YEAR 2010: FIRST PULL

THE weather was mild; people could see some cherry blossomed beautifully although the sun has set. I was in the middle of enjoying my own solemn sightseeing when suddenly I heard a loud murmur and some scream from my left side.

What welcomed my eyes was a crowd filled with girls whose hands were busy with their gadgets trying their best to capture whatever sparks they had hooked themselves with. Must be some idols happened to be around this area taking their shoots or something.

Throughout my whole three months stay here, I’ve seen lots of people around my age or even younger diligently following the idols of their life. They made a large crowd that sometimes hindered the other passerby.

It was at times like that, that my instinct alarmed me to move away from the area. Avoid the crowd as best as I could, should I want to stay in one piece. I’ve heard about people sometimes being kicked or even trampled over by that kind of crowd, never seen one live but saw the victim once.

Claire, a twenty two years old woman who took the same intensive language course with me at Yonsei University, once came with battered fingers. She had to rely on our kind hearted side in order to get a week’s worth of notes. She couldn’t write when her right hands got bruised all over due to being pushed around and eventually fell on the ground when she was met with the crowd and didn’t manage to evacuate. Always the curious one, that Claire.

I learned from her experience and always got myself out of the way whenever this kind of crowd nearing, curiosity killed the cat.

*******

I blew out a very heavy breath; my peaceful night has been successfully being disturbed by a phone call from Professor Kim.

I was on my way to one of my friends’ loft at Itaewon when I was asked about my whereabouts. It turned out to be that my boss got caught in the traffic and that the latest client had contacted her to pick up some files, I had to fetch it instead since I was around the neighborhood of their supposed meeting location.

The bell dinged as I pushed the door. The interior of the café looked very haggard in a way that didn’t really imply a café at all. Had I not being told by my boss that this place is a café, I doubt myself that I would see it as one.

With timid steps, I walked past people with lots of piercings. I had to touch my nose every so often due to the smokes that was choking me. I wonder what kind of person I would meet.

“What do you want to order?” the scary waiter who donned the same funky style with the customers asked me as I observed his rainbow colored hair.

I cleared my throat before I asked politely, “I’m here to meet with Mr. Lee Hyuk Joo.”

The waiter’s eyebrow rose before he asked me again, “Kim Min Kyeong?”

“Ehm…no,” I replied. “Her assistant, Karin.”

“Sure,” he replied nonchalantly and turned his head toward the small glass window in the middle of the wooden wall, banged his fist onto it before shouting in a perfect English. “We got a Karin here, Jo! Said to be Kim Min Kyeong’s assistant!”

I always judged people by their look, I knew then I shouldn’t. For a Korean, it’s common to have their tongue created some accent when they speak English. But this rainbow colored waiter doesn’t have any accent at all, like a native although his look betrayed the native feel.

The man called Jo showed himself to me and I had to do a double take at him. He looks normal, 180 degrees in contrast with those who were there. No piercings, no tattoo, nothing but that plain milky skin that every Korean woman has.

He nodded at me and showed me his gummy smile, “Hello, may I know your name?”

I blinked twice before my hand reacted and search for my ID card, showed it to Jo and said, “Karin, assistant to Professor Kim.”

Jo blinked while I found the rainbow colored waiter bored his eyes on me. A second later, I found myself regretting my impulse.

“You can keep your ID, Karin-ssi. I was just asking your name because I didn’t quite catch your name earlier.” Jo said, his eyes pulled into a crescent.

“Okay,” was what I managed to offer in that kind of situation.

The waiter chuckled while Jo elbowed him. Then, Jo cleared his throat and handed me the files. I checked the content, after making sure that it was indeed the files that Professor Kim needed, I said my excuse.

“Careful on your way back, mini Min Kyeong!”

I halted my steps, did a double check on my surrounding to find the rainbow colored hair waiter waved at me while Jo was biting back a smile. With a small nod and other careful steps, I exited the weirdly haggard café.

*******

I’ve seen that Family Mart, I knew I wasn’t that far from my destination. With steady steps, I walked while my head kept on bobbing to CNBlue’s title song: I’m a loner.

How many times have my body been bumped by people over here? More than ten times already. What did I do actually? I did stay on the right lane of the street, what’s with all the hurry people?

And just when the song hit its most exciting part, the part where the sad word are being repeated again and again, I took a long step to turn left.

Sad night indeed, what are the odds to have met a large crowd which majority filled with teens flailing their gadgets here and there twice in one day?

Super sad night. I got swept away, unable to hold my ground. I blanked out, being brushed aside and bumped out. Girls were pushing and pulling from every direction. Now that I lost my earphones due to excessive push and pull, I could hear the scream.

It wasn’t the worst till my leg chose to jumble themselves and in result, I fell but not without pulling the others down with me. I could hear their shriek, or was it a curse?

Those girls are really something, aren’t they? How dare they tell me to get lost even though they were the one who did this to me? What good things that will come out of stalking this nation’s idols? Don’t they have something, anything useful to do?

Aww sheesh, nu-uh not that brown folder! Nooooooooo!

Die, I’m so going to die. Professor Kim will kill me now that the brown folder got smashed by wailing girls. I could feel my anger gauge going higher by each second.

Quickly I gathered by stuffs, save the papers close to me and shoved it all into my bag. I was huffing loudly attempting to deal with my anger deep inside while doing my best to get up and leave.

An arm suddenly reached out with its hand holding the brown folders that was smashed earlier, I grabbed it hastily as I looked into the owner of the hands that helped me picking up my stuffs.

That man helped me up to my feet; he wore a black tights and black leather jacket with black boots. I didn’t look at his face though I could smell some kind of soft vanilla fragrance combined with fresh citrus and some other scent that I couldn’t distinguish, sensing that suddenly I was out of people’s push and pull though I still could hear their painful scream only meant one thing: I’m with the source of the crowd.

Nodded hastily, I scurried out. My peripheral vision caught a glimpse of the so called source, tall and slim figure in whole black attire including black aviator in that breezy night. With the help of some bulky men, I was out of the crowd in no time and continued my journey to Hanilkwan with jumpy hearts.

All in all, my ears caught some whispers or rather murmur of one name: Jae Joong, they called him oppa with their nasal voice.