I wake up the next morning with red, puffy eyes, beneath a pile of stuffed animals. The low whir of a vacuum travels from below, the sound of which must have woken me. Unearthing my phone from beneath Medium Totoro, I text Ajumma. I’m not feeling well. I’m going to stay in my room today.
She doesn’t respond, but a half hour later there’s a knock on my door.
Ajumma enters carrying a tray with a covered stone bowl and a glass of water. Placing the tray on the side table, she presses the back of her hand to my forehead.
“You don’t have a fever,” she says, clicking her tongue.
“I just have a headache . . .” From crying myself to sleep.
“Mm-hmm,” she says. She hands me two white pills, which I plop into my mouth, then the glass of water; I gulp, swallowing them down.
She doesn’t ask about my swollen eyes or where Nathaniel is, though she must have noticed his empty bedroom. I’d gone into the room last night, crying anew when I saw his neatly made bed; the room was spotless, as if he’d never been there at all.
I only have myself to blame.
“I’ll come check up on you later,” Ajumma says, smoothing my hair back from my face.
When she leaves, I lie back on the bed, dizzy with thoughts, which only serves to intensify my headache. Had I acted too rashly the night before? Nathaniel and I had kept the fact that he was staying at my house a secret for two weeks, we could hide a secret relationship, at least until Hyemi’s scandal has quieted down.
No, I’m thinking with my heart, not my head.
The risk is too high, the consequences of getting caught too great. I need to be the reasonable one, even if that means making the hard decisions and breaking both of our hearts.
Nathaniel will be fine. He has his bandmates, his family.
He doesn’t need me, not like my mother needs me.
When I decided to help Hyemi, it was partly to prove to my mother that I could be trusted to make my own choices with my career, but it was also because I wanted to help her, to ease some of her burdens.
She would be horrified to know all the things I’ve done that would prove to her the opposite, starting with inviting Nathaniel to stay with me.
I couldn’t do the two things she asked of me: staying away from Nathaniel and preparing Hyemi for debut. Director Ryu said that the secret to an idol’s success isn’t just practice and talent, but also the support of the people around them, that gives an idol their strength, that helps them to endure difficult times.
I’ve failed Hyemi on so many levels. Maybe I couldn’t have prevented that anonymous poster from leaking that story, but I could have prepared Hyemi for the consequences, if it should happen. I could have told her that her father made a deal with Joah instead of hiding it from her. But I was afraid she might quit if she knew the truth, taking her father’s money with her.
I’m flooded with guilt that I quickly suppress.
Mentally, I form a hardness around my heart. Maybe this is who I am. It’s who my parents are, after all, and I’m their daughter.
I pull myself out of bed to brush my teeth, because one can wallow but also have good oral hygiene. Turning my phone on silent, I grab my laptop and climb back under the covers. Opening up Netflix, I click on the first episode of the newest Hong Sisters drama, because I’d rather watch fictional characters deal with their innumerable, and sometimes fantastical, problems than deal with my own.
I’m on episode six, the computer completely turned on its side, and me along with it, when an invitation for a video call pops up in the right-hand corner.
Your roommate, the caller’s ID says, Go Jooyoung. Jenny.
I sit up. The laptop starts to fall off my four-poster, and I make a grab for it, my fingers inadvertently pressing the keypad.
Jenny’s face appears, illuminated by a ring light.
“Sori?” She’s in her dorm room. Behind her is a bookcase and her cello on its stand. “Are you sleeping?” Her gaze travels to the corner, as if checking the time. It’s one o’clock.
“Oh, Sori. That bad, huh?” Does she somehow know about Nathaniel? “I heard about the trouble with Joah.”
“How did you know?” I ask. Then I realize Jaewoo must have told her. I shift the computer so that she’s looking at me and not my ceiling.
“Never mind that,” she says. “I was worried about you.”
“I’m fine,” I say. “Well, I’m not fine, but hearing your voice is helping.”
“I was going to call you soon anyway. I wanted to tell you my news. I’m going to Japan! That is, I got the place in the quartet.”
I scream, and she laughs.
“I was going to come to Seoul first for a week,” she says. “Can I stay with you?”
“Of course. Though don’t you want to stay with your halmeoni?”
“I’ll stay with her on the weekends, but she likes to go to the clinic on the weekdays to flirt with the grandfathers there.”
I laugh. Her halmeoni is sweet and loving, the complete opposite of mine.
We chat for the next three hours. At one point I have to get off my bed to plug my computer into the charger at my desk. Drawing back the shades, sunlight spills into the room.
She seems to sense that I don’t want to talk about the reasons for why I’m lying in bed in the middle of the afternoon, and so we talk about everything else but that.
Ajumma’s porridge went cold, but I eat it while Jenny heats up water in an electric kettle for a bowl of instant noodles.
“What were you doing before I called?” she asks.
“I was catching up on the new Hong Sisters drama.”
“It’s so good. What episode are you on? Did you get to the kiss scene yet?”
“Not yet! Does it happen in episode six?” I’d had fifteen minutes left of the episode before she called.
“How am I supposed to remember that? But yes, at the one-hour-and-twenty-minute mark.”
As we’re saying our goodbyes, she catches my eye. “I’m Team Sori; you know that, right?”
“Yes, and I’m the president of your fan club. Go to sleep.” It’s three in the morning in New York.
I wave to her as she hangs up.
Feeling rejuvenated after talking to Jenny, I finish the last fifteen minutes of the episode, replaying the kiss scene twice.
