My Seoul Man

Chapter 7

I'd almost choked on a mouth full of glass noodles—japchae—when he hit me with something else I couldn't "swallow."

We were on the roof at Ahn's where they had some little tables and chairs and things so the people who worked at the store could chill out up there during their lunches and breaks.

He'd insisted upon feeding me after I told him I'd had cobbler for dinner at that little meeting earlier.

"Koreans don't skip meals," he told me.

And he'd warmed up some leftover japchae from that day's communal lunch—it's these initially off-putting, transparent potato starch noodles mixed with all kinds of veggies and meat and this soy/sugar sauce. Delicious, BTW.

And after I'd managed to gulp down that gelatinous mass with the beer he'd rushed to the rescue with, I sputtered, "There's a 'no dating' clause in your contract?"

And he stood there stifling a smile that made me want to fling the rest of those noodles at him.

But he sat down next to me and said, "It's pretty much standard practice. They used to take our phones away, even, to make sure we weren't calling or texting or posting to somebody on the sly. Some of 'em have managers check your phones every week. Some won't even let you call family."

"Oh, come on..."

"I'm absolutely serious. A pretty famous kid got kicked out not too long ago when a bunch of fans he'd slept with started posting stories about him. They said they'd been giving him expensive gifts and paying for lavish meals and hotel suites. And all he did was eat and sleep most of the time—and I mean sleep, too. No uglies bumped. Or not as often as the girls would've liked, anyway."

"I can't even—I mean, you're teenagers when you sign those stupid contracts! Horny little boys."

He laughed and said, "And we acted like horny little boys—and girls."

"But how? If they were watching you like that?"

"Funniest stuff went on at the music show rehearsals. Back at the dorms afterwards we'd go around asking each other how many sandwiches we got."

"What?"

"Well, at one show they used to have these famous sandwiches that everybody liked—egg salad and coleslaw, right? With jam on the bread, too—sounds awful, huh?"

I shuddered. He laughed. And said, "Well, I mean, we looked forward to them because our diets were so limited, right? But also because if there was someone you wanted to hook up with, you'd write your number or a 'Let's have coffee at...' note on a piece of napkin of something, slip it under the plastic wrap on one side of the sandwiches when your manager wasn't looking —"

"And hand it to the one you were after?"

"Or have one of her girls do the, 'I bought two of these sandwiches, but I'm full—would you like one?' thing and hand it off that way. But that's dicey because you never know who's looking to score some points with the company by snitching on people."

"Honest to God..."

"Well, like you said, we were kids when we signed on. In fact, back when I started you could be recruited out of middle school. The government's cutting in on that now, though."

"Well, it sounds like middle school. The notes with the 'Yes' and 'No" boxes, remember?"

He laughed and said, "Pretty close."

"So, you...I mean, where do you go, if you can't be seen together?"

"We practice 'til all hours. And we get up super early, too. So, if your managers aren't living with you at the dorm, you can slip away for a bit before or after when there aren't too many people out and about. Or do a drive on your day off. To some secluded spot."