Authors: Katie M. Stout
“Sophie can read it for you. I’m sure she has all those songs. They’re pop, but I have some Korean rock you can listen to later.”
While the prospect of listening to a complete playlist of KPOP songs sounds worse than hours of Korean language homework, I keep my trap shut. No sense in creating any more tension between us. I’m officially on my best behavior.
We sit in silence a minute before he says, “Did you learn about music from being at your father’s company?”
I shift in my seat, buying time and searching for the most diplomatic way of talking about Dad. “I’ve actually never had any formal musical training—I mean, besides basic piano—although my dad tried to get me to take classes all the time. I picked up a lot just being around the business, but I was never taught composition like my bro—” I stop myself before I slip up, a jolt of panic skipping through me.
If Jason notices me falter, he doesn’t address it. “It surprises me that you can know so much without being taught.”
“Was that … was that a
compliment
?”
He scoffs, but the edges of his lips curl up like they want to smile and he won’t let them. “I just meant that you have a natural talent for music composition. But that’s more of a compliment to your parents and their genes than to you.”
“Well, what about you?” I lean back in my chair, crossing my arms. “How did the great Jason Bae become KPOP’s newest rising star?”
He’s quiet so long, I fear he won’t answer. I take the time to notice the stiffness in his shoulders and how his hands clench and unclench.
“I started playing guitar when I was ten,” he says, voice tight. “My father bought me my first as a Christmas present. Tae Hwa and I would play together when he visited, and when Sophie and I moved back to Korea, Tae Hwa and I decided to pursue a career in music.”
“Just like that? You guys must have been pretty lucky to get picked up so fast.”
“Tae Hwa’s father knew someone who worked for the record company.”
“Ahh, so you cashed in on connections.”
Anger flashes in his eyes so fierce, I’m muted. Tension nestles between us, making the library seem even quieter than it did before.
“It was much more than that,” he murmurs. “We worked hard for our debut.”
I clear my throat. “I’m sure.”
He stares a hole into the floor, muttering just loud enough for me to catch, “We worked a lot harder than Yoon Jae.”
The easiness of our interaction having been shattered, I search for a way to regain any sort of politeness in the conversation. I flip to the next page in our Korean textbook, though I can’t focus on the grammar lesson. This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed strain in the relationship between Jason and his bandmate, but I can’t imagine why, besides Jason resenting Yoon Jae’s easier road to fame.
We finish our study session around eight and head out of the library together. He unlocks a bike from the rack as I make to head back to the dorms.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say.
“Wait, are you walking back?”
“Well, I’m not sleeping at the library tonight.”
He doesn’t take the bait. “I’ll give you a ride.”
I imagine what it would feel like to sit behind him on the bike, my arms wrapped around his waist. That now-familiar heat radiates through my body again. How is it that Jason has turned me into the blushing type of girl?
“Don’t worry about me.” I wave my hand in dismissal. “I’ll be fine.”
He straddles the bike’s frame. “I don’t mind. Get on.”
I hesitate a moment, but when I see that he isn’t budging, I step up to the bike. “Uhh … how am I supposed to ride this thing?”
He pats the metal rack on the back of the bike, made for hauling inanimate objects.
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I’m not going to kill you. Just trust me.”
Trust
. Such a small word. Which implies so much. I lost my trust in boys when Isaac cheated on me, then lied to my face about it.
Jason’s gaze softens just a hair. “Come on, you’ll be fine.”
Biting my lip, I straddle the bike, stomping down any fear that threatens to grow in my chest.
Jason turns around to look at me. “Sit sideways, like riding a horse sidesaddle. More comfortable.”
I follow his instructions, not sure how I’m going to balance myself. When I rode with Sophie, I was more afraid of falling and cracking my head open on the pavement, but with Jason, my fear lies more in my body’s response to being so close to him.
Blowing out a slow breath to ease my nerves, I settle onto the metal rack behind his seat and pull up my feet. I knot trembling fingers in the fabric of his T-shirt, which hangs away from his body. But when he pushes the bike into motion, on instinct, I grab onto something more substantial. My eyes snap closed, and it takes me a good thirty seconds to realize my fingers are digging into his sides.
