My brother had an early class so he dropped me off at school a little early. Since I had some time to kill, I decided to visit the famed notice board. Although huge, it was quite brown and ordinary and in disarray as most notice boards tended to be because all the posters really cared about was making sure that their notes were seen. Other than the usual sign up sheets for different school activities and clubs, there were some interesting gossip items.
Guess who, as usual, is hot on the trail of a pretty, new transfer student? Can't come up with a name? Okay, here's a clue: He's tall, he's hot, he's a flirt and his name rhymes with Nonathan. 5 points to the first person to guess right!
I frowned. I'd barely been at the school for a minute and I was already fodder for gossip? And all this because some guy liked to call me sexy? Annoyed, I made a mental note to avoid Jonathan at all costs. A few moments later, someone I didn't recognize stood next to me so I shifted my foot a little and read the next note.
Okay, students, the moment you've been waiting for has finally arrived: Brighton's most in love and chaste couple has finally done it. Word has it that he forked out some real dough for a room at the Ritz (yes, people, the Ritz!) for their special night but guess what? They couldn't even make it that far. I happened to pass by them rocking and steaming up his 2006 Ford Taurus. Congratulations on popping that cherry – I hope you used a condom! And yes, I'm talking to you, Trey and Janelle.
"Wow," I mouthed. Was it that bad? I was about to go on to the next note when I heard some call my name from behind.
"Jeez, Su Jin. Did you really wake up early just for this?" Ali teased as she stood at the other side of me. Before I could reply, she groaned and pointed at another note. "When will this loser give up? Doesn't he get that no one in the DMV area wants him?"
Generous? Looking to give a free ride? Well, look no further. If you're thin, 5'3 to 5'6, very pretty, wear a 34C or D bra please call 202-562-5789. Please understand that I reserve the right to reject you.
I was still giggling at the sheer incredulousness of the note when Su Jin pulled it off the board, crumpled it up and threw it into the trash. She was telling me about Pete, the author of the note and all the embarrassing things he'd done in their freshman year when she asked me for a pen. I handed one to her and walked over to see what she was doing but my eyes grew to twice their size when I realized that she was writing my name on one of the sign up sheets.
"What the hell is that?" I yelled. "Stop," I ordered, attempting to wrangle the pen out of her hand.
She jumped back and laughed. "Hey, I'm only signing you up for our Winter break trip. It's in LA this year and we get to see many exciting museums or whatever." She pointed at a printed sheet next to it. "You can read all about it there. And you're coming even if you don't want to."
***
Assemblies were never my thing because they were just an excuse for the principal to get the chance to bore us to death. So as usual, my mind was only partially there, staring into space and wishing for time to pass by quicker and when I thought it was getting to the time we were all about to be dismissed, Mrs. Anderson said, "Mr. Levine just informed me that this semester, we've received record low sign ups for the choir. As you all know, the choir plays a huge role at this school – from singing at school events to representing the school regionally…"
Ali shook her head and mouthed, "They suck."
"… so this year," she continued, "since no one wants to volunteer for the choir, Mr. Levine will go around the hall and do the work himself. If he picks you, you must stay behind or face detention."
***
"Hey, where are you going?" I asked Ali as she started to head out of the auditorium. "Didn't Mr. Levine ask you to stay?"
She made a face and pointed to herself, "Me?"
I nodded. "Yeah. You have to stay if you don't want to get in trouble," I reminded her.
She shook her head. "Hey, don't try to push this on me. He so didn't point at me – he pointed at you!"
"What?" I looked away and tried to recollect the moment. I distinctly saw him point at her. "I think you're wrong, Ali. He pointed at you."
She shook her head vehemently. "I'm quite sure he didn't point at me. Hello, I joined the choir in my freshman year and he pretty much told me to quit because my singing was so bad. So there's no way he would have picked me." She looked ahead of her. "Anyway, you'd better get up there," she said before turning towards the door. "I'll see you later."
Even though I suspected that Ali was lying, I reluctantly walked slowly towards the stage and as I did, felt my heart race because I wasn't a huge fan of crowds. Quite a large number of us had been asked behind and I was looking around to see if there was anyone I recognized from any of my classes when I heard a low 'hey' from behind me. I turned around and said a quick hello with my eyes.
"You too?" Ryan asked, standing next to me.
I shrugged. "It looks that way. Does your choir really suck that badly?"
"Yes and no. It used to be pretty good in my freshman year but since Mrs. Chen got pregnant and retired, it's gone down the drain. I heard they even used to get asked to perform in Europe and stuff but whatever."
"Students!" Mr. Levine yelled to catch our attention. He was a balding, stocky man in his forties and looked more like a PE teacher than a choirmaster. He clapped his hands. "Welcome to the choir. Right now, we're just going to have quick auditions to determine which vocal range you're in so that we can get straight to work the next time we meet. The choir meets every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 4:30 in the music room so I expect to see all of you tomorrow. Shall we begin?" He pointed at the chubby girl standing closest to him. "Rebecca, why don't you start? We shall be singing 'Amazing Grace'."
"My name is Sarah," she grumbled before beginning her rendition of the song.
I sighed as I watched her butcher the song with all her might. It sure was going to be a long day.
As I watched student after student sing the song, I realized that I didn't really know all the lyrics to it. Was I going to disgrace myself like majority of them were intent on doing? I relayed my fear to Ryan so he quickly grabbed a piece of paper and wrote the words for me.
***
I stood in front of the school gates waiting for my brother. Once Dong Won received his driver's license, my father took back the embassy driver I'd been using and replaced him with my brother which meant that more often than not, I spent valuable minutes in the sun wasting my time. I certainly wasn't averse to tanning but surely, skin cancer wasn't an option. I was still standing and waiting for my brother when I saw Ryan walk out of school.
"Hey," I called as I skipped over to him. "How is it going?"
"School is over so I guess it's going pretty great," he replied.
My neck suddenly felt itchy so I scratched it. "So do we really have to be in the choir?" I asked as I fell in step with him.
He furrowed his brows. "I don't know about you but I'm certainly not going to be in any damn choir."
Confused, I said, "But what about what happened today? Won't Mr. Levine remember you?"
He shook his head. "I'm quite sure he won't – he probably doesn't even remember what he had for lunch. He's kinda loopy," he said, drawing circles with his finger for emphasis.
"So why did you bother staying for the auditions? Why not just leave?"
He shrugged. "It beat sitting in for first period geography. But come to think of it, you're actually a good singer," he said, narrowing his eyes and looking at me.
"I know," I said dismissively. His gaze made me slightly uncomfortable so I looked away. "I came fourth place in Korean Idol."
"Really?" he asked, clearly intrigued.
I laughed. "Of course not."
It looked like we'd run out of things to say because we suddenly felt silent. Unless I was with Min Ki, I never really knew what to do in complete silence so I generally liked to just say anything to kill it. I was about to say something mundane about a teen show I'd watched the previous night when he suddenly pulled out his camera and pointed it at me. "Say something," he implored.
"Like what?" I replied, covering the lens with my hand.
"Hey, be careful," he cautioned, gently pushing my hand away. "Just say something. Anything."
I took a deep breath then smiled into the camera.
He chuckled then moved the camera away. "Try to be natural, okay? Just now, you looked like some kind of crazy clown."
"A crazy clown?" I repeated in dismay. I took another deep breath and tried to find my inner light. Talking to the camera really couldn't be that hard. "Okay," I said, pointing at his hand, "I'm ready. Hit me."
He lifted the camera and pointed it at me one more time. "1, 2, 3, Action!"
After a beat, I said, "Hi." I beamed into the camera in a way I hoped made me look hot and sophisticated. "My name is Su Jin Oh, I'm 16 years old and I'm a Virgo."
He moved the camera from his face. "Really? So your birthday's coming up soon?"
I shook my head and laughed. "I'm just kidding. I just thought it sounded better, you know, Su Jin Oh - Virgo, I'm actually a Gemini… I think."
He groaned and put the viewfinder back in front of his right eye. "Are you some kind of pathological liar? Introduce yourself again and this time, be honest," he said very seriously.
Instead of looking at the lens, I studied him. "What's with you and filmmaking anyway? Ali says you're some kind of science genius? You won a high school prize in your freshman year?"
With the camera still pointed at me, he shrugged and said, "Well, I apparently have the brains to become a doctor so I'm supposed to use them for good blah blah blah. So I figure that I might as well try to enjoy filmmaking now that I can. I can't imagine I'll have time for it once I get to college and start cutting things open. Enough about me, smile in—"
"OH SU JIN," my brother's yell interrupted. I turned in the direction of his voice and saw him standing next to the car. "Get your butt here now! I don't have all day."
"Hey, it looks like I have to run," I said, turning back to Ryan. "Did I tell you that I have a phone now?" I asked pulling it out. "What's your number?"
I punched in the numbers as he told me.
"Call me now so that I can have yours," he suggested.
"Sorry," I said apologetically. "I have to call Min Ki first before I call anyone else – it's kind of sentimental," I said, knowing I sounded pathetic.
"It's cool. Min Ki, huh? Min Ki has a stinky pinky," he said in a sing-song voice.
"Huh?" I started to say before getting interrupted by my brother yelling my name again.
"I have to run!" I readjusted my bag on my back and turned to leave.
"Hold up for a second," he said, grabbing my hand. He reached into his bag and pulled out some stapled sheets of paper. "I photocopied my history notes from the first day up to yesterday's class." He shoved it in my hand. "Alright, you can go now."
***
"Guess who?" I said into the phone. After another unpleasant dinner with my family, I'd retired to my room and counted the tiles on my ceiling over and over till I felt I wouldn't be waking Min Ki up by calling him.
"Guess who?" he replied groggily. He paused for a second then said, "Guess who!" in a louder voice.
I laughed. "You still recognize my voice?"
He joined in the laughter. "Of course I do, sweetie. Congratulations on getting your phone."
"Thanks. Getting ready for school?"
"Well, I'd planned to do that in 20 minutes so I guess I'll spend this time talking to you."
"Oh, did I wake you? I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry – this is the perfect way to start the day. So what's going on over there? How's America? Have you met some friends? Tell me everything."
I filled him in- on the details but when he seemed a little disappointed to hear that America wasn't as fabulous as we'd expected, I decided to sexy it up a little to help him hold on to his fantasy.
"So, I've got a job," he told me about five minutes into our conversation.
"Really?" His parents weren't wealthy but they were doing pretty well so his allowance was pretty reasonable. "Why?"
"I've been thinking and… well, with you so far away, it wouldn't hurt for us to see each other at least once before you return to Seoul, don't you think?"
I smiled at the thought. "Of course not but maybe we'll come down to visit or something."
"Yeah… and I've been doing some research on the internet and American universities don't seem that bad so I've been thinking of applying to a few."
"Yeah, some are okay. My brother just started at Georgetown and he likes it so far although he keeps going on and on about how hot the girls are. But I thought you always wanted to attend Korea University?"
"Yeah… but wouldn't it be better for us to go to school together?"
I let his words sink in but didn't say anything in response. Of course, if we were together, I'd never have to worry about being lonely but wasn't it all a pipe dream? How would he even pay for an American university?
As if reading my thoughts he said, "Well, it's just an idea. So, how far are you guys from New York?" he asked, changing the subject.
***
"Hey," I said as I hesitantly walked towards Ryan and his friends. As usual, I had another lunch time dilemma and I didn't quite get how there were no empty tables considering I'd pretty much run out of class the second the bell sounded. "Mind if I join you?" I asked the group.
"Sure," they said in unison, waving for me to sit down.
"What's going on?" I whispered to Ryan who I was sitting next to. "I can't seem to find Ali."
He looked around the cafeteria then pointed at a table filled with girls. I squinted and saw that Ali seemed to be in her element yapping away about something. "Do you think I should go over there?" I whispered.
He smirked. "Oh, are we chopped liver?" He paused for a quick second and in a louder voice said, "Let me introduce you to the rest of the table," he said before proceeding to do that.
His friends were mainly Asian although I didn't think they were all Korean. Being in DC and close to all the embassies and various international organizations, our school wasn't international in name alone so I was already getting used to hearing all sorts of strange names.
Shortly after the introductions, the boys went back to talking about sports, cars or whatever it was that excited them so I took the time to eat and let my eyes wander around the room. That was when I saw Jonathan sitting next to a pretty dark skinned girl. From what I understood, she was Okwi, the other female new student in our year and with her long braids, tall, slim physique that gave her model looks, I could understand why any guy would be interested in her. Especially someone like Jonathan.
He must have felt me looking at him because he suddenly looked up and caught me staring at him. Of course, his face broke into a smooth smile and of course, I felt the blood rise in my cheeks so I quickly looked down and faced my lunch. Sweet corn never looked so delicious.
"Miss Su Jin Oh," I heard about a minute later. I looked up, expecting to see Jonathan's flirty smile but for the first time, I saw pure cynicism. "Surely, this can't be the boyfriend you told me about?" he asked, looking at Ryan.
I turned to my right and saw Ryan's face darkening with anger. "What do you want?"
"Wow," he said sarcastically. "You try to act like some angel but you're just as bad as I am. She hasn't been here for five minutes and you've already zoned in on her?"
Ryan stood up and folded his arms across his chest defiantly. "What if I have? How is it any of your business?" Ryan wasn't quite as tall or as buff as Jonathan but something about the way he smirked at Jonathan made them appear evenly matched.
"Su Jin," Jonathan said, turning to me, "take my advice and leave him alone. I doubt he can keep his lips unglued from Alison's ass long enough to actually be with you. Do yourself a favor and dump him before it gets too late," he said before turning around and walking away.
Chapter 12
Chapter 12
I heard a series of loud raps on my door.
"Yes?" I called, taking out my headphones. It was a boring Saturday and after having a boring lunch with my family, I'd retired to my room, taken a nap and was now chatting on MSN with Min Ki.
"Your father is calling us," my brother said without opening the door. "Come down quickly."
"Great," I muttered. No one had called me to come to the kitchen to help with dinner and I'd certainly not made an effort to remind them. Was I about to get scolded about my laziness and have my chores increased tenfold? I sighed. The joys of childhood. I slipped my feet in my slippers and looked at the computer screen to read his response to my last comment.
Missing my Soul: My internet is being really slow today so stop bugging me. It's only about 30% uploaded and I'll let you know when it's done.
I'd left Korea before one of my favorite awards shows aired so I'd made Min Ki tape it for me.
Missing my Seoul: Yo, I have to run.
Missing my Soul: Oh, now I get it. You only came online to make sure I was uploading your precious show, huh?
Missing my Seoul: Yes, I'm using you. Have you got a problem with that?
Missing my Soul: No.:p
I laughed.
Missing my Seoul: :D Anyway, my father is calling me – I think he's on the warpath again.
Missing my Soul: That sucks. Well, I guess I'd better try to get some more sleep – I think I'm skipping church today.
Missing my Seoul: Poor you. If you were here, you'd be able to catch some sleep while at church.
Missing my Soul: lol. Alright, better log off before you get into trouble. And don't forget to send me the photos.
Missing my Seoul: Okay. <3
***
I walked down the stairs to find my brother and parents sitting in the living room around the coffee table pilled with paper plates and cups, soda, two buckets of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, wedgies, coleslaw and pretty much everything else that KFC had to offer. I was surprised that an employee hadn't been thrown in with the spread.
"Why don't you sit down?" my father coaxed, grinning and pointing at the couch across from my mother.
I slowly walked over and did as he said. Okay what the hell was going on?
"So," my father started, grinning so widely it reminded me that it had been quite a while since I'd seen so many of his teeth.
Normally, when someone smiled, you were put at ease but because it was my father, it had the opposite effect. It was almost like I was in a horror movie and the piano music had come on, warning us of impending doom.
I tried to look at my brother but he appeared to be avoiding my eyes which was the telltale sign that he was also getting freaked out. I glanced at my mother but she didn't appear the slightest bit affected.
"… I've been thinking about it and I think Saturdays should be our chill-out day," he continued, chuckling because he was quite aware that adults sounded stupid using the word 'chill-out'."
I looked at my brother again and this time he caught my eye and sent me a WTF look.
"What that means," my father started again, "is that on Saturday evenings, we'll just relax as a family - no cooking," he said, looking at my mother, who smiled tightly in return, "we can order whatever you kids like to eat be it pizza or Indian food or whatever…." He looked around the room and when he got no reaction, he continued, "… and we can watch movies and you can tell us what happened to you in the past week."
I sat into my couch and tried to figure out his angle. Our dinners had become repetitive and quite strained because every night my father tried to start a conversation about how our day had been but a minute later, after everyone had answered with the most commonly used one word response, we'd fall into silence with only the sounds of the clanging of our cutlery keeping us entertained.
I looked over at the DVDs he'd rented and smirked when I saw that they were 'Pirates of the Caribbean' and 'Pride and Prejudice'. Did the old man have a thing for Keira Knightley?
"So why don't I start?" my father asked before going into in depth detail about the embassy's search for a new director.
I leaned forward and picked up a drumstick. Other than 'fine' what else could I possibly say when it was my turn to speak?
***
I'd just stepped out of English class and was about to head to my Biology class when I spotted Ryan walking ahead of me. I hadn't been able to catch him in History class the previous day and we seemed to be missing each other at lunch so I was yet to talk to him about Min Ki's photo.
"Ryan Cho," I yelled as I ran towards him. "Ryan Cho!"
He turned around with a confused expression on his face and when I saw the other students in the hallway giving me weird looks, I fought the urge to blush out of embarrassment and stopped running. I walked swiftly towards him.
"What's going on?" he asked curiously.
I caught my breath and smiled unevenly. Then I reached into my bag and pulled out my camera. I knew it was weird but what else could I do? "Say cheese," I ordered, pointing it at him.
He immediately put his hand over it and from the look on his face, I could tell that he was getting more and more inquisitive. "Why do you need my photograph?" He shook his head and said, "I'm trying to come up with a reasonable explanation but I'm drawing a blank here."
He looked a little cross-eyed so I couldn't help but laugh. "Just guess."
"You're in a cult and they asked for a photograph of your next victim?"
"Wow," I said in mock astonishment. "You should play the lottery – your guessing skills are awesome."
He looked down at me and frowned. "I don't want to be late for my next class so just tell me why you need my photo."
"It's for Min Ki."
He stared into space for a few seconds then shook his head. "Sorry, I still don't get it. What does he need my photo for?"
I shrugged. "He just wants to know what my friends look like." Well, that was the explanation he'd given me. I just figured that he was trying to share in my experience and as my boyfriend, it only made sense for him to have an idea of what my friends looked like.
"Why?"
"You have to go to class, remember? Stop wasting time and just smile."
He looked at me uncomfortably. "So I should just stand here and smile like an idiot?" he asked, waving his hands in the air.
I laughed. "Mr. Filmmaker, isn't that what you always tell people to do? Smile and look in the camera?"
"But that's different," he insisted. "Right now, I feel like you're about to take my mug shot or something."
I frowned. I grabbed his arm to pull him away from the crowd. I couldn't help but notice that he had slightly less arm hair than Min Ki. I shook the comparison out of my head then focused my attention back at the task at hand. "My digital camera is kinda weird so you need to stand very still so I can take this picture."
"No," he said, pulling me and turning me around so that we were facing the same direction and the top of my head was next to his ear. In a swift movement, he relieved me of the camera, pointed it at us then took a photo. Without bothering to look at the results, he shoved the camera back into my palm and said, "Problem solved. Now you have your photo. I have to go to class."
As he left, I took a look at Ryan's handiwork and other than my very shocked face, all it revealed were his chin and half of his nose. I sighed. Why did he have to make it so darn difficult?
***
I dumped my tray on the table and plopped on the seat in a loud thud. For a while there, I hadn't thought that it would happen but it was possible to find an empty table to sit at at lunch.
"May we join you?" a person with a shrill voice asked the moment I was about to bite into my crouton. I looked up to find a heavily made up face belonging to one of the so-called Prada Bitches.
Confused, I looked over to make sure that I hadn't mistakenly taken their table but considering we were smack dab in the middle of the cafeteria, I was quite sure I hadn't.
"Su Jin Oh?" she asked, sitting down without waiting for my response. "I'm Natalie and that's Sarah, she's…," she said, introducing the rest of her friends to me.
