Chapter 14
IT’S BELOW FREEZING WHEN I LEAVE MY APARTMENT on New Year’s Eve, which puts me in a crabbier mood than usual as I ride the bus to Namsan Tower. While on the bus, I can’t shake the feeling that someone’s watching me.
At first, I think it’s just my paranoia.
But then I start to notice things: The man in a brown coat who’s been sitting silently behind me for this entire bus ride.
The woman who has her phone by her ear but is only occasionally talking—way too infrequently to be having a real conversation with someone.
The most tell-tale sign that I’m being followed is the guy with a DSLR that stares at me while adjusting his lens, occasionally snapping pictures when I look away.
Word must have gotten out that Bryan and I are going on a date. But how? Did someone tip off the paparazzi?
I send Sophia a text.
Hey, I think I’m being followed. Do you know if there’s been a leak?
Dots appear as Sophia types up a message only to disappear again. I wait for a response, but none comes. Knowing her, she must either be busy dealing with one of her other clients or trying to gather more concrete information before she replies to me.
Well , I think. I guess I’m in this alone for now.
Sophia said they’d have more security on-site for the actual date, but I hoped I’d also have some peace and quiet by myself beforehand. I guess not.
As the bus approaches the stop at the base of the mountain, I rack my brain for my different transportation options.
I was originally going to walk up the trail to the tower, but that’s definitely not an option now.
Getting tailed by paparazzi as I huff and puff my way up a mountain?
No thank you. I can always make a run for it, but that’s a worst-case scenario.
There’s also a cable car that goes up to the summit, but I’d have to time it right.
From the bus stop, I’d have to run to the elevator that goes up to the cable car platform and, once I’m up there, wait in line to buy a ticket before I actually get in a car.
Any wrong move and I could end up stuck with the journalists in either the elevator, the line, or the cable car.
I look out the window. We’re fast approaching the stop, and then I’ll have to somehow get out of the bus and beat everyone to the cable car platform. Unfortunately, the bus is pretty packed, and I’m sitting toward the back.
I probably won’t make it, but I have to try.
The moment the bus comes to a stop, I bolt out of my seat, bowing and apologizing to people as I push forward to the front.
“Excuse me! Pardon me! Sorry! Coming through!”
Please... please! I get a lot of glares and mean looks, but I pretend not to see them. Elbows and backpacks shove into me as I press on. It gets claustrophobic and I’m gasping for air when finally I reach the sidewalk below.
A loud commotion comes from behind me on the bus.
“Coming through! Coming through!”
“Hey, watch it!”
“Get out of the way!”
I dash forward as fast as I can. I’m almost to the elevator when I hear cameras going off behind me. I curse under my breath and slow down. As desperate as I am to escape, the last thing I want to do is end up on the front page of the entertainment news looking like a hot mess.
Fortunately, the elevator door slides open just as I reach it.
A stream of people exits and walks past me.
I shift my weight from one foot to another as I wait for everyone to get off.
Come on... Come on... Most of the people in the crowd are taller than me, so I can’t look over their heads to see how close the journalists are.
As soon as the last person gets off, I push forward so I’m the first to get on the elevator.
Aggressively shoving through people like this would be considered really rude back in my quiet Floridian hometown, but here in a bustling capital city like Seoul, it’s pretty normal, so no one gives me a second glance.
The more non-journalist people that get in the elevator, the more I find myself relaxing. And when the elevator closes without any of the paparazzi getting on, I breathe a deep sigh of relief.
The elevator is unfortunately see-through, though, so I see the journalists catch up just as we start moving. A few bang the doors of the elevator, earning dirty looks from the other people inside with me.
My heart still pounding in my ears, I watch the paparazzi get smaller and smaller as the elevator slides up to the cable car platform.
When I reach the line for cable car tickets, I see Bryan and two security guards, surrounded by a small but rapidly growing crowd of fans. I’ve never felt so relieved to see Bryan’s face.
“There you are,” Bryan says. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d make it. My team reserved a cable car for us so we could go up to the tower in peace. Come on.”
