Thirty
“Business class,” I say to Alex as we board, trying to hide my excitement. Stressed though I am about Jihoon, this is my first time on a plane. “Extravagant.”
“Company pays for the upgrade if a flight’s over eight hours,” he says complacently as he wipes down the armrests with enough sanitizer to make my eyes water.
I sit stiffly in the seat before slowly relaxing enough to take in my surroundings. The air smells oppressively neutral, and everyone is unpacking books and devices as they get comfortable for the trip. They all look bored.
I have a week’s work with Newlight before I meet with Hana, which I’m thrilled about. Our trips to Korea overlap, and I’ve taken some vacation days (screw you, Yesterly and Havings) so we can explore Seoul before she goes south to Busan. Hana didn’t mention meeting with Jihoon or the strangeness of me taking vacation days in a very obvious way that makes it clear she’s waiting for me to bring it up.
I poke the bag stuffed under the seat in front of me with my toe. It’s filled with work files I should go through, but I was up late last night paging through documents, and I want a break. The problem is, if I don’t work, I brood about whether I should have told Jihoon that I’ll be in Seoul.
Because I didn’t. I have no idea what I even want. To meet? To talk? And say what?
Alex was kind enough to give me the window seat, and I make the best of it, craning my head to look at the runway and the surrounding dry brown grass. I’m about to pull out the in-flight magazine to see what restaurants they recommend in Phnom Penh when the screen in front of me flickers to life with the safety video. It’s in Korean and subtitled in English.
I blink, and Alex makes a strangled noise beside me. “No way,” he manages to get out. “That’s not…”
“It is.” It’s StarLune, dressed in dapper suits and singing about where the exits are on this airplane.
He elbows me. “Breathe,” he says as Daehyun goes into a rap to inform me that in times of emergency, my seat cushion can be used as a flotation device.
Alex and I watch the rest of the video, which includes a huge dancing life vest and a trippy segment of them going down the inflatable slides to land on what looks like Jupiter. I pray the plane doesn’t crash for real because I haven’t absorbed any of this life-saving instruction. Jihoon looks…good. He looks incredible.
At my most crass level, I can’t believe I tapped that. More importantly, I’m kicking myself for being such a coward and letting him go without a fight. He was right. I made excuses because I didn’t have the courage to take a risk.
Worse, I didn’t let him go. I made it happen. It was 100 percent all my fault.
My seat rumbles under me, and I have a moment of fear. Soon I’ll be in the air, dependent on technology and the human understanding of aerodynamics to keep me alive. All Jihoon-related thoughts disappear as the plane taxis forever before it accelerates. Everyone still looks bored.
I turn to Alex, who laughs when he sees me. “Liftoff never gets old for me either,” he says. Then he passes me some gum. “For your ears.”
I know the exact moment the plane tilts up to the sky as it lifts off and briefly wonder if the tail will hit the ground. Then we’re travelling up, and I nearly dislocate my neck to watch as the city below transforms into a map. We circle around over the long lines of the highways, ovals of running tracks, and even little dots of aquamarine from people’s pools. When we go higher, I realize for the first time that fog is actually a low cloud. I’ve been walking through clouds. We keep climbing until even the clouds are under us, strangely solid in appearance.
Only then do I sit back with a smile. Alex says something, but between my ears and the roar inside the plane—I didn’t know it would be this loud—I can’t hear him. He gives me a thumbs-up, and I nod.
By the time there’s a glass of white wine and a package of rice crackers in front of me, I’ve calmed down enough to not look out the window every minute, since it’s all the same cloud cover. I click through the movies, but there’s nothing I want to watch, even if I could hear the dialogue. Alex is already asleep beside me.
With my airplane amusement options exhausted, I decide now is the perfect time to do something I’ve been avoiding. Alex had told me to check out some StarLune fan accounts for research, even though we’d be working with Newlight’s other groups. It’s a work thing, I assure myself. Not a weird stalker thing.
I go to StarLune’s social media. It’s mostly staged photos and selfies, so I scroll down to the comments. Although the vast majority are emojis and GIFs, there are a few thoughtful ones that I investigate.
Thanks to the in-flight Wi-Fi, the next hour is eye-opening as I follow messages and replies and comments. Plenty celebrate StarLune’s outlandish good looks, but countless others talk about the music and its impact. The best thread I find says, moots, what’s been the best thing about having @_starlune_ in your life?
The first post is a GIF of a sweaty Jihoon dancing, and I linger on this before moving on. The tweet has over five thousand replies, and they range from a playlist that got my lazy ass to the gym to I was in a really bad place and their lyrics saved my life.
Lifting my eyes to the screen on the chair in front of me, which shows a little airplane zooming its way westward toward the Pacific, I’m forced to the difficult conclusion that I am a child. Not even a child. I am the insecure emo teenager glaring out under overgrown bangs who hates everything on principle so I can feel superior. I can’t do that anymore because Jihoon is, factually, a cultural icon for a reason. Despite my averred dislike for celebrity culture, when I scroll through the comments, I have to admit that my legal career, which for the most part involves helping the rich get richer, is not having this level of positive impact on the world.
Although slightly proud of myself for reaching this breakthrough of self-discovery, I don’t like it. I’m a lawyer. I look at the facts. I didn’t do that with Jihoon because I let my preconceptions get in the way of learning. I’m ashamed of myself for not giving Jihoon’s work the respect it deserves. Worse, not even the consideration that it needed respect. I didn’t think about his work past the fame, and I wonder if our conversation at the airport would have been different if I had.