"Do you still remember me? I'm Seung Mi," the ambassador's daughter said far too sweetly. "We are quite offended that you stopped eating lunch with us," she said with what I hoped was mock seriousness. "Aren't we, Girls?" she asked her group who predictably agreed in a loud chorus.
"So… what about our English lessons? I've been waiting for your call for so long."
"Really?" No, seriously. Really? "I think I'll be fine – I can already feel my English improving."
"Cool. You like catfish?" she asked, suddenly looking at my plate. "I love catfish."
What the hell was going on? A few minutes later, Sarah, Tina, Seung Mi and everyone else were in a heated conversation about the best sauce to have with salmon.
As I sat with them, simultaneously trying to look interested and wondering why they were suddenly nice to me, Natalie said, "Su Jin, does your brother pick you up from school?"
I dropped my fork and just shook my head. So that was what it was all about? Did my brother use some kind of voodoo? How could every single dumb girl be attracted to him? What the hell? And why did they all have to talk to me about it?
"I already told you he's her brother," Seung Mi said.
I sent her a tight smile then turned back to Natalie. "Yes, my brother picks me up. Why?"
She shrugged. "No reason," she said before taking another bite of her salad.
"He's single?" another girl asked.
"Why do you want to know?" I snapped.
The girl opened her mouth to respond but must have thought better of it because no words came out. She looked to Natalie for help so I did the same and waited for a response.
"We're just curious. No reason. Anyway," she said, straightening her back, "we usually go to the mall every Saturday." She looked me over and did a very good job of blanking out whatever she was thinking. "Wanna come?"
I swept the table, looking at all their colorful faces. I didn't even know what Seung Mi's deal was because she'd ignored me that other time even though she already knew what my brother looked like. I wanted to tell the rest of them to kiss my a.ss because they were bitches and users and that my brother wouldn't even use them to wipe his butt. I wanted to give them a firm 'no' and pick up my tray and leave them watching behind with gaping mouths. But instead, all I could come up with was, "I don't know."
***
After lunch, as usual, I was in the computer room. After logging on, I smiled when I saw that Min Ki had replied my email. Taking Ali's photo had turned into a huge production because she'd made me wait for her to apply a fresh coat of make-up and after that, she must have posed a hundred times –by the tree, at the school gate, leaning on a car, in every possible way- till she found a photo worthy to be sent to him.
Sending Ryan's photo had been a little trickier. Only having one shot meant that I really didn't have much choice but I was quite sure that Min Ki wouldn't be satisfied with half of a face so later that day, unbeknownst to Ryan, I managed to get a pretty good photograph of him as he stood by one of his classrooms talking to a friend. I couldn't figure out what his problem was because he was actually quite photogenic and leaning against that wall, in a weird way, he reminded me of Dennis Oh. Something to do with his nose and ears.
I clicked on Min Ki's email.
Date: 1 Sept 23:18:47
From: "Ha Min Ki"
Subject: Re: Pics
To: "Oh Su Jin"
Jinnie,
Thanks for the pictures – they were nice. I'm glad to see you've made some friends. Did you say that Ali's family is from Canada? Canada is just like America, isn't it? Don't they sound alike and have a similar culture? I am sure it wasn't hard for her to adjust to living in America. She looks like a nice person and I hope you make more friends like her.
Ryan seems nice too but even though his family is from Korea, he's American, right? So I was thinking... you know I have no problems with you having male friends because I never said anything about your relationship with Il Woo but I'm not sure about Ryan.
You mentioned that he's Ali's friend, didn't you? And it's strictly platonic? But why is it platonic? Were they together in the past? Or did she reject his advances?
I thought back to what Jonathan had said and for the nth time since that confrontation, I wondered if they truly were just friends. I was dying to know what was going on but I didn't have another Ali-like friend to fill me in on all the details. I continued reading.
I don't want to sound worried but some of these guys really don't think it's possible to be just friends with girls. Sometimes, a guy is friends with a girl because he's just waiting for the right time to ask her out. Or maybe it's just part of this strategy for getting her, after all, most relationships start as friendships. And since I'm here, he might think you're single. Have you made it clear that you're unavailable? I was wondering, but will it be weird for you to wear your ring at school? If everyone sees it then they'll know you're taken. smile.gif I've started wearing mine in public and whenever anyone asks about it, I feel so proud telling them about us.
I groaned. If I started wearing my ring at school, there was no way it wouldn't make it on the school notice board and only God knew what theory they'd come up with. I wouldn't want to be known as the pregnant girl who later became the poster child for abortion because her belly never grew.
I don't want to sound paranoid but I must admit that I'm a bit worried. I would hate for you to be uncomfortable and you mentioned that he's giving you his notes. Are you sure he doesn't have ulterior motives? And if he asks you out and you reject him, will he stop giving you his notes? Just to be on the safe side, trying making friends with other people in your class who can help you. I don't want to scare you but I'm male so I know how other guys think. There's no way he can't see how cute you are so I think it might not be just friendship on his side. Of course, I might be wrong but what if I am not?
Don't depend on him and try to make more friends, okay? I know you feel like a stranger at that school but you've got a sweet personality so I'm sure it won't be hard to make more friends, okay? Girls preferably.
Love,
Min Ki.
P.S.
I know you're going to reply and tell me to stop being jealous and yes, I am jealous but only because everyone at your school gets to spend time with you. But other than that, I'm just worried. There are so many unscrupulous characters out there and I just want to help you protect yourself, so don't misunderstand me.
P.P.S
Write back soon.
I heard a series of loud raps on my door.
"Yes?" I called, taking out my headphones. It was a boring Saturday and after having a boring lunch with my family, I'd retired to my room, taken a nap and was now chatting on MSN with Min Ki.
"Your father is calling us," my brother said without opening the door. "Come down quickly."
"Great," I muttered. No one had called me to come to the kitchen to help with dinner and I'd certainly not made an effort to remind them. Was I about to get scolded about my laziness and have my chores increased tenfold? I sighed. The joys of childhood. I slipped my feet in my slippers and looked at the computer screen to read his response to my last comment.
Missing my Soul: My internet is being really slow today so stop bugging me. It's only about 30% uploaded and I'll let you know when it's done.
I'd left Korea before one of my favorite awards shows aired so I'd made Min Ki tape it for me.
Missing my Seoul: Yo, I have to run.
Missing my Soul: Oh, now I get it. You only came online to make sure I was uploading your precious show, huh?
Missing my Seoul: Yes, I'm using you. Have you got a problem with that?
Missing my Soul: No.:p
I laughed.
Missing my Seoul: :D Anyway, my father is calling me – I think he's on the warpath again.
Missing my Soul: That sucks. Well, I guess I'd better try to get some more sleep – I think I'm skipping church today.
Missing my Seoul: Poor you. If you were here, you'd be able to catch some sleep while at church.
Missing my Soul: lol. Alright, better log off before you get into trouble. And don't forget to send me the photos.
Missing my Seoul: Okay. <3
***
I walked down the stairs to find my brother and parents sitting in the living room around the coffee table pilled with paper plates and cups, soda, two buckets of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, wedgies, coleslaw and pretty much everything else that KFC had to offer. I was surprised that an employee hadn't been thrown in with the spread.
"Why don't you sit down?" my father coaxed, grinning and pointing at the couch across from my mother.
I slowly walked over and did as he said. Okay what the hell was going on?
"So," my father started, grinning so widely it reminded me that it had been quite a while since I'd seen so many of his teeth.
Normally, when someone smiled, you were put at ease but because it was my father, it had the opposite effect. It was almost like I was in a horror movie and the piano music had come on, warning us of impending doom.
I tried to look at my brother but he appeared to be avoiding my eyes which was the telltale sign that he was also getting freaked out. I glanced at my mother but she didn't appear the slightest bit affected.
"… I've been thinking about it and I think Saturdays should be our chill-out day," he continued, chuckling because he was quite aware that adults sounded stupid using the word 'chill-out'."
I looked at my brother again and this time he caught my eye and sent me a WTF look.
"What that means," my father started again, "is that on Saturday evenings, we'll just relax as a family - no cooking," he said, looking at my mother, who smiled tightly in return, "we can order whatever you kids like to eat be it pizza or Indian food or whatever…." He looked around the room and when he got no reaction, he continued, "… and we can watch movies and you can tell us what happened to you in the past week."
I sat into my couch and tried to figure out his angle. Our dinners had become repetitive and quite strained because every night my father tried to start a conversation about how our day had been but a minute later, after everyone had answered with the most commonly used one word response, we'd fall into silence with only the sounds of the clanging of our cutlery keeping us entertained.
I looked over at the DVDs he'd rented and smirked when I saw that they were 'Pirates of the Caribbean' and 'Pride and Prejudice'. Did the old man have a thing for Keira Knightley?
"So why don't I start?" my father asked before going into in depth detail about the embassy's search for a new director.
I leaned forward and picked up a drumstick. Other than 'fine' what else could I possibly say when it was my turn to speak?
***
I'd just stepped out of English class and was about to head to my Biology class when I spotted Ryan walking ahead of me. I hadn't been able to catch him in History class the previous day and we seemed to be missing each other at lunch so I was yet to talk to him about Min Ki's photo.
"Ryan Cho," I yelled as I ran towards him. "Ryan Cho!"
He turned around with a confused expression on his face and when I saw the other students in the hallway giving me weird looks, I fought the urge to blush out of embarrassment and stopped running. I walked swiftly towards him.
"What's going on?" he asked curiously.
I caught my breath and smiled unevenly. Then I reached into my bag and pulled out my camera. I knew it was weird but what else could I do? "Say cheese," I ordered, pointing it at him.
He immediately put his hand over it and from the look on his face, I could tell that he was getting more and more inquisitive. "Why do you need my photograph?" He shook his head and said, "I'm trying to come up with a reasonable explanation but I'm drawing a blank here."
He looked a little cross-eyed so I couldn't help but laugh. "Just guess."
"You're in a cult and they asked for a photograph of your next victim?"
"Wow," I said in mock astonishment. "You should play the lottery – your guessing skills are awesome."
He looked down at me and frowned. "I don't want to be late for my next class so just tell me why you need my photo."
"It's for Min Ki."
He stared into space for a few seconds then shook his head. "Sorry, I still don't get it. What does he need my photo for?"
I shrugged. "He just wants to know what my friends look like." Well, that was the explanation he'd given me. I just figured that he was trying to share in my experience and as my boyfriend, it only made sense for him to have an idea of what my friends looked like.
"Why?"
"You have to go to class, remember? Stop wasting time and just smile."
He looked at me uncomfortably. "So I should just stand here and smile like an idiot?" he asked, waving his hands in the air.
I laughed. "Mr. Filmmaker, isn't that what you always tell people to do? Smile and look in the camera?"
"But that's different," he insisted. "Right now, I feel like you're about to take my mug shot or something."
I frowned. I grabbed his arm to pull him away from the crowd. I couldn't help but notice that he had slightly less arm hair than Min Ki. I shook the comparison out of my head then focused my attention back at the task at hand. "My digital camera is kinda weird so you need to stand very still so I can take this picture."
"No," he said, pulling me and turning me around so that we were facing the same direction and the top of my head was next to his ear. In a swift movement, he relieved me of the camera, pointed it at us then took a photo. Without bothering to look at the results, he shoved the camera back into my palm and said, "Problem solved. Now you have your photo. I have to go to class."
As he left, I took a look at Ryan's handiwork and other than my very shocked face, all it revealed were his chin and half of his nose. I sighed. Why did he have to make it so darn difficult?
***
I dumped my tray on the table and plopped on the seat in a loud thud. For a while there, I hadn't thought that it would happen but it was possible to find an empty table to sit at at lunch.
"May we join you?" a person with a shrill voice asked the moment I was about to bite into my crouton. I looked up to find a heavily made up face belonging to one of the so-called Prada Bitches.
Confused, I looked over to make sure that I hadn't mistakenly taken their table but considering we were smack dab in the middle of the cafeteria, I was quite sure I hadn't.
"Su Jin Oh?" she asked, sitting down without waiting for my response. "I'm Natalie and that's Sarah, she's…," she said, introducing the rest of her friends to me.
"Do you still remember me? I'm Seung Mi," the ambassador's daughter said far too sweetly. "We are quite offended that you stopped eating lunch with us," she said with what I hoped was mock seriousness. "Aren't we, Girls?" she asked her group who predictably agreed in a loud chorus.
"So… what about our English lessons? I've been waiting for your call for so long."
"Really?" No, seriously. Really? "I think I'll be fine – I can already feel my English improving."
"Cool. You like catfish?" she asked, suddenly looking at my plate. "I love catfish."
What the hell was going on? A few minutes later, Sarah, Tina, Seung Mi and everyone else were in a heated conversation about the best sauce to have with salmon.
As I sat with them, simultaneously trying to look interested and wondering why they were suddenly nice to me, Natalie said, "Su Jin, does your brother pick you up from school?"
I dropped my fork and just shook my head. So that was what it was all about? Did my brother use some kind of voodoo? How could every single dumb girl be attracted to him? What the hell? And why did they all have to talk to me about it?
"I already told you he's her brother," Seung Mi said.
I sent her a tight smile then turned back to Natalie. "Yes, my brother picks me up. Why?"
She shrugged. "No reason," she said before taking another bite of her salad.
"He's single?" another girl asked.
"Why do you want to know?" I snapped.
The girl opened her mouth to respond but must have thought better of it because no words came out. She looked to Natalie for help so I did the same and waited for a response.
"We're just curious. No reason. Anyway," she said, straightening her back, "we usually go to the mall every Saturday." She looked me over and did a very good job of blanking out whatever she was thinking. "Wanna come?"
I swept the table, looking at all their colorful faces. I didn't even know what Seung Mi's deal was because she'd ignored me that other time even though she already knew what my brother looked like. I wanted to tell the rest of them to kiss my a.ss because they were bitches and users and that my brother wouldn't even use them to wipe his butt. I wanted to give them a firm 'no' and pick up my tray and leave them watching behind with gaping mouths. But instead, all I could come up with was, "I don't know."
***
After lunch, as usual, I was in the computer room. After logging on, I smiled when I saw that Min Ki had replied my email. Taking Ali's photo had turned into a huge production because she'd made me wait for her to apply a fresh coat of make-up and after that, she must have posed a hundred times –by the tree, at the school gate, leaning on a car, in every possible way- till she found a photo worthy to be sent to him.
Sending Ryan's photo had been a little trickier. Only having one shot meant that I really didn't have much choice but I was quite sure that Min Ki wouldn't be satisfied with half of a face so later that day, unbeknownst to Ryan, I managed to get a pretty good photograph of him as he stood by one of his classrooms talking to a friend. I couldn't figure out what his problem was because he was actually quite photogenic and leaning against that wall, in a weird way, he reminded me of Dennis Oh. Something to do with his nose and ears.
I clicked on Min Ki's email.
Date: 1 Sept 23:18:47
From: "Ha Min Ki"
Subject: Re: Pics
To: "Oh Su Jin"
Jinnie,
Thanks for the pictures – they were nice. I'm glad to see you've made some friends. Did you say that Ali's family is from Canada? Canada is just like America, isn't it? Don't they sound alike and have a similar culture? I am sure it wasn't hard for her to adjust to living in America. She looks like a nice person and I hope you make more friends like her.
Ryan seems nice too but even though his family is from Korea, he's American, right? So I was thinking... you know I have no problems with you having male friends because I never said anything about your relationship with Il Woo but I'm not sure about Ryan.
You mentioned that he's Ali's friend, didn't you? And it's strictly platonic? But why is it platonic? Were they together in the past? Or did she reject his advances?
I thought back to what Jonathan had said and for the nth time since that confrontation, I wondered if they truly were just friends. I was dying to know what was going on but I didn't have another Ali-like friend to fill me in on all the details. I continued reading.
I don't want to sound worried but some of these guys really don't think it's possible to be just friends with girls. Sometimes, a guy is friends with a girl because he's just waiting for the right time to ask her out. Or maybe it's just part of this strategy for getting her, after all, most relationships start as friendships. And since I'm here, he might think you're single. Have you made it clear that you're unavailable? I was wondering, but will it be weird for you to wear your ring at school? If everyone sees it then they'll know you're taken. smile.gif I've started wearing mine in public and whenever anyone asks about it, I feel so proud telling them about us.
I groaned. If I started wearing my ring at school, there was no way it wouldn't make it on the school notice board and only God knew what theory they'd come up with. I wouldn't want to be known as the pregnant girl who later became the poster child for abortion because her belly never grew.
I don't want to sound paranoid but I must admit that I'm a bit worried. I would hate for you to be uncomfortable and you mentioned that he's giving you his notes. Are you sure he doesn't have ulterior motives? And if he asks you out and you reject him, will he stop giving you his notes? Just to be on the safe side, trying making friends with other people in your class who can help you. I don't want to scare you but I'm male so I know how other guys think. There's no way he can't see how cute you are so I think it might not be just friendship on his side. Of course, I might be wrong but what if I am not?
Don't depend on him and try to make more friends, okay? I know you feel like a stranger at that school but you've got a sweet personality so I'm sure it won't be hard to make more friends, okay? Girls preferably.
Love,
Min Ki.
P.S.
I know you're going to reply and tell me to stop being jealous and yes, I am jealous but only because everyone at your school gets to spend time with you. But other than that, I'm just worried. There are so many unscrupulous characters out there and I just want to help you protect yourself, so don't misunderstand me.
P.P.S
Write back soon.
Chapter 13
According to Na Young, I was one of "those stupid girls." I certainly didn't agree with her but even I had to admit that I'd been blessed with certain qualities that I'd rather not have. For one, I was one of those girls whose breasts swelled up during her period which was why I had bras in two different cup sizes. I was also one of those girls who got really fidgety after eating too much sugar but most of all, I was one of those girls who fell for any guy who liked her.
It didn't really matter if the guy was tall or short, cute or not-so-cute but the minute I heard a guy had expressed some interest in me, I found myself intrigued. It was why Na Young could prank me and in the end, I embarrassed myself in front of a guy I later found out didn't even know my name. In fact, Min Ki was the only guy I'd liked on my own although my friends had insisted I started to like him because he'd begun to be especially nice to me. But whatever.
On to Ryan Cho. Till I received that fateful letter from Min Ki, as far as I was concerned, he was just a guy I'd become friendly with. We were cool and he was nice to me but that was about it. Nothing more. Possibly something less. But now that Min Ki had decided that he might have ulterior motives, all I could do was spend my time trying to see if anything he'd done or said had hinted that he was somehow attracted to me.
He'd certainly never smiled at me the way Jonathan had and I honestly felt he was pretty much just being nice to me because I was the new girl and we had a mutual friend in Ali. But was there more to it?
With these thoughts floating in my head, I decided to investigate.
Aside from History, he was also in my Physics class so when I walked into my third period class, I couldn't help but look for him. I didn't even know what I'd planned to do when I found him but luckily he hadn't arrived yet. I took a seat at the back of the class and a few seconds before the teacher arrived, he strolled in without a care in the world.
The only reason I was in AP Physics was that my old school's curriculum was more advanced than Brighton's and since I'd already learned about centripetal force, I didn't feel bad for not listening to the teacher drone on and on about velocity and mass and other boring stuff. I probably should have found a productive way to occupy myself but all I could do was watch Ryan write notes, stare out of the window, yawn, scratch his head, rummage through his bag, lend his calculator the girl sitting next to him and pop a Tic Tac.
Towards the end of class, when she returned his calculator to him, he smiled at her warmly, in exactly the same way he smiled at me. Surely it wasn't possible he liked her too, right? He wasn't just being nice to her so that he could get an opportunity to ask her out, right? Right?
***
"Su Jin, come here!" Ali yelled to the entire cafeteria. She waved for me to join her at her table. Since there were no guys with her, namely any ones with names beginning with R, I was perfectly willing to sit with her but did she really need to get the entire cafeteria to stare at me? Less than a minute later, I dropped my bag on an empty seat and smiled at the skinny blonde girl sitting next to her.
"Hi, I'm Su J—"
"You can introduce yourself later. You'd better go and get your food before all the good stuff's gone," Ali instructed.