Once Bryan and I are alone inside the cable car, I press my forehead against the cold glass wall, watching the snow-covered trees on the mountainside shrink as we slowly move up. I hadn’t noticed how fast my heart was beating before now, and I close my eyes for a bit and take a few calming breaths.
I don’t know how Bryan and other celebrities can live like this. I know this is something I have to get used to, especially if I want to keep pursuing my career as an actress. But I wish I could have eased more into it first, instead of getting thrown right into the deep end.
“Hey, are you okay?”
I open my eyes to glance back at Bryan, who actually looks worried.
Which... probably means I look way worse than I thought.
I can’t decide whether or not I trust him, though, so I shrug and avoid eye contact, glancing past him to take in the view of the city below.
From up here, even a city as busy and big as Seoul looks so calm and peaceful, and I feel better the higher up we go.
Bryan doesn’t probe. Instead, he turns around to look at the city, too.
“This used to be my favorite thing as a kid,” he says.
“My parents were either always rushing around, busy with work so they had enough money for all my classes and training, or they were fighting with each other. But they’d never make a scene around other people.
So when we got onto this cable car, they’d just quietly stand next to each other and marvel at the view with me.
I must have asked if we could come up here at least ten times before they got divorced. ”
Bryan’s sudden confession throws me off guard.
Although some members of NOVA are open about their family histories, Bryan is one of the idols that never publicly talks about his past, keeping his background so secret to the point that it’s almost like he was manufactured by the K-pop industry.
But now I can see why he kept things private.
Divorce is still relatively uncommon in Korea and is seen as taboo. I’d hear so many stories from my school friends about how much their parents hate each other but won’t divorce because of the shame they thought it would bring to them and their kids.
Bryan coughs. “Sorry,” he says. “No idea why I just told you all that. I blame the view. It’s making me sentimental.”
“It’s okay,” I reply. “I’m not judging your family or anything. Is that why you threw yourself into music? To get away from all that?”
Bryan nods. “I just didn’t want to be home. Even after the divorce, things didn’t get much better. A lot of trainees complained about the long hours and nights away from home, but I never minded. When I was selected for NOVA and had to leave the country for tour and stuff, it was a huge relief.”
For the first time, Bryan is letting me see him as a real person, a teenager just like me who has his own crap going on. It’s enough to make me feel like I can trust him, if just for this one moment.
“I’m not doing so great,” I finally admit, meeting his eyes. “This whole fame thing is really overwhelming... which is pretty ironic since starring in a popular K-drama and becoming a household name was basically all I wanted as a kid.”
I half expect Bryan to mock me for my naivete, but he gives me a sympathetic look. “Don’t worry. You get used to it after a while. Sort of. Okay, not really.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
He shrugs, and we both look away from each other again to stare at the ground below.
“I don’t think the anxiety ever goes away,” Bryan says, as if he’s trying again to comfort me. “I know lots of famous pop stars who still struggle with it and are secretly in therapy or cope in not-so-good ways. Knowing that we’re all struggling... makes me feel less alone.”
What Bryan said does make me feel a bit better, but it also makes me really sad, since it reminds me how much, along with divorce, going to therapy and taking medication to cope with mental illness is also relatively taboo in Korea.
“Lucky for you, though,” he adds, “the public doesn’t freak out as much over actors and actresses as they do about K-pop idols. Not unless you’re like Kim Tae-hee or Hyun Bin.”
“Yeah, I guess,” I say.
My phone buzzes. It’s Sophia, finally replying to my text.
Hana, are you okay? Sorry for the delay.
Busy day. I discovered the source of the leak.
It wasn’t anyone on our team. It looks like Bryan posted on his Instagram story last night that he’s going to Namsan Tower.
He deleted it a few minutes later but people posted screenshots of it and got the attention of the press.
I blink rapidly, hoping I read the text wrong. But then Sophia sends me a screenshot, which is a pretty unmistakable selfie of Bryan holding up the victory sign with a caption that says, Going to Namsan Tower with a very special lady tomorrow afternoon!