I take a shower, forming a plan in my mind.
Actually, the idea stemmed from what Nathaniel said the night before, about buying shares of Joah. I don’t have the money to buy shares, but maybe I don’t have to . . .
I open a direct line to my father, skipping Secretary Lee entirely.
I’ve been skipping both my parents’ secretaries lately.
Do you have time to meet tomorrow? I text.
His response is immediate, and I wonder if he’s surprised to see a text from me. Yes. Come to your halmeoni’s house tomorrow morning for breakfast.
Ajumma prepares a simple meal for dinner because I’m still “sick.”
“It’s a bit quieter tonight,” she hedges, clearly waiting for me to explain Nathaniel’s absence.
“Things are just back to normal again,” I say. “It’s better this way.”
If Ajumma thinks differently, she doesn’t share her thoughts, leaving me alone to eat in silence.
Later, Ajumma and I sit down to watch Sun’s drama, which in the excitement of the last few days, I’d forgotten was airing tonight. A lot of the episode was filmed in the previous weeks, with only Hyemi, Nathaniel, and my scenes filmed and edited so last minute.
Hyemi’s character is adorable. She’s a high school student who has a crush on a boy in her class, but he’s oblivious.
I laugh when she kicks the magical conch shell in frustration only to stub her toe, jumping around on one foot.
“She’s good!” Ajumma says.
She’s reminiscent of a young Jung So Min. She delivers each of her lines with charisma. In fact, I’m fairly certain the scriptwriter added extra lines after realizing Hyemi had talent.
The episode continues with an aerial shot of a rocky beach. Fog rolls over the tidepools as a sonorous voice narrates the scene. The Sea King’s messenger has arrived from the glittering depths of the court to deliver a message to the Sea Prince. A tail appears on screen, then the camera slowly pans upward.
Ajumma gasps. “Sori-yah. You’re beautiful.” She takes out her phone and starts recording the screen.
I’m impressed with what the editors managed to do in only a short few days. My tail is a stunning blend of violet and aquamarine, matched perfectly to my corseted top. My damp hair hangs over my bare shoulders, strung with jewels and pearls. The narrator’s low baritone intones. But mermaids cannot speak above the water. How will she deliver the Sea King’s message?
If I remember correctly from the script, my next—and final—scene isn’t until the end of the episode, which is a relief, because I can actually enjoy the story. It continues with Sun and the heroine going on a date. This is the episode where they truly start to acknowledge their feelings for each other, but because of the conch shell, which will restore the Sea Prince’s memories, they’re torn apart.
I’m so caught up in the story that another forty minutes seem to fly by—the episode is an hour, since it’s on EBC, not tvN—and suddenly the setting cuts to the bathhouse.
I grab a pillow off the couch and bring it to my chest. Nathaniel walks onto the set in his shower slippers and sheep’s head towel.
He has lines as well, and though his delivery is a bit stilted, unlike Sun and Hyemi, his natural humor lends itself to his character. He’s upset because he sees a light on in the bathhouse after hours and think it’s one of the old women sneaking in.
His eyes catch on something in the water, a glittering tail. Kneeling on the ground, he moves toward the edge to peer over the lip of the pool. The camera angles to catch my slow emergence, the water cascading off my jeweled hair. I remember how uncomfortable I’d felt trying not to blink, and I’m glad that I hadn’t, because the effect is quite lovely. A second camera shows a close-up of Nathaniel’s expression. I know what I was thinking—I’d been freaking out that he hadn’t delivered his line yet—but he appears arrested, his eyes roving over my face. I expect the director to have cut the scene, but he kept the long pause. Nathaniel and I stare at each other, as if struck by one another.
Then the moment comes. Lifting myself out of the water, I bring my lips to his.
Then I fall back into the water and the scene ends.
“Omona!” Ajumma shouts.
There’s ten more minutes left in the episode but my phone floods with messages.
MIN SORI, Angela texts. At the same time, Gi Taek messages, I’m scandalized. Then, in a separate text, That outfit was out of this world.
Jenny texts a hundred !!!s.
I stare at my phone, hoping for the chirp signaling another message, this one from Nathaniel. But it doesn’t come. Maybe he didn’t watch the episode?
“Sori-yah,” Ajumma says, pointing at the TV, “you’re missing the rest.”
The episode ends with Hyemi’s character giving the conch to Sun’s character in the marketplace. He regains his memories, including the fact that it was his storm, brought about by a petty tantrum, which destroyed the heroine’s family’s business, leading to all their misfortunes.
After the episode ends, I read the comments on EBC’s homepage.
I think the screenwriter is a MinLee fan.
Their chemistry is so convincing!
Isn’t this too far for a cameo?
I can admit that Woo Hyemi knows how to act.
Min Sori is blessed.
They look like they’re in love.
As I’m readying for bed, my phone pings with a new message, forwarded from Secretary Park.
To the management of talent, Min Sori,
As the CEO of EBC, I’m reaching out to invite Min Sori to cohost our annual EBC Awards, scheduled for next weekend. In the past few weeks, Min Sori, with her charm and beauty, has struck a resonant chord with our audience. Her on-screen chemistry with Nathaniel Lee, of the popular idol group XOXO, inspired us to reach out to invite him as her cohost for this year’s awards. I look forward to Min Sori’s positive response to this invitation.
Yours with admiration,
Kim Seo-Yeon, CEO of EBC