About ten minutes later, when I returned with my tray, Ryan was sitting with them. I stood there rooted to the ground thinking of what to do. Should I go and sit with Seung Mi and the rest of my brother's fans or should I go back to Ali and Lisa?
"What's wrong with you?" Ali yelled from the table. "Aren't you coming to sit here?"
For the second time in ten minutes, the entire cafeteria stared at me as I walked to the table. I dropped the tray on the other end of the table so I could be as far away from Ryan as possible. The table sat about eight or ten people so it really wasn't a hard feat to accomplish.
"Do we smell?" Ali asked curiously. "Why are you sitting over there?"
I shrugged. "No reason."
She looked at me like I was crazy but to my relief, didn't press the issue. "Su Jin, I don't think you've met Lisa," she said, pointing her fork at the girl next to her. Other than her blonde hair, she also had blue eyes and heavily mascaraed dark lashes. She had quite a few freckles on her face but was quite pretty despite them.
"Hi," she said, waving at me. "You don't know me but you've probably heard the story of the pregnant girl in Switzerland."
"The one with the nuns?" I looked to Ali for confirmation.
"Yes, that one except the truth is far less interesting - she was only at fat camp," Ali said regretfully.
I began to laugh until the words sunk in. Fat camp? I thought as I tried to hide my shock. Looking at her, I wouldn't have guessed that she'd ever had a weight problem.
"Yeah, you've lost weight but I didn't think you needed to in the first place," Ryan said.
Lisa shrugged. "What Mummy wants, Mummy gets."
I watched as Ryan and Lisa interacted and other than the familiarity that came with knowing someone for a reasonable length of time, he really didn't treat her any differently from how he treated me.
I sat and ate, watching the three of them as they talked about their Labor Day festivities and Ali joking about a party where they had to bring their own meat and I felt a little jealous that I wasn't in on any of their inside jokes. The three of them were kind by trying to include me in their conversation but I couldn't help but feel left out. They reminded me so much of hanging out with Na Young, Tae Ran and Il Woo that I promised myself to email them as soon as I got out of the cafeteria. I really did miss them. I sat there and wondered if I'd ever develop that kind of friendship with anyone in America.
"You're such a pair of panties," a male voice said, interrupting my thoughts. I looked up and saw one of Ryan's friends shaking his head and laughing.
His friend smiled to us as a greeting and we smiled back.
"What happened to bros before hoes?" his friend asked.
"Who's a ho?" Lisa and Ali asked in unison. For my part, I didn't know what garden tools had to do with us.
"You and your big mouth." Ryan crumbled up a napkin into a ball and threw it at him. "Hey girls," he said, getting up and picking up his tray. "I need to get something from that idiot over there. I'll see you later."
***
Ryan nodded at me before occupying the seat next to mine. It was History class and we had about two minutes before Miss. Saunders walked in and started dictating her notes.
"Hey," he said, putting his hand on my shoulder.
This minute I felt his weight on my shoulder, my heart started beating heavily. I'd already decided that we were just friends and he felt absolutely nothing towards me but why was he touching me? Why?
The longer it stayed there, the heavier it felt and I could already feel my body buckling under the weight. From the corner of my eye, I looked at his long fingers and chewed up fingernails and didn't know what to do. Should I just casually slap his hand off? Or could I move my shoulder in a way that made his hand fall off on its own?
I was in the middle of eenie-meenie-minie-moe when I noticed him moving closer to me. His head moved closer to mine and I noticed a weird glint in his eye. I bit my lip. I'd seen enough American movies to know what was coming next. Help!
I glanced at the rest of the class but everyone else was lost in their own world. No one was looking at us and nobody cared that Ryan Cho was about to assault me.
I looked back at him and his eyes locked with mine. As he moved closer to me, reflexively, I inched back. The horror movie had begun and Min Ki had been right. I couldn't even tell him to back off because my lips had been clamped shut and my arms had transformed into planks of wood.
"What is wrong with you?" he suddenly asked.
I gulped. "Nothing?"
He frowned. "Nothing? Was that a question or an answer?"
What the hell was wrong with me? I had a boyfriend and I was a strong woman so there was no need to cower because some guy was moving close to me. "Can you move back a little?" I said with my newly found confidence.
He rolled his eyes. "What's your problem? I'm just giving you my notes," he said, dropping another stack of stapled sheets on my desk. He sat back straight in his chair and just shook his head.
"Oh," I said sheepishly, feeling like the idiot I was. "But you don't need to make copies, you know? I can just copy them off you."
"Sorry," he said, shaking his head. "I don't trust anyone with my notes – I've been burned too many times."
I stole a glance without him noticing. If he was interested in me, wouldn't he be so aware of me that he'd flinch or at least move if I looked at him? But with him, nothing. I looked at him one more time and he just kept reading his textbook, completely oblivious of me. I sighed. There was absolutely no way this guy had a thing for me because while I was sitting there, red faced and sweaty, he was completely unaffected. In fact, I wasn't even sure he realized that I was a girl. I wasn't disappointed but dang. I picked up the notes he'd given me and flipped the first page over. His handwriting was unnecessarily neat. I sighed. Oppa was wrong but what he didn't know couldn't hurt him, right? There was no harm in keeping Ryan as a friend without his knowledge. Right?
***
Now sure that Ryan only thought of me as another girl in his class, I felt pretty good about hanging out with him and Ali. And even though Min Ki was right about finding new friends, I at least felt fine hanging out with Ryan and Ali, together or separately. As time passed, we hung out at school and even progressed to calling one another on the phone after school hours. So one fateful evening, while I was at a bookstore entertaining myself as my brother picked up one of his school books, I didn't hesitate to pick up the flyer that was practically calling Ryan's name. And why wouldn't I? It was something friends did.
It didn't really matter if the guy was tall or short, cute or not-so-cute but the minute I heard a guy had expressed some interest in me, I found myself intrigued. It was why Na Young could prank me and in the end, I embarrassed myself in front of a guy I later found out didn't even know my name. In fact, Min Ki was the only guy I'd liked on my own although my friends had insisted I started to like him because he'd begun to be especially nice to me. But whatever.
On to Ryan Cho. Till I received that fateful letter from Min Ki, as far as I was concerned, he was just a guy I'd become friendly with. We were cool and he was nice to me but that was about it. Nothing more. Possibly something less. But now that Min Ki had decided that he might have ulterior motives, all I could do was spend my time trying to see if anything he'd done or said had hinted that he was somehow attracted to me.
He'd certainly never smiled at me the way Jonathan had and I honestly felt he was pretty much just being nice to me because I was the new girl and we had a mutual friend in Ali. But was there more to it?
With these thoughts floating in my head, I decided to investigate.
Aside from History, he was also in my Physics class so when I walked into my third period class, I couldn't help but look for him. I didn't even know what I'd planned to do when I found him but luckily he hadn't arrived yet. I took a seat at the back of the class and a few seconds before the teacher arrived, he strolled in without a care in the world.
The only reason I was in AP Physics was that my old school's curriculum was more advanced than Brighton's and since I'd already learned about centripetal force, I didn't feel bad for not listening to the teacher drone on and on about velocity and mass and other boring stuff. I probably should have found a productive way to occupy myself but all I could do was watch Ryan write notes, stare out of the window, yawn, scratch his head, rummage through his bag, lend his calculator the girl sitting next to him and pop a Tic Tac.
Towards the end of class, when she returned his calculator to him, he smiled at her warmly, in exactly the same way he smiled at me. Surely it wasn't possible he liked her too, right? He wasn't just being nice to her so that he could get an opportunity to ask her out, right? Right?
***
"Su Jin, come here!" Ali yelled to the entire cafeteria. She waved for me to join her at her table. Since there were no guys with her, namely any ones with names beginning with R, I was perfectly willing to sit with her but did she really need to get the entire cafeteria to stare at me? Less than a minute later, I dropped my bag on an empty seat and smiled at the skinny blonde girl sitting next to her.
"Hi, I'm Su J—"
"You can introduce yourself later. You'd better go and get your food before all the good stuff's gone," Ali instructed.
About ten minutes later, when I returned with my tray, Ryan was sitting with them. I stood there rooted to the ground thinking of what to do. Should I go and sit with Seung Mi and the rest of my brother's fans or should I go back to Ali and Lisa?
"What's wrong with you?" Ali yelled from the table. "Aren't you coming to sit here?"
For the second time in ten minutes, the entire cafeteria stared at me as I walked to the table. I dropped the tray on the other end of the table so I could be as far away from Ryan as possible. The table sat about eight or ten people so it really wasn't a hard feat to accomplish.
"Do we smell?" Ali asked curiously. "Why are you sitting over there?"
I shrugged. "No reason."
She looked at me like I was crazy but to my relief, didn't press the issue. "Su Jin, I don't think you've met Lisa," she said, pointing her fork at the girl next to her. Other than her blonde hair, she also had blue eyes and heavily mascaraed dark lashes. She had quite a few freckles on her face but was quite pretty despite them.
"Hi," she said, waving at me. "You don't know me but you've probably heard the story of the pregnant girl in Switzerland."
"The one with the nuns?" I looked to Ali for confirmation.
"Yes, that one except the truth is far less interesting - she was only at fat camp," Ali said regretfully.
I began to laugh until the words sunk in. Fat camp? I thought as I tried to hide my shock. Looking at her, I wouldn't have guessed that she'd ever had a weight problem.
"Yeah, you've lost weight but I didn't think you needed to in the first place," Ryan said.
Lisa shrugged. "What Mummy wants, Mummy gets."
I watched as Ryan and Lisa interacted and other than the familiarity that came with knowing someone for a reasonable length of time, he really didn't treat her any differently from how he treated me.
I sat and ate, watching the three of them as they talked about their Labor Day festivities and Ali joking about a party where they had to bring their own meat and I felt a little jealous that I wasn't in on any of their inside jokes. The three of them were kind by trying to include me in their conversation but I couldn't help but feel left out. They reminded me so much of hanging out with Na Young, Tae Ran and Il Woo that I promised myself to email them as soon as I got out of the cafeteria. I really did miss them. I sat there and wondered if I'd ever develop that kind of friendship with anyone in America.
"You're such a pair of panties," a male voice said, interrupting my thoughts. I looked up and saw one of Ryan's friends shaking his head and laughing.
His friend smiled to us as a greeting and we smiled back.
"What happened to bros before hoes?" his friend asked.
"Who's a ho?" Lisa and Ali asked in unison. For my part, I didn't know what garden tools had to do with us.
"You and your big mouth." Ryan crumbled up a napkin into a ball and threw it at him. "Hey girls," he said, getting up and picking up his tray. "I need to get something from that idiot over there. I'll see you later."
***
Ryan nodded at me before occupying the seat next to mine. It was History class and we had about two minutes before Miss. Saunders walked in and started dictating her notes.
"Hey," he said, putting his hand on my shoulder.
This minute I felt his weight on my shoulder, my heart started beating heavily. I'd already decided that we were just friends and he felt absolutely nothing towards me but why was he touching me? Why?
The longer it stayed there, the heavier it felt and I could already feel my body buckling under the weight. From the corner of my eye, I looked at his long fingers and chewed up fingernails and didn't know what to do. Should I just casually slap his hand off? Or could I move my shoulder in a way that made his hand fall off on its own?
I was in the middle of eenie-meenie-minie-moe when I noticed him moving closer to me. His head moved closer to mine and I noticed a weird glint in his eye. I bit my lip. I'd seen enough American movies to know what was coming next. Help!
I glanced at the rest of the class but everyone else was lost in their own world. No one was looking at us and nobody cared that Ryan Cho was about to assault me.
I looked back at him and his eyes locked with mine. As he moved closer to me, reflexively, I inched back. The horror movie had begun and Min Ki had been right. I couldn't even tell him to back off because my lips had been clamped shut and my arms had transformed into planks of wood.
"What is wrong with you?" he suddenly asked.
I gulped. "Nothing?"
He frowned. "Nothing? Was that a question or an answer?"
What the hell was wrong with me? I had a boyfriend and I was a strong woman so there was no need to cower because some guy was moving close to me. "Can you move back a little?" I said with my newly found confidence.
He rolled his eyes. "What's your problem? I'm just giving you my notes," he said, dropping another stack of stapled sheets on my desk. He sat back straight in his chair and just shook his head.
"Oh," I said sheepishly, feeling like the idiot I was. "But you don't need to make copies, you know? I can just copy them off you."
"Sorry," he said, shaking his head. "I don't trust anyone with my notes – I've been burned too many times."
I stole a glance without him noticing. If he was interested in me, wouldn't he be so aware of me that he'd flinch or at least move if I looked at him? But with him, nothing. I looked at him one more time and he just kept reading his textbook, completely oblivious of me. I sighed. There was absolutely no way this guy had a thing for me because while I was sitting there, red faced and sweaty, he was completely unaffected. In fact, I wasn't even sure he realized that I was a girl. I wasn't disappointed but dang. I picked up the notes he'd given me and flipped the first page over. His handwriting was unnecessarily neat. I sighed. Oppa was wrong but what he didn't know couldn't hurt him, right? There was no harm in keeping Ryan as a friend without his knowledge. Right?
***
Now sure that Ryan only thought of me as another girl in his class, I felt pretty good about hanging out with him and Ali. And even though Min Ki was right about finding new friends, I at least felt fine hanging out with Ryan and Ali, together or separately. As time passed, we hung out at school and even progressed to calling one another on the phone after school hours. So one fateful evening, while I was at a bookstore entertaining myself as my brother picked up one of his school books, I didn't hesitate to pick up the flyer that was practically calling Ryan's name. And why wouldn't I? It was something friends did.
Chapter 14
"See what I found," I said as I handed the flyer to Ali.
She gave it a quick look over, raised her brow and said, "Interesting. I'm going to send Ryan a text."
She, Lisa and I had a free period, so we were spending it at the library trying to finish up on some homework. My English classes were more advanced than what I'd done with Tom so Ali was helping me where she could.
Lisa's phone vibrated. She picked it up and looked at the caller id. "Great. My little brother is calling me. I wonder what kind of trouble he's gotten into now," she grumbled. She picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder. "I guess I'll be seeing you guys soon."
"Try not to stop at Burger King," Ali called after her.
Lisa her gave her 'the finger' but kept walking away.
"Burger King?" I whispered curiously. "She's leaving school?"
Ali shook her head. "Probably not – I just wanted to annoy her," she said, giggling.
A few minutes later, Ryan showed up and threw his bag on our table. "What do you guys want?"
Ali handed him the flyer. "What do you think?"
He read it then looked at her. "You called me over for this?"
"Why don't you just sit down and lower your voice?"
Ali was one of those people who was playful most of the time but when she was serious, you knew that she meant business. And this was one of those rare times.
"Why? I'm not staying here," he said defiantly.
She pulled his arm hard till he had to sit to keep it from dislocating. "Are you trying to kill me?" he snarled at her.
"You walk around with your camera, thinking you're Ang Lee," she said, ignoring his annoyed expression, "at the times no one gives a sh.it about your ideas, you bore us to death telling us about the movies that you'd like to make and now that you have a chance, you're acting like this?"
He threw the flyer on the table. "You think entering some local competition is going to get me an Oscar?"
"It's a step," she said simply.
"Ages 15-21 only? It's for amateurs."
"So what? Isn't that what you are?"
At times like this, I felt like a fly on the wall. I didn't want to vocally side with either of them even though I agreed with Ali. If he wanted to make a film, why not jump at the opportunity to be taken seriously?
He picked up the sheet of paper and looked at it again. "What can I say in 5-20 minutes?" he asked skeptically.
"A lot," she countered.
"What will it be about?"
She shrugged in exasperation. "How will I know? You're a smart guy – you'll think of something."
"The top five selected films will be sent over to the national competition and be viewed by the Zoetrope board members," he read.
"And it says that the company is owned by Francis Coppola," she said, pointing at a line on the sheet. "He's big deal, isn't he?"
He nodded. "Yeah."
"So what's the problem? It's free to enter, it's a legitimate competition and if your film is selected, this Coppola guy may get to see it and if it's not, so what? You've made a movie."
"But what will it be about? How will I make it? Who'll be in it? Wh—"
"She can be the star," Ali suddenly said, pointing at me.
"W-what?" I'd been so immersed in their conversation that she'd practically jolted me out of a trance. "M-me? No way."
"Yes way," she countered. "You found the flyer so you deserve it. Maybe you'll become a big star."
I shook my head vehemently. "No way. It's okay – I don't want to be a star."
"Don't be silly." She turned back to Ryan. "She can be the star, I'll help in any way I can. What do producers do anyway?"
"They provide funding."
"In that case, I can be the editor or cinematographer…" She suddenly put her hand up in the air. "No. No, I've got it. I'll be the costume designer and make-up artist, she's the actress, you're the producer and director and we can make this the best film ever made in Brighton Academy."
***
"So what have you come up with?" Ali asked before she put a huge scoop of ice cream in her mouth. Since it was a lovely day out, she'd come up with the brilliant plan of sneaking our lunch outside. The school was quite strict about carrying school utensils outside of the cafeteria so I'd wrapped my beef and bacon burger in a napkin and put some fries in some aluminum foil I'd managed to score off the cafeteria lady. But Ali didn't care. She was only having soft serve ice cream for lunch and couldn't be bothered to hide the bowl she'd piled it in.
Ryan pulled out some copies of the script from his bag and gave them to us. "Well, this is my vision," he began. He stood up and described the entire film to us. It was a story about a Korean girl who, like many other immigrants, had come to America in search of her dreams.
"At first, she'd absolutely love it. She'd love everything about it – the streets, the food, the clothes, the weather," he said animatedly. "Everything would be bigger than she'd ever dreamed of till it'll slowly start to unravel. She'd learn that it's all a façade and that it really can't live up to the fantasy she's built up in her mind."
"What will happen to her?" I still wasn't keen on doing the movie but Ali wasn't having it. I'd tried to protest and explain that I really sucked at acting but it fell on deaf ears and in the end, I gave in.
"Hey, relax," Ryan said chuckling. "It's not going to be something really terrible. Just a mugging… something she never experienced back home. I was thinking that she might witness a drive by shooting but how will I film that? But after experiencing that initial ugliness of America, she'd suddenly stop smelling roses and start seeing thorns. Hey," he said, suddenly stopping. "Let me write that down." He grabbed a pen and wrote the line at the back of one of his scripts. "Anyway," he continued, "she'd realize that her homeland is pretty great and go back. What do you guys think?" he asked expectantly.
It sounded alright although I'd hoped for something more interesting. "It could be more interesting but I guess it's okay."
"Ali?"
She made a big show of fake yawning.
Ryan folded his arms across his chest. "Why?" He sat back on the grass and waited for her response.
She shrugged. "It's not that it's not interesting but it's been done a hundred times before. Why does it have to be something involving the old country?"
He sighed. "Think about it. Look at the movies in the theatres – it's generally only movies with a primarily Caucasian cast that can really be about anything. If most of the stars are Asians or Hispanics or whomever, it has to be somehow related to identity."
"Bullsh.it," was Ali's only response.
I didn't know much about American cinema outside of what I'd seen back home so I had nothing to contribute.
"Really? Think about it. What's the Joy Luck Club about? What about the Namesake? Even though Jackie Chan's movies are comedies, his character always has to be from Asia."
"That's because his accent is thick. You really think he can pass for a New Yorker?"
"Okay, true. But if the movie isn't set in Asia like Crouching Tiger, the characters must go through some identity issues or talk about stereotypes or what it means to be of Asian ancestry in America. I'm not talking about independent films here but the ones that make it to mainstream America."
"So even if it's true, so what? You're not making this for Twentieth Century Fox. Can't you break the mold?"
"I could but I'd like to win. Wouldn't you? You're the one who wants to make a film that Francis Ford Coppola can see. You think we can do that without a film that has an edge to it? Or can you come up with another plot? Besides, just like Jackie Chan, our actress over here," he said, pointing at me, "has some limitations."
"True, true," Ali said before they both laughed.
Hardihaha. What was so funny about that?
***
"What class project is this?" Dong Won asked as we approached Ryan's house.
