9. My Person
MY PERSON
SANG-HOON — PARIS
Sunday morning, we met at nine for a buffet breakfast in one of the hotel’s private dining rooms. Someone had pushed two long tables together and covered them with enough croissants, fruit, cheeses, and coffee to feed twice our number.
Without the bodyguards there, we were comfortable speaking in Korean. Woo stood over a map on his phone before he’d even poured himself coffee. “I’ve narrowed it to six patisseries.”
Jason looked up from buttering a croissant. “Six?”
“We only have until rehearsal.”
“That’s exactly why six is too many.”
Woo ignored him. “Pierre Hermé, Cédric Grolet, Stohrer, Angelina...”
“You forgot Ladurée,” Grace said. Her Korean was more formal than ours, more like the way university scholars spoke.
I wondered how she managed to translate the way some of us spoke.
Woo grew up in a farming town near Jeonju and he had been tutored in standard Seoul Korean for television appearances, but often his hometown accent slipped out.
Haneul’s Busan dialect was rougher and Grace sometimes struggled to put his answers in a more polite way.
Woo looked scandalized. “I don’t forget Ladurée. I don’t want Ladurée.”
Grace laughed. “Why not?”
“They’re famous,” Woo said. “I’m looking for the best.”
Our content producer, Han Ji-ho, was only a year or so older than Jin and me, with bright yellow hair and a constant phone or other recording device.
He was looking for the best backdrops to film media content.
In one corner, he and our physical therapist were talking with the tech engineer and the choreographer about what they wanted to see in Paris.
Those four kept to themselves, because unlike the others, this was their first tour with Pryzm, and they rarely connected with the performers and the artistic staff.
Across the table, Haneul was studying a museum guide. “Which museum do you want to visit?” Jin asked. “There are so many. Almost as many as there are pastry shops.”
“I think the Rodin Museum. I want to study the way his sculptures are positioned.”
“Not to add more choreography!” Tae said. “We already do too much.” He yawned. “I’m going back to bed to rest my leg. I want to be perfect for Paris.”
Sun-hee-noona sipped her coffee. “Jason and I are taking a bateau-mouche cruise.” She smiled. “Paris is the city of romance and I want some.”
Jason gave a theatrical sigh. “You should not complain about romance in front of all these men. One of them will try to take you away from me.”
Everyone laughed.
As usual, the two Starhouse security guards who traveled with us didn’t interact much with us.
Jason said that was purposeful, that we wouldn’t notice them unless something went wrong.
Back in Seoul, they’d return to their regular jobs, manning the headquarters front desk or escorting the company president somewhere.
I took a photo of Jin eating a croissant with my phone. “Aw, how sweet,” Min-kyu said.
“I’m sending it to his mother,” I said. “She’s always emailing me to make sure he’s eating well.” I clicked send and then put the phone away. I’d treasure that photo myself later.
Mina, the second stylist, had already spread out a folded tourist map.
“Montmartre,” she announced. “Wan-suk, Du-ri, and I are going to watch artists pretend they can draw us.”
“They can draw you,” Wan-suk said. “They’ll draw me like a potato.
” She was the principal makeup artist, and she was accustomed to dealing with beautiful faces.
Jin’s was the most classically handsome, because his was slim and well-balanced.
He had expressive eyes and a straight nose, and he paid close attention to his skin. Wan-suk loved to make him up.
Some of the others were more difficult. Haneul had a square face and strong jaw, which Koreans didn’t value as much.
He was the oldest and she had special wrinkle cream to keep his skin smooth.
Min-kyu’s hair grew quickly and needed constant trimming.
Tae and Woo were cute young men who needed little help.
“You’ll be a very elegant potato,” Mina said. Wan-suk’s face was rounder, with small eyes she accented with colorful liner and eyeshadow. But in her worst moments she did look a bit like a potato.
The conversation drifted toward pastries again while I concentrated on my eggs. Jin leaned toward me.
“What about you?” he asked.
I looked up. “I haven’t really thought about it.”
“I thought I’d walk along the Seine,” Jin said. “Maybe I will see Sun-hee-noona and Jae-sung and wave to them.”
I laughed. He hesitated just long enough that only I would notice. “Would you come with me?”
“If you are worried fans will see you,” I said. “I can come with you to make sure your hair is combed.”
Everyone laughed, then Aidan and Liam joined us and the mood in the room shifted. Right. Someone had created an explosion in Cannes, and then sent threatening text messages.
