Page 17 of A World Apart
“Yellow?” he interrupted me, forcing me to look up at him in surprise. He was grinning and I laughed.
“Ha, yeah, exactly. Now you’re getting it.” We shared a companionable smile. He watched how I looped the cables around my elbow and hand to form a neat loop before I tied it off with the correct colour, before he picked up a speakon cable and copied the loop and tied it off with a red zip tie.
“Perfect,” I said, nodding approvingly. He nodded back and that was that.
We went through the box, identifying, looping and tying the cables in silence, only broken by the occasional check-in from Jihoon; “This one?”
“RCA, pink.”
And then we’d fall into silence again.
It was… nice. His presence was calming, now that I’d gotten used to it. He was a real person after all. I smiled as the thought crossed my mind. I saw his eyes flick up to my face, although he said nothing.
At about 9:30, his manager came by. He said something to Jihoon in Korean and Jihoon answered, barely looking up, before the manager went away again.
I looked at the door in confusion. I’d expected him to pull Jihoon away.
At my quizzical look, he said, “Ah, the producer, he is still working. I am not needed just now.” I made an ‘ah’ sort of noise.
“Is that your manager?” I asked, nodding my head towards the door. Jihoon looked up at the door before looking back to me.
“Yes. Youngsoo.”
“Youngsoo,” I repeated, trying to make sure I got the inflection right.
“You’re English?” he asked. I guess the accent gave me away.
“Yes.” I reached for a green zip tie.
“Where from?” he asked.
“London now, but originally, I’m from the North of England. A place called the Lake District.”
Jihoon shook his head. “I don’t know it.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said wistfully, “full of mountains and rolling hills.” Impulsively, I pulled my phone out of my pocket. “Can I show you?” Blame it on my nostalgia, but for some reason, I wanted to show him where I hailed from.
At his nod, I unlocked my phone and pulled up some pictures from Google. I turned my phone to show him.
“Wow,” he exclaimed, “so pretty.” He looked up at me with that smile I was beginning to live for. I grinned back.
“You’re from Seoul, right?” I asked as I looped and tied the last cable.
He nodded enthusiastically. “You know Seoul?”
I winced, “Ah, no, sorry.” That was literally the extent of my knowledge of his background.
He didn’t seem to mind though as he whipped out his own phone and pulled up some pictures.
“Whoa, that’s so dope!” I exclaimed as he proudly showed me pictures of Seoul lit up at night.
“Do you miss it?” I asked, looking up at him. He shrugged and ran a hand through his hair. He leaned back on his other arm, the very picture of casual.
“Sometimes,” he admitted, “but we travel so much, we do so much. There’s not much time to get… homesick,” he said, finding the words.
I nodded, mirroring his pose and leaning back on my hands. “I get that,” I said. Since moving to LA, I hadn’t had time to miss home. I think it kind of helped that my time here had an expiry date on it, though. My contract only ran for a year, and after that my Visa expired. I’d been playing around with the idea of finding another job after Pisces. LA was growing on me.
“Knock, knock” said a gruff voice at the door, followed by someone actually booting the door, by the sound of it. A moment later, the door opened all the way,albeit a bit forcefully, and in the doorway stood Jeremy, his arms full of one, two, no three soft guitar cases.