"A class project." The film was to be submitted by the week after Thanksgiving so we'd decided to start working on it as soon as possible. I was getting quite excited because it meant that I had something to do on Saturdays.
"My friend expects you to be faithful," he said as he steered the wheel and pulled over.
I turned to him. "Your point?"
My brother bent his head so that he could get a better view of the red brick house. "Not bad," he commented. "My point is that my friend expects you to be faithful so if you're not, break up with him and don't pretend to be working on a school project when you know you're just hanging out with some guy."
As if on cue, at that moment, Ali stepped out of the house looking quite naked in her maroon tube top and denim shorts. She smiled and waved at us.
I spun my head back at my brother. "Thanks for your advice," I said with a smirk. "We're going to be busy and it's going to take quite some time so you can come back around eight."
He scoffed. "You must be kidding if you think you're going to miss 'Family Time'. Better be ready by six."
***
Ryan wasn't home when I arrived because he was filming some scenes with some of his friends who were serving as extras. What that meant was that he got to drive around town filming his friends walking by, shopping and doing everyday things that he'd later edit into the film as background shots.
"I look like a Prada Bi.tch," I said to Ali's reflection. And it only made sense after all, she'd spent over thirty minutes painting one face. "There's no way I'm going to appear on film looking like this!" I picked up some tissue and was about to wipe some of the crap off when Ali grabbed my hand.
"If you don't wanna die, you'd better not wipe off all my hard work!"
I pushed her hand off mine. "It's bad enough I'm going to be acting in this movie but I will not look like a clown!"
"Hey," Ryan said, suddenly appearing. "Stop yelling – there are other people in this house," he reminded us.
His parents had given us full reign of the basement so we were using it as our studio-cum-prep room. He looked at my face. "Ali, the make-up really does look excessive," he confessed.
My heart sank. "See? I look like sh.it."
"The make-up has to be thick to be effective on screen," she argued. "Su Jin, before you wipe it off, at least see what it looks like on film."
She sounded so sincere I agreed to her proposal. "But if it still looks like sh.it, I'm taking it off."
The light wasn't that great in the basement so we climbed up the stairs and went to the backyard. Ryan pointed the camera at me. "You don't have to say anything. Just walk towards me," he said as he backed away. A few seconds after looking at the blank camera, I started making a few faces to entertain myself. How the hell did actors do this for months at a time? "Please try to be normal," he said, partying pooping as always.
After about a minute or two, he stopped filming so we went back to the basement to continue with our preparations.
"Wow," I mouthed as I looked at myself. Even though I was distorting my face like a fool, I still looked quite awesome. Maybe it was something about how the light fell on my face but the make-up really looked great. It highlighted and shadowed my features in a way that made them pop out on screen. And I didn't look like someone else – I just looked like a better version of my normal self.
I gave Ryan back the camera and after seeing the playback, he looked almost as shocked as I was. He continuously looked from the viewfinder to me as if he couldn't believe it was the same person.
"Hey, stop staring at her like she just had a makeover," Ali said shortly after, nudging him. "She's always looked good."
"I know," Ryan breathed. "It's just that—"
"It's just what?" she interrupted.
"Nothing."
The room fell into awkward silence so I went back to looking at my reflection in the mirror. I was still amazed that I didn't look like a Prada Bi.tch on film.
Ali began to hum as she packed up her make-up and Ryan was supposedly doing something with his camera but every time I looked in his direction, he quickly looked away.
I didn't know what it was but something about the whole situation was weird and I felt my chest tightening and my breathing becoming shallower.
"When do we start filming?" I asked to distract myself from the tension that was building up in the room.
"Since the guys are here we can just film the mugging scene now. I don't know how long it will take but it shouldn't be too difficult, so don't worry."
"I'm not worried," I snapped even though I knew I needn't sound so defensive. It wasn't like he'd insulted me or anything.
"Okay, let's go," he said, gesturing for me to stand up.
I looked over at Ali and saw her look at Ryan then at me before smiling to herself.
She gave it a quick look over, raised her brow and said, "Interesting. I'm going to send Ryan a text."
She, Lisa and I had a free period, so we were spending it at the library trying to finish up on some homework. My English classes were more advanced than what I'd done with Tom so Ali was helping me where she could.
Lisa's phone vibrated. She picked it up and looked at the caller id. "Great. My little brother is calling me. I wonder what kind of trouble he's gotten into now," she grumbled. She picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder. "I guess I'll be seeing you guys soon."
"Try not to stop at Burger King," Ali called after her.
Lisa her gave her 'the finger' but kept walking away.
"Burger King?" I whispered curiously. "She's leaving school?"
Ali shook her head. "Probably not – I just wanted to annoy her," she said, giggling.
A few minutes later, Ryan showed up and threw his bag on our table. "What do you guys want?"
Ali handed him the flyer. "What do you think?"
He read it then looked at her. "You called me over for this?"
"Why don't you just sit down and lower your voice?"
Ali was one of those people who was playful most of the time but when she was serious, you knew that she meant business. And this was one of those rare times.
"Why? I'm not staying here," he said defiantly.
She pulled his arm hard till he had to sit to keep it from dislocating. "Are you trying to kill me?" he snarled at her.
"You walk around with your camera, thinking you're Ang Lee," she said, ignoring his annoyed expression, "at the times no one gives a sh.it about your ideas, you bore us to death telling us about the movies that you'd like to make and now that you have a chance, you're acting like this?"
He threw the flyer on the table. "You think entering some local competition is going to get me an Oscar?"
"It's a step," she said simply.
"Ages 15-21 only? It's for amateurs."
"So what? Isn't that what you are?"
At times like this, I felt like a fly on the wall. I didn't want to vocally side with either of them even though I agreed with Ali. If he wanted to make a film, why not jump at the opportunity to be taken seriously?
He picked up the sheet of paper and looked at it again. "What can I say in 5-20 minutes?" he asked skeptically.
"A lot," she countered.
"What will it be about?"
She shrugged in exasperation. "How will I know? You're a smart guy – you'll think of something."
"The top five selected films will be sent over to the national competition and be viewed by the Zoetrope board members," he read.
"And it says that the company is owned by Francis Coppola," she said, pointing at a line on the sheet. "He's big deal, isn't he?"
He nodded. "Yeah."
"So what's the problem? It's free to enter, it's a legitimate competition and if your film is selected, this Coppola guy may get to see it and if it's not, so what? You've made a movie."
"But what will it be about? How will I make it? Who'll be in it? Wh—"
"She can be the star," Ali suddenly said, pointing at me.
"W-what?" I'd been so immersed in their conversation that she'd practically jolted me out of a trance. "M-me? No way."
"Yes way," she countered. "You found the flyer so you deserve it. Maybe you'll become a big star."
I shook my head vehemently. "No way. It's okay – I don't want to be a star."
"Don't be silly." She turned back to Ryan. "She can be the star, I'll help in any way I can. What do producers do anyway?"
"They provide funding."
"In that case, I can be the editor or cinematographer…" She suddenly put her hand up in the air. "No. No, I've got it. I'll be the costume designer and make-up artist, she's the actress, you're the producer and director and we can make this the best film ever made in Brighton Academy."
***
"So what have you come up with?" Ali asked before she put a huge scoop of ice cream in her mouth. Since it was a lovely day out, she'd come up with the brilliant plan of sneaking our lunch outside. The school was quite strict about carrying school utensils outside of the cafeteria so I'd wrapped my beef and bacon burger in a napkin and put some fries in some aluminum foil I'd managed to score off the cafeteria lady. But Ali didn't care. She was only having soft serve ice cream for lunch and couldn't be bothered to hide the bowl she'd piled it in.
Ryan pulled out some copies of the script from his bag and gave them to us. "Well, this is my vision," he began. He stood up and described the entire film to us. It was a story about a Korean girl who, like many other immigrants, had come to America in search of her dreams.
"At first, she'd absolutely love it. She'd love everything about it – the streets, the food, the clothes, the weather," he said animatedly. "Everything would be bigger than she'd ever dreamed of till it'll slowly start to unravel. She'd learn that it's all a façade and that it really can't live up to the fantasy she's built up in her mind."
"What will happen to her?" I still wasn't keen on doing the movie but Ali wasn't having it. I'd tried to protest and explain that I really sucked at acting but it fell on deaf ears and in the end, I gave in.
"Hey, relax," Ryan said chuckling. "It's not going to be something really terrible. Just a mugging… something she never experienced back home. I was thinking that she might witness a drive by shooting but how will I film that? But after experiencing that initial ugliness of America, she'd suddenly stop smelling roses and start seeing thorns. Hey," he said, suddenly stopping. "Let me write that down." He grabbed a pen and wrote the line at the back of one of his scripts. "Anyway," he continued, "she'd realize that her homeland is pretty great and go back. What do you guys think?" he asked expectantly.
It sounded alright although I'd hoped for something more interesting. "It could be more interesting but I guess it's okay."
"Ali?"
She made a big show of fake yawning.
Ryan folded his arms across his chest. "Why?" He sat back on the grass and waited for her response.
She shrugged. "It's not that it's not interesting but it's been done a hundred times before. Why does it have to be something involving the old country?"
He sighed. "Think about it. Look at the movies in the theatres – it's generally only movies with a primarily Caucasian cast that can really be about anything. If most of the stars are Asians or Hispanics or whomever, it has to be somehow related to identity."
"Bullsh.it," was Ali's only response.
I didn't know much about American cinema outside of what I'd seen back home so I had nothing to contribute.
"Really? Think about it. What's the Joy Luck Club about? What about the Namesake? Even though Jackie Chan's movies are comedies, his character always has to be from Asia."
"That's because his accent is thick. You really think he can pass for a New Yorker?"
"Okay, true. But if the movie isn't set in Asia like Crouching Tiger, the characters must go through some identity issues or talk about stereotypes or what it means to be of Asian ancestry in America. I'm not talking about independent films here but the ones that make it to mainstream America."
"So even if it's true, so what? You're not making this for Twentieth Century Fox. Can't you break the mold?"
"I could but I'd like to win. Wouldn't you? You're the one who wants to make a film that Francis Ford Coppola can see. You think we can do that without a film that has an edge to it? Or can you come up with another plot? Besides, just like Jackie Chan, our actress over here," he said, pointing at me, "has some limitations."
"True, true," Ali said before they both laughed.
Hardihaha. What was so funny about that?
***
"What class project is this?" Dong Won asked as we approached Ryan's house.
"A class project." The film was to be submitted by the week after Thanksgiving so we'd decided to start working on it as soon as possible. I was getting quite excited because it meant that I had something to do on Saturdays.
"My friend expects you to be faithful," he said as he steered the wheel and pulled over.
I turned to him. "Your point?"
My brother bent his head so that he could get a better view of the red brick house. "Not bad," he commented. "My point is that my friend expects you to be faithful so if you're not, break up with him and don't pretend to be working on a school project when you know you're just hanging out with some guy."
As if on cue, at that moment, Ali stepped out of the house looking quite naked in her maroon tube top and denim shorts. She smiled and waved at us.
I spun my head back at my brother. "Thanks for your advice," I said with a smirk. "We're going to be busy and it's going to take quite some time so you can come back around eight."
He scoffed. "You must be kidding if you think you're going to miss 'Family Time'. Better be ready by six."
***
Ryan wasn't home when I arrived because he was filming some scenes with some of his friends who were serving as extras. What that meant was that he got to drive around town filming his friends walking by, shopping and doing everyday things that he'd later edit into the film as background shots.
"I look like a Prada Bi.tch," I said to Ali's reflection. And it only made sense after all, she'd spent over thirty minutes painting one face. "There's no way I'm going to appear on film looking like this!" I picked up some tissue and was about to wipe some of the crap off when Ali grabbed my hand.
"If you don't wanna die, you'd better not wipe off all my hard work!"
I pushed her hand off mine. "It's bad enough I'm going to be acting in this movie but I will not look like a clown!"
"Hey," Ryan said, suddenly appearing. "Stop yelling – there are other people in this house," he reminded us.
His parents had given us full reign of the basement so we were using it as our studio-cum-prep room. He looked at my face. "Ali, the make-up really does look excessive," he confessed.
My heart sank. "See? I look like sh.it."
"The make-up has to be thick to be effective on screen," she argued. "Su Jin, before you wipe it off, at least see what it looks like on film."
She sounded so sincere I agreed to her proposal. "But if it still looks like sh.it, I'm taking it off."
The light wasn't that great in the basement so we climbed up the stairs and went to the backyard. Ryan pointed the camera at me. "You don't have to say anything. Just walk towards me," he said as he backed away. A few seconds after looking at the blank camera, I started making a few faces to entertain myself. How the hell did actors do this for months at a time? "Please try to be normal," he said, partying pooping as always.
After about a minute or two, he stopped filming so we went back to the basement to continue with our preparations.
"Wow," I mouthed as I looked at myself. Even though I was distorting my face like a fool, I still looked quite awesome. Maybe it was something about how the light fell on my face but the make-up really looked great. It highlighted and shadowed my features in a way that made them pop out on screen. And I didn't look like someone else – I just looked like a better version of my normal self.
I gave Ryan back the camera and after seeing the playback, he looked almost as shocked as I was. He continuously looked from the viewfinder to me as if he couldn't believe it was the same person.
"Hey, stop staring at her like she just had a makeover," Ali said shortly after, nudging him. "She's always looked good."
"I know," Ryan breathed. "It's just that—"
"It's just what?" she interrupted.
"Nothing."
The room fell into awkward silence so I went back to looking at my reflection in the mirror. I was still amazed that I didn't look like a Prada Bi.tch on film.
Ali began to hum as she packed up her make-up and Ryan was supposedly doing something with his camera but every time I looked in his direction, he quickly looked away.
I didn't know what it was but something about the whole situation was weird and I felt my chest tightening and my breathing becoming shallower.
"When do we start filming?" I asked to distract myself from the tension that was building up in the room.
"Since the guys are here we can just film the mugging scene now. I don't know how long it will take but it shouldn't be too difficult, so don't worry."
"I'm not worried," I snapped even though I knew I needn't sound so defensive. It wasn't like he'd insulted me or anything.
"Okay, let's go," he said, gesturing for me to stand up.
I looked over at Ali and saw her look at Ryan then at me before smiling to herself.
Chapter 15
"You must only speak Korean when you're here so that Ryan can improve. It's because he and his brothers kept getting embarrassed whenever we spoke it in public that they can't speak it now," his mother mused.
"Umma," Ryan growled.
"No, I'm being serious. We were so embarrassed the last time we went to Korea," she continued. "He couldn't say a three word sentence without adding an English word and to top it off, he spoke the few Korean words he knew with an English accent." She tut-tutted. "It was so bad."
"Umma, I was only 10 then."
His mother nodded enthusiastically. "Exactly. So are you trying to say you're better now? Don't you know that you're worse these days?" She frowned. "You don't believe me? Okay, say, 'the rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain' in Korean."
I laughed when I saw Ryan shake his head and take a bite of his roll.
We were at his place to continue with our film and I hadn't even been there for an hour when Ryan's parents called us in for lunch. I'd already eaten at home but his mother wasn't interested in hearing that.
"If I only speak Korean, how will Ali understand?" I wondered.
Ali shrugged and looked away.
Ryan's father laughed. "It's okay. Ali should give her jaw a break every now and then."
"Uncle! I really don't talk that much. I don't know why you always say that!" she whined.
We all laughed and fell into conversation. Even though his parents were speaking Korean, Ryan replied in English.
"Ryan, why don't you just speak Korean?" I asked after a while.
"Because I want Ali to understand," he snapped back.
"Don't worry about me," Ali said as if it was a huge sacrifice. She picked up the bottle of Diet Coke and poured herself a fresh glass. I held out my glass for a refill.
"He answers in English because he can't string three Korean words together," his father reiterated in Korean. "How is the movie coming along?"
"Appa, we've only just started so there's a lot of work to do."
His father nodded. "That's good. It's good that you can learn how hard it is to make a movie. Or do you think that those directors get paid millions of dollars for nothing? And I hope that this will help you finally get this filming nonsense out of your system. Su Jin ah, don't you think it's a shame that someone as smart as Ryan, someone with such a scientific brain doesn't even care about his gift?"
Hoping it was a rhetorical question, I didn't reply.
"I remember how happy I was when he took apart his older brother's broken camera and fixed it. I thought it meant that he was going to be an engineer or become some kind of inventor but instead, he decided to use it to tape us wrapping Christmas gifts. What did he gain from that? What is so special about wrapping gifts? Wasn't it pointless?"
Ali gave me a look and when I glanced at Ryan, his face was devoid of emotion. I scooped a spoon of rice and tried not to think about it. But I couldn't help but feel sad when I thought about how often he had to hear his father's annoying little speech.
***
"Action!"
I looked into the camera and tried to remember my lines. "Umma, I'm so happy!" I jumped to show my excitement. "I can't—"
"Cut!"
I groaned. "What now?" We'd been trying to film our second scene of the day for the last thirty minutes and had yet been able to get through the first minute. The stupid guy really thought he was Woody Allen or something. Did he think that the film was going to be screened at Cannes?
"Just chill a bit on the happiness, okay? You sounded like you'd just inhaled helium. The idea is to act like you're happy and not stupid," he said condescendingly.
Okay, what was his problem? Did he forget that I was taking time out of my precious Saturday to act in his stupid film? "Look, if you're going to call me stupid, just forget about it. It's not like I'm actually gaining anything from this!" I yelled before I turned around to make my dramatic exit.
But before I could take a step, he quickly caught me and turned me around. "Okay, I'm sorry. Let's just do this one more time but can you tone down the happiness a bit? Just a notch?"
I looked over at Ali who was staying off frame in preparation for her part. She'd been mumbling and pacing around as if she was practicing lines which made no sense as she had none.
"Ready?" our director asked.
I frowned. "Okay, ready," I said grudgingly.
"1, 2, action!"
I smiled into the camera. " Umma, I'm so happy! I…," I began. The whole idea was to go on and on about how happy I was and get so caught up in it that I wouldn't notice the pedestrian (Ali) bump into me.
"Cut."
I groaned loudly. "What now? I thought the scene was going perfectly."
"Ali, you're supposed to hit her. Just now, it looked like you just walked by her. The audience is supposed to notice you bump into her even though she doesn't flinch."
"Look," Ali said in a bored tone, "I only have about twenty minutes before Kevin arrives so let's get this over and done with, okay? If the bump isn't great you can fix it in editing or whatever."
Kevin was the guy she was currently going gaga over. According to her, he was the hottest guy on the planet which was something I could agree with if I completely disregarded his face.
"Alright, let's do this again. Remember, you must bump into her. Okay? Ready. Places, ladies! Action!"
"Ouch! ALI, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?! OUCH! Ouch!!" I yelled a few minutes later. Ali had done as Ryan requested but when she'd hit me, I didn't even get the chance to pretend that I couldn't feel it because she sent me flying about two feet. I rubbed my butt furiously and checked to see if I'd grazed my knee. It hadn't been a pretty fall as I'd landed on my knee and when it couldn't support me, all the weight had pushed me on my as.s. Dang.
Ali ran over to help me but Ryan cut in front of her and pushed her away. "Su Jin, are you okay?" he asked worriedly as he crouched down in front of me and began to brush off my sandy knee. "Are you okay?" He rubbed my knee but when he started to massage my calf, I didn't know why but I just had to stop him. "Are you okay?" he repeated as I tried to get up.
I nodded. His closeness was throwing me off but I tried to ignore it. It was no big deal - I was probably only just realizing that I really loved my personal space. "I'm okay," I said as I let him help me up. My butt was still on fire but I knew I'd live. He held on to me tightly as he walked me to a nearby bench. "Let's take a five minute break and Ali, please remember that this isn't the freaking WWE!"
***
"Hey, can you hold the door open?" Ryan called as he climbed down the stairs. We were done filming for the day and since Ali had already gone off with Kevin, I was waiting for my brother in the make-shift studio.
I jumped off the couch and did as he asked and watched him walk through the door with an electric keyboard in his hand.
"What's that?"
He raised his brow. "What does it look like?" He walked over to a corner and set it up on one of the tables. He dragged a random chair in front of it then sat down and tinkled with a key to test the sound. "Cool," he said, nodding contentedly.
