Chapter 40
September
It wasn’t going to be a big ceremony by anyone’s standards, but that didn’t stop my stomach from twisting in knots as I looked myself over in the mirror.
Mum sniffled behind me as she adjusted the cap on my head for perhaps the tenth time, moving it this way and angling it just so.
“Mum,” I spun on my heel and gently grasped her hands. “It’s fine.”
She nodded, smiling at me with shining eyes.
“I am the luckiest person in the world.” Her chin trembled, but her words were clear. “I get to see my little girl graduate twice, because not only is she the cleverest person in the world, but also the bravest.”
I fidgeted under her scrutiny.
“Mum,” I whined.
“I know, I know,” she waved a hand through the air. “I won’t keep banging on about it, but indulge your old mum one more time, eh? Then I’ll stop.”
I sighed, and she reached out to straighten my robes. Again.
“I’m so proud of you, Kaiya. Not just because you worked hard to get your Masters while juggling a job and living in the noisiest, brightest, most obscenely loud–”
“We get it, honey, you hate London,” Dad groused as he walked past us to use the mirror to straighten his tie.
“Yes, all right,” Mum conceded. “Fine. And anyway,” she said quickly, “I don’t hate London. It’s just not the North.” She sniffed, and I laughed.
“Snob,” I said gently, and she shrugged her shoulders.
“Anyway, as I was saying.” Mum took a breath. “That you’re a hard worker isn’t a surprise. You get that from us,” she bobbed her head in Dad’s direction, who looked at us in the mirror, eyes crinkling. “It’s that you were brave enough to start again and grab your dream by the balls-”
“Mum!” I gaped.
“Oh hush.” She frowned, even as the corners of her lips twitched. “I’m trying to tell you how proud I am,” she scolded.
“You’ve told her that a million times, love,” Dad said as he walked back the other way, pausing to press a quick kiss to his wife’s cheek.
“Kaiya, you did it. Most people are too scared, or too proud to turn their whole lives around to chase after something. But you did that, and I– we, are so proud of you.”
“Even when I cocked it up the first time?” I said, grinning even as I flinched slightly at the words.
Mum didn’t smile. She reached up to cup my cheek and leaned towards me.
“Your first degree wasn’t a mistake, love.
It was something you wanted to do, so you did it.
It doesn’t matter that in the end it wasn’t right for you.
We don’t always get it right the first time.
Life isn’t a game that you win, or lose.
It’s something you have to work on.” She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Life is like–”
“A box of chocolates?” Dad quipped from across the room.
“Hush, you, I’m being profound!” Mum shot him a look over her shoulder before turning back to me, sighing. “Life is like a relationship we have with ourselves. Sometimes it just works, but more often than not, we have to work at it. Every day you have to choose to make it work.”
“Wow, Mum. That was profound.” I nodded, lips twitching.
Mum threw her arms up.
“I don’t know why I bother. Trip over your gown, see if I care.”
“Mama,” I laughed, grabbing for her as she went to move away, “I’m kidding.”
I threw my arms around her, hugging her from behind. “I love you.”
She reached up to grasp my arm. “I love you too, baby.”
Thankfully, I did not trip on my gown as I walked up onto the raised stage when it was my turn.
The actual moment was a blur, and it was only when I uploaded the photos later to my social media that I even remembered the hand shaking part as I accepted my rolled up certificate.
The graduation ceremony didn’t last all that long. There had been less than a hundred people on my course, and once all the names had been called, there was a brief champagne reception in one of the nicer halls on campus.
I’d only made a couple of friends during my year long study, and they all had plans with their own families, so after drinking the one glass we were all given, we didn’t linger and instead went to get lunch.
Afterwards, as my parents quibbled over the bill, I looked down at my phone to see several messages.
Tae
Congratulations, Pom!
[Sent 13:18]
Becka
You did it!! My friend, the genius! Send me the video!
[Sent 14:49]
Hari
Well done, Kaiya. You should be so proud of your achievement. Everyone sends their love!
[Sent 14:52]
There was also a notification that made me pause. A message in my social media inbox.
Kim Seokmin
Congratulations, Kaiya! You are the smartest person I know. Don’t tell Minjae.
I barked out a laugh even as I raised a hand to my mouth, feeling the grin there.
His English had improved so much. Unbidden, my heart swelled with pride. He must have worked so hard. My smile faltered. I would have loved to watch that happen in person.
While it was strangely thrilling to get these messages from him, it left me feeling off balance. I kept trying to read subtext that wasn’t there, looking for clues to tell me why he was messaging me.
I’d wanted to be friends with Ace. I’d always wanted to be friends with him.
Out of all the members of GVibes, he was perhaps the only one to freely give his friendship.
Sungmin had been just as friendly, but it had seemed like it had always been on the heels of Ace’s encouragement, following the lead of the younger man.
Woojin was a tough one to figure out. He clearly didn’t give his regard freely, you needed to work for it, and I had respected that. I’d believed he’d liked me well enough, respected me, even. But friends? Probably not, but maybe we could have been.
Minjae was a whole other story. He carried such an air of authority – the self-appointed protector of the members – that becoming his friend had felt like the final boss battle.
