Thirty-Six
Hana and I spend a happy day wandering around Seoul and eating until we feel like we’re going to explode. Bindaetteok follows mandu follows bibimbap. Hana helps me find vegetarian options since a large portion of the food seems to revolve around pork belly.
It’s not until she’s with me that I understand what had been lingering in my mind since I arrived. It’s a shift to be in a city where most people resemble me because they’re Asian. I glance over as we sit on a bench in Hongdae, watching the buskers. “This feels strange. Everyone looks like us.”
“I know.” She sips her lilac-colored boba tea. “You get used to looking different back home.”
“Asian as descriptor.”
She laughs. “Yeah, your defining quality in a crowd. Here, it’s irrelevant. I get looked at for my nose shape or my shoes, not for being Korean. I like it, at least to visit. It feels restful.”
We finish our drinks and head for our next destination.
The next day is the special VIP show, and I wake to a selfie of Jihoon holding the hand talisman and making a heart with his fingers. Despitethe dark night of the soul that brought him to Toronto, Jihoon is fully engaged in what he’s doing. A buzz of energy sparks off him.
I want that feeling, too. I got a glimpse of it when working on Alex’s music proposal. At Yesterly and Havings, I only have the satisfaction of completing the job and that’s it. I want more.
“Are you getting ready?” Hana’s voice is at the door.
I put the phone away, deciding to redirect my misgivings about work into a markedly more trivial concern, which is that there’s nothing I want to wear tonight. I have not a single garment that will kick-start the confidence I need to stand out among the multiple-step-skin-care gorgeous people who will be screaming for StarLune.
Hana comes in as I’m poking disconsolately through my boring clothes. She looks cute, I observe with resentment. Loving resentment. Envious loving resentment, even though I never saw the point in dressing with style since most of my day was spent at work and lawyers aren’t generally lauded for their fashion-forward approach.
“I hate my clothes,” I say. “I need to go shopping.”
She closes her eyes and bends her head. “I have waited years to hear you say that,” she breathes. “You’ve made me the happiest woman in the world.”
“Please stop. I want a bit of change, that’s all.”
“You never want change,” she says. “You want certainty. You eat the same thing. When a pair of shoes wears out, you buy the exact same ones as replacements and get upset if you can’t.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
She ignores that. “You haven’t even cut your hair in a decade.”
“I get trims.”
“You get trims.” Her eye twitches.
“Wanting a new pair of pants is hardly earth-shattering.”
“The pants are not the point.” Her eyes and mouth open wide as if she’s had an epiphany. “Hold on.”
“What?”
“This isn’t about the pants at all.” She points at me. “You’re in psychological terra incognita, and it’s driving you bats.”
“That’s ridiculous.” I dig through my clothes and toss a shirt—plain, black—into the suitcase.
“Nope.” Hana nods vigorously. “Here you are away from your Tuesday laundry and your meal prep and your predictable Steves and Garys or whoever you deal with at work. You, my friend, are in a situation you can’t regulate and you’re spinning.”
I go to the window and yank the curtains open to reveal the bucolic forest view even though we’re basically in the middle of Seoul. Being rich is nice. “You make it sound like I’m some sort of control freak who can’t function unless I’m standing on top with a whip.”
“I don’t kink shame.”
“Hana.”
She stands and lifts one of my—plain, black—shirts to her chest. “You’ve always had your life planned. Law school. Law firm. Live close to your parents. You never had to make a choice, Ari. Now you can and it’s scary.”