"You play?"
He nodded. "For a few years now." Then he titled his lips and stretched his face unsurely. "I've got the craziest idea."
I walked over to the keyboard and played 'Mary Had a Little Lamb'. That and 'Doe A Deer, A Female Deer' were the only tunes I knew and I made sure to play them whenever I saw a keyboard.
He put his hand over my mine to stop me from playing. I couldn't pretend that I didn't feel the tingle so I immediately took my hand back and went back to sit on the couch. Okay. What was that?
"Su Jin, what do you think about doing a song with me?"
I turned to him. "Meaning?"
"Well," he said, nervously, "you have a good voice and I was just thinking that if we're going to make a movie, we might as well come up with an original song – like a soundtrack or something."
I chuckled. "Is that necessary? I don't think they expect the movie to be that professional." Jeez. What was the boy on?
"But if we're going to do this, shouldn't we do it right? If we are going to make this movie then we need to put in our 100%."
I shook my head. "Ali practically had to beg you to enter the competition but all of a sudden, you're so into it that you want to put in your 100%."
He rolled his eyes. "So what do you think? Do you agree? I'll compose the song – all you'd need to do is sing it. I'd have sung it if I didn't sound like a frog."
I shuddered at the memory of him singing at our choir auditions.
A song, huh? I'd always had my little fantasies of singing in front of a crowd of people yelling my name and throwing their bras at me. Okay, not their bras but who hadn't fantasized about winning a Grammy award and thanking all the little people she'd had to step on to get to number 1?
It did sound like fun. "Okay, show me your skills. Play something for me."
As he played the tune, I couldn't help but acknowledge that he was actually quite good. He was no Mozart but he certainly understood his music. I bumped my head along with the music till I recognized it and instinctively started singing the lyrics. "She's so lucky, she's a star but she cry, cry, cries…" I turned and looked at him in dismay. "Britney Spears? You like Britney Spears?" I fell back on the couch and burst out laughing. I was practically rolling all over and laughing my ass off because it was just plain ridiculous. He loved Britney? Okay, so in my youth, I'd loved Britney but he loved Britney? I had to hold my tummy to keep it from bursting as I laughed harder.
"No! No!" he protested.
I looked up and saw him waving vehemently in defense.
I sat up, frowned then folded my arms. "You don't like Britney but you know her song? And can play it on the piano?"
He tinkled a few keys and shook his head. "I had a thing for this girl in 7th grade and she was such a huge fan of hers that I got it in my head that if I could play the songs for her, she'd be impressed and maybe like me too," he said with a shrug. From the faces he was making, I could tell that it wasn't something he was proud of.
I laughed some more. "And was she impressed?"
He scrunched his nose. "She transferred schools before I even got the chance to show her."
And that just killed me.
After recovering from all the laughter, I said, "So you know all her songs, huh? Okay, play this one…." I paused to catch my breath then started singing the lyrics to Stronger.
He shook his head. "She left before I could learn that one."
I chuckled. "Okay, what else can I sing? Every time I try to fly I fall…"
He shook his head again. "Not that one either."
I growled. Jeez. This guy was really killing my mojo. I wanted to sing something! "Okay, how about this one?" I cleared my throat and began, "I don't wanna be so shy, huh-huh, but every time that I'm alone I wonder why…"
He wrinkled his forehead. "Sounds familiar. Keep singing."
"… I hope that you will wait me. You'll see that you're the only for me."
He smiled and nodded before placing his fingers on the keyboard and playing the tune.
After singing one more line, I got off his bed, pretended my fist was a microphone and started singing and dancing. He sounded quite great and I felt like I was performing at Madison Square Garden.
"Sometimes I run, sometimes I hide. Sometimes I'm scared of you but all I really want is to hold you tight, treat you right, be with you day and night…."
Baby all I need is time.
"Umma," Ryan growled.
"No, I'm being serious. We were so embarrassed the last time we went to Korea," she continued. "He couldn't say a three word sentence without adding an English word and to top it off, he spoke the few Korean words he knew with an English accent." She tut-tutted. "It was so bad."
"Umma, I was only 10 then."
His mother nodded enthusiastically. "Exactly. So are you trying to say you're better now? Don't you know that you're worse these days?" She frowned. "You don't believe me? Okay, say, 'the rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain' in Korean."
I laughed when I saw Ryan shake his head and take a bite of his roll.
We were at his place to continue with our film and I hadn't even been there for an hour when Ryan's parents called us in for lunch. I'd already eaten at home but his mother wasn't interested in hearing that.
"If I only speak Korean, how will Ali understand?" I wondered.
Ali shrugged and looked away.
Ryan's father laughed. "It's okay. Ali should give her jaw a break every now and then."
"Uncle! I really don't talk that much. I don't know why you always say that!" she whined.
We all laughed and fell into conversation. Even though his parents were speaking Korean, Ryan replied in English.
"Ryan, why don't you just speak Korean?" I asked after a while.
"Because I want Ali to understand," he snapped back.
"Don't worry about me," Ali said as if it was a huge sacrifice. She picked up the bottle of Diet Coke and poured herself a fresh glass. I held out my glass for a refill.
"He answers in English because he can't string three Korean words together," his father reiterated in Korean. "How is the movie coming along?"
"Appa, we've only just started so there's a lot of work to do."
His father nodded. "That's good. It's good that you can learn how hard it is to make a movie. Or do you think that those directors get paid millions of dollars for nothing? And I hope that this will help you finally get this filming nonsense out of your system. Su Jin ah, don't you think it's a shame that someone as smart as Ryan, someone with such a scientific brain doesn't even care about his gift?"
Hoping it was a rhetorical question, I didn't reply.
"I remember how happy I was when he took apart his older brother's broken camera and fixed it. I thought it meant that he was going to be an engineer or become some kind of inventor but instead, he decided to use it to tape us wrapping Christmas gifts. What did he gain from that? What is so special about wrapping gifts? Wasn't it pointless?"
Ali gave me a look and when I glanced at Ryan, his face was devoid of emotion. I scooped a spoon of rice and tried not to think about it. But I couldn't help but feel sad when I thought about how often he had to hear his father's annoying little speech.
***
"Action!"
I looked into the camera and tried to remember my lines. "Umma, I'm so happy!" I jumped to show my excitement. "I can't—"
"Cut!"
I groaned. "What now?" We'd been trying to film our second scene of the day for the last thirty minutes and had yet been able to get through the first minute. The stupid guy really thought he was Woody Allen or something. Did he think that the film was going to be screened at Cannes?
"Just chill a bit on the happiness, okay? You sounded like you'd just inhaled helium. The idea is to act like you're happy and not stupid," he said condescendingly.
Okay, what was his problem? Did he forget that I was taking time out of my precious Saturday to act in his stupid film? "Look, if you're going to call me stupid, just forget about it. It's not like I'm actually gaining anything from this!" I yelled before I turned around to make my dramatic exit.
But before I could take a step, he quickly caught me and turned me around. "Okay, I'm sorry. Let's just do this one more time but can you tone down the happiness a bit? Just a notch?"
I looked over at Ali who was staying off frame in preparation for her part. She'd been mumbling and pacing around as if she was practicing lines which made no sense as she had none.
"Ready?" our director asked.
I frowned. "Okay, ready," I said grudgingly.
"1, 2, action!"
I smiled into the camera. " Umma, I'm so happy! I…," I began. The whole idea was to go on and on about how happy I was and get so caught up in it that I wouldn't notice the pedestrian (Ali) bump into me.
"Cut."
I groaned loudly. "What now? I thought the scene was going perfectly."
"Ali, you're supposed to hit her. Just now, it looked like you just walked by her. The audience is supposed to notice you bump into her even though she doesn't flinch."
"Look," Ali said in a bored tone, "I only have about twenty minutes before Kevin arrives so let's get this over and done with, okay? If the bump isn't great you can fix it in editing or whatever."
Kevin was the guy she was currently going gaga over. According to her, he was the hottest guy on the planet which was something I could agree with if I completely disregarded his face.
"Alright, let's do this again. Remember, you must bump into her. Okay? Ready. Places, ladies! Action!"
"Ouch! ALI, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?! OUCH! Ouch!!" I yelled a few minutes later. Ali had done as Ryan requested but when she'd hit me, I didn't even get the chance to pretend that I couldn't feel it because she sent me flying about two feet. I rubbed my butt furiously and checked to see if I'd grazed my knee. It hadn't been a pretty fall as I'd landed on my knee and when it couldn't support me, all the weight had pushed me on my as.s. Dang.
Ali ran over to help me but Ryan cut in front of her and pushed her away. "Su Jin, are you okay?" he asked worriedly as he crouched down in front of me and began to brush off my sandy knee. "Are you okay?" He rubbed my knee but when he started to massage my calf, I didn't know why but I just had to stop him. "Are you okay?" he repeated as I tried to get up.
I nodded. His closeness was throwing me off but I tried to ignore it. It was no big deal - I was probably only just realizing that I really loved my personal space. "I'm okay," I said as I let him help me up. My butt was still on fire but I knew I'd live. He held on to me tightly as he walked me to a nearby bench. "Let's take a five minute break and Ali, please remember that this isn't the freaking WWE!"
***
"Hey, can you hold the door open?" Ryan called as he climbed down the stairs. We were done filming for the day and since Ali had already gone off with Kevin, I was waiting for my brother in the make-shift studio.
I jumped off the couch and did as he asked and watched him walk through the door with an electric keyboard in his hand.
"What's that?"
He raised his brow. "What does it look like?" He walked over to a corner and set it up on one of the tables. He dragged a random chair in front of it then sat down and tinkled with a key to test the sound. "Cool," he said, nodding contentedly.
"You play?"
He nodded. "For a few years now." Then he titled his lips and stretched his face unsurely. "I've got the craziest idea."
I walked over to the keyboard and played 'Mary Had a Little Lamb'. That and 'Doe A Deer, A Female Deer' were the only tunes I knew and I made sure to play them whenever I saw a keyboard.
He put his hand over my mine to stop me from playing. I couldn't pretend that I didn't feel the tingle so I immediately took my hand back and went back to sit on the couch. Okay. What was that?
"Su Jin, what do you think about doing a song with me?"
I turned to him. "Meaning?"
"Well," he said, nervously, "you have a good voice and I was just thinking that if we're going to make a movie, we might as well come up with an original song – like a soundtrack or something."
I chuckled. "Is that necessary? I don't think they expect the movie to be that professional." Jeez. What was the boy on?
"But if we're going to do this, shouldn't we do it right? If we are going to make this movie then we need to put in our 100%."
I shook my head. "Ali practically had to beg you to enter the competition but all of a sudden, you're so into it that you want to put in your 100%."
He rolled his eyes. "So what do you think? Do you agree? I'll compose the song – all you'd need to do is sing it. I'd have sung it if I didn't sound like a frog."
I shuddered at the memory of him singing at our choir auditions.
A song, huh? I'd always had my little fantasies of singing in front of a crowd of people yelling my name and throwing their bras at me. Okay, not their bras but who hadn't fantasized about winning a Grammy award and thanking all the little people she'd had to step on to get to number 1?
It did sound like fun. "Okay, show me your skills. Play something for me."
As he played the tune, I couldn't help but acknowledge that he was actually quite good. He was no Mozart but he certainly understood his music. I bumped my head along with the music till I recognized it and instinctively started singing the lyrics. "She's so lucky, she's a star but she cry, cry, cries…" I turned and looked at him in dismay. "Britney Spears? You like Britney Spears?" I fell back on the couch and burst out laughing. I was practically rolling all over and laughing my ass off because it was just plain ridiculous. He loved Britney? Okay, so in my youth, I'd loved Britney but he loved Britney? I had to hold my tummy to keep it from bursting as I laughed harder.
"No! No!" he protested.
I looked up and saw him waving vehemently in defense.
I sat up, frowned then folded my arms. "You don't like Britney but you know her song? And can play it on the piano?"
He tinkled a few keys and shook his head. "I had a thing for this girl in 7th grade and she was such a huge fan of hers that I got it in my head that if I could play the songs for her, she'd be impressed and maybe like me too," he said with a shrug. From the faces he was making, I could tell that it wasn't something he was proud of.
I laughed some more. "And was she impressed?"
He scrunched his nose. "She transferred schools before I even got the chance to show her."
And that just killed me.
After recovering from all the laughter, I said, "So you know all her songs, huh? Okay, play this one…." I paused to catch my breath then started singing the lyrics to Stronger.
He shook his head. "She left before I could learn that one."
I chuckled. "Okay, what else can I sing? Every time I try to fly I fall…"
He shook his head again. "Not that one either."
I growled. Jeez. This guy was really killing my mojo. I wanted to sing something! "Okay, how about this one?" I cleared my throat and began, "I don't wanna be so shy, huh-huh, but every time that I'm alone I wonder why…"
He wrinkled his forehead. "Sounds familiar. Keep singing."
"… I hope that you will wait me. You'll see that you're the only for me."
He smiled and nodded before placing his fingers on the keyboard and playing the tune.
After singing one more line, I got off his bed, pretended my fist was a microphone and started singing and dancing. He sounded quite great and I felt like I was performing at Madison Square Garden.
"Sometimes I run, sometimes I hide. Sometimes I'm scared of you but all I really want is to hold you tight, treat you right, be with you day and night…."
Baby all I need is time.
Chapter 16
"So all I need to do is walk?"
Ryan nodded. "Yeah. Just walk and I'll film you. Since she's excited to be in D.C., we have to show some landmarks."
I rolled my eyes. "I get that. But what makes this street famous?"
"It's M street in Georgetown. It's like going to New York and never going to Times Square."
I looked around. The street was crawling with young people but that wasn't anything special as it was Saturday. There were quite a few restaurants and even though it was fall, it was still warm so all the outdoor sitting areas were occupied.
I looked at him. "I'm still trying to figure out what's impressive about this." The street was crawling with clothing stores but even if I had money, judging from his raggedy jeans and 'army' t-shirt, was I supposed to go shopping with him?
He shook his head. "You're such hater. Besides, this isn't about you but about Rachel."
I raised my brow. "Who is Rachel?"
He hissed. "Do you even pay any attention to me? Your character's name is Rachel."
What? I looked at him from the corner of my eye. "She's Korean, isn't she?"
"So what? That's the name I came up with so deal with it."
I chuckled. He probably couldn't think of a better name.
"Okay, just start walking ahead of me and I'll film you from behind."
I walked ahead and put my hands behind me. "Don't look at my butt!" I joked.
"Even if I looked, what would I see?" he quipped.
Small butts were in fashion. I turned around and stuck my tongue at him then kept on walking.
"Hey!" he yelled a few minutes later.
The urgency in his voice stopped me cold in my tracks. I turned around anxiously. "What's wrong?"
He put the camera down and frowned. "Nothing's wrong." He grabbed my hand and dragged me to the front of some steps. "I told you there was cool stuff here," he said proudly.
"Huh?" I looked around. Was I missing something?
"These are the famous steps."
"Oh, really? They are interesting," I said, hoping that I could, in fact, find something interesting about them. "I mean, they are narrow and pretty high and look old." I looked down the street. "Georgetown seems to be a mixture of old and new. I guess it's pretty cool." I smiled. I was quite impressed with my artistic eye.
He frowned. "You don't know where these steps are from, do you?"
I widened my eyes. They were from somewhere else?
"It's from The Exorcist." When he saw that my blank expression did not change, he shook his head. "You know, the movie about the possessed girl. The one where her head spins around," he said impatiently.
I shook my head. "Sorry, I haven't seen it."
He glared at me in amazement then turned around and started walking briskly.
I chased after him. Was this guy really angry at me because I hadn't seen some stupid movie?
"Hey you, look at me!" I yelled, suddenly getting an idea.
He kept walking and luckily, we'd gotten to a less busy part of the street so there weren't as many people around.
I jumped ahead and tapped his shoulder. "What's your problem? Just turn around."
I saw his shoulders slump before he turned around. "What?"
I started dancing.
He looked at me through bored eyes. "What are you doing?"
"Hey, put that camera on me! We can film our music video here."
"Our video?"
"For our song," I reminded him. "The one you're going to write. The one I'm going to perform?"
He shook his head and started to turn around but I yelled at him to look back at me. Gosh. Couldn't he relax a little?
I danced enthusiastically like a desperate debut singer. "Something something love love something," I started singing badly.
"Those will not be the lyrics to our song," he said as he raised the camera. As I danced and walked forward, he slowly walked backwards and kept the camera trained on me.
"Something something love, oh, I really really love America. I'm so so sooooooooooo happy to be here. Oh, can't you see? Georgetown rocks!" I did a complete turn and kept on dancing in what I hoped was a sultry manner.
Ryan started laughing but kept filming me.
***
"Do we really need to do this?" I asked Ryan for the nth time since we'd arrived at the platform.
"There has to be a subway scene."
"But it's so embarrassing," I said, stomping my foot and sulking.
He laughed. "If singing like an American Idol reject doesn't embarrass you, smiling into the camera in a train shouldn't. Hey, look, the train is finally here."
I saw a relatively empty car pass by us so we jogged further up the platform to catch it.
A few minutes later, I fixed my hair in my little compact mirror and when I was satisfied with it, I brushed my blouse down then cleared my throat. "I'm ready."
Ryan did his signature head shake then switched his camera on. "Remember, you don't have to say anything. Just look happy to be on the subway."
"Did you visit some kind of village when you went to Korea?"
He furrowed his brow and shook his head. "No. Why?"
"You realize that a Korean girl wouldn't be so impressed by with a subway, right? It's nothing special."
He put the camera down. "Look, anyone who visits London takes a photo of the Tube. It doesn't matter if the person is from New York or Rome or Tokyo. It's just a thing you do so don't get offended."
I was about to give a sarcastic retort when I suddenly realized that there was someone yelling on the train. I looked up to see a middle aged man in worn out clothes looking at us and shouting.
Ryan seemed to notice him at the same time because he moved his body in front of mine as a shield. "What's your problem?" he roared at the man.
"You're my problem! What the fu.ck are you doing here? You and that bit.ch? Get the fu.ck out of here! Go back to your country!"
Had we done something wrong? "Ryan, what's going on?" I asked in a small voice.
Ryan stood up while making sure that he was still in between me and the man. I stood up too but he told me to sit back down. Then he turned back to the burly man. "Look, we don't want any trouble. We were minding our business and not talking to you so just leave us alone."
The man burst out laughing. "I am doing my civic duty. We should rid this country of this filth!" the man began before he went into a long rant about Americans being stupid for letting just anyone into their country. I tried to block out what he was saying but I kept hearing references to Virginia Tech and how Americans can no longer be safe in their own country.
Ryan sat back down and wrapped his arms around me. "Are you okay?"
I nodded. My heart was thumping and it was the first time someone had ever exhibited such rage towards me. The guy was slurring his speech a little and I wondered if he was inebriated. There was a slight smell of alcohol but I wasn't sure if it was from him or just the general awful smell of the train.
I looked over at the other passengers in our car – a woman with two young children, three guys and an elderly couple – and although they were sending us pitying looks, I was quite sure there weren't going to interfere.
The man looked like he could turn violent at any moment so I held on tightly to Ryan's shirt. Is this what my father relocated my entire family to America for? I was just too young for this bullsh.it.
The man spat on the floor. "That's you. That's you!" he yelled before spitting again.
I looked away and tried to block him out.
"Just ignore him," Ryan whispered as the train halted to a stop. "Don't be scared. He's an idiot and can't do anything to us."
"Let's get off now. We should just leave and get on the next train."
He shook his head. "We can't let him interfere with our day. That's what he wants so why should we please him? Just ignore him and when he's tired, he'll stop talking."
The elderly couple got off and some other passengers got into our car. I hoped that seeing more people would deter the psychotic man from attacking us but once the train started moving, he picked up from when he left off.
"Hey, you, shut the hell up and leave them alone!" one of the new passengers shouted from a few seats from us about a minute into the man's attack. He was a tall Caucasian man with brown hair and looked like he was in his thirties.
"Mind your business, you sellout!" the psycho replied.
The man chuckled. "Matt," he said, tapping the African American man sitting next to him. "This guy just called me a sellout," he said, standing up and carefully walking over to our side. His friend did the same.
