Page 20 of XOXO

“Okay, see you then.”

I hang up.

“You go to Seoul Arts Academy?”

The guy from earlier has moved away from the wall and is now standing to the side of the mirrors. It takes me a moment to realize he’s speaking to me. In English. Without an accent.

“Yeah,” I say, “I’m transferring there, from Los Angeles.”

“Los Angeles...” There’s a strange expression on his face, like there’s something about me that he can’t make out. Maybe it’s that I’m ethnically Korean, but I’m speaking in English. But I could say the same about him. “You live there?” he asks.

“Yeah. Why?” Staring directly at him like this, I can’t help but notice how attractive he is. He has deep dimples, even unsmiling, and soft hair that hooks rakishly over his eyes.

He shrugs. “Nothing. You just look familiar. I’m from the US too. New York.” That explains his English-speaking skills. And why he’s talking to me.

“How did you end up in Seoul?” I ask.

He stares at me, and I wonder if I’ve somehow asked an insensitive question. “So you don’t know who I am.”

It’s a statement, but it seems like a question.

“Should I?”

“Not particularly.”

O-kay then. I feel like I’m missing a piece of this conversation.

He, however, seems to get more comfortable, leaning against the mirror. “An opportunity came up and I moved here. My family lives in Flushing.”

“Wow,” I deadpan, “you can’t get more Korean American than that.”

He laughs.

“Hyeong, are you speaking English?” A boy barrels out of the leftmost dressing room. If I had to guess, he’s probably around fifteen, his most noticeable feature a shock of bright-blue hair. “What are you saying?”

Before answering, the guy in black asks me in Korean, “How are your conversation skills?”

“They’re all right,” I respond, also in Korean. “I can’t discusspoliticsor anything.” I don’t know the word for politics in Korean so I just say it in English.

“Honestly, me neither.” He turns to the blue-haired boy and pats him on the head. “Sorry, Youngmin-ah. When foreigners meet abroad, we can’t help ourselves.”

Youngmin glances at me, his eyes lighting up. “You go to Seoul Arts Academy?” I realize he’s wearing the same uniform as me, though with pants instead of a skirt. “We go there too. I’m Choi Youngmin, a first year. Nathaniel-hyeong is in Year Three.”

“Nice to meet you both. I’m Jenny, I’m in...”—the academic years in Korea are different than the States, with high school structured in three years—“my junior year back at home, but I guess Year Three, here?”

“Jenny’s from LA,” Nathaniel explains, looking down at his nails.

“Really?” Youngmin shouts. “We’ve been there!”

“Oh, yeah?” I smile. “What for?” Also, are they actual brothers? Youngmin had been calling Nathaniel “hyeong,” which means “older brother” in Korean, but they look nothing alike.

Youngmin glances at Nathaniel before speaking, “To shoot our music video for ‘Don’t Look Back.’”

Music video? Something clicks into place. The schoolgirls waiting outside. The man standing at the door. Even Youngmin’s hair, the bright color reminding me of the ads I’ve seen everywhere since touching down in Seoul.

“Are you...” Do K-pop stars call themselves K-pop stars? It’s not like Ariana Grande calls herself an American pop star.

“Idols,” Youngmin fills in. “We’re two of the members of the group XOXO. I’m the maknae, the youngest in the group, and also the rapper. Nathaniel’s a vocalist and main dancer. We also have our leader who’s a rapper like me, as well as our main vocalist.”

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