Chapter 5 #2
“You ready to rock these netizens’ worlds with our scandalous love affair?” he asks as I settle down into my seat. I roll my eyes as an answer. If I were into Dungeons and Dragons, I would classify him as Chaotic Evil.
“I was thinking...” he says after the van pulls onto a main road. “I know you’re American and all. But what do you think about calling me Oppa?”
I grimace. “Uh, gross. No thanks. Do I have to call you that?”
Bryan shrugs. “I mean, I am older than you. And we’re supposed to be dating now, right? It’ll be weird for you to not call me Oppa, in terms of Korean culture anyway.”
There’s a part of me that knows he’s right.
Oppa means “older brother” in Korean, but it’s also a general term of respect used by girls when they’re addressing a close male friend or boyfriend that’s older than them.
But there’s also an emotional component to the word, since it’s meant to be a term of endearment.
And right now, Bryan is anything but endearing to me.
I sigh and then tense up.
Bryan waits.
“O—” I cringe. “O—”
Bryan cups his hand to his ear. “Yes?”
“O— Ugh, I can’t. Sorry.”
Bryan looks disappointed. “Okay, then. We can try it again later. You already said O , so all we need to do is get you to say the second syllable. Baby steps!”
It’s amazing how optimistic he is.
The drive to Lotte World is slow and agonizing thanks to the traffic. Seoul’s subway and bus systems are so well laid out that it’s sometimes much faster and more convenient to travel by public transportation. And even the buses have their own lanes, so they’re faster than cars in traffic.
Bryan’s team probably picked me up to be nice, but I wish they’d let me get to Lotte World myself. Just because Bryan prefers to travel by car doesn’t mean I do. I don’t say anything out loud, though, because I don’t want to be rude.
By the time we walk through the entrance of the amusement park, I’m already worn out.
“Where do you want to go first?” I ask.
Most of Bryan’s team stayed behind in the car, but a tall, burly guy that I presume is Bryan’s bodyguard is following us at a leisurely pace.
“Do you have any suggestions, Mr. Lee?” Bryan asks the guard.
Mr. Lee just shrugs at him.
“Okay, then.” Bryan opens up the map of the park on his phone, and we stare at it.
Lotte World is mostly indoors, with an outdoor “island” area that has the bigger rides like the Viking and the skyscraper-tall Gyro Drop.
Overall, the park is pretty small compared to Disney World and Universal Studios, but it has a nicely cozy and cute vibe that none of the large parks back in Florida had.
“Easy, let’s go on Pharaoh’s Fury,” says Bryan. “That’ll have you screaming ‘Oppa’ for sure.”
“A haunted tomb ride? Nice try, but no way I’m going on that ride. I hate scary stuff.”
“Fine. How about bumper cars?”
A smile slides onto my face. I’ve always loved bumper cars, and the mere thought of legally driving into Bryan fills me with mischievous glee. “All right, let’s go.”
Bryan raises an eyebrow but doesn’t say anything.
Thanks to our face masks, we’re able to walk through a good portion of the amusement park without anyone recognizing us. Which would be a good thing if we weren’t here on a fake date.
“Bryan... what if no one notices us?” I ask. “I know we’re supposed to look like we’re secretly dating around, but... do you think we should take off our face masks?”
“Nah.” Bryan shakes his head. “If no one notices us, we can just have a fun day at the amusement park. Chill.”
The casual way he answers baffles me.
“No, but really. I’m giving up my first free Saturday in a while for this. We’re giving up our Saturday for this.”
Bryan sighs, sounding so exasperated that I snap to attention on his face.
Even with the face mask, I can tell from his eyes that something’s up.
Instead of the playful shine they had just moments before, he looks fatigued in a way that makes me realize that his previous enthusiasm must have been an act.
“People will notice,” he says. “And they already have. Look.”
He runs a hand through his hair with a quick flick of his wrist, and I take that as a sign for me to glance behind us.
And sure enough, I spot two middle school–age girls still in their uniforms. They’re slowly following us, whispering to each other.
Their wide eyes flick away the moment our gazes meet.
“Wow, are those the Brybabies?”
“I think so,” he says with a shrug. “A lot of the more committed fans know what I look like even with a face mask on.”
“Jeez, that sucks.”
Bryan shrugs again. “It’s fine. My fans are nice, for the most part. I’m thankful.”
“What about the sasaeng fans?”
Bryan stiffens. “They can be a bit creepy, but I don’t think they’re bad people....”
Sasaeng fans are the scary fans that give K-pop fandom a bad rep because of how stalkerish they are.
They’re the ones that show up in front of people’s houses or go bonkers when they find out that their idols married someone else.
Luckily, they only make up a small minority of a largely positive fan base, but stories like that make me glad that I’m an actress and not involved in the K-pop world.
Except now I’m supposedly dating one of K-pop’s biggest stars. I don’t know how to feel about all this.
Bryan and I don’t say anything else to each other when we reach the line for the bumper cars. The rink is small and surrounded by racing-flag-checkered walls and blue and white carnival lights. Kids in school uniforms and a few adults drive around in cute, brightly colored cars.
When it’s our turn to enter the rink, I get into a yellow bumper car with black-and-white racing stripes while Bryan gets into a green one. Looking perfectly content, he follows the safety instructions and carefully puts on his seat belt. I do the same.
The moment the ride begins, Bryan steps on his acceleration pedal. His car zips forward.
“Now this is what I’m talking about!” He exclaims with pure unadulterated joy.
His enthusiasm makes me smile. The bumper cars are such a mess—a chaotic whirlwind of fun that feels like a real-life version of Mario Kart . They’re faster than I thought they’d be, which makes me all the more giddy. Suddenly this date doesn’t seem so bad after all.
Someone runs into me with a loud THWACK .
“Oops, sorry!”
I turn around just in time to see Bryan driving off with a look in his eyes that’s decidedly not apologetic. Of course it’s him.
“Oh no you don’t!”
I steer toward him, pressing my foot on the pedal and urging my car to go-go-go-go. I run into Bryan with a satisfying THUNK .
“Hah!” I exclaim triumphantly.
But before I can celebrate for too long, the momentum causes Bryan’s car to hit the girl behind him.
“I’m so sorry,” he says.
Her eyes go wide.
“Omo!” the girl exclaims in surprise. “Bryan Yoon?”
Her phone is out in an instant, and even in the chaos of the spinning cars around us, she manages to snap pictures of Bryan and me. While she’s doing that, some other cars come to a stop near us, causing a traffic jam that would have been disastrous if we were in real cars.
“Let’s go,” Bryan says as he steers his car back toward the entrance.
I follow him, but in the end, neither of us make it out of the bumper car rink in time to escape the onrush of fans.