It really began with that phone call. The one that I initiated at the beginning of the Lunar year. His song was playing on the radio. The one that I had written. He'd been famous for two years, and I hadn't contacted him. I was busy at university and I didn't want to be that person who comes out of the woodwork looking for a handout. His songs previous to this were written by a team. This one was written by him. He was branching out, trying to write his own stuff. It was impossible not to see it as a sign when I listened to the lyrics. It was about a girl that chases boys. I've listened to that song so many times that now when I listen to it my legs instantly feel like jelly. I'd been working as a freelancer and no-one was biting. It was a catchy song. Too bad I couldn't remember the lyrics. My own lyrics. I had his phone number, or at least, his mother's. The day I called he was, amazingly, at home with his mother.
"I could do you a solid," I told him when his mother handed the phone to him. "Let the media know you were quite literally hanging out with your mum. To counter all the rumours about your womanising."
He'd laughed, surprisingly me with his warmth. It sounded like he was in the middle of chewing rice cake. He didn't sound in a hurry to offer money for the lyrics I had given him. I could hear a wet smacking. Even my cold heart was warmed. The fact that Id caught him with his mother on a weekday really did endear. I didn't need to read it on the Korean websites, I was firsthand witness. Maybe, I remember writing in my diary, he really is as sweet as his image. All I knew was that during those years he'd been famous, which was like saying he'd gone to space to be an astronaut it was that unfathomable.
"Sorry," he'd said, "can I call you back?"
I'd thought for sure he was fobbing me off. I didn't expect anything. So when my home phone rang I didn't answer it. I figured it was a telemarketer. My mum answered, and I heard her voice perk up. She knew he was famous and she couldn't hide how excited she was. I think she was more excited about the fact that Dean was calling the home phone. He wanted to hear my mums voice.
"Sorry," he said again when mum finally passed the phone to me, "mum needed the phone."
"So you're using your mobile?"
"Yeah."
"Who is your mum calling? Sorry, nosy."
"We need to stop apologising.
"I know."
"And then apologising for apologising."
"I know."
"Like, I must be assertive! Then, sorry for being assertive. We're so messed up."
"So messed up."
"She's calling my dad."
"You don't live together?"
"No she's calling him because she's being cute. Phone sex to keep the spark alive."
"Seriously?"
"I wish. Nah. She's just nagging him to come home. He's at the pub."
On Lunar New Year?
I remember thinking, I really need this money. I really need this opportunity.
I was curious too, but this you can only see from the dialogue that I wrote down in my diary later. "Is he gambling?" I ask him, rudely being informal and intimate and assumptive. He sighs. Chews. I think he's eating still. I literally interrupted his dinner. "Actually, yeah. How'd you know? I thought you'd think he was drinking. I didn't think you'd guess he was gambling too."
"I had a friend who gambled," I've written in my diary. "He wasn't even old. I thought it was only old people until then. I was shocked how normal he made it seem, tried to get me to do it too."