"So this guy likes to pick on young kids trying to ride the train? Man, do you do this for kicks?"
"Mind your damn business," the man repeated in a less confident tone. I could almost swear that his voice had begun to shake.
"What's the problem, buddy?" the brown-haired man said. It looked like he, too, had picked up on the man's shaken resolve. "Why don't you fight us? Or you're afraid to take on someone your own size?"
"Why would I fight you? You're not the problem. You're not the one coming into the United States to live on American soil, live off American taxes then turn around and still hate us."
"You're quite stupid, aren't you?" Matt asked.
His friend chuckled. "Isn't he? He's talking about V-Tech. Okay," he said, hitting his chest. "I'm Jeffrey Dahmer and you're…," he said, turning to his friend.
"And I'm you're worst nightmare," Matt said, jerking closer to the psycho who in turn moved back like the coward he was.
"His worst nightmare? Dude, that's lame. You have to say a name. I'm Jeffrey Dahmer and you're…?
Matt thought about it for a second. "I'm 50 Cent."
"50 Cent?" his friend repeated skeptically.
"Hell yeah! Did Jeffrey Dahmer get shot 9 times and live to tell about it?"
"Good point," the first man said before looking back at our attacker. "So what do you have to say about that? Start cursing at us – we'd love to hear it."
The other man turned around and as the train arrived at a stop, got off.
***
As soon as we got off the train, I bought a phone card from one of the station vendors and called Min Ki.
"Oppa," I said as soon as he picked up. Since I didn't begin with my usual 'Guess who?' I knew that he'd realize that something was wrong and just listen.
When I finished recounting the story, he asked me if I was hurt.
"I'm fine, Oppa."
"But why would the man attack you? Were you being rude?"
"No!" I protested. "We weren't even talking to him or anything and he just start screaming at us."
"And who were you with? Ali?"
I inhaled. Since I'd previous told him that I was no longer friends with Ryan, I didn't have any choice but to say, "Yes."
He growled. "I was on the internet the other day and everything I read about D.C. was just crime. About someone getting mugged, people's houses getting robbed, murders…. What kind of place is that? How do people even feel safe over there?"
"I don't know." I'd thought that he would make me feel better but instead he was doing the opposite.
"What are you even doing in D.C.? If you have to go out, go with your parents or brother. I am sure that he just attacked you because you were girls. If there was a man with you, he wouldn't have dared say anything like that. It's because he knew you couldn't defend yourselves. I hate mofos like that!"
I thought about how Ryan had handled it and if he could have done things differently, after all, those other guys had managed to chase the man off the train.
"But I'm surprised that he was also attacking Ali. She's American, isn't she?"
"She's Canadian."
"Whatever. I'm just saying she's white, isn't she?"
"Yes."
He sighed audibly. "That man was obviously crazy. Jinnie, don't worry about it. The good thing is that you're safe but next time don't go out by yourself, okay? Oh!" he yelled. "I wish I'd been there to kick his ass. Ah!" he said in frustration, "I would have loved to give that as.shole a piece of my mind and show him that he can't just go around attacking people."
***
"Do you want to go back?" Ryan asked me as soon as I got off the phone with Min Ki.
I shook my head. "Let's just finish what we came for," I said, walking out of the station. If we went back home, it'll mean that we'd have to come back to the city another time and I wasn't sure I was ready for that.
"We're going to the White House?" I said, noticing the signs. "I guess it's that way," I said, walking in the direction of the arrow.
"I guess this is it," I said a few minutes later, standing in front of the black fence protecting the president's home. I turned around and faced him. "Are there any lines you want me to say? Should I be happy?" I asked, planting a huge fake grin on my face.
He lowered his eyes and shook his head sadly. "No. You're fine the way you are."
"Okay, but why aren't you taking your camera out of your bag? Let's start filming." The sooner we did it, the sooner I could go back home. I couldn't believe that I was actually looking forward to 'Family Time'.
As if a higher power decided that the weather just needed to match our moods, I felt a drop of rain drop on my forehead.
Ryan and I quickly ran across the street to find some shelter and as we watched the rain beat the streets, I wondered what was going on in his head. We'd barely exchanged a word since we left the White House and no matter how hard I tried not to think about it, I couldn't get rid of the image of that man spitting on the ground and pointing to it.
***
"Instead of going to my house, why don't I just take you home?" Ryan asked as we walked out of Pentagon City Station. The rain hadn't lasted for long and we'd attempted to salvage the rest of the trip by visiting some other sites and filming whatever we could.
I shrugged. "Sure. Do you know the way?"
For the next twenty minutes, we drove and enjoyed the sounds of one of the local pop stations. It wasn't like I didn't want to speak to him but I just didn't know what to say. I still hadn't been able to wrap my head around what had happened to us. When did it become a crime to sit in a train and why the hell did someone feel justified to attack us like that simply because we shared similar features to a criminal?
As we approached my house, I asked him to stop a few meters from my house.
"Why? I'll take you the full way."
I shook my head. "Here's fine. If my father sees you, he'll start asking questions and I'm really not in the mood."
"Okay." He pulled over and watched me disembark. As I was shutting the door, he said, "Su Jin, please don't worry about what happened today. The guy was obviously an idiot and we shouldn't be bothered by the stupid things he said. Okay?"
I nodded but kept my mouth shut.
"See you Monday?"
I smiled grimly. "Sure."
Ryan nodded. "Yeah. Just walk and I'll film you. Since she's excited to be in D.C., we have to show some landmarks."
I rolled my eyes. "I get that. But what makes this street famous?"
"It's M street in Georgetown. It's like going to New York and never going to Times Square."
I looked around. The street was crawling with young people but that wasn't anything special as it was Saturday. There were quite a few restaurants and even though it was fall, it was still warm so all the outdoor sitting areas were occupied.
I looked at him. "I'm still trying to figure out what's impressive about this." The street was crawling with clothing stores but even if I had money, judging from his raggedy jeans and 'army' t-shirt, was I supposed to go shopping with him?
He shook his head. "You're such hater. Besides, this isn't about you but about Rachel."
I raised my brow. "Who is Rachel?"
He hissed. "Do you even pay any attention to me? Your character's name is Rachel."
What? I looked at him from the corner of my eye. "She's Korean, isn't she?"
"So what? That's the name I came up with so deal with it."
I chuckled. He probably couldn't think of a better name.
"Okay, just start walking ahead of me and I'll film you from behind."
I walked ahead and put my hands behind me. "Don't look at my butt!" I joked.
"Even if I looked, what would I see?" he quipped.
Small butts were in fashion. I turned around and stuck my tongue at him then kept on walking.
"Hey!" he yelled a few minutes later.
The urgency in his voice stopped me cold in my tracks. I turned around anxiously. "What's wrong?"
He put the camera down and frowned. "Nothing's wrong." He grabbed my hand and dragged me to the front of some steps. "I told you there was cool stuff here," he said proudly.
"Huh?" I looked around. Was I missing something?
"These are the famous steps."
"Oh, really? They are interesting," I said, hoping that I could, in fact, find something interesting about them. "I mean, they are narrow and pretty high and look old." I looked down the street. "Georgetown seems to be a mixture of old and new. I guess it's pretty cool." I smiled. I was quite impressed with my artistic eye.
He frowned. "You don't know where these steps are from, do you?"
I widened my eyes. They were from somewhere else?
"It's from The Exorcist." When he saw that my blank expression did not change, he shook his head. "You know, the movie about the possessed girl. The one where her head spins around," he said impatiently.
I shook my head. "Sorry, I haven't seen it."
He glared at me in amazement then turned around and started walking briskly.
I chased after him. Was this guy really angry at me because I hadn't seen some stupid movie?
"Hey you, look at me!" I yelled, suddenly getting an idea.
He kept walking and luckily, we'd gotten to a less busy part of the street so there weren't as many people around.
I jumped ahead and tapped his shoulder. "What's your problem? Just turn around."
I saw his shoulders slump before he turned around. "What?"
I started dancing.
He looked at me through bored eyes. "What are you doing?"
"Hey, put that camera on me! We can film our music video here."
"Our video?"
"For our song," I reminded him. "The one you're going to write. The one I'm going to perform?"
He shook his head and started to turn around but I yelled at him to look back at me. Gosh. Couldn't he relax a little?
I danced enthusiastically like a desperate debut singer. "Something something love love something," I started singing badly.
"Those will not be the lyrics to our song," he said as he raised the camera. As I danced and walked forward, he slowly walked backwards and kept the camera trained on me.
"Something something love, oh, I really really love America. I'm so so sooooooooooo happy to be here. Oh, can't you see? Georgetown rocks!" I did a complete turn and kept on dancing in what I hoped was a sultry manner.
Ryan started laughing but kept filming me.
***
"Do we really need to do this?" I asked Ryan for the nth time since we'd arrived at the platform.
"There has to be a subway scene."
"But it's so embarrassing," I said, stomping my foot and sulking.
He laughed. "If singing like an American Idol reject doesn't embarrass you, smiling into the camera in a train shouldn't. Hey, look, the train is finally here."
I saw a relatively empty car pass by us so we jogged further up the platform to catch it.
A few minutes later, I fixed my hair in my little compact mirror and when I was satisfied with it, I brushed my blouse down then cleared my throat. "I'm ready."
Ryan did his signature head shake then switched his camera on. "Remember, you don't have to say anything. Just look happy to be on the subway."
"Did you visit some kind of village when you went to Korea?"
He furrowed his brow and shook his head. "No. Why?"
"You realize that a Korean girl wouldn't be so impressed by with a subway, right? It's nothing special."
He put the camera down. "Look, anyone who visits London takes a photo of the Tube. It doesn't matter if the person is from New York or Rome or Tokyo. It's just a thing you do so don't get offended."
I was about to give a sarcastic retort when I suddenly realized that there was someone yelling on the train. I looked up to see a middle aged man in worn out clothes looking at us and shouting.
Ryan seemed to notice him at the same time because he moved his body in front of mine as a shield. "What's your problem?" he roared at the man.
"You're my problem! What the fu.ck are you doing here? You and that bit.ch? Get the fu.ck out of here! Go back to your country!"
Had we done something wrong? "Ryan, what's going on?" I asked in a small voice.
Ryan stood up while making sure that he was still in between me and the man. I stood up too but he told me to sit back down. Then he turned back to the burly man. "Look, we don't want any trouble. We were minding our business and not talking to you so just leave us alone."
The man burst out laughing. "I am doing my civic duty. We should rid this country of this filth!" the man began before he went into a long rant about Americans being stupid for letting just anyone into their country. I tried to block out what he was saying but I kept hearing references to Virginia Tech and how Americans can no longer be safe in their own country.
Ryan sat back down and wrapped his arms around me. "Are you okay?"
I nodded. My heart was thumping and it was the first time someone had ever exhibited such rage towards me. The guy was slurring his speech a little and I wondered if he was inebriated. There was a slight smell of alcohol but I wasn't sure if it was from him or just the general awful smell of the train.
I looked over at the other passengers in our car – a woman with two young children, three guys and an elderly couple – and although they were sending us pitying looks, I was quite sure there weren't going to interfere.
The man looked like he could turn violent at any moment so I held on tightly to Ryan's shirt. Is this what my father relocated my entire family to America for? I was just too young for this bullsh.it.
The man spat on the floor. "That's you. That's you!" he yelled before spitting again.
I looked away and tried to block him out.
"Just ignore him," Ryan whispered as the train halted to a stop. "Don't be scared. He's an idiot and can't do anything to us."
"Let's get off now. We should just leave and get on the next train."
He shook his head. "We can't let him interfere with our day. That's what he wants so why should we please him? Just ignore him and when he's tired, he'll stop talking."
The elderly couple got off and some other passengers got into our car. I hoped that seeing more people would deter the psychotic man from attacking us but once the train started moving, he picked up from when he left off.
"Hey, you, shut the hell up and leave them alone!" one of the new passengers shouted from a few seats from us about a minute into the man's attack. He was a tall Caucasian man with brown hair and looked like he was in his thirties.
"Mind your business, you sellout!" the psycho replied.
The man chuckled. "Matt," he said, tapping the African American man sitting next to him. "This guy just called me a sellout," he said, standing up and carefully walking over to our side. His friend did the same.
"So this guy likes to pick on young kids trying to ride the train? Man, do you do this for kicks?"
"Mind your damn business," the man repeated in a less confident tone. I could almost swear that his voice had begun to shake.
"What's the problem, buddy?" the brown-haired man said. It looked like he, too, had picked up on the man's shaken resolve. "Why don't you fight us? Or you're afraid to take on someone your own size?"
"Why would I fight you? You're not the problem. You're not the one coming into the United States to live on American soil, live off American taxes then turn around and still hate us."
"You're quite stupid, aren't you?" Matt asked.
His friend chuckled. "Isn't he? He's talking about V-Tech. Okay," he said, hitting his chest. "I'm Jeffrey Dahmer and you're…," he said, turning to his friend.
"And I'm you're worst nightmare," Matt said, jerking closer to the psycho who in turn moved back like the coward he was.
"His worst nightmare? Dude, that's lame. You have to say a name. I'm Jeffrey Dahmer and you're…?
Matt thought about it for a second. "I'm 50 Cent."
"50 Cent?" his friend repeated skeptically.
"Hell yeah! Did Jeffrey Dahmer get shot 9 times and live to tell about it?"
"Good point," the first man said before looking back at our attacker. "So what do you have to say about that? Start cursing at us – we'd love to hear it."
The other man turned around and as the train arrived at a stop, got off.
***
As soon as we got off the train, I bought a phone card from one of the station vendors and called Min Ki.
"Oppa," I said as soon as he picked up. Since I didn't begin with my usual 'Guess who?' I knew that he'd realize that something was wrong and just listen.
When I finished recounting the story, he asked me if I was hurt.
"I'm fine, Oppa."
"But why would the man attack you? Were you being rude?"
"No!" I protested. "We weren't even talking to him or anything and he just start screaming at us."
"And who were you with? Ali?"
I inhaled. Since I'd previous told him that I was no longer friends with Ryan, I didn't have any choice but to say, "Yes."
He growled. "I was on the internet the other day and everything I read about D.C. was just crime. About someone getting mugged, people's houses getting robbed, murders…. What kind of place is that? How do people even feel safe over there?"
"I don't know." I'd thought that he would make me feel better but instead he was doing the opposite.
"What are you even doing in D.C.? If you have to go out, go with your parents or brother. I am sure that he just attacked you because you were girls. If there was a man with you, he wouldn't have dared say anything like that. It's because he knew you couldn't defend yourselves. I hate mofos like that!"
I thought about how Ryan had handled it and if he could have done things differently, after all, those other guys had managed to chase the man off the train.
"But I'm surprised that he was also attacking Ali. She's American, isn't she?"
"She's Canadian."
"Whatever. I'm just saying she's white, isn't she?"
"Yes."
He sighed audibly. "That man was obviously crazy. Jinnie, don't worry about it. The good thing is that you're safe but next time don't go out by yourself, okay? Oh!" he yelled. "I wish I'd been there to kick his ass. Ah!" he said in frustration, "I would have loved to give that as.shole a piece of my mind and show him that he can't just go around attacking people."
***
"Do you want to go back?" Ryan asked me as soon as I got off the phone with Min Ki.
I shook my head. "Let's just finish what we came for," I said, walking out of the station. If we went back home, it'll mean that we'd have to come back to the city another time and I wasn't sure I was ready for that.
"We're going to the White House?" I said, noticing the signs. "I guess it's that way," I said, walking in the direction of the arrow.
"I guess this is it," I said a few minutes later, standing in front of the black fence protecting the president's home. I turned around and faced him. "Are there any lines you want me to say? Should I be happy?" I asked, planting a huge fake grin on my face.
He lowered his eyes and shook his head sadly. "No. You're fine the way you are."
"Okay, but why aren't you taking your camera out of your bag? Let's start filming." The sooner we did it, the sooner I could go back home. I couldn't believe that I was actually looking forward to 'Family Time'.
As if a higher power decided that the weather just needed to match our moods, I felt a drop of rain drop on my forehead.
Ryan and I quickly ran across the street to find some shelter and as we watched the rain beat the streets, I wondered what was going on in his head. We'd barely exchanged a word since we left the White House and no matter how hard I tried not to think about it, I couldn't get rid of the image of that man spitting on the ground and pointing to it.
***
"Instead of going to my house, why don't I just take you home?" Ryan asked as we walked out of Pentagon City Station. The rain hadn't lasted for long and we'd attempted to salvage the rest of the trip by visiting some other sites and filming whatever we could.
I shrugged. "Sure. Do you know the way?"
For the next twenty minutes, we drove and enjoyed the sounds of one of the local pop stations. It wasn't like I didn't want to speak to him but I just didn't know what to say. I still hadn't been able to wrap my head around what had happened to us. When did it become a crime to sit in a train and why the hell did someone feel justified to attack us like that simply because we shared similar features to a criminal?
As we approached my house, I asked him to stop a few meters from my house.
"Why? I'll take you the full way."
I shook my head. "Here's fine. If my father sees you, he'll start asking questions and I'm really not in the mood."
"Okay." He pulled over and watched me disembark. As I was shutting the door, he said, "Su Jin, please don't worry about what happened today. The guy was obviously an idiot and we shouldn't be bothered by the stupid things he said. Okay?"
I nodded but kept my mouth shut.
"See you Monday?"
I smiled grimly. "Sure."
Chapter 17
I stuffed the last bit of my bacon and ham pizza and chewed on it, hoping that it'll finally taste good. But no such luck. I'd hoped the smell of cheese and smoked animal product would at least help me forget about what had happened on the train but all I could do was see that man yelling at us.
"… even though we still have to keep searching, we're quite optimistic," my father said, finishing his riveting story about the eternal search for a new director. If my mind hadn't been occupied with other things, my eyes would probably have been glazing over the way my brother's were. I was both fascinated and disturbed by the fact that Abonim created 'Family Time' yet he seemed to have only one thing to share. And why in the world did he think that anyone really cared that much about their hiring process?
It had been over twenty minutes but I was still deciding if I wanted to talk to my parents about what had happened earlier in the day. It was hard to explain because inasmuch as I wanted to forget it all, I also wanted to vent about it. But I knew that mentioning it would mean that I ran the risk of having my movements restricted and it wasn't like I had that much freedom to start off with. It also meant that I'd have to explain to them that this important class project was a film and since I wasn't taking film studies, I knew that I'd have a hard time explaining it away. But on the other hand, I just wanted to get it off my chest!
The room was filled only with the sounds of the television as we waited for my mother to share her week with us. She cleared her throat. "I've decided that I want to start working again."
My brother glanced at me and I told him with my eyes that I didn't know what she was talking about.
"As we've already discussed, you don't need to work," my father said simply. "My income is more than enough for us."
"You know it's not about the money," my mother said in a far too formal voice. She didn't look at him and instead, for some reason, looked at me. She looked tired even though she somehow had a calm aura surrounding her. "I feel useless sitting at home. I want to take the exam and get licensed here."
"And do what? Start a practice? Work at a clinic? Go door-to-door?"
She shrugged. "I'm taking it one step at a time. After getting my license, I'll figure out what to do."
My father sat silently before he suddenly threw his empty glass on the carpet. I felt my chest tighten as I watched it smash into pieces. My brother made a move to pick up the mess but my father ordered him to sit down. "Why can't you just let us be a family?" my father screamed at my mother.
"We can't be a family if I go back to work?"
"Work, work, work!" my father yelled, getting up. "It's because of your precious work that I barely know my children. For so many years, I wanted you and the kids to live with me but you refused. It's because of this that I've barely spent any time with them! They don't know me, they don't respect me... they don't love me," he said regretfully. "I sacrificed my relationship with them for so many years so why can't you sacrifice your work for a little while?"
"Kids need a stable environment and you know that. It wasn't about my work but because they'd have to relocate so much - that's why they stayed with me in Seoul."
"No. They stayed in Seoul because you were too selfish to leave your job. And now that I put my foot down, you still can't leave your job. You care more about your precious career than your family."
"That's not true," my mother said quietly.
