Chapter 10
TEN
FALLING - JIN
“And you’re okay, seeing each other again in two months?”
“Sounds good.” Lia nodded, feeling more confident as she smiled at her therapist through the screen. “I don’t know how forthcoming I’ll be, though. The SixJays event will be after that, and depending on how things go…”
“We’ll take it when it comes, you know that.”
Lia did. And she appreciated her therapist’s patience as much as she appreciated the view outside of her window. The street was awash with the yellow whirls of the gingko trees, and it was surreal and otherworldly.
“Two months.” She nodded, confirming.
“You’ll be back in Manila by then,” her therapist pointed out.
“Yeah. I should be,” she said, and didn’t like that the answer wasn’t as clear cut as it should have been.
Of course, she would be in Manila. Where else would she be?
She knew when she came here, that she and Teddy were flying home in November, 90 days after they first arrived in Seoul.
She’d told government officials at the airport that she was going to stick to that, and she would. She would.
The date still felt like a world away to her though, as hazy and dreamlike as the yellow trees outside her window. And she liked being in this dreamlike state, where she was adored and loved, where she broke beds and learned what a “wet sound” meant.
“Are we really opening a second pre-order for the Dawn vinyl?” Teddy asked her as she emerged from her bedroom, finding her brother at the kitchen island with a yogurt cup and coffee.
He was squinting at his laptop beside him, and his early-morning wake-up told Lia he was probably catching up on Triptych work. “That’s amazing, Ate.”
“I think even the company making the vinyls was surprised that we needed more than their MOQ.” Lia chuckled.
“But we found this company that makes 3d printed frames for vinyl and made a custom one. The sales went wild after that, and so did the ones for the digital code to download the music in case someone bought the vinyl just for the vibe.”
“People do that?”
“You underestimate the things a fan will do for the vibes.” Lia smiled.
“That sounds like a lot of work.” Teddy’s frown deepened, although Lia wasn’t sure if it was because it was eight am—the crack of dawn for him—or because he wasn’t thrilled about the idea. “And well beyond what we hired you for.”
“Actually I was thinking…” Lia started, but was interrupted by Cal’s front door opening to a very determined-looking Soobin, holding a piece of paper in one hand and a puppy in the other.
“I did it,” he announced, handing Teddy a sheet of paper. “Lyrics. Translation.”
Teddy’s eyes widened as he went over to Soobin and looked at the paper.
His eyes widened even more when he read the lyrics.
Lia would find out later that the song was definitely about sex, about having a person staying over and not going home.
There was melting into someone’s body, a longing to meet.
Lia ran away because she did not want to get spoilers. She needed to shower, anyhow.
When she emerged from her room again, there was music coming from the living room.
It was four chords, played slowly and tenderly with an acoustic guitar.
Then the sound of a percussion shaker over a metronome, just to keep the timing.
Cal started singing seemingly random words, clearly words thrown together just so he could figure out the melody of this song. A song that Lia definitely didn’t know.
She’d walked out into the hallway after, in her pambahay clothes, where she could see Cal sitting on his couch, his back to her as he whistled, his feet tapping to the beat.
Maybe he was hearing it differently in his head, but Lia could tell something had changed in him, like he could hear drum fills, a piano, a bass line where she couldn’t.
“I’d like to be
The place where you lay your head
The one who knows how to make you
Happy, and see the one I see.”
There was a pen and paper on the table, words scribbled and crossed out, rewritten. Cal slowed the song down, the sounds in his head seeming to fade away. His playing changed to a single strum and a few notes plucked. He hummed a tune over that, too.
As she watched him, trying to be discreet, Lia was suddenly struck by a vision—Cal, in the same position, in a different place.
Somewhere there were only two seasons, where he would probably be wearing shorts and a sleeveless shirt, where the room would be filled with furniture they both picked out, art prints she’d fallen in love with, and records from his collection.
She had visions of a little apartment filled with love and companionship, the kind of softness she never allowed herself to dream of.
She saw a home with him. One where they could have as much coffee as they wanted, and all the strawberry milk she needed.
Snap out of it. She told herself. Delusions were dangerous things to indulge in. Delulu rule number two. Never cross the line. Or at least, tread very, very carefully.