Though the wind that blows against us chills my skin, I’m so hot I feel I might spontaneously combust. Every time I attempt to let go of him, the bike teeters to the side.
“Hold on tighter,” he says over his shoulder.
I spend the entire ride in my own personal Hades, torn between fear of falling and fear of Jason.
When he pulls up to my dorm, I jump off the bike so fast I stumble. He grabs my arm to steady me, and it takes an excruciating amount of effort not to rip myself away from his grasp. Memories of us dancing, of him leaning against me in the limo, flash through my brain, and a fresh stab of longing cuts through my chest. Seeing him sitting there, it seems like Saturday night wasn’t even real.
“Grace?”
My heart sprints. “Yeah?”
He picks at one of the bike’s handlebars in one of those rare instances of discomfort. “Do you want to go with us to the music video shoot next Friday?”
“What?”
“I’m sure Sophie would have asked you, anyway,” he adds. “But I just thought you should go. So we can work on the song some more.”
“The song. Right. Umm … sure.” I wait for the fog to clear from inside my head, but it lingers. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow in class. For the test.”
“If my legs can get me home. You were heavy to carry here.”
I gape at him until I realize that was his idea of a joke. Jason just told a joke.
He gives an awkward wave. “Good night, Grace.”
“Wait a second.”
He pauses with his foot ready to peddle. “What?”
“Does this mean we’re … friends now?”
“Friends?”
“Yeah. You tutoring me, and me helping with the song. Going to the shoot next week. Are we friends?”
Why does my breath hitch at the thought?
The scowl I’ve come to associate with him reappears on his face, and arrogance drips from his voice when he says, “I’ll think about it.”
But even in the dark, I can see his scowl has transformed into a smile.
I take another munch of my seaweed-flavored chips and desperately miss Tennessee—barbecue, biscuits, turnip greens cooked with ham. Sophie’s right: I
am
in culture shock, but I don’t know how to fix that. How do I stop being negative? Is there a twelve-step program for becoming a nicer person?
The boys left Ganghwa Island this morning to head off to the location of their music video after getting a pass from the principal to get out of Friday classes, but Sophie and I weren’t so lucky, so we left campus right when we got out of class at four thirty.
I’ve never ridden a Greyhound bus in America, but I assume this is what that’s like—a metal monstrosity with a bathroom built into the back, a TV playing a soap opera, and seats packed in tight, like on an airplane. We purchased our seats at the bus station, barely in time to snag two together.
We’ve been riding for over six hours, made one half-hour pit stop, and are now rumbling along the highway toward a fishing village whose name I can’t pronounce. Why the band chose somewhere so far away, I have no idea, but I’m starting to wish I’d stayed back at school.
I bump Sophie’s shoulder with mine. “Why didn’t we go with the boys in their van again? At least we could have stopped and gotten out when we wanted to.”
She sighs. “Maybe you don’t care about skipping class, but I do. There’s no way I’ll make top of the class by the end of the year if I have any absences. Besides, this isn’t so bad.”
I point to the TV mounted on the ceiling. “Sophie, they’re making us watch a soap opera.”
She grins, her cheeks pushing up her gigantic glasses close to her hairline. “That’s not a soap opera, it’s a drama. Like, a prime-time show. This is a recording of an old one.”
“So will the show Jason’s writing the song for be like this one?”
“Probably. I’m curious to see how well he acts in it.” She giggles.
“Wait. He’s going to be on
TV
?”
Nathan got a lot of great opportunities after he won his first Grammy, but he couldn’t act to save his life, so he never accepted any roles he was offered. I always wished he would have, though, so I could tag along.
“He didn’t tell you that’s what the song is for?” she asks.
“Well, he said it was the theme song, but I didn’t know he’d be actually
in
the show.”
She scoots down and props her knees on the seat in front of her, crossing her arms and leaning her head against the window.
“Well, the drama is about an aspiring musician,” she says, “whose fianc
é
e has amnesia. She was hit by a car on her way to the wedding, and he helps her remember her previous life with his music. Oh, and there’s something about her dad being a crime boss or something, and Jason’s character gets kidnapped by the dad. I can’t remember.”