"Then why can't you let us be a normal family? What's so great about you that you can't just stay at home like other women? Isn't that what your mother did? Isn't that what my mother did?" he yelled. "Didn't we turn out well? And our mothers were happy doing this. I think back to the family I had growing up and I want that for us. Why can't you just do what you're supposed to do? Why are you so selfish? What makes you feel —"
My brother stood up. "Appa—"
My father's face turned redder as his fury intensified. "Shut up! What makes you think that you can interrupt me? It's all your mother's fault. She couldn't train you properly and that's why you think you can interrupt me when I'm speaking. And what are you children doing here? Don't you know you should leave when you see adults talking? Get out of here!"
***
I barged into my bedroom as my cell phone rang for the third time. "Guess who?" Min Ki's asked.
Hearing his voice uncorked the emotions I'd bottled up and I immediately got choked up. I blinked rapidly to control the tears but before I knew it, I plopped my body on my bed was sobbing like a baby.
"Jinnie, what's going on? Are you still upset about what happened on the train?" he asked in a raspy voice. "I told you to forget about it, Baby. You won't feel better till you forget about it."
I normally hated being referred to as a baby but his use of the word was the last thing on my mind. All I could think about was how much life sucked. "Op-opp…," I tried to get out but the crying wouldn't let it.
"Jinnie!"
"I-I-I'm so sick of this p-p-place."
"Calm down and tell me what's happening. Jinnie, please."
After a few minutes, I managed to calm myself and tell him all that had happened. Min Ki was silent for a few moments before he said, "Does this normally happen at your family meetings?"
I sat up and sniffed. "No. We usually just talk about boring stuff and eat and I'd normally be fine with all of this, but why today?"
"It's okay. I'm sure it's nothing. You're just feeling overwhelmed because of everything that's happened. I'm sure it's not as bad as you think."
My lips quivered as I tried to control my emotions. I didn't think my mother was going to back down and I was sure my father wasn't either so I knew I had many weeks of living in a tension-filled home ahead of me. As I envisioned it, a fresh batch of tears fell down my cheeks. I had only gotten used to living with my father but now it was only going to get worse. Why?
The whole time I cried, Min Ki kept speaking about nothing really. But it was nice to see he was trying his best to comfort me.
I wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand. "Oppa, I just wish you were here."
"I know. Me too."
"I'm sure the day would have gone differently if you were around. I've never felt so scared in my life."
"I'm sorry I couldn't be there."
I'd never really thought of myself as a weak person and in the grand scheme of things, all the crazy guy had done was spit on the ground and yell at us. But what if he'd been a different kind of crazy and attacked us physically? Would all the other riders on the bus have intervened then? Would Ryan have managed to protect us? I already knew that I would have been no match for him and that made me feel so helpless and useless. Min Ki had never been a fighter but he knew how to get tough when the need arose and I just knew I would have felt ten times safer with him at my side.
"I really wish you were here," I repeated. "I really miss you, Oppa."
***
Even though I'd picked up my tray, my feet didn't move. Figuring out where to sit for lunch was hardly rocket science but it was only two days after riding that fateful train and Ryan was sitting with Ali and some of their friends. Ryan, who almost never called me, did so the night before so I could already tell that things had already begun to change with us. I was trying my best to follow Min Ki's advice and just forget about the whole thing but how could I do that when Ryan was a constant reminder of that event? He phoned me and since I knew I didn't want to hear him ask me if I was feeling better, I'd let it go to voicemail and now, I knew I wasn't ready to face him at lunch. Maybe seeing me would make him tell the entire group about it and I wasn't in the mood to relive it.
"Get out of the way," a random guy behind me yelled before shoving me off his path. Half of my glass of juice spilled over my tray wetting the bun I'd placed on it and the rest fell on the floor.
I sighed. It was just what I needed. I dropped my tray on the condiments counter, grabbed some napkins and bent down and dabbed the spill.
"Need some help?" a deep voice asked. I didn't even have to look up to know it was Jonathan. Before I could tell him I was okay, he was already crouched down mopping up the rest of the liquid.
After we'd both thrown the dirty napkins away and I'd gotten a new tray, he said, "I guess it'll be a waste of time for me to ask you to sit with me."
I shook my head. "No, it won't," I said smiling. I never would have guessed that Jonathan would ever come in so handy.
He raised his brow. "You're not sitting with Ali and Ryan today?"
I shook my head again.
He looked at me with widened eyes then chuckled. "If I hadn't come over, where would you have sat?"
I pointed at the Prada Bitches.
He let out a loud laugh of disbelief. "Alright then," he said before leading me to a table where three other people were already sitting. He greeted them with a nod before sitting down and I sat across from him.
"Trouble in Paradise?" he asked as he sprinkled salt on his fries.
"Huh?"
"You and Cho. Fighting? Or is it you and Alison? Not that they are really two different people."
I squinted my eyes in curiosity. "What do you mean?" What was up with him and them?
He bit into a fry and shrugged. "What do you think I mean? Don't you see it?"
I poured some dressing over my salad and picked up my fork. "See what? They are just friends."
He grunted. "Give me a break."
I waited to hear something more but instead, he just bit into his burger and chewed. For an extremely hot guy, he unexpectedly chewed like a goat so I looked away from him and tried to erase the memory of ketchup dripping down the side of his mouth. After about five minutes of silence, something occurred to me. "How come I hardly ever see you with other guys?"
He looked taken aback by my question for a split second before his face reverted to his constant look of arrogance. "Why would I be with other guys?" he asked flirtatiously.
"I mean, guy friends. Shouldn't you be in a clique or something?"
He chuckled and shook his head. "I fly solo. Besides, you can't trust too many people these days."
***
"Su Jin?"
I shut my locker and turned around. Even though for over a week, I'd been successful at avoiding Ryan, I knew that sooner or later, I'd have to face him. I smiled, hoping that it looked natural. "Hi," I said, waving slightly.
He looked at me with unreadable eyes and asked me how I was doing.
I shrugged. "I'm fine." I pointed down the hallway. "I have class now."
He nodded. "Yeah. We have history. Let's go together."
We walked in silence for a few moments then he stopped and said, "I have your copy of last week's notes," he said, taking his bag off his shoulder and unzipping it.
I gestured for him to stop. "You know, I really don't think you should worry yourself about the notes. I keep making you do all that extra work and it's not fair to you. If you aren't there to help me, I'd have to force myself to learn to take my own notes, don't you think?"
He stared at me for a few moments, frowned then zipped up his bag. We walked in silence for a few more moments before he stopped at the entrance of our classroom. "You didn't come over on Saturday."
I nodded. "Yeah, sorry about that. The thing is I'm not sure I can do the movie anymore…." My voice trailed off as I tried to come up with a reasonable excuse but my mind had gone completely blank.
He glared at me, shook his head in disappointment then turned around to walk into the class. He'd only taken about two steps when he suddenly turned to face me. "Let's talk after school."
I started to shake my head when Ms. Saunders walked into class. "Go to your seats!"
After grabbing a seat and class had begun, I looked over at Ryan and as if he felt my eyes on him, he looked back at me. My heart skipped a beat as I quickly looked away and over at my teacher. I really wasn't made for all this tension. I took a deep breath in, opened my notebook and tried to come up with possible responses to any questions Ryan Cho might have for me.
"… even though we still have to keep searching, we're quite optimistic," my father said, finishing his riveting story about the eternal search for a new director. If my mind hadn't been occupied with other things, my eyes would probably have been glazing over the way my brother's were. I was both fascinated and disturbed by the fact that Abonim created 'Family Time' yet he seemed to have only one thing to share. And why in the world did he think that anyone really cared that much about their hiring process?
It had been over twenty minutes but I was still deciding if I wanted to talk to my parents about what had happened earlier in the day. It was hard to explain because inasmuch as I wanted to forget it all, I also wanted to vent about it. But I knew that mentioning it would mean that I ran the risk of having my movements restricted and it wasn't like I had that much freedom to start off with. It also meant that I'd have to explain to them that this important class project was a film and since I wasn't taking film studies, I knew that I'd have a hard time explaining it away. But on the other hand, I just wanted to get it off my chest!
The room was filled only with the sounds of the television as we waited for my mother to share her week with us. She cleared her throat. "I've decided that I want to start working again."
My brother glanced at me and I told him with my eyes that I didn't know what she was talking about.
"As we've already discussed, you don't need to work," my father said simply. "My income is more than enough for us."
"You know it's not about the money," my mother said in a far too formal voice. She didn't look at him and instead, for some reason, looked at me. She looked tired even though she somehow had a calm aura surrounding her. "I feel useless sitting at home. I want to take the exam and get licensed here."
"And do what? Start a practice? Work at a clinic? Go door-to-door?"
She shrugged. "I'm taking it one step at a time. After getting my license, I'll figure out what to do."
My father sat silently before he suddenly threw his empty glass on the carpet. I felt my chest tighten as I watched it smash into pieces. My brother made a move to pick up the mess but my father ordered him to sit down. "Why can't you just let us be a family?" my father screamed at my mother.
"We can't be a family if I go back to work?"
"Work, work, work!" my father yelled, getting up. "It's because of your precious work that I barely know my children. For so many years, I wanted you and the kids to live with me but you refused. It's because of this that I've barely spent any time with them! They don't know me, they don't respect me... they don't love me," he said regretfully. "I sacrificed my relationship with them for so many years so why can't you sacrifice your work for a little while?"
"Kids need a stable environment and you know that. It wasn't about my work but because they'd have to relocate so much - that's why they stayed with me in Seoul."
"No. They stayed in Seoul because you were too selfish to leave your job. And now that I put my foot down, you still can't leave your job. You care more about your precious career than your family."
"That's not true," my mother said quietly.
"Then why can't you let us be a normal family? What's so great about you that you can't just stay at home like other women? Isn't that what your mother did? Isn't that what my mother did?" he yelled. "Didn't we turn out well? And our mothers were happy doing this. I think back to the family I had growing up and I want that for us. Why can't you just do what you're supposed to do? Why are you so selfish? What makes you feel —"
My brother stood up. "Appa—"
My father's face turned redder as his fury intensified. "Shut up! What makes you think that you can interrupt me? It's all your mother's fault. She couldn't train you properly and that's why you think you can interrupt me when I'm speaking. And what are you children doing here? Don't you know you should leave when you see adults talking? Get out of here!"
***
I barged into my bedroom as my cell phone rang for the third time. "Guess who?" Min Ki's asked.
Hearing his voice uncorked the emotions I'd bottled up and I immediately got choked up. I blinked rapidly to control the tears but before I knew it, I plopped my body on my bed was sobbing like a baby.
"Jinnie, what's going on? Are you still upset about what happened on the train?" he asked in a raspy voice. "I told you to forget about it, Baby. You won't feel better till you forget about it."
I normally hated being referred to as a baby but his use of the word was the last thing on my mind. All I could think about was how much life sucked. "Op-opp…," I tried to get out but the crying wouldn't let it.
"Jinnie!"
"I-I-I'm so sick of this p-p-place."
"Calm down and tell me what's happening. Jinnie, please."
After a few minutes, I managed to calm myself and tell him all that had happened. Min Ki was silent for a few moments before he said, "Does this normally happen at your family meetings?"
I sat up and sniffed. "No. We usually just talk about boring stuff and eat and I'd normally be fine with all of this, but why today?"
"It's okay. I'm sure it's nothing. You're just feeling overwhelmed because of everything that's happened. I'm sure it's not as bad as you think."
My lips quivered as I tried to control my emotions. I didn't think my mother was going to back down and I was sure my father wasn't either so I knew I had many weeks of living in a tension-filled home ahead of me. As I envisioned it, a fresh batch of tears fell down my cheeks. I had only gotten used to living with my father but now it was only going to get worse. Why?
The whole time I cried, Min Ki kept speaking about nothing really. But it was nice to see he was trying his best to comfort me.
I wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand. "Oppa, I just wish you were here."
"I know. Me too."
"I'm sure the day would have gone differently if you were around. I've never felt so scared in my life."
"I'm sorry I couldn't be there."
I'd never really thought of myself as a weak person and in the grand scheme of things, all the crazy guy had done was spit on the ground and yell at us. But what if he'd been a different kind of crazy and attacked us physically? Would all the other riders on the bus have intervened then? Would Ryan have managed to protect us? I already knew that I would have been no match for him and that made me feel so helpless and useless. Min Ki had never been a fighter but he knew how to get tough when the need arose and I just knew I would have felt ten times safer with him at my side.
"I really wish you were here," I repeated. "I really miss you, Oppa."
***
Even though I'd picked up my tray, my feet didn't move. Figuring out where to sit for lunch was hardly rocket science but it was only two days after riding that fateful train and Ryan was sitting with Ali and some of their friends. Ryan, who almost never called me, did so the night before so I could already tell that things had already begun to change with us. I was trying my best to follow Min Ki's advice and just forget about the whole thing but how could I do that when Ryan was a constant reminder of that event? He phoned me and since I knew I didn't want to hear him ask me if I was feeling better, I'd let it go to voicemail and now, I knew I wasn't ready to face him at lunch. Maybe seeing me would make him tell the entire group about it and I wasn't in the mood to relive it.
"Get out of the way," a random guy behind me yelled before shoving me off his path. Half of my glass of juice spilled over my tray wetting the bun I'd placed on it and the rest fell on the floor.
I sighed. It was just what I needed. I dropped my tray on the condiments counter, grabbed some napkins and bent down and dabbed the spill.
"Need some help?" a deep voice asked. I didn't even have to look up to know it was Jonathan. Before I could tell him I was okay, he was already crouched down mopping up the rest of the liquid.
After we'd both thrown the dirty napkins away and I'd gotten a new tray, he said, "I guess it'll be a waste of time for me to ask you to sit with me."
I shook my head. "No, it won't," I said smiling. I never would have guessed that Jonathan would ever come in so handy.
He raised his brow. "You're not sitting with Ali and Ryan today?"
I shook my head again.
He looked at me with widened eyes then chuckled. "If I hadn't come over, where would you have sat?"
I pointed at the Prada Bitches.
He let out a loud laugh of disbelief. "Alright then," he said before leading me to a table where three other people were already sitting. He greeted them with a nod before sitting down and I sat across from him.
"Trouble in Paradise?" he asked as he sprinkled salt on his fries.
"Huh?"
"You and Cho. Fighting? Or is it you and Alison? Not that they are really two different people."
I squinted my eyes in curiosity. "What do you mean?" What was up with him and them?
He bit into a fry and shrugged. "What do you think I mean? Don't you see it?"
I poured some dressing over my salad and picked up my fork. "See what? They are just friends."
He grunted. "Give me a break."
I waited to hear something more but instead, he just bit into his burger and chewed. For an extremely hot guy, he unexpectedly chewed like a goat so I looked away from him and tried to erase the memory of ketchup dripping down the side of his mouth. After about five minutes of silence, something occurred to me. "How come I hardly ever see you with other guys?"
He looked taken aback by my question for a split second before his face reverted to his constant look of arrogance. "Why would I be with other guys?" he asked flirtatiously.
"I mean, guy friends. Shouldn't you be in a clique or something?"
He chuckled and shook his head. "I fly solo. Besides, you can't trust too many people these days."
***
"Su Jin?"
I shut my locker and turned around. Even though for over a week, I'd been successful at avoiding Ryan, I knew that sooner or later, I'd have to face him. I smiled, hoping that it looked natural. "Hi," I said, waving slightly.
He looked at me with unreadable eyes and asked me how I was doing.
I shrugged. "I'm fine." I pointed down the hallway. "I have class now."
He nodded. "Yeah. We have history. Let's go together."
We walked in silence for a few moments then he stopped and said, "I have your copy of last week's notes," he said, taking his bag off his shoulder and unzipping it.
I gestured for him to stop. "You know, I really don't think you should worry yourself about the notes. I keep making you do all that extra work and it's not fair to you. If you aren't there to help me, I'd have to force myself to learn to take my own notes, don't you think?"
He stared at me for a few moments, frowned then zipped up his bag. We walked in silence for a few more moments before he stopped at the entrance of our classroom. "You didn't come over on Saturday."
I nodded. "Yeah, sorry about that. The thing is I'm not sure I can do the movie anymore…." My voice trailed off as I tried to come up with a reasonable excuse but my mind had gone completely blank.
He glared at me, shook his head in disappointment then turned around to walk into the class. He'd only taken about two steps when he suddenly turned to face me. "Let's talk after school."
I started to shake my head when Ms. Saunders walked into class. "Go to your seats!"
After grabbing a seat and class had begun, I looked over at Ryan and as if he felt my eyes on him, he looked back at me. My heart skipped a beat as I quickly looked away and over at my teacher. I really wasn't made for all this tension. I took a deep breath in, opened my notebook and tried to come up with possible responses to any questions Ryan Cho might have for me.
Chapter 18
I dragged my feet towards the exit sign and watched as all the other students walked through the doors. The impending confrontation with Ryan had been on my mind all afternoon and after careful thought, I decided not seeing him was my preferred choice.
I waited till the hallway was considerably empty before walking towards the door and tiptoeing to look through the glass, transparent top. All I saw were a bunch of students walking and chatting and even though I couldn't see Ryan, I knew that he just had to be there waiting for me.
I walked backwards till my back hit the wall. I glanced at my watch –it was only fifteen minutes since school had let out. Any normal person wouldn't allow himself to be kept waiting for longer than twenty minutes so I was banking on Ryan's sanity. I reached into my bag for my iPod so that I could listen to some music and make the wait less torturous. After a few minutes, I'd finally decided on a song and was putting in my second earphone when my phone rang.
I growled when I read the caller ID. "Oppa, are you here already? Can you wait for like five minutes?" I begged.
"Why don't I do you one better and wait for thirty minutes?"
For someone who didn't know what punctuality meant, he sure knew how to get an attitude when he was the one kept waiting. "Come on, please. Just five minutes."
He chuckled. "Well, it's your lucky day. I was calling to tell you that I'll be late so I'll be there in thirty minutes."
"Thirty minutes?" I repeated incredulously. "What if they lock the school gates? Do you just expect me to stand out in the cold waiting for you? How is this fair to me? It's bad enough that you're always late but you're pretty much telling me to wait an hour for you."
"Nice rant. See you in thirty minutes," he said before hanging up.
Irritated, I threw my phone in my bag and walked back to the door to see if the coast was clear. I couldn't be certain but I was almost sure I'd heard a rumor about the building doors being on automatic lock and I didn't want to end up being the guinea pig testing the theory.
The door suddenly pushed inwards and I jumped back to prevent myself from getting hit.
"Sorry," Nancy, a girl from one of my classes, said as she walked through the door. "I'm sorry about that. Did I hit you?"
I shook my head. I'd been a little rattled but it was no big deal. "I'm fine."
She looked at me curiously. "What are you doing here? I just came back in to grab something I forgot in my locker. Why are you still here?"
I shrugged. "No reason. I just... anyway, are there still many people out there?"
She pursed her lips. "Not that many. Actually, it's pretty empty out there," she said, still looking very curious. "Why are you asking? Are you hiding from someone?"
"Of course not," I scoffed like it was the most ridiculous thing in the world. With her eyes boring into me, I walked towards the door. "I'll see you tomorrow," I said as I reached for the door handle. I heard her fading footsteps as I slowly opened the door and peeked through. The grounds had already begun to look like a ghost town so I straightened my back and walked through the door confidently. Phew! But did that mean I'd have to hide out like that for the rest of my days at Brighton?
I was about to take the sixth step down the stairs when Ryan popped out of nowhere. "Su Jin."
Surprised, I spun away from him at the same moment Nancy ran through the double doors. "No longer hiding in there?" she joked as she skipped down the stairs and ran towards the parking lot.
I took a deep breath in and turned back to the frowning Ryan. "I wasn't hiding in there," I said pointing at the door with my thumb. "I don't know what she's talking about. I just had a few things to do."
He didn't move a facial muscle. "Are you done now?"
"Ehm… I guess?" I was obviously trapped so I decided to accept my fate. He wanted to talk to me? No big deal - I was all ears.
"Cool. So why don't we sit and talk?" he said, walking up to the step I was standing on and sitting next to the railing.
