For all it matters, Jess got a great hotel room. It was spacious and airy and had a magnificent view over the remote lights of the city. She got her makeup bag out planning to brush her teeth and go straight to bed. It was 9pm and she did not feel sleepy. She took her laptop out and opened it. While it was booting, she thought of the Korean entertainer she met on the plane. She pulled out his business card and gave it a good look. It was a high quality card, plastic, not paper, black with bright red print on it. The card had his name in over-sized font styled like handwriting covering the whole card. It was pressed not printed as everything else. Very stylish as everything about him.

Jess opened browser and entered his name in search engine. The page blew up with photo shoot pictures, scandal news and thousands of blogs and fanpages. ‘Wow, this guy is really a big deal!’ Jess concluded while reading probably tenth blog of a hysterical fan rambling over how insanely hot Jiyong / G-Dragon / GD was and how he could not be in a relationship with a certain Japanese model. Jess opened youtube link to one of the videos that came up first in the search results. It was a music video, something very pop and slightly electro. Jess was never much into music, and if she ever listened to anything it was something upbeat for running and something very chilly for … well, chilling in the evenings after work. This was definitely not her style.

She had probably spent around an hour reading and searching when she realized that in no way she would be able to fall asleep right away. Jess got up from bed and started pacing thinking whether or not she should accept the invitation. ‘He will so totally know that I googled him. He’ll think I am just jumping at the opportunity. On the other hand, he said that he was hoping I’d change my mind. But what am I hoping for? It’s not like this could lead to anything serious. He is so not my type. Oh, Jess, you are so getting ahead of yourself, as usually! On the other hand, he could be a great contact in Korea! It was such a tremendous luck to m eet him, it would be stupid to waste this opportunity. It’s just business, I will go to the party just to network and meet people. Besides, he seemed like a really nice guy.’ The last point drove this internal argument to the finish and Jess pulled her phone out thinking of her opening line. She felt her heart rate raise when she heard the long beep. She closed her eyes and once again thought to herself that this is just business. She was almost hanging up after a pretty long wait when she heard him pick up and say something she did not understand. She figured he said ‘Hi’ in Korean and answered with a cheerful ‘Hey Jiyong! Its Jess from the airplane. So hey, turns out google knows hell of a lot about you. You got me pretty intrigued!’

‘Oh, yea! Don’t tell me you spent the last hour researching me. How about all that work you had to do?’ She heard him laugh on the other end.

‘Well, you know, its not every day you get to meet celebrities, so I figured work can wait’

‘Oh, I hear you! So are you now up for a party with your new famous friend?’

‘Yea, google tells me you could also teach me a thing or two about Korean fashion. So in a way, this would be me satisfying my professional interest’

‘Professional interest, huh? Sounds exciting and… somehow dirty,’ he laughed. ‘well, I guess I deserved it,’ Jess thought inwardly.

‘All right, I’ll send a car for you. Which room are you staying in?’

‘oh, there is really no need,’ she started, but got immediately interrupted by his: ‘Nonsense! Which room?’. Jess gave in giving up her room number and was still listening to the phone when she heard him hung up. It just occurred to her that she did not have any party clothes what so ever. She wanted to show off her favourite weekend bag, but it was too small to fit more than one change of clothes that she threw in just in case her luggage gets lost, her makeup kit with all the work stuff she was carrying. So she had only a pair of old grey skinny jeans and a white t shirt. She felt panic raising slowly somewhere down her stomach. And then she thought of something. She pulled her jeans out of the bag, spread them out on the bed and looked for something sharp in the room. She found paper knife in the desk in the room and used it to carve out knees of the jeans.

Jess just finished transforming her old baggy jeans into artistically sophisticated and somewhat trendy look, when she heard a knock on the door. She grabbed her purse and opened the door to a small middle aged Korean man in a black suit, who quickly bowed to her and asked ‘Miss Jessica?’. Jess nodded in response and courageously answered ‘Yes’ to his question ‘Are you ready, miss?’.

It was a long drive. Jess had lived five years in London, but still was not confident at navigating herself around the city. She thought they were driving towards the downtown, but then the driver who introduced himself as Kevin took a few turns and she again lost her sense of place. ‘Do you know what is the name of the club?’ she asked the driver.

