elegant hotel room, minus the branded pens and tip envelope and plus real art on the walls. The floors are deep oak and strewn with patterned area rugs that have a silken slide when I walk over them. After hanging up my new clothes in the closet—which comes with a mirror that illuminates different light settings depending on whether you want to know what you look like in daylight, dim light, or blacklight—I head for the shower.
It’s like washing in a showroom. Both sinks are formed from a single block of pale stone with only a slight dip under the faucet. To someone used to a more plebeian white porcelain basin, it’s unnerving in its flatness and lightning drainage speed. A full-size set of toiletries from Amorepacific lines up against the tiled wall as if Hyphen keeps this place fully stocked and waiting for VIPs.
I analyze the shower and its multitude of jets before checking the digital pad and tapping the all-over clean, regular heat option. Water flies in from every direction, even angled up from the floor high enough to hit your calves. The steam is magically fanned away before it escapes the stall. I take a shower long and hot enough to boil the day out of my very body and breathe in the smell of money via body washes.
They’ve even given me the option of rough or fluffy organic cotton towels.
After a thorough slathering with a floral-scented lotion so light it absorbs on contact, I pull on the new pajamas, braid my hair, and clamber into bed with my laptop.
I’m in research mode, and it feels good. I’m in control again.
The first thing I discover is that StarLune has put out an astounding amount of content. I click through pages of interviews, vlogs, music videos, award show and concert footage, dance practices, and relay dances. There are variety show clips, including one where they’re all performing in unison while inexplicably dressed in inflatable vegetable costumes. This I watch for sheer entertainment value, but it’s not subtitled, and I have no clue what the context, purpose, or public reaction is. This could be a normal thing for K-pop bands to do or wacky beyond belief. Jihoon is a turnip. Kit is a leek, or possibly a napa cabbage. There are thought pieces about their impact and why they’re the best or most terrible band in the world.
Then there’s the fan content—podcasts and reaction videos and fan cams. There are compilations and profiles and then more videos of band members. There are listicles and lyric translations and GIFs galore and so many inside jokes, I can’t even.
I have to. I tap my fingers on my laptop and ponder how to prioritize this information fire hose. The first thing I should do is know all their names. That’s an easy search that brings me to a useful starter video.
Two hours later, my eyes are burning and my head is spinning because I have consumed a lot of video. This isn’t only a world I’ve been unaware of but an entire universe. I put the laptop aside—the fan has been whirring at a concerning volume for the past ten minutes—and try to calm down.
Alex and the others weren’t exaggerating. Now that my eyes are open, I can’t believe StarLune existed and I had only the barest inkling. The small sphere of life I’ve been content with knowing is shameful compared to what I’ve missed. The degree of fame Jihoon has achieved is more than I can comprehend. According to a Rolling Stone article, he’s one of the most famous men in the world. Their top videos have over a billion views.
The sleeping video he mentioned is both legit and up to thirty million views. Thirty million people wanted to watch him take a freaking nap. Or ten million people watched it three times or three million ten times each. Any way I slice it, a lot of people were personally invested in watching a guy lie there with his eyes shut.
What bugs me most is that if I had paid more attention to Alex, I wouldn’t currently be trying to splash my way out of this pool of ignorance. If I had done the research right away instead of putting it off to the last minute, I’d have recognized Jihoon and his band of merry men. This is what I get for worrying about the clients I wanted instead of the ones I had.
I open the laptop and dive back in to avoid thinking about this. A video of Jihoon singing comes up. Curious, I click it.
Jihoon—Min—is astonishing. There’s no other word. The clip is from a concert, and he sings a solo as he dances alone on the stage. When his deep voice goes breathy, it traces along my skin. He moves with smooth effortlessness that must take years of work to achieve.
I can’t deal with this. It’s time to call in the big guns. I grab my phone. Hana is at my door in less than five minutes.
“I remain very mad at you,” I warn as I let her in.
“I know. I completely deserve it.”
“I’m willing to table that for now because I need help.”
“Understood.” She nods. “What help?”
I wave at the laptop. “Jihoon. Min. I have no idea who this guy is. It’s like he’s two separate people, and I don’t know which is the real one.”
“They’re the same. Min is only his stage persona.”
Her phone lights up, and she makes a face. “Hold on.”
I glance over and see who it’s from. “Oh no.” If there’s one person who will be more upset than me, it’s Mrs. Choi, who is currently blowing up her daughter’s phone.
Hana rolls her shoulders. “It’s been a real party.”
“She’s mad?”
