Our eyes met only briefly. Probably for a fleeting few seconds. The bright ambience cast a glare on his profile, highlighting the sculpted contours of his face. That glance was enough. I could sense him, even among the crowd. I didn't need to push over desperate fan girls and relentlessly sweat over his autograph. I had what I wanted already. For almost a year I had continued to live in that mad, deluded state of mind. Why should things change now? Besides, I had read in some arbitrary psychology journal that avoiding someone is the best way to get attention. Leave it up to me to believe some pseudo-scientific report.

So, there I was thinking that I could somehow telepathically communicate with him and aimlessly hoping that he would realize the amount of devotion I have for him. The situation as it was, was beyond hope. I mean, the mere eye contact raised a thunderous staccato in my heart. I felt the blood pulsate in my ears. At that point, I could only continue to stare and not do much else. Not that I would have been able to jar myself out of that paralyzed state anyway. For the rest of the time, I fixated my gaze in his general direction in case we would make eye contact again. I could already feel the despair filling within me once again, as I could see within my periphery that he was exiting through the slick glass doors of the cafe. I instinctively stood up to get a better view. By that time, he was surrounded by his security personnel and staff. I could see the reflection of the surrounding edifices on his spotless Jaguar. The Jag only left particles of dust in its wake as it drove away smoothly, its tires producing a satisfactory whir as they sped up.

! I cursed myself for having put myself through this again. Why do I keep going through this same routine every time he comes here?! He has been here for the past couple of times before and any smart journalist or paparazzi would have figured out that this is his favorite haunt and blabbed all about it on some random tabloid. I, on the other hand, chose to just sit back and watch the show

as if I were in a position to admire him from afar and not be affected by it. Not even an autograph. All these days, not one single greeting or attempt to tear apart those seedy, fan girl es' hair, even to get a picture. I was still waiting with patience, like Ms. Havisham and her halted clocks. All this waiting and anticipating was for a lost cause anyway. At least, I will have done my part and receive permanent closure if nothing ends up working out.

Whatever, he is bound to be back soon anyway. But for now, I pushed the thoughts of him out of my head as my boss's stern voice screeched on the blue tooth. I prepared for another storm. The woman always wants nouvelle stories and gossip on him. I explained to her a million times that we were not running a tabloid. Heck, we aren't even close to running a high-end editorial. The magazine just picked up recently due to our item on the infamous scandal between Super Junior's Eunhyuk and the nation's Little Sister, IU. The only reason Korea's First and Finest made any money on that story was because Sonja had the sense to market it before anyone else did. But that didn't stop her from being an annoying, nosy hag. And it was my job as her journalist to get the best news there was. How he had anything to do with a tourist magazine was beyond me. I stopped questioning Sonja a long time ago because frankly, I was just in for the money. And even that didn't come easily. I often end up working ty shifts and perusing through piles and piles of notes and research hoping to come up with something exciting and flavorful about the city that hasn't been documented a million times already. There is only so many times one could be so animated about Banpo Bridge and Cheonggyecheon Stream.

 

I drained the last dregs of my Earl Grey and left a tip for my favorite and ever-reliable bus boy Hyun Joong. When I came to Seoul for the first time with my exchange program, I found him on the streets of HongDae playing his guitar with abandon while the rest of the drunken passers-by threw a few Won at him. The kid had immense amounts of talent and I did not want it to go to waste. Being the foreigner that I was, I gave him $200, worth about 200,000 Korean Won. He looked at me with those sparkling eyes that said “I don’t need money, I just need someone to appreciate my talent.” After that, we had a long talk about our countries and even in my broken Hangul and his pathetic English, we managed to connect. Even though Seoul’s teenagers were known for being notorious, I still took him in, knowing he would be my one and only true friend here. He was a free spirit like me, just taking what life offered him. Maybe the fact that we were both abandoned by our parents in our childhood struck me the most. Even amongst all the despair we found the little things that made us happy. For me, it was to be a travelling journalist and for him, a travelling musician. We aren’t all that different. I knew that undertaking his education and guitar lessons would cost me a bomb but I didn’t mind. He is practically my little brother now. Together we wreaked havoc in the streets of Seoul in the summer of 2009. When he found out that I was leaving after the end of the exchange program, he did not take it well. In fact, he stopped talking to me altogether until one stuffy afternoon last year. I got a sudden call from him when I was working in my office in downtown St. Louis. He informed me that the dream job and assignment I was looking for all my life was in front of his eyes. That was the first time I heard about him.

 

When Hyun Joong described him to me, I realized I had to go to Seoul right away. He was the news, he was the center of attention and he was the heartbeat of South Korea. With millions of fans around the world, he managed to paralyze males and females alike. I worked myself to death, locked away in my claustrophobic office amidst piles of paper work and articles, researching every fact about the catastrophically famous Jung Ji Hoon. I collected every piece of controversial information about him hoping it would be valuable later on.

 

After that, I spent an entire week trying to convince my editor at Now St. Louis to let me work in Seoul and to cover tourism there. After arguments and negotiations, she let me go. However, she told me that her magazine was absolutely not responsible for what happens overseas and that the management would completely change. I said yes. Anything. Anything that would give me a chance to meet him, I was ready for. Sonja turned out to be just as crazy as me because she was actually running a tabloid under the pretense of tourism. Sales were falling fast last year and she took drastic measures to save her magazine. For that, she needed me. I would do the dirty jobs like getting the scoops on the Korean pop industry. I felt like a cheap paparazzi creep but it was all worth it. I get to see him almost three times a week. As pathetic as that sounds, running after him was the only exciting thing in my life at the moment.