The tech just wags his fingers, raising a single brow.
Suppressing a sigh, I fish it out and hand it over, already mourning the loss. Seyoon is lingering, looking at something on her phone, her thumbs hovering over the screen. I catch a glimpse without meaning to. She has a message thread open to somebody named Amelia. She chews on her bottom lip before shutting it off and handing it to the man.
Finally, they shoo us out with instructions to stay close. Seyoon floats toward the center of camp and, to my surprise, beckons for meto come. With nowhere else to go, I follow. The whole campsite is swarming with people, some carrying microphones, others lugging around cameras, and even more scurrying around with clipboards and looking like they’re about to cry. I rub my chest to soothe the uncomfortable squeezing around my lungs and carefully weave my giant suitcase through the crowd.
We take a seat on one of the logs around the empty bonfire pit. Seyoon drops her bag on the ground and massages her hands. They’re torn and bloodied.
She notices me looking. “I guess I took that fall harder than I thought.”
Guilt stabs me straight in the stomach. “You should see the medic, that looks seri—” I start to say, but she’s already wiping the blood off on her leggings. She looks up at me with wide, deer-in-headlight eyes.
“Whoops,” she chuckles.
Unhygienic. “I brought a first-aid kit with me. Here.”
I unzip the orange suitcase that got me into this mess in the first place and rummage around until I find the travel kit. I throw one leg over the log, straddling it to face her, then put out my hand—an offer. Seyoon glances at it, then at me. Her hesitation makes my body go cold.Does she think this is weird? Wait, is it weird? I’m being weird, aren’t I?I’m no good at social cues. I should put my hand down, pretend I was just stretching or something.
But then she presents me with both her palms, and my nervous system stops trying to eat itself.
“Thanks,” she says with a shy grin. There’s a gap between her front teeth that suits her.
I get to work picking out the dirt and splinters from her palm, all while paying a normal amount of attention to how much smaller her hands are than mine.
At some point, a camera operator and sound technician creep up behind us, filming our interaction like they’re wildlife photographers. Or vultures, circling, waiting for a potential meal to present itself. Sweat beads on my forehead. Fuck. That’s going to be hard to get used to. Seyoon either doesn’t notice or isn’t bothered. She hisses when I swipe her hands with an alcohol wipe.
“Sorry,” I say. I blow on her palms to help.
“It’s okay.”
I glance up. Her voice is rougher than I would have expected from such a delicate face. Well, delicate in the roundness of her pink cheeks and smiling mouth. Her eyes, on the other hand, are intense as they roam over me. I usually hate being looked at. I feel people’s gazes like fingers digging into my skin. But the sensation isn’ttotallyunpleasant when it’s from her.
Wait, she’s watching me expectantly. Did she ask something?
“What?” I say like an idiot.
“I said, was it one of your parents who was on the show, or a different relative?” she repeats. “Given we’re all nepo babies here.”
I snort as I uncap the jar of petroleum jelly. “I don’t know if there’s much nepotism to be taken advantage of if you’re related to someone who lost. It was my dad, though. He was on the fifteenth season.”
“No way! My mom was in the same season. Jungeun Kim?”
My fingers freeze midway through unwrapping a roll of bandage. “That’s your mom?”
“Why do you sound so surprised?”
I should probablynotanswer that, right? I barely know this girl, and I don’t know her mom at all besides what I’ve seen of her on TV, but just from first impressions… “It’s nothing.”
“Come on,” Seyoon urges. “Now I’m curious. Tell me.”
She’s not going to let it drop. I squirm. “Well, your mom was…”
Oh God, the camera operator has found a friend. There’s two of them now, positioned behind me and Seyoon respectively. It’s hard to focus on the right thing to say when I’m reminding myself not to look into the camera, and trying to recall how I saw them clean a wound onAliver, and thinking about how long my silence has dragged on and—Jesus, just speak.
“Kind of forgettable?”
That was bad.Verybad. I shut myself up.
A singular eyebrow raises on Seyoon’s face. “Forgettable? She got third place.”
