I consider this as I wipe the table down. “Both? I’d like to experience a big city, but I also want solitude. I don’t want people around me all the time.”
“I want that, too,” he says. “I like being with people I know, but I get nervous when strangers get close to me.”
We go into the living room, and he hands over my glass. Our fingers brush slightly, and I almost jerk back with the electrical shock that flashes through me. He must have been shuffling on the carpet.
“Do you need to speak the language wherever we go?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I’m fine looking confused until someone helps.”
“Your English is great,” I say. “Did you learn from Hana?”
“I went to an international school and then practiced on her and a friend from Vancouver. Do you speak…” He hesitates, looking at my hair and face. “Any other languages?” To his credit, he doesn’t start naming Asian languages at random.
“No. My mom speaks enough Cantonese to order dim sum, and Dad only speaks English, no Chinese at all.”
He leans back on the cushions, jawline on display. In a way, I wish he were the same distant Jihoon of the last few days because I can tell this warmer version is going to be difficult to live with.
Live with without drooling over, I should clarify.
We hammer out a few more details. Neither of us needs luxury but do require regular showers. Shopping is important for Jihoon and not for me. I want to hit some major landmarks, and he’s happy looking at them online. Neither of us likes standing in lines.
“I’m not used to them,” he says.
“What, there aren’t lines in Seoul?”
He glances at his glass. “Not at the places I go.”
“Okay, Mr. Fancy Music Producer. We’ll avoid places where you need to queue like the common folk.”
Jihoon goes red. “Do you have any ideas on where we can go?”
“I do.” My travel notebook is in my bag by the door, and I go over to check it without bringing it back to the living room. No one has ever read it. Even Hana thinks it’s only a journal.
As I flip the pages, he calls, “What are you doing?”
“Nothing.” I stuff the notebook back into my bag and go back. “I have a place.”
He looks at me suspiciously. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“How do you know I’m hiding anything?” I put on an injured tone.
Jihoon gestures toward my bag near the door. “Ari. You’re not subtle.”
I know when I’m defeated, but when I look at his face, I decide to trust him. “I keep a travel notebook. It’s where I jot down notes of interesting places.”
He doesn’t laugh like I fear, only nods. “It makes sense to have a place for your ideas. I have notebooks for my music, but I keep losing them.”
“You can set up a special email account to send yourself notes. My friend did it for her kid and sends photos and messages so they can read them when they’re older, like a digital journal of their childhood.”
He brightens. “I love that idea. Where are you thinking would be good for our trip?”
I hesitate. I can find what I need online, but my notebook has the perfect route already mapped out. Jihoon catches my eye and smiles at me. He hasn’t let me down yet. I make up my mind and fetch my notebook.
Sitting back beside him, I flip through the pages. The book itself is nothing special, a plain grid-patterned A5 Leuchtturm1917 with a canary yellow cover. I like all my travel notebooks to have the same look, and I have filled ones with blue, green, and purple covers on my shelf. There isn’t much of a rhyme or reason to the notes either, like being organized by continent or country, or hotels and attractions. It’s a hodgepodge of ideas and information that strike my fancy gleaned from conversations, social media, and news stories.
Jihoon looks over with interest but stays silent until I find the page I want. I take a deep breath and pass over the book. “Here. The Camino de Santiago.”
He takes it carefully. It’s a two-page spread featuring a rough mapof southern France, Spain, and eastern Portugal. I’ve marked my preferred pilgrimage path across northern Spain and down south.