***
I crossed my legs and tried to keep the hems of my pant legs close to my ankles to keep the cold air out. My mother had gone a little overboard hemming my jeans and now there was some space between the top of my running shoes and the bottom of my pants.
Ryan readjusted his butt on the step, smacked his lips then turned to me. "Are we fighting?"
I sighed. I hadn't expected him to be so direct but I'd anticipated a variation of that question and thus, already had a response prepared. I put on my friendliest smile and said, "No."
"Then how come I barely saw you last week?"
I shrugged. "I'm sure we were both busy. You're asking me why you didn't see me like I had anything to do with it. Did you look for me and not find me or something?" I said, jovially. "I'm here, you're there—"
"What are you talking about?" he interrupted without a trace of humor in his voice.
"Nothing." So much for trying to make light of the whole thing.
"Did I do something to you? Did Ali do something?"
I shook my head. "Like what?"
"Are you dating Jonathan Mendez now?" he asked out of nowhere.
My jaw dropped and I glared at him, hoping it was some kind of a joke but he was very serious. Since it wasn't one of the questions I had anticipated, all I could do was close my mouth to keep the flies from entering it. "What do you mean?"
"It's a yes or no question," he said looking directly into my eyes.
I picked up my key chain and showed him my ring. "You know I have a boyfriend."
He didn't bother glancing at my hand and instead, kept staring at my face like he was gauging my reaction, trying to see past the layer of what he might have thought was a façade. "You ate lunch together," he reminded me.
"So?"
He shrugged. "You guys looked really chummy and Ali said there was something on the notice board about it."
I groaned. "Is that why she ignored me the other day?" I'd seen her in the hallway the day after I'd eaten with Jonathan and when I ran up to talk to her, she turned around and walked away.
He chuckled. "She's been coming up with all these theories. First she thought you wanted to get permission from her to date him then next, she thought you'd picked sides and were no longer talking to us."
I shook my head and laughed at the stupidity of it all. "Gosh. Sometimes I really get sick of Ali's overactive imagination."
He put his hand over mine and I looked up at him, completely aware of the feel of his skin.
"So you're not with Jonathan?"
I rolled my eyes. "Of course not."
"Su Jin," he said softly, "if it's not about Jonathan then what is it?"
I pushed his hand of mine and looked away.
***
We sat in silence for a few moments before he said, "Initially, I thought it had something to do with what happened on the train but that's just ridiculous. There's no way you could blame me for what that man did. Or do you?"
I picked up my bag and slung it over my shoulder. "Hey, my brother might be here – let me go and look for him," I said, standing up.
Ryan quickly grabbed my hand to keep me from taking a step.
I looked down at him. "What?"
"If your brother comes, we'll see him from here or he'll call you."
I shrugged. "No. He wouldn't want to waste his daytime minutes," I said, knowing it was one hell of a dumb excuse.
Still holding onto my wrist he said, "Su Jin, why are you running away?"
I shook my head. "What's there to run from? I'm just—"
"Just sit."
"Ryan, I have to go," I said, pulling his fingers off my wrist."
"Your brother isn't here. Let's talk."
"I have to—"
"Please."
Something about the tone of his voice caused me to resign. I sat down dramatically and folded my arms. "What?"
"So it's about what happened on the train?"
I dropped my head and looked at my lap. "I don't know."
"It's not my fault that that guy attacked us."
"I know."
"So what is it then?"
I began to clean the dirt from under my fingernails. How do you tell a guy that you don't feel safe around him? And that you can't trust him to protect you especially when he had no obligation to do so and you didn't want to sound like a weak, pathetic excuse for a woman? "I told you that it's nothing."
"Su Jin," he pressed.
"It's nothing."
"Su Jin."
Why couldn't he just let it go? "Look, I already said it's nothing. What do you want me to say? I don't know, the whole thing was weird, okay? I'm not blaming you or anything. I'm just glad that those two guys came when they did. If they hadn't come, who knows what would have happened?"
He nodded knowingly. "Oh, I see."
"What? What do you see?" What kind of reaction was that?
"You think I'm a coward."
I instantly felt bad. "No, that's not it."
"I've relived that day a thousand times," he said, ignoring my response, "and every time I do, I wonder if I could have done it differently. Plus it doesn't help that I keep coming up with all these witty comebacks that I could have used to make that man feel really small." He looked skyward. "There are so many things I could have said to him but… but there are some times that I feel that I did the right thing."
"But you just sat there – you really didn't do anything."
His face colored. "I told him to leave us alone. What more did you want me to do? Punch him?"
Violence wasn't the cure to all ills, but would it have hurt to send the bastard home with a black eye?
"Punching him would have been stupid. If I had punched him, he'd have punched back. And even if I did manage to kick his ass, we'd both have been arrested once the train stopped and the day would have turned out much worse."
Since when did inaction become an action? "But you would have been right to punch him – you were defending yourself."
He shook his head. "No. If I punched him first, the police would say that I assaulted him and he'd have been the victim defending himself. I'd be the one being charged with a crime and it would have been much uglier than either of us would have wanted."
"That's bulls.hit. Punching him is defending yourself from his attack."
"Or it could have been worse. What if I hit him and he had a knife in his pocket and stabbed me? Then I'd have ended up in the hospital just because some assh.ole decided to tell me to go back to my country. Does ending up in a hospital mean that I'm brave?"
I shook my head. He was making sense but it still didn't sit well with me. "But it's because no one reacts that things don't change. If you just let them insult you, they'll keep doing it because they know you'll never do anything to defend yourself."
He shrugged. "The world isn't perfect. I understand what you're saying but at that moment, when he was there, all I could think about was protecting us. I wasn't trying to make a statement about civil rights and trying to make the world just – all I wanted was for us to get through it safely. I'm sorry that it makes you think I'm a coward but that was the best thing I could do at that moment."
Why did he have to sound so hurt? "Ryan, I don't think you're a coward."
***
We sat at the steps for a while longer and I listened as he shared anecdotes of how he and his family had lived in Dubai and that is was supposedly quite racist but since he was young and his family lived in a somewhat expatriate community, he hadn't really had any first hand experiences with it.
Then he talked about Houston and how it was different because there was more assimilation with Americans and how it was a city in its own right but not as flashy as Dubai and he spoke about his experiences there and what it was like being a foreigner yet again.
His basic point was that racism existed in the world, whether I liked it or not and he was sure that non-Koreans probably had some unpleasant experiences back home and while it was deplorable, it wasn't something I should dwell on on a daily basis.
I wasn't sure that I agreed with it or not but I was sure that I didn't want to go through life feeling that it was okay for some people to attack me and all I had to do was just brush it off and ignore them. But it was okay. I understood his point of view and I was glad to hear his thoughts on it. Plus for some reason, it made me feel like I knew him better.
"Do you want me to wait with you till your brother gets here?" he asked, standing up.
I did the same and we walked towards the parking lot.
The school had emptied out and I could only see one other person on campus but hey, I was a big girl and didn't need a bodyguard. "I'm fine."
He looked around and shook his head. "I don't think so. I'll stay."
"No. I'm sure my brother will be here any minute so you can leave," I said, pushing him towards his car.
He laughed as he let me push him. "Okay, if you insist. But I guess I can tell Ali that you didn't pick Jonathan over us."
'Us' huh? "The Ali and Ryan team?"
He raised his brow. "The what?"
I took my hands off his back and shrugged. "Nothing. But maybe I should find some new friends so I don't feel like an outsider," I half-joked.
"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked seriously.
"Hey, chill," I said, smiling at him but he didn't smile back.
We walked in silence till we arrived at his car. He unlocked the door then spun around to look at me.
"I guess this means we're cool, right?" he asked hopefully.
I laughed. "We've always been cool."
"I mean, for real. No more ignoring me in school and you're still doing the movie…?"
I nodded. "Yeah."
"Cool," he said with satisfaction. "And we're cool?"
I laughed again. "Yes, we're cool. You don't have to keep asking."
We shared some awkward laughter as he opened his car door. "Why do I feel like we should hug or something?"
I giggled. "I don't know." We weren't back to normal but I could bet that we would eventually.
He walked over to me and stretched his arms out. "Okay, come on, let's hug it out," he said with a flair.
"Are you serious?" I asked, laughing at the goofy expression on his face.
He moved closer and placed his hands on my shoulders. "Now, we're really cool," he said as he pulled me into a bear hug.
He was slightly taller than Min Ki and his body felt different. I laughed some more then pushed him off me. "Happy now?"
"Yeah," he said before getting into his car and turning the engine on. He drove for about ten seconds before stopping.
"What?"
"You know what? I'll just wait here till your brother arrives."
I waited till the hallway was considerably empty before walking towards the door and tiptoeing to look through the glass, transparent top. All I saw were a bunch of students walking and chatting and even though I couldn't see Ryan, I knew that he just had to be there waiting for me.
I walked backwards till my back hit the wall. I glanced at my watch –it was only fifteen minutes since school had let out. Any normal person wouldn't allow himself to be kept waiting for longer than twenty minutes so I was banking on Ryan's sanity. I reached into my bag for my iPod so that I could listen to some music and make the wait less torturous. After a few minutes, I'd finally decided on a song and was putting in my second earphone when my phone rang.
I growled when I read the caller ID. "Oppa, are you here already? Can you wait for like five minutes?" I begged.
"Why don't I do you one better and wait for thirty minutes?"
For someone who didn't know what punctuality meant, he sure knew how to get an attitude when he was the one kept waiting. "Come on, please. Just five minutes."
He chuckled. "Well, it's your lucky day. I was calling to tell you that I'll be late so I'll be there in thirty minutes."
"Thirty minutes?" I repeated incredulously. "What if they lock the school gates? Do you just expect me to stand out in the cold waiting for you? How is this fair to me? It's bad enough that you're always late but you're pretty much telling me to wait an hour for you."
"Nice rant. See you in thirty minutes," he said before hanging up.
Irritated, I threw my phone in my bag and walked back to the door to see if the coast was clear. I couldn't be certain but I was almost sure I'd heard a rumor about the building doors being on automatic lock and I didn't want to end up being the guinea pig testing the theory.
The door suddenly pushed inwards and I jumped back to prevent myself from getting hit.
"Sorry," Nancy, a girl from one of my classes, said as she walked through the door. "I'm sorry about that. Did I hit you?"
I shook my head. I'd been a little rattled but it was no big deal. "I'm fine."
She looked at me curiously. "What are you doing here? I just came back in to grab something I forgot in my locker. Why are you still here?"
I shrugged. "No reason. I just... anyway, are there still many people out there?"
She pursed her lips. "Not that many. Actually, it's pretty empty out there," she said, still looking very curious. "Why are you asking? Are you hiding from someone?"
"Of course not," I scoffed like it was the most ridiculous thing in the world. With her eyes boring into me, I walked towards the door. "I'll see you tomorrow," I said as I reached for the door handle. I heard her fading footsteps as I slowly opened the door and peeked through. The grounds had already begun to look like a ghost town so I straightened my back and walked through the door confidently. Phew! But did that mean I'd have to hide out like that for the rest of my days at Brighton?
I was about to take the sixth step down the stairs when Ryan popped out of nowhere. "Su Jin."
Surprised, I spun away from him at the same moment Nancy ran through the double doors. "No longer hiding in there?" she joked as she skipped down the stairs and ran towards the parking lot.
I took a deep breath in and turned back to the frowning Ryan. "I wasn't hiding in there," I said pointing at the door with my thumb. "I don't know what she's talking about. I just had a few things to do."
He didn't move a facial muscle. "Are you done now?"
"Ehm… I guess?" I was obviously trapped so I decided to accept my fate. He wanted to talk to me? No big deal - I was all ears.
"Cool. So why don't we sit and talk?" he said, walking up to the step I was standing on and sitting next to the railing.
***
I crossed my legs and tried to keep the hems of my pant legs close to my ankles to keep the cold air out. My mother had gone a little overboard hemming my jeans and now there was some space between the top of my running shoes and the bottom of my pants.
Ryan readjusted his butt on the step, smacked his lips then turned to me. "Are we fighting?"
I sighed. I hadn't expected him to be so direct but I'd anticipated a variation of that question and thus, already had a response prepared. I put on my friendliest smile and said, "No."
"Then how come I barely saw you last week?"
I shrugged. "I'm sure we were both busy. You're asking me why you didn't see me like I had anything to do with it. Did you look for me and not find me or something?" I said, jovially. "I'm here, you're there—"
"What are you talking about?" he interrupted without a trace of humor in his voice.
"Nothing." So much for trying to make light of the whole thing.
"Did I do something to you? Did Ali do something?"
I shook my head. "Like what?"
"Are you dating Jonathan Mendez now?" he asked out of nowhere.
My jaw dropped and I glared at him, hoping it was some kind of a joke but he was very serious. Since it wasn't one of the questions I had anticipated, all I could do was close my mouth to keep the flies from entering it. "What do you mean?"
"It's a yes or no question," he said looking directly into my eyes.
I picked up my key chain and showed him my ring. "You know I have a boyfriend."
He didn't bother glancing at my hand and instead, kept staring at my face like he was gauging my reaction, trying to see past the layer of what he might have thought was a façade. "You ate lunch together," he reminded me.
"So?"
He shrugged. "You guys looked really chummy and Ali said there was something on the notice board about it."
I groaned. "Is that why she ignored me the other day?" I'd seen her in the hallway the day after I'd eaten with Jonathan and when I ran up to talk to her, she turned around and walked away.
He chuckled. "She's been coming up with all these theories. First she thought you wanted to get permission from her to date him then next, she thought you'd picked sides and were no longer talking to us."
I shook my head and laughed at the stupidity of it all. "Gosh. Sometimes I really get sick of Ali's overactive imagination."
He put his hand over mine and I looked up at him, completely aware of the feel of his skin.
"So you're not with Jonathan?"
I rolled my eyes. "Of course not."
"Su Jin," he said softly, "if it's not about Jonathan then what is it?"
I pushed his hand of mine and looked away.
***
We sat in silence for a few moments before he said, "Initially, I thought it had something to do with what happened on the train but that's just ridiculous. There's no way you could blame me for what that man did. Or do you?"
I picked up my bag and slung it over my shoulder. "Hey, my brother might be here – let me go and look for him," I said, standing up.
Ryan quickly grabbed my hand to keep me from taking a step.
I looked down at him. "What?"
"If your brother comes, we'll see him from here or he'll call you."
I shrugged. "No. He wouldn't want to waste his daytime minutes," I said, knowing it was one hell of a dumb excuse.
Still holding onto my wrist he said, "Su Jin, why are you running away?"
I shook my head. "What's there to run from? I'm just—"
"Just sit."
"Ryan, I have to go," I said, pulling his fingers off my wrist."
"Your brother isn't here. Let's talk."
"I have to—"
"Please."
Something about the tone of his voice caused me to resign. I sat down dramatically and folded my arms. "What?"
"So it's about what happened on the train?"
I dropped my head and looked at my lap. "I don't know."
"It's not my fault that that guy attacked us."
"I know."
"So what is it then?"
I began to clean the dirt from under my fingernails. How do you tell a guy that you don't feel safe around him? And that you can't trust him to protect you especially when he had no obligation to do so and you didn't want to sound like a weak, pathetic excuse for a woman? "I told you that it's nothing."
"Su Jin," he pressed.
"It's nothing."
"Su Jin."
Why couldn't he just let it go? "Look, I already said it's nothing. What do you want me to say? I don't know, the whole thing was weird, okay? I'm not blaming you or anything. I'm just glad that those two guys came when they did. If they hadn't come, who knows what would have happened?"
He nodded knowingly. "Oh, I see."
"What? What do you see?" What kind of reaction was that?
"You think I'm a coward."
I instantly felt bad. "No, that's not it."
"I've relived that day a thousand times," he said, ignoring my response, "and every time I do, I wonder if I could have done it differently. Plus it doesn't help that I keep coming up with all these witty comebacks that I could have used to make that man feel really small." He looked skyward. "There are so many things I could have said to him but… but there are some times that I feel that I did the right thing."
"But you just sat there – you really didn't do anything."
His face colored. "I told him to leave us alone. What more did you want me to do? Punch him?"
Violence wasn't the cure to all ills, but would it have hurt to send the bastard home with a black eye?
"Punching him would have been stupid. If I had punched him, he'd have punched back. And even if I did manage to kick his ass, we'd both have been arrested once the train stopped and the day would have turned out much worse."
Since when did inaction become an action? "But you would have been right to punch him – you were defending yourself."
He shook his head. "No. If I punched him first, the police would say that I assaulted him and he'd have been the victim defending himself. I'd be the one being charged with a crime and it would have been much uglier than either of us would have wanted."
"That's bulls.hit. Punching him is defending yourself from his attack."
"Or it could have been worse. What if I hit him and he had a knife in his pocket and stabbed me? Then I'd have ended up in the hospital just because some assh.ole decided to tell me to go back to my country. Does ending up in a hospital mean that I'm brave?"
I shook my head. He was making sense but it still didn't sit well with me. "But it's because no one reacts that things don't change. If you just let them insult you, they'll keep doing it because they know you'll never do anything to defend yourself."
He shrugged. "The world isn't perfect. I understand what you're saying but at that moment, when he was there, all I could think about was protecting us. I wasn't trying to make a statement about civil rights and trying to make the world just – all I wanted was for us to get through it safely. I'm sorry that it makes you think I'm a coward but that was the best thing I could do at that moment."
Why did he have to sound so hurt? "Ryan, I don't think you're a coward."
***
We sat at the steps for a while longer and I listened as he shared anecdotes of how he and his family had lived in Dubai and that is was supposedly quite racist but since he was young and his family lived in a somewhat expatriate community, he hadn't really had any first hand experiences with it.
Then he talked about Houston and how it was different because there was more assimilation with Americans and how it was a city in its own right but not as flashy as Dubai and he spoke about his experiences there and what it was like being a foreigner yet again.
His basic point was that racism existed in the world, whether I liked it or not and he was sure that non-Koreans probably had some unpleasant experiences back home and while it was deplorable, it wasn't something I should dwell on on a daily basis.
I wasn't sure that I agreed with it or not but I was sure that I didn't want to go through life feeling that it was okay for some people to attack me and all I had to do was just brush it off and ignore them. But it was okay. I understood his point of view and I was glad to hear his thoughts on it. Plus for some reason, it made me feel like I knew him better.
"Do you want me to wait with you till your brother gets here?" he asked, standing up.
I did the same and we walked towards the parking lot.
The school had emptied out and I could only see one other person on campus but hey, I was a big girl and didn't need a bodyguard. "I'm fine."
He looked around and shook his head. "I don't think so. I'll stay."
"No. I'm sure my brother will be here any minute so you can leave," I said, pushing him towards his car.
He laughed as he let me push him. "Okay, if you insist. But I guess I can tell Ali that you didn't pick Jonathan over us."
'Us' huh? "The Ali and Ryan team?"
He raised his brow. "The what?"
I took my hands off his back and shrugged. "Nothing. But maybe I should find some new friends so I don't feel like an outsider," I half-joked.
"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked seriously.
"Hey, chill," I said, smiling at him but he didn't smile back.
We walked in silence till we arrived at his car. He unlocked the door then spun around to look at me.
"I guess this means we're cool, right?" he asked hopefully.
I laughed. "We've always been cool."
"I mean, for real. No more ignoring me in school and you're still doing the movie…?"
I nodded. "Yeah."
"Cool," he said with satisfaction. "And we're cool?"
I laughed again. "Yes, we're cool. You don't have to keep asking."
We shared some awkward laughter as he opened his car door. "Why do I feel like we should hug or something?"
I giggled. "I don't know." We weren't back to normal but I could bet that we would eventually.
He walked over to me and stretched his arms out. "Okay, come on, let's hug it out," he said with a flair.
"Are you serious?" I asked, laughing at the goofy expression on his face.
He moved closer and placed his hands on my shoulders. "Now, we're really cool," he said as he pulled me into a bear hug.
He was slightly taller than Min Ki and his body felt different. I laughed some more then pushed him off me. "Happy now?"
"Yeah," he said before getting into his car and turning the engine on. He drove for about ten seconds before stopping.
"What?"
"You know what? I'll just wait here till your brother arrives."
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