“Sounds like a soap opera to me.”
She laughs. “Yeah, I guess. But it should be good for his career. That’s what their manager said, anyway.”
“Are the other two guys going to be in it?”
“No, just Jason.”
“That doesn’t seem fair.”
“He’s the lead singer.” She shoots me a wry smile. “Plus, if you haven’t noticed, he’s the cutest one. But I just like to think of that as a family thing.”
I roll my eyes and force myself to laugh with her, hoping she doesn’t notice the way my breathing has accelerated. I
have
noticed he’s the cutest, though I would have guessed Sophie would think of someone else.
“What about Tae Hwa?” I ask. “He’s cute.”
“I guess,” is all she says, but I spot the blush growing in her cheeks.
We spend the rest of the the ride trying to sleep. I shift a dozen times in my seat, but I can’t drift off. So I stuff headphones into my ears and listen to the playlist Sophie made me of all the songs Jason suggested. The synthesized beats and squeaky-clean vocals grate my nerves at first, but I soon find myself tapping my foot and humming along. This KPOP stuff is catchy, I’ll give it that. And at least they use English phrases a lot, mixed in with the Korean, so I understand some of it
.
When our bus finally pulls into the station, the October night is chilly. Wrapping my arms around myself against the cold, I grab my backpack and shuffle out onto the pavement.
Tilting my head back, I peer up at the chorus of stars overhead, marveling at their brightness this far from the city.
“Grace, hurry up!” Sophie calls.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” I growl, slicking back my ponytail, which has totally frizzed after that long ride.
Sophie and I make our way through the bus station, which is a lot smaller than the one we transferred through in Incheon. There are only two buses lined up at the stop, in contrast to the nearly fifteen there.
“Tae Hwa said the driver would meet us out front,” Sophie says, her attention more on her phone than where she’s going.
I grab her arm and maneuver her around pedestrians before she runs over anyone, and we camp out at the curb in front of the building. Lights dot the countryside before us, but mostly it’s dark. Shadowy mountains stretch up to the sky, their round backs blotting out the stars. If I listen hard, I can hear seagulls, but we’re too far from the water to hear any ocean waves.
A pair of headlights pulls up, and the driver stops right in front of us. A familiar face pokes out of the passenger side of a van.
“Get in,” Yoon Jae calls.
Sophie and I climb into the van to find Tae Hwa behind the wheel, Yoon Jae riding shotgun, and Jason in the middle row. Sophie slides in beside her brother, and I sit in the back row.
“I thought the driver was going to come get us,” Sophie says.
“Tae Hwa wanted to drive,” Yoon Jae throws over his shoulder.
Sophie turns around and says to me with mock seriousness, “You had better put your seat belt on, Grace. Tae Hwa isn’t known for his driving skills.”
She laughs, but I search for a seat belt anyway, then realize nobody wears seat belts here unless they’re on the highway. I can’t find one anyway, so I shrug off any worries.
We rocket down the bumpy street, Tae Hwa weaving around bikes and motorcycles so close I fear we’re going to run them off the road. I can’t watch him almost squish pedestrians, so I peer out the window at the splattering of buildings we pass as we head into the town, which is built into the hillside that slopes down to the sea below.
We cross a bridge that stretches across the ocean, circle a roundabout, and turn off onto a side street that sports a myriad of tiny restaurants and tea shops closed for the night.
Tae Hwa pulls up to a weather-beaten white building, and we all pile out of the van. I look up at the three-story hotel with uncertainty. A breeze catches my hair and brings a scent of saltwater and old fish. A stray dog runs past us, yelping at the heels of a screeching cat, and a woman babbles in Korean at the top of her lungs in the restaurant still open next door. I glance in the alley beside the hotel. Are those … chickens?
I’m definitely not in Nashville anymore.
The boys already checked us in, so we follow them up the mountain that is the staircase. Yoon Jae takes the duffel from my hands and throws it over his shoulder, teetering under its weight.
Our room’s on the third floor. Yoon Jae fishes in the pocket of his too-tight jeans and pulls out a key, which he uses to open the door for us. I find two twin-size beds.