Tae hadn’t been imagining the shy smiles and too-long looks they’d shared. Light touches, laughs that came naturally, honest talks that felt safe.
But what he didn’t need to be doing right now was confusing Julia. Not when he himself was confused about his own life. Theirblossoming friendship felt almost too precious to take a greedy chance on more.
Tae looked down at his phone and reread Julia’s text message and smiled.What do you know about K-pop?
This was going to be fun.
Turned out the second setup was supposed to be with an up-and-coming Korean musician from New York who was on tour and would be in the Los Angeles area for a concert. Julia only knew that his name was Young Kim, which could be his real name or his stage name, and it could basically be one of a hundred Korean K-pop artists out today. Tae didn’t have a lot to go on when it came to the man. But he could get Julia more acquainted with K-pop in general.
It couldn’t have been a better scenario. Tae thought about Grandma Song’s advice: add a personal touch and help Julia have some fun. This was right up his alley. But with only a week to do it, Tae had to get to work.
“I just sent you a Spotify playlist. Listen to it on repeat. I think you’ll like it,” he said into the phone.
“I usually only listen to my nature-sounds playlist in the background when I’m working. And at home, I prefer silence. If I’m in a real mood, I’ll put on some Taylor Swift. But that’s very rare and about it.”
“But this is research, Julia. Get your notebook out, and list the songs you like from this playlist. We’ll build from there. I’m gonna send you some of the translations and links to the music videos as well.” Tae was not going to let her off easy with this one.
“Tae, this is a lot. My date is next week, and honestly, I have so much going on at work right now,” Julia whined. He found that whine more and more endearing.
“Granted, it’s not a lot of time. But Julia, you have to listen to K-pop to understand it, to appreciate it. You have to hear what the music and the words are saying. You have to seethe choreography to feel the magnitude of the talent of these groups. It’s easy to write them all off as overproduced minions of an entertainment machine. But the ones I’m sending you are different. Trust me.”
“Do I have to become a professor of K-pop? Can’t you just give me a few words to use when answering any questions so I don’t sound like such a newbie?”
Even if the date didn’t work out, Tae really wanted Julia to experience K-pop the way he did. In his gut, he knew she’d like it. And in a way, he didn’t want Julia to find him silly for liking it too.
She sighed on the other end of the line. “Okay, fine. But if this affects my sleep patterns, I’ll be really grumpy. I need a certain number of hours of silence a day to keep my mind focused and prepared for sleep.”
“I don’t want to say that I doubt you, but let’s give that theory a challenge, shall we?”
She hung up without saying goodbye.
Tae wasn’t offended.
Julia was meeting Young Kim at his concert on Sunday night where he would save her a ticket at the box office. Apparently it was sold out, but Tae hadn’t heard of any big groups coming to town. Though, he didn’t keep track of all the new ones. It was amazing how K-pop had suddenly become such an international phenomenon.
The night before the concert, Tae asked Julia to come over to his place by eight o’clock. It was a lot asking Julia to come down to south Orange County from the Westside. Hopefully Saturday traffic would be light. But he needed to set everything up here. She didn’t complain or seem to mind, so he wasn’t going to worry.
Julia had never experienced a K-pop concert before. She didn’t know about light sticks and fan chants. He was going to expose her to the basics. And even though she wouldn’twalk into tomorrow night’s date a stan, she at least wouldn’t be shocked by what she experienced. She might even enjoy herself. And a relaxed Julia would be a better conversationalist.
Julia rang the doorbell at exactly eight o’clock. Tae opened it to find her in jeans and a hoodie, just as he requested. He smiled at the dressed-down version of the powerful K-beauty CEO. Casual Julia was even more stunning.
“Hey there, how was traffic? Bad?”
She shook her head. “Nope. I took PCH down past the airport, and then it was a straight shot down the 405.”
“Good, I’m glad.” He stepped out of the way and let her in. “We’re gonna be out back,” he said as he took them down the stairs to his studio where the sliding glass doors to the lower half of his backyard were.
He stopped and turned to look at her, putting his face close to hers.
She leaned back a tiny bit, startled. “What?” she asked.
“Look at my skin,” he said. “It looks amazing. That snail stuff is magical,” he said.
Julia smiled wide. She let the back of her hand lightly make its way down his cheek. “Your skin does look incredible. Soft.” Her voice was almost a whisper. He reached for her wrist and held her hand there. He wanted to kiss it, to kiss her. But he cleared his throat and took a step back, dropping his grip.
“I, um, can probably get you a full tube of it, if you’d like to continue with this skincare regimen. I’ll get some of the new sunscreen as well,” Julia said.
Tae nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak.
