“Tae Hwa has been friends with me and my brother since we were little,” Sophie explains. “Our fathers were friends, and he came to visit us in America a lot.” She turns to Tae Hwa to, I assume, translate what she just said.
“Yes!” he exclaims. “I visit New York. Is very cool. You live there?”
“Oh, no. I’m from Nashville.” I falter at the deep furrow of his eyebrows. “That’s in the South.”
“Ohhhh.” He nods as if I’ve offered some sage advice on the state of the world. “I from South Korea, so I Southern also.”
He grins, and we laugh together.
“Yoon Jae-yah!” Sophie motions for someone else to come over.
I look up to see the drummer heading toward us, a slight swagger in the way his long legs stretch. His hair is spiked, almost fluffy looking, and bleached white-blond. He’s bulkier than both Tae Hwa and Jason, with broad shoulders and long arms, but he’s got a total baby face, like his features never matured past the age of fourteen—totally adorable. Jane would love him. I’ll need to email her straightaway with his name so she can Google him.
“Yoon Jae, this is my roommate, Grace.” Sophie makes the introductions again.
He gives a half wave. “Hello.”
“Hi.” I attempt a bow like I read is customary, though I probably screw it up somehow.
“Where’s Jason?” Sophie asks.
“He’s talking to the owner,” Yoon Jae says, only a trace of an accent coloring his speech. “He had a question about our next show.”
What is with all these people speaking flawless English? I’m starting to feel uneducated.
“So why did you come to Korea?” Yoon Jae asks me as Sophie and Tae Hwa break off into a conversation in Korean.
“Just to go to school and, you know, get a new cultural experience.”
A knowing smile tilts up the edges of his lips, and I’m positive I need to get Jane to Google him—he really is adorable.
“There are many schools in America,” he says.
I shrug one shoulder. “I guess. But Ganghwa Island sounded like a lot more fun.”
He laughs, pulling at the hem of his gray T-shirt. “Well, I’m glad someone is happy to be in Ganghwa.”
“You sound like you’re not.”
A shadowed expression passes over his face, but it vanishes a moment later, like I imagined it. “Wherever Jason goes, we all follow.”
“Why? It’s not like the island is that far from Seoul. You could have stayed without him.”
He shakes his head. “Our manager told us to stay together.”
“Then you should have told Jason he wasn’t allowed to go away to school!”
Yoon Jae chuckles but shrugs. “He is the leader, and if we wanted the band to stay together, we needed to go with him. He said he wouldn’t stay in Seoul any longer.”
Another mark against Mr. Jerk-Sexy-Pants Jason: selfishness. How is it that someone like Sophie can have such an unfortunate sibling?
Speak of the devil. Jason emerges from the posse of people I can only imagine are makeup girls, handlers, and security, and I’m struck again by just how attractive he is. What a waste. Why is it the cute ones are always lacking in the character department, like you can’t have both?
He comes up to me and Yoon Jae, and says something to his band member in Korean. Which is just mean-spirited. We all speak English, but I’m conspicuously the only one who doesn’t speak Korean.
Yoon Jae looks to me, flashing a genuinely warm smile that might make my insides melt just a little. “It was good to meet you, Grace.”
He inclines his head in respect before turning to leave me and Jason alone. My stomach twists, and I scavenge for any sort of conversation starter, not that he deserves one. I half expect him to disappear without so much as a word or explanation for why he ran off the only person taking pity on the pathetic American who’s more out of place than she’s been in her entire life.
But, instead, he says, “What did you think of the show?”
I’m momentarily struck dumb at the sound of him addressing me, but I gather my wits in time to reply, “You sing well.”
It’s true, and though he may irritate me, I don’t have the nerve to tell him his music is heartless, mass-produced fluff.
“Have you ever been to a concert before?” he asks, more than a hint of sarcasm coloring his voice.
The lack of emotion or expression in both his eyes and voice makes me bristle. “Yes, actually.” I bite back the probably more than you that wants to scratch its way out of my mouth. “A lot.”
“How did this one compare?”
“It was small,” I blurt.
He blows out a deep sigh, a glimmer of condescension flickering in his eyes. “It wasn’t advertised. It was supposed to be small. We’re not actively working right now, like on a break.”
When I don’t respond, he prompts, “What did you think of the music?”
Is he fishing for a compliment, or what? “I … umm…”
“It’s a simple question,” he says, his tone now thick with the disdain I glimpsed earlier. “Did you like our music or not?”
And I snap.
“Well, if you really want to know, I think you guys have talent, but it’s wasted on empty songs. Your music is clean but conventional, nothing that can’t be produced by any wannabe with a guitar and GarageBand. I’m guessing that if you guys are famous like Sophie said, it’s mostly based on pretty faces instead of actual quality of music.”
He stares at me, the aforementioned pretty face not registering surprise or anger or anything that would reveal him as a sentient being. Then, just as I’m wondering if my harshness spurred a complete mental break in his head, the right side of his mouth tips up in a half smile.
And then he leaves.
I’m left staring after him, my heart racing and feeling as offended as he probably should be. Did he just smile at my tirade?
I just called him crap.
I said he didn’t deserve his fame.
And he smiled?
*