‘We are going to Lanterns, miss,’ Kevin answered with a slight Korean accent. Jess did not feel that he was inclined to continuing the conversation, so she left him be and again wandered off in her thoughts. She had not done much partying in London, even though Eve, her roommate, really did her best to introduce her to the club scene of the city. Jess just was not interested. In all five years she had lived here, she had been to clubs maybe three times. It was the drinking, the random people, the sweat, the drunken guys making attempts at hitting on her, the smell of smoke that stuck with your skin and hair and of course the morning after that annoyed her about the clubbing. If someone had invited her to a home party with good dance music, familiar people and preferably some good food that started early and finished before midnight, she would have been the first to show up. But those were not a thing with people in their late twenties in London. Eve had earlier suggested that Jessica should make friends with a few middle schoolers. Jess thought to herself that apart from being a strange and slightly creepy sight for a 30-year-old woman hanging around with 15-year-olds, this was actually a great idea, maybe apart from the food. The way she remembered it, food was never great at middle school parties.

The car pulled over next to completely dark sidewalk in what looked like a seemingly quiet residential neighborhood. ‘East End?’ wondered Jessica while she was getting out of the car.

‘Right here,’ Kevin was pointing at the old warehouse building that stood right in front of them in a tiny alley lined with townhouses. The building was completely dark. There was no sign of music or any life about it. They were 5 meters away from it, when Jess finally heard low beats of music. ‘That’s a hell of a soundproofing!’ she thought to herself.to

Kevin said something to the doorman and he let them into a narrow corridor dimly lit in red. It was a long walk down the corridor with every step submerging them deeper and deeper into music. It was a small place, but apart from that a very regular club: dark with flashes of white light, smell of cigarette smoke and broken glass on the floor. The size however made it feel very intimate, almost cozy. Kevin left her there saying that Jiyong is at the DJ booth on the opposite end of the dance floor. Jessica picked up a drink, soda with a slice of lemon, and started making her way to the booth. The club wasn’t packed and it looked like everyone knew each other. She caught a few surprised looks from passing people, including the bar tender.

Jiyong was standing next to a very hip looking guy next to the booth. The two were engaged in a very lively discussion taking turns in shouting in each other’s ears and laughing at something. Jess suddenly realized the reason why people were throwing strange looks at her. Almost everyone else in the party was Korean! She suddenly felt like an intruder at some family occasion. It felt tiny bit awkward to interrupt the two guys right in the middle of something obviously very funny, but Jess felt like she needed to start talking to someone right away, so that she herself and everyone else knew that she was not a random stranger crashing this party.

Jiyong was startled at first, but then immediately spread a wide smile on his face and threw his arms around her like an old friend. He introduced her to the guys next to him, but Jess could not hear a single name. She obliged and shouted her own name and nice-to-meet-you’s in response to their names as loud as she could.

Jiyong changed his clothes, now he was wearing an oversized light colored t-shirt, Jess wasn’t sure about the color, maybe washed pink, with deep round neckline and skinny jeans. His shoes were spectacular, silver chunky oxford shoes with discreet brogue detail. The guy next to Jiyong was wearing a neon colored hoodie with his hood on and baggy jeans. This was definitely prevailing style in the club.

‘What are you drinking?’ Jiyong asked.

‘Oh, this is just lemon soda, I don’t want to spend eleven hours hung over on the plane,’ Jess gave out her best sorry-but-no smile.

‘Are you sure? I am going to go get us a refill.’

Jess nodded affirmatively and stayed chatting with the hoodie guy. He was very excited on hearing that Jess is moving to Seoul to work in fashion.

‘You could not have had a better luck than meeting Jiyong on the plane. I mean, he is definitely the guy to know in Korean fashion’

‘Oh, yea? I thought he was in music industry. Why do you say so?’

‘He knows everybody you need to know in fashion over there. He is known as a fashionista. I mean look at him. And if you can get him to promote your brand, it will be a definite sell-out!’

‘Oh, wow! I guess I am in best luck indeed!’

They kept talking with the guy telling her about how he met Jiyong two years back, when Jiyong returned with a bottle of champagne and three glasses.

‘I brought one for you just in case,’ he smiled. ‘Besides I think it would be impolite of you to not drink for Terry’s birthday. Did my boy tell you he turned 35 today?’ Jiyong said turning to the hoodie guy and wrapping his free arm around his neck giving him a good squeeze.

‘It’s your birthday? Happy birthday! Wow, thirty-five! I would never say!’ They poured champagne and cheered for Terry’s birthday when other guys showed up to give their share of punches to the birthday boy. The tipsy club chatter went on for a while with focus of the group shifting to Terry and the guys around him. Jess used this shift of attention to sign to Jiyong that she was going to the dance floor. He gave her a thumbs up and Jess left the group moving to the dancefloor to her favorite Rihanna’s song.