In response, Hana shows me about three screens worth of a text block. I catch a few English words, and it’s enough to see that, as usual, Mrs. Choi is pulling no punches: lie, shame, embarrass, respect.
What’s left of my anger turns to sympathy. Hana’s never had an easy time with her mother, and for Mrs. Choi to resort to berating her over text means Hana must have reached the end of her almost limitless patience and started to ignore her calls. She pushes the phone away with a resolute gesture. “Back to Jihoon.”
“Do you want to talk about—”
“Jihoon. Yes. Only Jihoon.”
“Fine, but—”
“We are not doing this right now.”
I catch sight of her red eyes. The kind thing is to let her be. “Okay.”
She turns away, and I pretend not to see her dash the back of her hand across her eyes. “His duality confuses you.”
“They’re too different to be the same guy.” I navigate to a video that shows Jihoon wearing a mesh top under a leather harness as he kneels, doing a violent hip thrust. The curves of his thighs in skintight black vinyl pants are honest-to-God catching the stage lights as his fingers trace up his throat to his face…I cough, feeling like the room suddenly became very warm.
“This is weird to watch with you,” Hana says.
“Yeah, I get that.” I can’t look away.
“You need to get to know him when he’s Min but not performing, because that’s pretty intense.” She frowns at the wall before her face clears. “I know!”
She grabs the laptop and pulls up a video of StarLune sitting casually in jeans and hoodies, staring at a video inset on the screen.
“What’s this?”
Hana skips an ad. “Reaction videos.”
“I saw those. There’s lots of screaming.”
“No, this is a band reaction. Those were fan videos.”
“They sit around watching their own music videos and tape it?” I try for Amused Avenue and end up taking a hard left at Snide Street, where I put myself in cruise.
“It’s a thing to not watch the final cut until they’re together. Quit being ignorant.”
“Hey!”
“Am I wrong?”
I sulk a bit before answering. “No.”
She clicks play. There are no English subtitles, but the tones and expressions of a bunch of guys taking the piss are fairly universal.
“I don’t see how this helps.” My protest is half-hearted because the video they’re watching shows Jihoon with a black velvet blazer, no shirt, and a thick chain around his throat. He’s so hot, the others whistle and whack him on the back of the head as he covers his face.
“They’re telling Jihoon he looks like a snack,” Hana translates unnecessarily.
I watch Jihoon laughing with his friends, and I swear, it’s the man I know, the thoughtful guy who likes shoes in excessive quantities and talking about cereal brands and leaving notebooks all over the living room. But… “This is filmed,” I say. “He’s putting on an act. It’s his I’m a regular guy act.”
She blows out her breath in a slow, controlled whistle. “You’re impossible. Use your eyes. This is Jihoon. It’s the way you’re the same Ari goofing around at home as you are the professional Ariadne in the office. Different facets of the same person.”
Except Jihoon’s transformation is far more extreme, so extreme it’s hard to trust. I push the laptop away. “I don’t know what to do.”
This activates Hana’s latent inner counselor, and she sits cross-legged on the bed, the better to examine me with a critical eye. “You need to define what you need to decide. What exactly is it you don’t know what to do? Forgive Jihoon? Continue a relationship with him?”
“We don’t have a relationship,” I point out with some acerbity. “You came home early, and then his global fame got in the way.”
“Do you want one? You need to know what you want before you can make a decision on anything.”
“What I want?”
Hana nods emphatically, then pulls her hair off from where it’s stuck to her ChapStick-covered lips. “Based on your priorities, values, and needs.” She looks like she’s about to launch into a lecture, so I hold up both hands to pause her.
“I’ll think about it.”
“What you’ll do is get tied in knots trying to convince yourself of a decision that won’t mess with your precious career regardless of whether it’s the right choice.”
“I won’t.” I definitely will.
Hana leans over and fishes a loonie out of her pocket before handing it to me. “Heads or tails,” she says.
“Are you suggesting I let a one-dollar coin dictate my life?”
“Works for deciding between sushi and pizza for dinner, so it’ll scale.” She taps the coin. “Heads, you never talk to Jihoon or I again. Tails, you accept that we both screwed up for various reasons, mostly because we are human, and you forgive us.”
“This is useless.”
She makes a tossing motion, so I flip it up in the air before snatching the coin and slapping it down on the back of my hand. We both lean over.
“Heads,” she says quietly. “Never talk to us again.”
I drop the coin. “Obviously I’m not going to do that.”
“Then stop pretending it’s an option and move forward.”
Tough love Hana is tough. “Even if I forgive him, nothing can happen with Jihoon,” I say. “He lives in Korea. He’s leaving soon.”