I think that to be Minjae’s friend, I’d have needed to be more than Jihoon’s girlfriend.
I hadn’t proved myself to him whilst I’d lived there, and now I’d never get that chance.
While I’d briefly lived in Seoul, in the times I’d met the members, I had never fooled myself into thinking I’d been a part of their group.
I hadn’t been. Even when joining in with their activities, I had been apart from them, and it was only because our worlds had collided that we even knew each other.
I hadn’t minded. I was not, and could never be a part of their group dynamic, and that was the way it was.
But Ace though… I’d thought we were friends. He hadn’t reached out after the breakup, and I was woman enough to admit that I’d thought maybe he would. That I had wanted him to. He would have known about it immediately, given that he lived with Jihoon.
Acknowledging that he had chosen a side had hurt. I’d swallowed it down because it would never have been me. I understood that. At the time though…
That was the moment I realised how I had been completely cut off.
Not just from Jihoon, but from every foundation I’d been trying to build.
Choosing a side had felt like he’d done more than choose his friend – he’d rejected me.
In hindsight, it had probably been pretty naive not to realise there would have been sides.
Now, nearly three years later, he was reaching out, and I couldn’t understand why.
Why now? Why at all?
I dropped my head into my hands, my brain feeling too heavy. Theories tangled themselves up in my mind until they were knotted around each other, making less sense than when they first went in.
“Kaiya.” My mum’s voice broke me out of my jumbled mess of thoughts, and looking up, I saw her frowning at me.
“You alright?” She asked, like she expected me to say, ‘yes’, but the answer was really ‘no’.
“Fine,” I lied, ratcheting up the smile on my face, feeling it struggle to push up the frown on my brow.
“It’s been a big day,” Dad said, cutting between us with an easy smile to break the rising tension from Mum’s suspicion, and my need to not cave under her scrutiny.
“Why don’t we take a turn around the park to walk this meal off, and then you can take me back to our hotel.” He winked at Mum, who slapped him playfully on the arm while I grimaced at them.
My parents left London after a long weekend in the city to help me move my few, meagre possessions out of my dorm and into the studio flat I’d rented.
It was only a short-term rental because I’d spent so long procrastinating that I’d been left with mere days to sort out some where to live before I was kicked out by the university.
I was too indecisive. I’d kept looking at flat shares in different areas of the city, but I couldn’t make up my mind about where I’d wanted to live, or if I even wanted flatmates.
In the end, the decision had been taken out of my hands, and I’d been forced to pull the trigger on a studio that was immediately available because it was short-term only. It was more expensive, so I’d need to figure out my future plans sooner, rather than later.
In the busy few days between graduation, and moving, I’d completely forgotten to think about how to respond to the message from Ace, because surely I did need to at least respond. Now, an awkward amount of time had passed, and I didn’t know how to get past it.
In the end, responding to him was pushed to the back of my mind after a particularly eventful day at work, which had started like any other.
It was Wednesday, and we were sitting in one of the meeting rooms to discuss the agenda for the weekend, and first half of next week’s schedule, as we always did, when my name was unexpectedly called, shaking me out of the slight stupor I’d fallen into from the combination of the overly warm room, and the bad night’s sleep in my new, unfamiliar flat.
“Kaiya, got a bit of a good one for you.” Noor, the events editor said, looking my way with a grin on her face.
I sat up straighter, trying to appear as though I’d been fully present, and not slumped in my seat, wondering if I had enough milk in the fridge, or if I needed to swing past Aldi on the way home.
“Hmm?” was the best I could manage on such short notice, but Noor didn’t seem to register it, leafing through a small stack of papers on the table in front of her.
“A notice was sent out this morning to all the outlets announcing the line up for the Music Choice Awards in November.”
I perked up slightly. The MCAs were being held in LA at the Mayan Theatre. Becka and I had been joking for weeks about it, but surely not–
“Derrick and I decided you’d be a good one to cover it,” she said casually, referring to the editor-in-chief.
I gaped. Mouth open, eyes unblinking, looking for any hint that I was being wound up.
“But… I mean, yes, of course,” I spluttered, “but… why me?”
Noor frowned. “Unless you think someone else might be better suited to the job?”
The others seated at the table fidgeted. Some outright sniggered.
“No,” I said quickly, “I can absolutely do it.”
“Good,” Noor nodded. “Because the reason we’re sending you is because Frequency has been invited to be present at a concert and press junket two days before the awards show, and we want you to cover the event.
The MCAs just happen to be in the same city, at the same time, so you might as well cover those too, save us the air-fare instead of sending anyone else. ” She winked at me to soften the joke.
I nodded. This made more sense. I was being sent to LA to cover a concert and conference for a band, which was way more in my wheelhouse. Even if my wheelhouse was generally in this part of the world.
LA. Becka. A fleeting burst of excitement made my lips tug up, and I had to tamp down my glee enough to ask-
“Which band am I’m covering?”
Noor looked down at her notes briefly before looking up.
“That’s why we want you, specifically,” she said. “This one is a throwback to your time in Korea. GVibes? The K-Pop group. Know them?”
The world tilted.