September 2016

Back in high school, Nana didn’t care if she achieved first or second place on the class roster.  Her true goal was last place.  All she had to do was answer every question wrong on purpose during her senior year to spite her father who had sent her to military boarding school for three long months.  She had been miserable back then with so many stupid rules at home and at school.  Why couldn’t she smoke when she wanted to?  How many centimeters long did her skirt had to be?   All along it was her mother who intervened to convince her father that she had a real talent and that she should sign with Pledis Entertainment.  And now as her career crumbled over a flight attendant and Park Chanyeol, she could only blame herself for breaking her end of the bargain.  

Nana’s cell phone rang on top of her nightstand.  Her father’s phone number flashed on the screen.  Choux Crème, the cat, pounced on the phone.  With her paw, she playfully batted Nana’s hand as she answered the incoming call.  

“After five years, I received your final graduation notice from high school.  You had the best score, but I haven’t seen you fill out the application for the officer academy,”  her father said.  

“I thought the deal was to join the army not the academy, abeoji.”

Nana placed her head on the soft down pillow and sighed.  

“Now, if I had a daughter who couldn’t pass an exam with flying colors then I would think that the army would be a fine place.  But with your skills, you should be an officer instead.”

“I’ll get packing soon, abeoji,”  she said before he hung up the phone.  

Nana thought that it was best not to argue with her father.  She had given him so much grief already being an only child.  

As she grabbed her collection of Louis Vuitton bags on display and sorted out the best ones for her trip, Nana thought that maybe she was just plain spoiled and that perhaps this was daddy’s way of fixing the damage done growing up. 

She opened the closet revealing a mammoth shoe collection.   She packed five pairs of Jimmy Choo shoes and three Christian Louboutin heels in a huge oval trunk.  She packed French designer lounge wear and lingerie.  Nana packed so many things that her trunk overflew with clothing and she didn’t know what to do.  There was no way that she wasn’t going to leave any clothing piece out. With her shoes off, she jumped up and down on top of the heavy trunk to secure it shut.  It clicked closed and then she locked it with a key. 

After dropping the cat at harbeoji’s home, Nana traveled by train on the Jungang and Daegu lines to Yeongcheon located 350 km southeast of Seoul.  She dragged the huge trunk to the front of the Yeongcheon train station.  It was great exercise, but with Nana’s charm she managed to ask a couple of officers to carry the heavy trunk to the nearby bus station and then to the Korean Army Academy.  They dragged the trunk for 5 km straight catching their breath halfway while Nana walked the whole trajectory on her red bottom sole heels.   She thanked the officers and offered them an autograph.  Then she mentioned her mission.  

“I’m going to become an officer ”  Nana told them. 

The young men with buzzcuts and sand colored camouflage uniforms stared at each other with blank faces.  

“For a reality show?  We loved you on Real Men,”  one of them mentioned.  

“I’m here to take my entrance exam tomorrow”  she replied as the army officers opened the glass door of the triangular shaped building.   

“You are a model and an idol.  This has to be a prank.  Are we being recorded?”  The older ahjussi sergeant examined the edges of the Louis Vuitton trunk carefully as if he were searching for a hidden camera or a bomb.  

“No, I live my own reality.  I’m here to be an army officer.  I promised my father.”

The officers smirked and Nana wondered why they didn’t believe her.  She gazed at them with her huge eyes in pure disbelief.  

“But you are Nana,”  the lieutenant said.  “You sing and dance.  You are gifted in just being pretty. You couldn’t possibly pass the hardest exam of all.”

Nana combed a strand of her long hair back, curled half a smile an