“None of that is different from what it was two days ago when you were ready to go over to his place.”
“He’s a celebrity. I don’t like celebrities.”
“To repeat, you were doing fine before you knew that, and it’s not like he got a new personality in the last six hours. Also you don’t know any celebrities.”
“I work with them through Luxe.”
“You indirectly work with some through Luxe,” she corrects. “You also work directly with a bunch of douchebags at Doperly and Twittings, and you seem to manage that well enough. Why are so many of them named after verbs, like Chase or Rob?”
“Don’t forget Skip.”
“You do not work with a Skip.” She sees my face. “You do. I’m so sorry.”
“This isn’t me.” I tug at my hair. “I want to make partner. I want to be the city’s top lawyer. I want people coming to me for whatever’s the legal equivalent of a TED Talk. I don’t chase rock stars.”
“Idol,” she says. “Not rock star.”
“What?”
“Jihoon is a K-pop idol, not some graying old man in leggings screwing barely legal groupies in a tour bus. He’s disciplined, works hard, and trained daily for years to get to where he is.”
“The same feeling applies.”
She puffs out her cheeks. “Look. You’re coming at this from the wrong angle. You met him as Jihoon. That’s who he is. Min is who he is onstage. It’s his performance side.”
“He lied to me.” Not even a little lie, like sure, babe, that dress is pretty. Jihoon’s lie blew through the stratosphere.
“Last summer, when that guy at the bar asked for your number, you faked an Irish accent and said you were flying back home to Moose Jaw the next day.”
I glare at her. “I hardly think me getting a stranger off my back is on par with Jihoon’s story. He played me.”
There. It was out. He’d played me—both of them did—and I feel foolish. I mean, how oblivious could I be that I didn’t recognize he was lying to my face? I’m a lawyer—a good one—and I couldn’t even read that blatant a fib. What does that say about me, about my judgment? My perspicacity?
“Ari.” Hana’s voice softens. “It’s a big world, and you can’t be expected to know every part of it. The question is, now that you know, what are you going to do?”
“Nothing. What can I do?”
“For crying out loud.” Hana’s momentary sympathy evaporates when it butts against the immovable force that is my self-pity. “Will you listen to yourself? You like him. Had fun with him. He likes you.” She pauses. “I’ve never seen you so open with someone, Ari. It’s like you’ve known each other for ages. Yeah, he lived in our place, but you two clicked. Eventually.”
I sigh, and this time I know Hana hears it as the defeat it is. “I do like him, but I feel used. And…small. He’s surrounded by beautiful, famous women who get him. Who get that lifestyle.”
“You are beautiful, inside and out, so shut up. Plus, to Jihoon, you get him.”
“Not the pressure of that life. Also they speak Korean.”
“Korean is not some alien language where you have to amputate a limb to communicate. Get a goddamn app.”
I ignore that. “The distance is a problem. We’re both busy at work.”
“Those are legitimate concerns,” Hana allows.
“I don’t know what to do.” I always know what to do. I don’t act unless I know exactly what the outcome will be. This is so out of the bounds of what I normally experience that I don’t even have a blueprint of how to reasonably approach it.
“You don’t need to do anything but talk to Jihoon,” Hana says.
“Sounds better in theory,” I grumble.
Hana leans over and gives me a hug. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“I know.” I’m not mad anymore, only worn out.
“Jihoon is as well.”
I’m done thinking about this tonight. There’s a headache localized entirely in my left temple. “I’ll sleep on it.”
“You do that.” She leaves, and I tuck into bed.
The black-out shades on the window give the room a deep darkness that’s almost like the inside of a movie theater before your eyes adjust. Scenes play of Jihoon laughing and playing with my hair. How could he not tell me? What else is he hiding? He was so good at showing me only the parts of himself he chose, and there I was like a loser, talking to him about real things that mattered to me. Actual feelings about work and my family. I thought it was real, but the time we had was as authentic as a stage set.
A heavy disappointment seeps through me at the loss of what could have been. I wish it could have been different. I wish he lived here and that he was who he said and that we could have tried to build something together. If he’d been a normal guy, we could have gone long-distance. We could have kept connected. But there’s that crowd in front of my condo and all the footage of StarLune hurrying toward cars and safety. How can any relationship survive that, even without the distance? I don’t compete in contests I can’t win, and Jihoon doesn’t need me when he has that much public adoration at his fingertips.
I bury my face in the pillow and try to think rationally. This reveal could be for the best. It keeps my time with Jihoon short and mostly sweet, and in a few days, this’ll be nothing but a memory. I’ll be free again to concentrate on my career.
Exactly what I want.