Alex wakes up and grabs a squished-looking bottle of water that pops back into its regular shape once he cracks it open. He glances at my phone after he takes a few sips. “Turning into a Starry?”
“No!” I flip the phone over. “Research, like you told me.”
He smiles smugly. “You tell yourself that.”
Before I can clap back, a yawn so huge it’s close to dislocating my jaw splits my face. Alex tucks my phone into my bag. “Get some rest,” he says. “We’ve got a few hours to go, and you’re going to be working hard this week. Newlight doesn’t waste time.”
His voice comes through a fog because I’m already drifting off, thinking about Jihoon and what might have been had I not been so wrongly sure of what was possible.
Our arrival at Incheon Airport is undramatic and the exact opposite of the mayhem I know greets StarLune. I’m an exhausted swirl of weary body and keyed-up brain from finally being in another country after dreaming of it for so long. Even the endless immigration line does nothing to dampen my enthusiasm. I went on a plane. I’m out of Canada. I’m in a different country with unfamiliar stores and food and rules, and I don’t understand a word being said around me. Beside me, Alex thumbs through his phone mumbling at the messages from Newlight, but I want to drink in everything about this sterile airport environment. The border guard asks me why I’m here and for how long, and I do my best to not grin at him like an absolute fool.
Luggage collected, we get out of the airport and into our car, where I lean my head against the window to take in the scenery. Although it looks like the kind of highway you’d see connecting any industrialized city, there are a slew of minor differences. Korean signs, obviously, and people drive faster than in Toronto in cars that all seem to have tinted windows. As we cross a huge bridge, I think of how big the world is and how I’ve spent my time longing for a fancier office to look down on it instead of exploring it in person. I don’t want to miss a moment and have reached the point of trying to lift my eyelids with my fingers to keep my eyes open before I give in and end up dozing. Alex pokes me awake when we arrive at the ornate door of a luxury hotel. The valets bow when we arrive and rush to help us with our bags, which are lit up by the marquee that covers the main door.
Our rooms are adjacent but don’t have an adjoining door, so Alex drops off his bag and comes to see me. Given the sumptuous atmosphere of the rest of the hotel, I was expecting a Versailles look, or at least a Las Vegas winner’s suite, but the room is a standard size and painted a calming gray. Even the photos on the walls are tasteful black-and-white landscapes.
Alex checks his phone. “It’s now eight in the evening Seoul time on Monday. It was Sunday when we left Toronto.”
“Right.” I’m barely listening. I’ve never been this far from home, and the sight outside my window draws me in. From here, Seoul looks like most other cities, and I’m itching to go out to feel like I’ve left Canada.
“Ari.” Alex sounds exasperated, but he’s smiling at me.
“Sorry.” I shut the curtains and take a deep breath. I’m here to work. “Have they changed the schedule?”
“Let’s walk and talk,” he suggests. “Did you do a travel plan?”
I scoff. Do I have a plan? Of course I have a plan. For the first time, I was able to do an itinerary for myself, which is written in purple ink in my travel notebook. “There’s a café I want to try. It’s close.” All the walls are made of plants, with furniture from repurposed tree stumps. There’s even grass on the floor, according to the pictures.
“I’m in.”
Five minutes later, we’re on the street, which has a wide sidewalk and looks like a financial district, with lots of gray buildings. I’m almost immediately sidetracked by a brightly lit convenience store, and Alex and I share a single look before we enter. There’s a big seating area with microwaves and a hot water urn. Alex looks around.
“How wedded were you to the café?” he asks. “I love convenience stores. They’re like cultural microcosms.”
I look at the shelves upon shelves of snacks I’ve never tried or known existed. “Travel is about flexibility.”
We each grab a purple plastic basket and start browsing. I select some strawberry milk and a box of Choco Pies, which look like the cookie-marshmallow-chocolate wagon wheels from home. Alex grabs Spam on a stick, eyes wide with joy. “Do you know how hard it is to get food with Spam at home?” he asks as he pops it into the microwave after we pay.
I only nod because I’m biting into a sandwich with tangy egg salad and spaghetti on white bread. It’s kind of nasty and also amazing, and I realize I haven’t thought about Jihoon all night.
Then I look over at a display of canned coffee and see him emblazoned on the side.
Right. He’s a huge celebrity with endorsements, and I’m in his territory. My mood plummets, but I hide it from Alex, who is chatting about what to expect tomorrow. Newlight has it packed tight, including social events. “There’s a company party,” Alex says. “They’ve had a good quarter and want to celebrate.”
“Do I have to go?” I don’t like corporate parties.
“Yes, because I have to, and I’m not enduring it alone.”
We look out at the street at the people passing. “Are you going to contact Mr. Choi?” he asks.
“No.”
Alex looks pained. “Up to you, but if you want something, don’t waste time not going after it.”
“Right now, all I want is for tomorrow’s meeting to go well,” I say, bringing the conversation back to work. He takes the hint, and we’re soon yawning over the table of food wrappers.
“Time for bed,” he says, rubbing his eyes. “This was a good idea. We’ll check out that café tomorrow.”
Back in the hotel, I roll up in the crisp white sheets and try not to think about why Alex’s comment about wasting time bothers me so much. Then the thought comes to me that this is nothing new. Wasting time is what I’ve been doing for years. I just didn’t realize it.
That night, I dream about canned coffee and photo shoots.