Loveboat in 서울

𝟛𝟜

"Let's move people! Guests are arriving in two hours!"

Sohee pushes through a slit in the backdrop curtain and onto the stage of the National Theater, her clipboard in hand. She's dressed for work in slacks and a white, short-sleeved blouse.

The theater itself is alive with sounds: the rattle of wheels as Subin and Kangjoon cart in their dragon drums, the clop of shoes as my dancers whirl in their flirty gem-color dresses, emerald, sapphire, topaz—every last stitch in place.

A fresh coat of wax on stage covers the scruffs and scars of prior acts and from my spot in the center, the left and right wings feel miles away. Six spotlights blend double halos over me as, from the technician's box at the back, a stage manager dressed all in black yells instructions. Sohee's arranged for the theater to film the entire thing.

I'm standing before three tiers with 1,500 seats, where the Broadway shows and big name performers have performed and Henry Lau played his violin. This should inspire cartwheels. It's the greatest night of my dancing career—and yet all of me aches as if I've been crushed under a collapsed bridge.

Sohee grips my arm on her way to a mic check. "He'll be here." She runs her hand through her hair and sighs. "I feel so terrible I never knew. None of us ..."

Joohyuk left Heaven Lake with Rosie yesterday afternoon, afraid to leave her to make the trip back to Busan alone. He called her grandparents in Busan and is waiting for them to arrive.

The selfish part of me wanted to hang on as tightly as she did: Don't go. I need you, too. To demand that Joohyuk draw hard lines, the way Wendy's always pushed me to draw hard lines with my parents. But I shouldn't. Not with Rosie where she is.

What did they talk about in those long hours on the ride to Busan? They stayed last night at the Grand Hotel. He would have carried her bag into the plush lobby of red carpet and columns. Did their years together come slamming back? Did he find there's no letting go of someone for whom you are breath and life?

And if she can't let go, will his lifetime of subverting what he wants to his roles as the eldest son of the eldest son of the eldest son, as a big brother and a boyfriend, allow him to let go himself?

I have to believe there's an order to this universe, even if we can't see it, and that its fundamental design is good. One human was never intended to carry another. Joohyuk and this summer gave me the courage to take charge of my own future.

I can only hope that I've done the same for him.

And if he decided it's her, then this summer was about their destiny, not ours.

"Is Joohyuk coming?" Sulli asks, when I execute the solo instead of the stick fight for our dress rehearsal.

"He'll be here," I say.

The girls exchange glances. Maybe Sulli was right, and I shouldn't have asked Joohyuk to dance with us to begin with, or built our performance around the stick fight.

But I love it. Love dancing it with Joohyuk. And if we don't go after what love, then what's the point?

"He'll be here," I repeat. "And if not, I'll do the solo. Come on. We have the blocking down. Let's see if the auction people need help."

ʕु-̫͡-ʔुྉ*ᴸᵒᵛᵉᵇᵒᵃᵗ✲ﾟⁱⁿ*。⋆ 서울。⋆ *

In the sunlit atrium of the theater, girls from Min's Bible study are draping white cloths over rectangular tables and unfolding two dozen easels dropped off my Sohee's aunt. Other kids are setting out saran-wrapped platters of mochi, cheesecake, and other offerings from Yonsei's food electives on a dessert table.