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“And what about you, Jinsoul-ssi?”
Today’s burning question: what is her ideal type of guy?
“Someone with a longer neck than hers,” Jungeun jokes.
“Someone younger,” Yeojin cries at the same time.
Chaewon, ever the troublemaker, chimes in. “Someone with a healthy scalp, right unnie?”
Jinsol has the answer ready and rehearsed in her mind, has practiced the motion of the reply for days. But like always, she hesitates. The monitor mirrors her own face. The cameras are unwavering. She is not. Somewhere far away is an irregular heartbeat thumping behind her ears, red hot.
“My ideal type is…someone dependable. A person who comforts me when I’m sick and knows how I like my tea,” is what she says, finally. She spares a glance to her right. At the end of the row, Sooyoung is looking back. Face set with her camera smile, the one with teeth but not too much. Her eyes do not flicker. Not for the first time Jinsol wishes she could read them, in the split second it takes for her to turn back to the smiling host. “I suppose what I want is someone who I can be alone with, if that makes sense. I don’t have to be afraid of the quiet with them.”
“It sounds like you’re describing a puppy,” Hyejoo deadpans. “I can lend Gureum to you for a day if you want, Jinsoul-unnie.”
The crowd laughs. One voice rises above the rest, at least to Jinsol’s ears. A tuning-fork pitch that she can’t seem to scrub away.
“The new title track Why Not? is a continuation of Loona’s previous comeback, So What, with lyrics about being confident in oneself, taking charge of one’s life, and asking ‘why not?’ in the face of challenges. This album was produced by SM Entertainment’s Lee Sooman and consists of eight songs, each displaying Loona’s different and versatile charms —"
“Someone dependable, huh?”
Sooyoung saunters over to the water station. Jinsol is acutely aware of how sweaty she is right now and tilts her paper cup at an angle that blocks her face from Sooyoung’s line of vision. It doesn’t work. They’re standing less than a meter apart.
“I didn’t know they invented drinkable air,” Sooyoung says again. The neckline of her shirt is damp, her bangs stick messily to her forehead, but she unfairly does not look like a disgusting pile of wet tissue.
“I’m thirsty,” Jinsol says half-heartedly.
“You danced well.” Sooyoung never doles out compliments about dancing insincerely, so it takes Jinsol by surprise. Like she knows Sooyoung has no reason to lie but there must be a springboard trap under that honesty, because while her dancing is not bad by any means it is also not spectacular either. Even if they’re all so-called ‘well-rounded artists’.
She thinks Sooyoung is going to continue, too, but she doesn’t.
“Is this your way of buttering me up to do your share of the dorm chores this week?”
Sooyoung waves it away, a casual dismissal. “Back to my question. Why did you change it this time?”
The last time they were asked about ideal types Jinsol had answered someone who likes math, like me. Before that, a person who can cook delicious food for me. Someone good-looking and tidy. A cute boy.
Jinsol shrugs. Her shoulders burn with the motion. “I wanted to say something from the heart.”
“And all the times before? Were they not also from the heart?”
Why are you even asking me this. “That’s kind of inane, isn’t it? I can want more than one thing.”
It would help if she actually knew what she wanted. But Jinsol doesn’t find that relevant to mention. The idea of love is just one entry in the itemized list of sacrifices it took to get here.
Sooyoung regards her for a moment, then pushes herself off the wall. “Let’s practice the next song together, Jung Jinsol.”
They’re in Osaka this time. Their first Japan tour, first stop in a series of concerts across the country. They’ve performed abroad before but this one feels different. Home court stage instead of an invitation and a thirty-minute slot sandwiched between two infinitely more popular groups.
Beside Jinsol, Yerim yawns and sinks even further into her seat. Her head knocks against the bus window every once in a while, but she doesn’t seem to mind. “Do you think we did well today, unnie?”
“Of course. Every stage with you is perfect.” Jinsol squeezes her in a one-armed hug. Yerim leans into it, soft and smiling.
“You should try telling Lippie-unnie that.”
Jungeun, of course, seated a row behind them, is obsessively combing through hours of freshly uploaded fancams for mistakes, missteps, shaky runs, wardrobe malfunctions. Her post-concert routine has never made sense to Jinsol, who physically cannot make herself watch any recently recorded performance without feeling like a snail shriveling under a tablespoon of salt. That’s probably why Jungeun is their leader, she begrudgingly admits, though fondness washes over her when she overhears Jungeun failing to suppress a wail and Jiwoo launching into a spiel about how even the legendary SNSD sunbaes were not exempt from occasional stage mishaps.
Hyejoo’s head pops up from the row in front of them. “Want a candy?” she offers, palm outstretched. Candied ginger.
Yerim oohs and scoops the sweets into her hand. In her head Jinsol can see the scene playing out – she’ll make an exaggerated grossed-out face because who the hell likes candied ginger candy, Yerim will offer her some regardless because that kind of behavior is just ingrained in her, and Hyejoo will snort and call Yerim a grandma, jaw working on some triple strength gum or green apple gummy bears. But before Jinsol can tease Yerim Hyejoo’s already turning back to her seat and procuring something else.