Lia walked across the room to sit behind him on the couch. She wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her cheek on his warm shoulder. Cal continued to play a little more before chuckling.
“Aw Teddy, you’re so sweet.”
“Hay naku!” Lia pressed her nose against his shoulder. “How do you feel about biting?”
“Feel free.”
Lia lightly pressed her teeth on the meat of his shoulder, making Cal jerk to face her in surprise, releasing her hold on him as the guitar squished between them both.
“Oh my god, that was a gigil bite, not a sexy one.”
“It could be both.” She smiled, reaching for the guitar with grabby hands.
It had been a while since she held the instrument, but she still knew a few things.
Just the basics—the plucking, for example to More than Words.
The two chords that made up the stanzas of Parokya ni Edgar’s Harana.
The four that made up Moonstar88’s Torete.
She’d never been a great guitarist, but she knew enough to know her way around a song hits. “Did Teddy leave with Soobin?”
“Yup.” He popped the ‘p’ sound. “Something about needing to sit him down and ask if he really knew what ‘caress you until you purr’ meant.”
“What?”
“Just…they’re handling a thing.” Cal was smiling, but he seemed transfixed at her basic ass playing.
“Is your family really into music?” he asked as Lia shrugged and started to play Bolt of Blue, because of course she’d looked up the chords. Thank you, Ultimate Guitar. “Teddy’s obviously good at making it. And you’re a fan.”
“When my Dad courted my mom, he bought her a stereo set,” Lia explained, feeling a familiar rush of fondness at her parents’ early days.
“She was a big fan of Carly Simon and Joni Mitchell. Ate grew up taking singing lessons for summer class, and well, you know Teddy’s always been a genius.
” Lia continued to play idly. Cal was staring at her hands, not at the ones gripping the guitar neck for dear life—she did not have the finger strength for this anymore—but at the ones plucking the strings.
“I was a choir girl from first grade to senior year of high school.”
“Soprano 1?”
“Soprano 2,” she corrected him. “Boring old melody.”
Cal shook his head. “The voice holding it all together.”
It was so unexpectedly insightful that Lia had to remind herself what they were talking about. “So, music. It’s just always been there, for us. We didn’t really feel the need to make anything of it, except Teddy.”
“Sounds like a fun childhood,” Cal commented. “Teddy told me his full name was Teodoro. Your Ate’s is Francis.”
“Francis Mae, yes.” Lia nodded.
“And your full name is—?”
“Secret.” She grinned. “What about you?”
“Ahn Yongjin.”
“No.” Lia laughed. “I meant your family. Were you guys musical?”
“My parents have corny tastes in music.” He wrinkled his nose.
“I grew up on what I heard on the radio—Air Supply, Chicago, those kinds of songs. But I grew up in local schools so I learned about Oasis, and John Mayer, The Killers. I loved Bon Jovi. At some point, I wondered what was popular in Korea so I asked my cousins to send CDs and tapes over with my Mom’s food requests.
My cousins sent me a Seo Taiji and the Boys CD once, then g.o.d, Leessang.
I might have become a rapper if one of my high school classmates didn’t play Gravity on his guitar and I wanted to be him. ”
“Oof, that’s enough to make anyone want to learn,” Lia said, nodding.
“It was pretty sexy.” Cal chuckled, taking the guitar back from Lia after she was done, playing Gravity. “There was just something about his playing that got my attention.”
She understood that impulse completely. “Was that a new song, you were writing earlier?”
“Not yet,” he admitted, and she didn’t miss that he looked a little shy, moving the paper just a bit farther from Lia, putting the guitar away. “It’s a good start, though. I kind of can’t believe it.”
“I can.”
Cal smiled and motioned for Lia to sit on his lap, and she loosely draped her hands over his shoulders and looked at him as if to say, “now what?”
“Come here,” he said, touching her chin with his thumb and index finger to get her lips to open before he slid his mouth against hers in a soft morning kiss.
Lia’s hesitation from their first night together seemed like a forgotten dream as she let this new dream become reality, pressing into the kiss.
She loved that she had this—being able to touch him, to let him kiss her.
This was something she’d chosen, something she’d allowed herself to have.
That it was with Cal, that it might have always been Cal in this universe, well, that made it even better.
His hand ran up and down her back, his smile soft but his gaze warm as their lips parted.