Chapter 4
Had her sister lived, Hyukjoon would have been the kind of guy she would have dated. Of that, Dahye was certain.
Every so often, snatches from an alternate timeline came to her.
Eunhye, at Seoul-dae, or some other elite university, meeting some handsome chaebol son by chance in the hallways.
They would date through their university years, and after graduating, Eunhye would have found a job at Samsung or Hyundai and gotten promoted quickly despite her gender.
She and the boy would get married before eventually moving into a luxurious penthouse apartment somewhere in Gangnam that overlooked the city.
A gift from his parents, which the couple would repay by spawning a number of good-looking, smart, and loveable children.
It wouldn’t have been anything like Dahye’s first meeting with Hyukjoon, which was less than respectable. Late night, karaoke bar, too many glasses of somaek. The meeting had been Bora’s fault, really.
The cigarettes always gave Bora away. If she was wasted, she wouldn’t stop pleading for one. She was too cheap to buy an entire pack from the convenience store and, at the same time, too embarrassed to bum them from strangers herself. It was always Dahye who had to do the dirty work.
That night, the two of them had emerged into the spring air, a welcome change from the stuffy little room where they had been drinking and singing with their girlfriends for the last hour.
It was two in the morning, and only one person had been nearby: a tall, stylish man, smoking pensively at the corner of the street.
Bora jabbed her in the ribs with her elbow. Dahye scowled, rubbing at the spot with her fingers. “Why are your elbows so pointy?” she complained.
“Stop stalling,” Bora said. “Ask him!”
“Why do I always have to ask? Why can’t you do it for once?”
“Because I’m shy, and you’re not.”
“You’re not shy,” Dahye snapped. “You just like ordering me around.”
“Come on,” Bora coaxed. Her protruding lower lip stuck out even farther.
“Quit it with the puppy dog eyes. You’re too old for that.
” Dahye covered her friend’s eyes with her hand, and Bora grabbed her and began wrestling her toward the ground.
The sound of their scuffle drew the man’s attention.
He looked at them curiously and smiled. His face was very tan. His teeth were sparkling white.
“Is everything alright?” he asked. His voice was deep and velvety smooth. “Do I need to keep you away from each other?”
Caught off guard, Dahye and Bora stared at him. Bora found her voice first. “My friend wants to ask you something,” she squeaked. She jabbed Dahye again with her elbow.
“Ow!”
“Ask him,” Bora hissed between her teeth.
“She wants to know if we can borrow a cigarette.” Another sharp jab. Dahye ignored it.
“I don’t know about borrowing,” the man drawled, clearly entertained.
“You can just have one.” He held his half-burned cigarette loosely at the corner of his mouth as he riffled through his coat pocket.
Removing two cigarettes from the carton, he extended the smokes out to them.
The cigarettes were American-made, Dahye noticed.
Not the slim Esse brand that was ubiquitous in Seoul, but Marlboros, with their unmistakable red-and-white package.
“We just need one,” Dahye said weakly. “I don’t smoke.”
“Take both. Think of it as insurance.”
Dahye accepted them. “Thank you.” Suddenly, she felt shy. The man’s eyes searched her face with an intensity that both frightened her and drew her in. Bora, oblivious to the moment passing between them, sang loudly: “Thank you, kind stranger!”
Dahye and the man laughed. The tension was broken.
“Do you watch American movies?” he asked.
“Sometimes,” Dahye said.
“You remind me of an actress. Amanda Seyfried.” He said her name perfectly, without a hint of an accent. So he’s American, Dahye thought. Or maybe he went to school in America. “Do you know who that is?” he asked.
Dahye blushed. “Of course. She’s beautiful.”
He took a long drag and looked right into her eyes. “So are you.”
+
Bora chain-smoked both cigarettes, and then the two of them had staggered back into their karaoke room.
Their university friends, Suah and Chaewon, had hardly noticed their absence.
Both women were hopping up and down on the vinyl couches, screaming, tambourines clanging in their hands.
Bora jumped right in, but Dahye, distant, had stared at the door.
Her mind wandered. The man outside had called her beautiful.
When had anybody ever said that about her?
