Loveboat in 서울

𝟚𝟞

I try to call Wendy from the lobby phones, but she doesn't pick up. She's probably out with Nick, or still traveling with her parents. I hide in the fifth-floor lounge the rest of the day, skipping classes and avoiding Kang. But there are four weeks left in the program, two more weeks of class before the Touch Korea Tour. I'll have to face him eventually.

Hunger finally drives me to dinner in the dining hall, where I seek out Sulli and Krystal at a table near the back and hide myself among them. Across from me, Minnie shoots to her feet, tossing her hair contemptuously over her shoulder.

"Slut." She storms to the next table, where she puts her head together with girls from the second floor. All of them shoots me scathing looks.

My eyes prickle with tears, but Krystal squeezes my arm. "You were so brave. You told those guys."

"That was such a shitty thing Sohee did." Sulli spoons tofu soup onto my bowl. She know it's my favorite and I dig  in hungrily, grateful to have someone looking out for me.

"We hate you, you know?" Krystal laughs. "I mean—if I had your bod, I'd pass my photos out myself." She hands me a napkin-wrapped package. "We collected six. How many are left?"

They're standing by me. I choke down a mouthful of spicy tofu.

"I don't know," I whisper. "I need to find out. The photographer knows, but I'm not allowed off campus. I can't speak enough Korean to even call."

"We'll ask for you," Sulli promises. "We'll find them."

"Thank you," I say. But short of fishing in every pocket, notebook, and drawer in campus, the only way I'll get all of them back is if someone hands them to me.

I head to me room after dinner, hoping to avoid Sohee by going to bed early. In the lounge, Jihyo lies stretched out on the off-white couch, head propped on the red and blue pillow stitched by her grandmother. Over the top of her novel, she meets me gaze and her face reddens, then she hides behind its pages.

So. My babysitter. Who, I'm sure, had never done something as stupid as ... well, any of the things I've done these weeks.

I sweep by without a word.

"Sooji. Mueos-eul dowa deulikkayo?"

Her tone is timid, not judgemental. I pause, my back to her. "My name is Suzy."

"Suzy. My other name is Juhaek."

I look at her. She's sat up and set down her novel. She tugs an earphone from her ear and I hear a song. "Your tribal name?"

She nods. "I always forget you don't understand Korean."

"Which name do you prefer?"

"I like them both."

"Is that what you're supposed to say?" It comes out more belligerent than I mean.

"No, I do like them both. I'm an  ethnically Yemaek, but I'm also Korean."

She's me in reverse. A minority in Korea, like I am in the States. Somehow, she's making all her identities work: she wears clothes that reflect her heritage, and brought her grandma's pillow, and tries to convert people to her favorite music, and yet she goes by a Korean name and reads an English book.

I tap her phone. "What song is this?" It feels strange to use English, in this longest conversation we've had yet.

"Ideungbyeong-ui pyeonji (이등병의 편지)." She tugs her earphone free of the phone, and a guy's voice sings out the song she was playing in the Dragon's office. Her favorite. "It's an old Korean folk song. 'Private's Letter.'"