Aidan helped himself to the last croissant and a tiny pot of jam as Liam went to the coffee urn. When he had a cup in hand, he said, “Good morning, everyone. Nice to see you all looking rested.”
“We have rehearsal today at two o’clock at the Accor Arena,” Sun-hee-noona said. “Anything you want from us this morning?”
“Just be careful,” Aidan said. “Paris is a beautiful city. Enjoy it while you can.”
Liam was looking out the tall window at the street, and the river. For a moment, I wondered what he was seeing.
The morning was cool enough that I wished I’d brought a jacket.
A light breeze rippled the Seine, carrying the smell of coffee, river water, and fresh bread from cafés opening along the quai.
It was ironic that I was the one responsible for making sure Jin looked perfect for every number, and I’d ignored my own comfort.
We walked without any destination beyond the cathedral rising in the distance. Tour boats slid beneath the bridges, their guides speaking in French, English, Spanish, and Japanese over crackling loudspeakers. When people waved, we waved back, along with many other tourists around us.
Cyclists threaded past families pushing strollers. A violinist stood beneath one of the bridges, his music echoing softly against the stone.
No one seemed to recognize us. Or if they did, they kept walking.
In Seoul, every glance carried the possibility of being seen.
Here we were simply two young Asian men in the middle of a crowd.
It felt like being in a crowd scene in a movie.
A Japanese tour group passed us, the leader carrying the Hinomaru flag, and another group of teenagers, all wearing matching football jerseys sporting the Italian flag.
Ahead of us, a pair of men walked hand in hand. One wore a faded rugby shirt, the other a linen jacket. They looked to be in their thirties, deep in conversation, paying no attention to anyone else.
Jin watched them for a moment. Then, without looking at me, his hand brushed mine.
It lingered, and I turned my palm upward. Our fingers slipped together so naturally it felt as though they’d been waiting for permission.
Neither of us spoke. We simply walked.
“I haven’t done this since I joined Starhouse,” he admitted after a while. “Just walking without worrying about being recognized.”
I squeezed his hand. “I’m much more anonymous than you are, except around the Starhouse headquarters,” I said. “There, the fans recognize all of us. Even Sun-hee-noona. The fan magazines are full of photos of everyone, down to the assistant wardrobe mistress and the lighting techs.”
The bells of Notre Dame drifted across the water. “So...” I said. “Why did you want to be an idol?”
He was quiet long enough that I thought he might not answer.
“My mother says I was always performing.” He smiled. “When I was six, I made everyone sit in the living room while I lip-synced to old K-pop songs with a television remote.”
“I can see that.”
“I loved making people happy. I didn’t think about being famous. Just...” He searched for the word. “...needed.”
His smile softened. “My parents both worked all the time. When they laughed because of something I did, it felt like I’d done something important.”
“So every concert...”
“...still feels like trying to make someone smile.” It was sweet the way he finished my sentence. I’d seen that sometimes with Sun-hee-noona and Jae-sung. Somehow that made me feel like there might be a future for the two of us.
We stopped where the Seine split to go around an island. Tourists clustered on the bridge ahead, with Notre Dame framed behind them. Jin looked at me. “What about you? Styling isn’t exactly a childhood dream.”
“No.” I laughed. “I wanted to be invisible.”
That caught his attention.
“My mother made almost all our clothes. She’d alter things she’d bought secondhand until they looked expensive. She always said people judge you before you open your mouth.”
“My grandmother said something similar.”
“I wasn’t very good at sports. I wasn’t the smartest kid in school.” I shrugged. “But I discovered I could help people become the person they wanted the world to see.”
“You don’t just choose clothes. You help tell the story.”
I hadn’t realized anyone had noticed. “I suppose I do.”
He smiled. “I’m glad you’re telling mine.”
Heat crept into my face that had nothing to do with the sun.
A pair of police motorcycles rolled past on the boulevard, blue lights flashing though their sirens stayed silent. A few seconds later a black sedan followed, then another.
The pedestrians barely looked up.
Neither did Jin. But instinctively our hands loosened before finding each other again once the convoy had passed.
He looked ahead, along the quai. “They’re probably escorting somebody important.”
“Maybe.”
Neither of us believed that was why my pulse had suddenly quickened.
We continued toward Notre Dame, disappearing into the tide of tourists, just another anonymous pair among thousands—for now.