They emerged twenty minutes later, and Dahye’s eyes were instantly pulled to the spot where the man had been standing. He was gone. She felt a brief sting of regret, then thought that he probably wasn’t interested. If he was, he would have asked for her number. Still, she lagged behind her friends.
While Dahye was looking away, Bora went tumbling to the concrete, taking Suah and Chaewon down with her.
Even though the three of them were screaming with laughter, Dahye rushed to help.
“Come on, you drunks,” she said, wrenching them to their feet.
She stuffed them into the back seat of the taxi that had just arrived, being careful not to close the door on Chaewon’s legs.
“Hey! Amanda!”
Dahye turned. It was him. The man gestured from the doorway of the karaoke bar with a careless flick of his wrist. Chaewon and Suah were slumped over, but Bora perked up. She watched through the taxi’s rear window, eyes narrowed, as Dahye pointed to herself.
“Me?” Dahye asked. Feeling silly, she let her hand fall to her side.
She wondered what the man was going to say.
Perhaps he was making fun of her by comparing her to a famous person.
In the bathroom, Dahye had looked up pictures of the blonde, green-eyed actress and confirmed they looked nothing alike.
If not that, then perhaps he was going to ask her to pay for the cigarettes? Dahye touched the cash in her pocket. All she had were two crumpled one thousand won bills.
Dahye glided over to him apprehensively. He was stylishly dressed in a plaid flannel shirt, dark slacks, and expensive-looking lace-up boots, but beyond that, he had a quiet self-confidence about him, a sense of ease that made him even more attractive beyond his good looks.
“Yes?” Dahye asked softly.
“Is it crazy for me to say I’ve been thinking about you this whole time?”
She blinked, at a loss for words. He continued to speak.
“If it’s not too forward of me, I’d really like to get to know you better. Perhaps we could have dinner together sometime?”
+
She hadn’t learned about Hyukjoon’s identity until the morning of their date a week later, when Bora’s message containing a link appeared on KakaoTalk.
Bora: Isn’t this your boyfriend?
Not my boyfriend, Dahye had written back before clicking on the link. She was sure it was a case of mistaken identity, but then Hyukjoon’s smiling face had appeared on her screen.
As it turned out, he was the second son of the CEO of YS Media Group, the biggest entertainment company in Korea.
Over the years, YS Media Group had launched several of the country’s most famous musical artists, including some of Dahye and Bora’s favorite K-pop idols.
Dahye scanned the article. Hyukjoon’s older brother was being groomed to take over the company, while Hyukjoon was leading the effort to establish a North American division.
The plan, spanning five years, would pursue strategic partnerships with U.S.
-based music labels and focus on expanding their artists’ global opportunities.
Her blood ran cold. Feeling sick, she closed her laptop. His family was rich and well connected. She was a nobody. Why had he asked her out in the first place? Was it out of pity?
Dahye’s phone rang. It was Bora. “It’s him, isn’t it?” she squealed. “I recognized him right away. You have to go on the date now. No backing out. I will never forgive you if you do.”
“And do what?” Dahye protested. “What would I even say to him?”
“You’re charming,” Bora said. “Just be normal.”
Despite her growing doubts, Dahye had gone, trying her best to be “normal.” The restaurant was upscale, but not excessively so.
Hyukjoon made no mention of his famous family, his father, or their company, so she stayed away from those topics as well.
And while they were fashionable, his clothes were casual, making the dress Dahye had purchased just for the occasion (under Bora’s direction) seem embarrassingly over-the-top.
Her heavy earrings tugged at her earlobes.
Dahye sat stiffly, her face frozen in an uncomfortable grimace, saying little while Hyukjoon told her about his childhood in New Hampshire and the years he had spent in New York while attending Columbia University.
He was the youngest in his family. As well as a brother, he also had an older sister who was at Harvard for her residency.
She was going to be a plastic surgeon. Dahye nodded, every muscle in her body tensed.
All afternoon, she had watched videos on etiquette—which fork to use, the correct way to hold a steak knife—but none of it had mattered. As soon as the food had arrived, the information had simply fallen out of her brain.
“I feel like I’ve been doing all the talking,” Hyukjoon said, sipping his wine. “Tell me about yourself.”
“Like what?” Dahye asked. She felt a swell of panic. “What do you want to know?”
“I don’t know. Where were you born? Did you go to school here? Do you have any siblings?”