A week later, Jihoon finds himself in the land of palm trees and blue skies. He drags his (newly bought) luggage behind him, sighing in relief after the intensely long flight, and the equally intense long line that stretched at immigration. For once, his English comes in handy, though it still feels foreign on his tongue. He’d made an impression on the immigration officer that he wasn’t a spy from the North, so he’d safely entered America, land of super-sized everything.

Soonyoung had promised to meet Jihoon at the airport, but LAX is huge, so Jihoon doesn’t know where to go. He mills around the Starbucks in the arrivals hall with his shiny new luggage (he thought went missing when it took forever to appear on the carousel), staring longingly at the overpriced coffee that he doesn’t have to money to buy. He’s only got a few dollars in his wallet; now he’s starting to think that this whole trip is just a waste of money; he should be working so that he can make more and live a comfortable life; or maybe he could be sleeping at home – sleep is always good.

“Hoonie? Is that you?” A familiar voice pops out from behind him. Soonyoung sounds wary for the first time in his life, but he lights up immediately once he sees his best friend’s face, and pulls him into a hug, Jihoon squirming in his embrace. “It’s been so long, Hoonie! You look so different!”

“Idiot. You’re not the only one who can dye your hair, y’know.” Jihoon says, rolling his eyes.

“Well, I’m glad to see you too!” Soonyoung pulls the newly blond Jihoon into another tight hug. All his life, Jihoon always had his natural black hair; but now he’s a changed man with his differently coloured hair – an impulse dye job, where he’d marched down to his usual hairdresser, demanding for change. His hairdresser had always only trimmed Jihoon’s hair, but given the chance to experiment with Jihoon’s hair, she’d picked up a box of dye and set to work, resulting in a shockingly suitable hair colour for the stuffy office man; not forgetting to give him a trendy hairstyle that could rival all those brooding idols on magazine covers. Now Jihoon looks like he’s a fun guy, but he’s still a grumpy old grandfather stuck in a twentysomething’s body with a baby face.

Ironically, Soonyoung, who’s always had his hair coloured with outrageous hues: green, blond, ash grey, blue; you name it – has black hair this time around, so again, their roles are somewhat reversed.

“Welcome to the other side of the world! This is Los Angeles!” Out of nowhere, Soonyoung whips out a camcorder from his bulky bag and starts to film himself and Jihoon.

“Are you…filming?” Jihoon feels conscious – he looks like his cat died (if he had one) on the tiny camera screen. Plus he hates being in the spotlight, that’s more of shameless Soonyoung. 

“Yeah! Say hi to the camera, Hoonie!” Soonyoung grins.

Jihoon does a feeble wave, and plasters on a fake smile, the same one he does when Mingyu from Human Resources invites him out for karaoke.

“Everyone, this is my best friend Jihoon, who’s just flown all the way from Seoul to meet me!” Soonyoung sounds too perky. “Join us in Soonie and Hoonie’s LA adventure, starting…now!”

Soonyoung puts the camera down after that last line, and Jihoon’s fake smile vanishes from his face. “Soonie and Hoonie’s LA adventure?” Jihoon narrows his eyes.

“It’s cute!” Soonyoung says, stuffing the camcorder into his oversized backpack. “I thought that it’s going to be a cool concept, y’know, best friends travelling together, having fun? Plus, this is my first time vlogging, I think it’d be better if I filmed everything so that I won’t miss anything!” Soonyoung usually writes about his adventures on his colourful website, his sentences mostly in caps to hype things up, and he overuses emojis.

“Right.” Jihoon swallows, with a weird feeling that this trip isn’t going to be normal. With Soonyoung, nothing’s ever normal anyway – and Jihoon’s uncomfortable with not normal that he wants to run back to Seoul and return to his normal life, because that’s all he knows.

“Don’t worry, Hoonie! I’ll take care of everything.” Soonyoung ruffles Jihoon’s head, messing up his hair. “We’ll get to our hotel now. Let’s go!” Soonyoung grabs Jihoon’s luggage and drags it behind him, leaving a flustered Jihoon to follow him.

The two of them weave around the crowd of travellers leaving the airport, but instead of taking public transport into the city like Jihoon expected, Soonyoung leads them both to the carpark. There can only be two possibilities: either Soonyoung’s taking a really long detour to the taxi stand, or he’s going to drive; and the former choice seems less likely as they stop in front of a shiny blue Audi, parked crookedly in the furthest spot from the entrance.

“You’re driving.” Jihoon says disbelievingly. When Soonyoung had gotten his driver’s licence, he’d dragged Jihoon along for a drive, which lasted only a few seconds as Soonyoung had promptly reversed into a pole. His heart immediately drops when Soonyoung fishes the car keys from the black hole he calls his backpack, and unlocks the car with a beep.

“I’ve gotten better, okay? I have an international licence now!” Soonyoung heaves Jihoon’s luggage into the small trunk.

Jihoon doesn’t say anything, anxiously watching his best friend try to squeeze his own backpack into the boot; it takes a few attempts for Soonyoung to jam the trunk shut. Soonyoung having an international licence means that he’s been wreaking havoc all over the world with a rented automobile since the past year and a half – but maybe he’s gotten better, Jihoon thinks; plus, who is he to judge, as he doesn’t have his own driving licence yet.

“Equipped with a dashboard camera to record our adventures on the road!” Soonyoung opens the door on the driver’s side with a flourish. “Hop in, Hoonie!”

Jihoon doesn’t have any other choice, so he complies. “You’d better drive properly.” He says, trying to repress a yawn. Fatigue has caught up with him, and his body feels so, so tired. He wants to look at the surroundings as they enter the City of Angels, but he can barely keep his eyes open, falling in and out of sleep. Soonyoung, ever the chatterbox, talks so much that they don’t need the radio – it’s like he’s hosting his own radio show as he drives, but Jihoon’s barely listening, and falls asleep, m