You know that feeling when your insides are all of a mess and staying still in one place just makes everything worse?

So, I decide to get out of the dorm and go for a walk around Hongdae. It’s getting close to evening and it’s not the weekend yet but Hongdae is always crowded, no matter what. That’s part of what I like about it. It’s even nicer at weird hours like 8am when the streets are mostly empty and the entire place feels like it belongs to you.

Sights and sounds and smells and having to dodge people take up brain space so the restlessness dies down slightly. There are a few buskers around and I move from one to the other – the really popular acts won’t come out till nightfall but these aren’t bad – singers with their guitars, mostly. There’s a girl with a beautiful voice and for a few minutes the shouty voices in my head aren’t so loud. She soothes me. I hope she makes it big someday.

I keep going and I’m basically just blindly turning down streets from the shopping area to the playground to the restaurants and I don’t even realise I’m tired until I find myself back at the area in front of a really popular barbecue place where the girl singer was just now – she’s gone already, and I wonder how long I’ve been walking. I left without my phone or a watch and I have no real way of telling time apart from the sun sinking in the sky; I look up, and there’s hints of pink and orange glowing softly among the clouds. It stuns me for a bit. The real world keeps on turning no matter how our own personal worlds feel like they may have ground to a halt.

Someone else is setting up in the recently-vacated place, and I snort quietly to myself once I realise he’s a street magician. They’re all frauds, these guys, mostly comedy and mere sleight of hand than anything that will truly blow your mind. I make to move on, but the song as background music he turns on makes me stop despite myself.

I watch him as he launches into his performance without much preamble – a crowd hasn’t even really gathered yet – and I try not to let the words of the song get to me. It’s a combination of dance and sleight of hand, something I have to admit I’ve never seen before – he makes a whole string of objects appear and disappear effortlessly while the audience is distracted by the smooth way he’s moving, easily channelling their attention to and from his hands. We’re all very impressed by the end – I have no idea where he’s hidden half the things he made appear in his hands and truth be told it makes me a bit annoyed that I can’t for the life of me figure out how he did it. All of those things can’t have been kept in just his sleeves.

I realise I’ve managed to not think about Sanghyuk for a grand total of the five minutes this guy’s performance lasted; but with this useless realisation it all comes rushing back.

When he politely comes round with his donation box to collect money from the dispersing onlookers and he reaches me I must be looking as tragic as I feel because he his head and asks me if he can do something for me. I’m so taken aback I almost laugh in his face.

“A love potion? Or a memory potion. Either one will work.” I say, and I mean it to come out jokingly but it just sounds so horribly bitter.

“I can’t do that kind of magic, I’m afraid,” he replies, and I’m ready to just walk away to save whatever’s left of my dignity, but he reaches behind me and then smiles, gesturing for me to look up. I turn hesitantly and he’s holding a rose up against the rich sunset. It’s a real, fresh white rose, painted gold by the sinking sun.

I can’t look away for a while – it’s an incredibly perfect moment.

“A rose is good magic, too,” he says, and lowers his arm, handing the flower to me.

I find my voice only when he’s walked back to his setup. “How the hell did you do that?”

He just laughs, shy and small.

*

The rose is wilting in the makeshift water-bottle vase I’ve given it when I find myself back again. I’ve been cracking my brain and researching street magic online like somebody obsessed – to be honest, it keeps my mind away from things I’d rather not be thinking about – and I’m no closer to understanding how the guy somehow managed to hide half a department store and a perfect rose, uncrushed, somewhere inside his sleeves or jacket. The itch to know is making me crazy. I just hope he doesn’t play more sad love songs this time.

He isn’t doing sleight of hand today, though, when I arrive slightly late to catch the start of his performance. It’s card tricks this time – miraculously guessing the cards he’s gotten audience members to pick secretly, pitting them against one other and enjoying their incredulity as he leads them playfully round the questions he needs to figure out which card they’ve chosen. I’m more familiar with these tricks – it’s all probability and statistics which is, unfortunately, what I’m majoring in.

The audience loves it, though – it seems unbelievable that he can guess exactly which card someone has chosen at random out of the deck without getting a single look at it. His last participant is a little girl and he cheekily plucks her card out of her hair in the big final reveal – her eyes go so wide I can’t help but laugh to see her face. It’s adorable.

He doesn’t see me and I feel a little stupid for lingering behind while he rests in between performances, but I really need to know how he managed to make that rose appear. He raises his eyebrows at me when I walk up to him and for a moment I wonder what I’m doing. Does it really matter if I know how his tricks work?

I make myself ask him – I’m already there and standing in front of him, him looking at me expectantly, anyway – and he just smiles and takes out his deck of cards. It’s not the answer I want and he knows it, the little grin staying on his lips as he fluidly spreads five cards out in front of me and then just waits.

I make a face. I start to tell him I know how these tricks work, what I want to know is how he does his sleight of hand ones.

“Humour me. Then I’ll tell you.”

This makes me pause. “Really?”

“Promise.”

