Page 45 of Damian & Jun: Episodes 1-4
Loneliness rose up in his throat. If she could, she would have come back.
They made their way to the metro line, slipping into the mid-to-late afternoon post-Christmas traffic with people of all ages out and about. Seoul was in the throes of winter vacation, which lasted for students from mid-December to the end of January. Most people with regular jobs were back to work, though. Mi Hi swiped them through, and they caught the next train toward the center of the city. Looking at the map on the wall of the train, Jun realized just how far he’d gotten the previous night. He really had put distance between him and Bak.
People glanced toward him and Mi Hi, but mostly they paid them little mind. There were other well-dressed people on the train. Two women traveling together was nothing interesting. A few guys checked Jun out, their eyes lingering on his legs and trailing up to his ass, but nothing more than that. He gripped the overhead strap beside Mi Hi and ignored them.
They had to change trains once. The station was large, modern, and included an upscale shopping mall, meaning it had decorated extensively for Christmas and the winter solstice. It was weird how being a performer made holidays feel out of place and doubled up. He was always involved in winter holiday planning in July and August, even photoshoots sometimes or videos that included snow, but in winter, he’d often end up somewhere tropical, filming something that wouldn’t be released until the weather was warm in Korea. But then he’d have to live through the season all over again with everyone else a few months later.
Walking through the station and not being shadowed was liberating. For years, he’d barely ever seen the city without a minder. The air felt light around him. He stared at the advertisements, coming face to face with himself displaying a fashionable suit on a wintery background as he rounded a corner. That was a shoot he remembered. It had been six months ago, particularly early. The snow had been fake.
Mi Hi grabbed his arm and linked it with hers, dragging him onward. “Stop staring at your crush.”
Jun sputtered. “I’m not!”
Mi Hi laughed. He scuttled along at her side, off balance with how she gripped his arm. No one paid them any mind. They were just two women teasing each other.
The only time he’d been able to hang out like this had been with Yohei in his hometown in Gunma, Japan. They’d promised to stay on the farm all day and then borrowed bicycles and run away to Takasaki, visiting the shopping malls and the train station, eating casually at a buffet restaurant on the top floor of the mall there, and then walking down the street to the ruins of Takasaki Shiro, a fortress, and sitting on the grass under the trees growing inside what had once been a fortress. No one had recognized them.
Jun’s throat ached. If only he could do this more often. He wanted to run, to fling out his arms and slip free through spaces, to be anything but what he was. To be wild.
Wild and safe.
He blinked back tears of longing. There was nothing wild about his life. He was a songbird trying to slip through the bars of his cage, and he wasn’t even free yet.
Mi Hi squeezed his hand in hers. “Come on.”
Jun lifted his head.
She smiled at him, softly. “Let’s get you to your guy.”
Would Damian be just another cage?
Would he ever be free?
They made their next train connection. Mi Hi pulled out her headphones and handed one to Jun. He slipped it into his ear. She scrolled through her playlists and hit one titled “Me.” The opening strains of Madalen Duke’s “This is How Villains Are Made” trickled out. He looked down at the list. BlackPink’s “Kill this Love” was a couple songs down, followed by “Labour” by Paris Paloma.
“You listen to a lot of Western artists?” He modulated his voice to a soft whisper.
Mi Hi shrugged. “Sometimes. I lived in the US for a while.” She pointed to a song farther down. “I listen to French, Chinese, Japanese, and Indian singers too.”
They rode the train quietly, listening to the music together. Jun’s blood thrilled listening to Dan Vasc’s rendition of “Son of Pain.”
“I need to listen to more of this singer.” He could totally sing like this, given the chance. Not that Bak would let him.
Mi Hi smiled. “He’s good. From Brazil but sings a lot of English songs. He did this one song in seven languages though. It was really good.”
Jun raised his eyebrows. “Seven? Does he speak all of those languages, or did he just learn the lyrics for the song?” I thought I was doing really well with four languages!
Mi Hi raised both shoulders. “Don’t know.”
Jun sighed. Now he was going to have to learn more languages. English, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese evidently wasn’t enough. Maybe he should pick up Spanish.
It doesn’t matter. You’re running away. Your career is over.
Jun’s stomach fell. It hadn’t really hit him until that moment; he wasn’t just running from being trafficked. He was also walking away from the stage and his fans. From singing and dancing and writing music.
He folded in on himself. Until now, it had been running away from something terrible, but just listening to other singers, imagining how he would sing the same lyrics, what kind of dance routine might go with the beat and the concepts, it was enough to remind him.
Rage pushed up behind his eyes. Bak could have taken a different route. Even if the company were in bankruptcy, there were other options, choices that could have been made that would have left some reputation behind for 5N and Shockwave to sign with new agencies. But now…