“For you, Jinsoul-unnie.” White rabbit milk candy. “Chaewon and I went to the convenience store earlier while the rest of you were getting out of your costumes. I thought you might want these.”
“My favorite.” The paper wrapper twists apart easily in her hands, and Jinsol pops one into her mouth. The rice paper melts on her tongue. “Thank you, Hyejoo.”
Their bus rumbles on. The sky is dark outside but the cityscape glitters with urban light, Osaka coming to life for the second time today. There will be no sleeping in this city. Serenity unfolds from the warmth of Yerim’s body pressed against Jinsol’s, the cool blow of the AC above her, feet still aching in her falling-apart Converses, the faded smell of hairspray lingering around her shoulders. She’s tired but it’s a nice kind of tired, the rewarding kind, a sort of exhaustion that settles on the heels of good work. There will be more concerts tomorrow and the day after that but the embers of today are dying out and she wants nothing more than to stay in this transience a little longer.
This is love, she thinks. Music thrums from outside and then vanishes just as quickly. The digital billboards and neon shop signs blur together into a coalescence of blue, blue, blue. I am in love with this. This is all I can ever love.
Sooyoung’s eyes are smoky and she’s dabbing another layer of cherry lip gloss on her lips. “Let’s go clubbing.”
“Are you crazy?” Jinsol exclaims, incredulous. “Put that down.”
“Can’t make me.”
She makes a swipe at the tube but relents when Sooyoung freezes her with a look. “We’re going home tomorrow. This is not the time to drum up scandals.”
“Will you relax.” Sooyoung checks herself out in front of the mirror and fixes nonexistent stray hairs out of her forehead. She looks great as usual, but it’s not like Jinsol’s going to say that out loud. “This is our last night in Japan. We might as well enjoy it.”
“The managers will kill you.”
“Only if they find out.”
“Seriously, Sooyoung.” Something hard must’ve crept into Jinsol’s voice because Sooyoung pauses and, for the first time, really looks at her. Jinsol feels a screw tightening in her chest. Sooyoung is only a month older than her but sometimes the distance feels untraversable. Sometimes she forgets that they’re co-workers. “Look, I just think that going out looking like…that…is a bad idea. There are cameras everywhere, you know this.”
Sooyoung smiles a little patronizingly. “That’s what a disguise is for.” A pair of aviators appears between her slender fingers. “Obviously this is just meant to be a statement. I’m not going to wear sunglasses to a nightclub. That would be, ah – crazy,” she finishes in English.
“I just – maybe I’d understand if you tried explaining it to me,” Jinsol replies. It comes out sort of desperate and she feels embarrassed, suddenly.
“We’re in Osaka, Jinsol. This is my first time here. We might not be able to come back in years, and I can’t just – justify taking a weekend trip to Japan whenever I want.” Like some of the others. “Being an idol – this can’t be everything there is. I won’t let it. I won’t.”
They’re standing face to face now. Sooyoung’s chest is heaving. Jinsol wants to put her hand on the other girl’s shoulders to calm her down but the movement causes Sooyoung to flinch. A second later she regains composure and schools her expression into a perfect show of neutrality.
“You’d be putting everything on the line,” Jinsol says quietly. “Is that what you want, truly? You know how easy it is to get destroyed in this industry. All it takes is one person or one picture. All the trips you had to make, the hours of training, the diets. You’d sacrifice it all for – what, a night out at some club you can’t even talk to the bartender in?”
“We’ve been doing this for five years, Jinsol. At a certain point you have to start asking yourself how much of the future you’re sacrificing, too,” Sooyoung says just as gently, not a single trace of her earlier outburst. Up close, Jinsol can see the clumps of her mascara. The shimmery blue of her eyeshadow. “Sometimes I forget how tenacious you are. Don’t let the past eat you alive.” She takes a step back. “Besides, I’ll be fine. It’s not like it’s the first time.”
A wire sits coiled in Jinsol’s throat. “It’s not?”
Sooyoung gives her a pointed look.
What else can she say, really. Jinsol can recognize defeat when it’s staring right at her. “Fine. Just – be careful. Don’t get caught.” That distance again. Her voice sounds hollow to her own ears.
“I won’t.” Sooyoung winks. Already playful and light on her feet. “Don’t wait up for me.”
The flight back to Korea is uneventful. Cotton balls stuffed in her ears and a lackluster selection of in-flight movies. Sooyoung is seated next to her by the aisle, thumbing boredly through a magazine. Their manager had given up on seat arrangements when Heejin and Hyunjin bugged him about seating them together and then Hyejoo and Chaewon promptly did the same, and so back to hotel room assignments it was. Jinsol didn’t have it in her to complain.
There are forty minutes left on the flight. Enough time to do something other than fiddle with her hands. She considers the humiliation of regressing into a thirteen year old and flipping her bottle of water on the tray table when Sooyoung shifts and drops the magazine in her lap. Jiwoo from across the aisle has roped her into an animated conversation. Something about a new jajangmyeon recipe she learned from a drama – honestly, there’s too much pressure in Jinsol’s ears to listen in. To her right is the slim expanse of Sooyoung’s back. Whiting out her vision.
She looks out the window instead.