So I pick a card and hand it back to him face down, his smile pleased. He puts it back with the other cards and shuffles them continuously while pretending to feel the cards, trailing fingers over them thoughtfully. He asks me if the card is a red or black one, and when I answer red he spreads the five cards out again. He looks at me, twinkle in his eye, and draws one card out before slowly turning over the other four. My card isn’t among them – my eyes fly to the one he’s holding in his long fingers.

I stare hard at him as he makes a show of kissing the card I chose and in one smooth move collects all of them and puts them back into the deck. I have to admit, I’m a bit speechless.

“How did I do that?” he asks, and I want to kick him a bit for looking so smug. I have no idea.

He motions me closer and looks around as if to make sure no one is listening. “Sometimes we’re so focused on one thing we can’t see the truth right in front of our eyes.”

I make a very unimpressed face, and he cracks up. The sound of his deep laughter is infectious.

When I get home later that night I find something in my jacket pocket – a simple five hundred won coin, and a scrap of paper with only one word on it.

Practice.

*

I practice. I practice like my life depends on it.

At first I can hardly keep the coin going as I try to move it from one finger to another, trying to be as smooth as possible because it should ripple over my knuckles easily from the index to the little finger. I drop the coin so many times I wonder what I’m going to do if it falls into a drain or something and is lost forever – while it’s just a normal five hundred won coin I feel like the guy will know if I try to give him back some other one.

The guy – I don’t even know his name. I resolve to ask him once I master this coin stuff. It feels like I will have earned it, though it’s a silly thing to think.

Sanghyuk would find this cool, I think once, and the tears that threaten to come aren’t pretty. I practice for hours after that in anger at myself.

It takes me a week to be able to move the coin in my left hand from my little finger to my index and then drop it into my sleeve, effectively disappearing it. I have to force myself to do my daily readings and homework because it’s too exciting, learning this – like as if I’ve unlocked some real kind of magic that was hitherto hidden from mere mortals like myself. I watch endless youtube tutorials and then start on training my right hand to do the same thing as my left – oh god, trying to do barely the same moves with my more-unused hand is so painful and takes so much longer. I think my friends have gotten sick and tired of hearing me complain about it, but I know they’re thankful I’m complaining about this instead of whining about Sanghyuk. Better the strange obsession than the depressed broken heart.

The day I can do it perfectly with both hands – disappear and re-appear the coin into and out of my sleeves – I cannot wait till it’s evening and I can go show off to the magic guy. I’m feeling rather self-satisfied when I walk up and wait for his act to be over and I think it must show on my face, because when he looks at me over the heads of the people in front of me I imagine I can see him break into a grin briefly.

I’m not prepared for when he calls me up to participate. My first reaction is to refuse, shaking my head quickly. I don’t know what he expects me to do, and in my surprise I half-think he wants me to show my coin trick to everyone. He doesn’t listen to my protests, though, and he brings me up in front of everyone and I can feel myself start to blush. Honestly.

“What is your name?” he asks me, leaning close so my answer will be picked up by the microphone he’s got pinned to his shirt.

“Lee Hongbin,” I say, and he smiles, warm like the evening sun.

“What do you do, Hongbin-ssi?”

 “I’m a student at Hongik Uni,” I answer obediently, looking into his eyes, and remembering myself, turn back to the audience.

He has me help him with a few tricks, teasing me a little to make the audience laugh, and I can’t help but laugh too. He has a very pure sort of earnestness about him that doesn’t make you feel like you’ve been played or made fun of – I have to know, given how he’s reduced me to speechlessness not once but twice already. I suppose it’s a gift since his trade is basically tricking people.

When he pulls a real live dove out from underneath a white handkerchief at the end I’m so shocked I flinch and retreat for safety’s sake a few steps, and I’m so amazed I don’t mind everyone laughing at me. He is shaking with laughter as well as he closes his act, presenting me to the audience for applause and he’s still chuckling when he goes to retrieve his donation box after everyone has contributed and wandered off.

“Where the hell did that bird come from?” I demand when we’re alone, and he actually makes me turn around while he puts it back from wherever he took it out from – I’m so mad, honestly – and I berate him about animal cruelty laws while he rolls his eyes at me and assures me Bongbongie (what on earth kind of name is that for a bird?) is perfectly happy and well-taken care of.

He asks me for his coin and I forget all about doves.

I take it out of my pocket and move it seamlessly from one finger to the next, disappearing it from one hand and making it reappear in the other. I do it a few more times until I can actually believe what I’m seeing with my own eyes – I’ve done it.

I drop the coin into his waiting palm coolly, but somehow I know he knows I actually want to bounce around in excitement. It’s something in the way he’s beaming at me that tells me so, but I’m literally in the middle of Hongdae and I’m a respected university senior, so I don’t.

“So what’s your name?” I gather the courage to ask, and he looks surprised for a moment as if he hadn’t realised he haven’t exchanged names.

“Ravi,” he answers, and I frown a little in confusion. “Kim Wonsik,” he corrects himself. “Ravi is my stage name.”