She hadn’t danced for a while but she loved dancing and she considered herself pretty good at it. Everybody around her seemed to be also enjoying the music fully immersed in their dancing. Eyes shut type of dancing. It was different to other clubs. You could see that people were there for the music and the dancing and everyone knew their moves, not for the drinks and to meet up. Jess was used to drawing attention, wanted and mostly unwanted, on dance floors. She had a good sense of rhythm and just moved naturally to the beat, but here she was more of a rule rather than exception. And in a way it felt very safe. She felt that nobody is going to try hitting on her here because they liked her moves. Nobody was going to surprise-rub against her from behind. She never understood what must have been going on in those men’s head to think that any girl would be ok with that. Having that worry off her mind and seeing all these people there just enjoying the music made her remember what dancing was like when she did that alone in her room in her parents’s house when she was a teenager dancing to her favorite N'Sync’s track.

When she opened her eyes, she saw Jiyong standing next to her, eyes closed, moving to the music. He was a good dancer. She could see it even though he barely moved. It was not about the moves, he looked very relaxed with his arms down and his head cocked to one side with his whole body swaying to the rhythm. DJ changed to a new song, something dubstep. Jiyong opened his eyes and smiled at Jess. They both threw their hands up in the air picking up on the new rhythm.

Jess gave it her all. She had not danced in such a long time and she probably would not be getting another opportunity for a long while, so she really savored the moment. It was a little over 1am when she started feeling her exhaustion sweeping over her so much that she could no longer ignore it. Jiyong was back next to DJ’s booth talking to another hoodie guy. Hoodie was certainly a dominating item in this club’s style scene. Jess squeezed herself through the mass of moving bodies. She hadn’t noticed how crowded the place had become in the past little over an hour. She found Jiyong and told him she was leaving, but he wanted to walk her out of the club.

‘Kevin will take you back to your hotel’

‘Oh, that’s really not necessary! I could just call a taxi.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous! You’d be waiting for an hour. Besides, he is anyway here waiting for me, so he might as well take you back. It will keep him from falling asleep.’

They were out of the club back in the freshness and coolness of an August night in London. It felt like a whole different world. Quiet, clean, cool and lifeless. Kevin was standing next to his car smoking. He noticed them from a far and put out his cigarette. Jess turned to Jiyong.

‘Well, anyway. Thanks a lot for the invitation, Jiyong! I never thought I’d be so grateful to an airline for delaying a flight. I really enjoyed myself. I had really great time! It is so refreshing to be in a club and not have all these random guys hit on you.’

‘Do I hear disappointment, Jessica? You should have told me, we could have arranged for it!’

‘Oh, well, I think I got just what I needed tonight, but maybe next time,’ She said pretending to be serious. ‘And may I just say, you are definitely getting better at sarcasm.’

‘Next time it is! I guess I will see you in Seoul next time. I doubt I will make it to the flight tomorrow. You have my number. Call me when you have settled in Seoul.’

Jess promised, they hugged again and she left him standing there. He was still there smoking when the car pulled away from the sidewalk. Jess took a long good look at him through the car window. It was too dark and the car was too far, so she could not make out his face but she saw his profile. He stood sideways to the car with his head down, one hand in his jeans pocket and another hand holding a cigarette. Jess tried to remember his face. It was very narrow, pointy chin, black straight eyebrows. He had small Asian eyes, small nose and a killer mouth. There was something about his mouth and lips that just made you want to look at them all the time. It was also small like everything else on his face, but the lips were slightly pouty and they looked like they were outlined.

Jess knew that guys in Korea sometimes used make up. Could it be that this guy used lip liner? She tried to remember if she noticed any other makeup on him. At least nothing that would stand out and look like makeup. Maybe some foundation? His skin did look very nice.

His face did not look handsome, at least not to the standards that Jess would normally define as handsome. But there she was sitting in the car finding herself attracted to him. He had this very cute way of smiling and laughing, that felt shy at first. But once she got used to him covering his mouth with a kind of semi fist when he laughed, she found it adorable. Jess had never found Asian guys attractive before. It had nothing to do with race or with a speculation about small es. To be frank, she just hadn’t known that many and the ones she knew tended to be either too short or too feminine to her taste. To think of it, Jiyong also had a somewhat feminine face. Do they call it baby-face? On top of it he was very slim, almost skinny. But he did not come across feminine. There was this long forgotten gentlemanly masculinity and confidence about the way he behaved and acted around her and other people that she found extremely y.

Jess thought of the people she met that day. Everyone seemed completely infatuated by him. The guys and the ladies. Especially, the ladies. And oh god, did he have a lot of ladies around him. Obviously, there was no surprise in that. He was wildly famous back home and had a surprisingly big fan base abroad. Ladies must be smothering him with attention. On that unsettling thought Jess forced herself to think of something else and shifted her mind to her new future in Seoul. She arrived at the hotel a little after 2am. She took quick shower, set her alarm to 4.30am and dozed off the second her head touched pillow.