Sophie returns with our tickets, and we hurry to catch our bus. The only seats left are two together in the front and three along the last row. Sophie slides into the window seat, with Tae Hwa beside her, so Jason, Yoon Jae, and I make our way to the back. Somehow, I end up between them, and I realize too late that I now have to sit beside Jason for two hours.
But Yoon Jae keeps me entertained with stories told in hushed whispers about crazy fans at concerts and the grueling practices their record label put them through when they first signed, including the time Tae Hwa was hospitalized for exhaustion because of Eden’s hard-core schedule. I’m about to ask Yoon Jae how the band formed, when his pocket vibrates, and he pulls out his phone. He checks the number, and his face pales. Throwing me an apologetic smile, he answers in Korean.
I shift my focus out the window, but that requires me to look past Jason, and he might think I’m looking at him, so I turn my head. And see the two girls beside Yoon Jae staring and taking pictures on their phones. They giggle behind their hands, but when I catch their gazes, their expressions harden.
Great. Not again.
I steel myself for another mob, but Jason leans over me and hisses at them in Korean. The girls’ faces pale, but all I can focus on is Jason’s arm leaning against mine and the smell of his cologne coming from his neck, which is embarrassingly close to my face.
The bus pulls over at the next stop, and the girls stand abruptly.
They both fall into bows and mutter, “Jwe song ham ni da,” in unison—I’m sorry—before rushing off the bus.
Yoon Jae’s still jabbering into his phone, leaning away from me, tension thick in his voice, but as the bus turns back into traffic, I turn raised eyebrows on Jason. “What did you just say to them?”
He shrugs. “Just told them to stop staring. They got embarrassed.”
“Uh-huh.” Because politely asking someone to stop staring always inspires them to run away from you at the first opportunity.
We fall into silence, but then he breaks it with, “They were making fun of your dress.”
“My dress?” I glance down at the gauzy fabric I thought complimented my skin tone. “What’s wrong with it?”
He shrugs. “They said it was too long.”
I roll my eyes. “Just because I’m not willing to wear a hemline that’s practically showing off all my goodies, doesn’t make me a prude.”
A half smile appears on his face, and he catches my eye. “They also didn’t like that I was sitting beside an American girl.”
Surprise steals my thoughts for a few seconds before I can ask, “Would they have preferred it if I was Korean?”
“Probably.”
“Interesting.” Not really, but it’s the only adjective I can articulate, at least out loud. “You’d think they didn’t know you lived there for more than half your life,” I muse.
The semipleasant expression on his face fades, and I realize that we’ve just had a complete exchange that didn’t involve a single insult.
Jason shuffles his foot across the dirty footrest. “It’s been a few years since I was in America.”
Confidence streaming through my veins at our newfound civility, I venture to ask, “Why did you guys move back to Korea?”
Coldness swallows his eyes and freezes any emotion in his face, so he looks again like the boy I met in the cafeteria. Like he’s completely cut off all feelings. “You can talk to Sophie about that,” he says.
A few minutes later, the bus crosses the bridge and we’re back on Ganghwa Island. But instead of continuing on through town and up the mountain toward school, we pull into a bus station, and the driver turns off the engine.
Passengers stand, collecting their things, and file off the bus. I look to Jason in confusion, but his blank expression reveals nothing.
We stand and shuffle toward the exit, and when we pass Sophie and Tae Hwa, she says something to Jason in Korean.
“What’s going on?” I ask, but the twins continue their conversation.
Right in front of me, Yoon Jae hangs up with a huff and stuffs the phone back into his pocket. He cranes his neck around.
“The bus doesn’t run all the way to the school this late,” he says to me.
“So how are we going to get back?”
He runs a hand through his hair, making it fluff up like a cockatoo. “We walk.”
A million protestations build in my throat, but I don’t let them out, afraid of being that girl, the whiny American who can’t cope with a new place and new culture. But as we trek through town and my shoes rub blisters on the backs of my heels, I seriously consider firing off complaints anyway.
To distract myself from the sweat rolling down my back— and how we’re not even at the base of the mountain yet—I turn to Yoon Jae, who walks beside me, and ask, “Who was that on the phone earlier?”
He scratches the back of his neck and smiles, but it doesn’t have the same brightness as it usually does. “My father.”
The hike up the mountain seems endless. We walk along the side of the road, but it might as well be a cliff face. I have to stare at my feet to keep from slipping over the loose gravel.
I think I’m safe when we turn off the road and pass beneath the arch at the entrance to the school campus, but the tip of my shoe catches on a rock, and I tip forward. But before my face can meet pavement, a hand shoots out and grabs my elbow.
Stumbling, I peer up at Yoon Jae.