We tiptoe a little around honorifics until we find out we’re the same age – a pleasant discovery – and then he gives me back the coin.

“You keep it. There’s more you can learn to do with it.”

“I’m a fast learner, aren’t I?” I say, fishing for compliments. He smiles at me. His eyes are sweet and sleepy, and they make him look – I don’t know what. Nice. Like a good person.

“Let’s go for dinner,” I suggest, and this isn’t like me at all. “I’ll buy. To repay you for lending me the coin.”

“Tomorrow, when I don’t have Bongbongie along,” he says, and I’ve forgotten about the damn bird.

“She has a message for you, actually,” he continues, and begins to laugh quietly when he sees my sceptical face. “You know what doves represent?”

“Parasites?” I say.

“Peace,” he reprimands me. “Do you still need that love potion?”

*

By the time I meet him the next day I’m a bundle of nerves and I don’t know what I’m doing. Sanghyuk is barely history but I’m already looking for another tomorrow – I like to think I’m poetic. I’m really not.

Logically, reasonably, this is a mistake.

We eat at his favourite chicken place and we have too much soju; logically, reasonably, this night can only end in tears. Most likely mine.

But he makes me laugh. He makes me do the coin trick but with a soju bottle cap and I’m so drunk I don’t even notice it has fallen through my fingers and I think I’m doing amazingly well until I realise he’s giggling himself half to death. I try to hit him but I hit the bowl of chicken bones instead and it sends the bones flying half over myself and half over the people next to us – I’m horrified and he almost falls to the floor with how hard he’s laughing. Somehow I escape being beaten up and I’m buoyed on the sound of his deep sparkling voice still laughing out the restaurant. It’s the lightest I’ve felt in weeks.

We wander the streets, stumbling a little. I tell him about university. He tells me about dropping out of high school. I tell him he’s brave and he shoves me in disbelief almost into a bush. He tries to teach me a new card trick only he has no cards, but I understand everything he’s saying perfectly. I think.

Sometime between deciding to go get ramen at a convenience store and arguing over Apink versus 4minute I try to kiss him. He pushes me away gently and studies my face.

“I’d rather you kiss me when you can actually remember it tomorrow,” he tells me, and it occurs to me that he’s not half as drunk as I am.

I wonder what this means.

*

I’m too scared to face him again. Despite me apparently being so far gone that it didn’t look I would have any memory of anything the next day, I remember everything. I remember trying to kiss him and I remember him pushing me away, but I also remember him sending me back to campus and sinking his nose into my hair for a moment and breathing in.

What does it mean?

I give up thinking and push open the door of my room to go to class. There’s a card lying on the floormat outside, and it’s the ace of hearts.

*

“Didn’t think you’d be into card mythology,” I murmur later, much later on. I’m too embarrassed to look at him straight on, so I focus on the ace of hearts in my hands. He’s sweaty, just finished one of his dance-sleight of hand routines and looking up at me from where he’s sitting down to rest. I’m not into card mythology, of course, but considering the card lying innocently on my doorstep had consumed my entire attention the entire day I’d be embarrassed if it hadn’t occurred to me to google if there was anything special behind its meaning. Lo and behold, there was.

“You figured it out,” he answers, smiling. That smile. “University education must be good for something then.”

“I learned your card trick,” I say quickly, because I’m blushing and I’m sure I’ve never done anything as cheesy as I’m about to do now. “Let me show you.”

I lay out five cards, exactly as he’d done for me weeks before. He watches my face as he picks his card, obviously wondering what I’m up to – he knows full well how this trick is played. I don’t mind him watching me, though, because then it takes his attention away from my hands when I switch the original five cards for another five. I’m nowhere as good as him when it comes to this though one day, I aim to be.

He notices the tiny mark I’ve made on the back of one of the cards before I can cover it with my finger and starts to grin and I try not to scowl at him when I pull that card out of the deck. I turn over the other four with a flourish, showing him how none of them is the card that he chose earlier, leading to the simple impulsive conclusion most people would make that the chosen card then has to be the one I’m holding, even though they can’t see what card it is. It’s impressive though in reality very simple, and a huge scam. Really, it’s terrible.

I turn over the card, and the pure, sweet smile that steals over his face threatens to totally disarm me for a good second.

“That’s not the card I chose,” he teases, beaming up at me.

“Really?” I feign surprise. “Are you sure?”

He looks at the two of hearts that I’d deliberately picked out earlier and shakes his head, laughing.

“I do remember,” I say. “I didn’t try to kiss you because I was drunk. I’m not that kind of drunk. I’m more the ‘lie down in public places’ kind of drunk.”

“And the memory potion?” he asks softly.

“Don’t need it anymore,” I tell him, and it’s truer than I thought it would be.

He stands up close to me and reaches behind my head, and I know what he’s doing. The rose this time is a vibrant red.

“I think you just out-cheesed me,” I say.

*

Ace of hearts: joy at the start of a new romance

Two of hearts: a new partnership or engagement

* 

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