Sixteen: JOOHYUK

Secrets of Attraction

Ost. 16


The last time I'd woken up wicked early on a Saturday was my first year in basketball. I can still remember my parents mumbling across the field with their cups of coffees, cheering me on as I tried my hardest to stay away from the ball. While there was more to my demise in sports than getting up early, it never meant anything goof. This was different, though.

It was the Saturday to end all Saturdays.

The Saturday I'd spend with Bae Suzy.

After a quick pit stop at Soop to get provisions for our ride, I drove to Suzy's. All a part of my grand non-birthday plan that I'd come up with the night after we played at 2STO. I had wanted to surprise her, like really surprise her, but not in the I-hate-to-be-the-center-of-attention way again. It had to be unexpected. Impressive enough to make her eyes light up the way they did when she spoke about art or going to design camp. That's when I thought of Jeju Waters, how stoked she'd been about the Yoo Jaesoon project she was working on the day she showed me the logos.

Perfect except for the endless travel things that made it next to impossible for a day trip. Enter Aunt Lia, more persuading than I'd done in Debate 101, and finally a birthday overnighter that I knew (or at least hoped) would rock her world.

Suzy was sitting on her front porch, duffel bag at her feet. The moment I saw her, my mind went into panic mode - what if this was an idiotic idea? What if we had nothing to talk about for the three hour travel? There was no turning back, and I kind of dug it. We were in this together. I put the car in park, grabbed her drink, and climbed up the steps to meet her.

"I only get up this early for Yoo Jaesoon." She stood and swatted the back of her pants.

"Am I allowed to say happy birthday?" I handed her a hot chocolate I'd picked up at Soop and hoisted her bag over my shoulder.

She brought the cup to her face, peeking into the spout

"Okay I lied, getting up early for your hot chocolate works too." She closed her eyes and took a sip. "Mmm."

Ms. Bae stepped out onto the porch, opening her arms wide to Suzy. "Give me a hug, birthday girl."

Suzy opened her arms awkwardly, holding up her cup and raising her chin over her mom's shoulder, laughing. When they parted, Ms. Bae looked at me.

"You don't text and drive, do you?"

"No, ma'am."

"Speeding?"

"Eomma, come on."

"Nope, the rental car won't be going over sixty-five, so no worries."

Suzy laughed.

"You have cash on you? Your phone is charged?"

"Yes and yes, eomma. And we'll make stops and eat when we're hungry. No worries. Thanks for letting me go. I don't know any yoga slang, but, um, bliss out today at training." Suzy hugged her again.

"At least text me at some point today, okay? Or leave a voicemail, let me know you got there in one piece."

"Will do." Suzy gave her a kiss on the cheek, then grabbed my arm.

"Let's go before she changes her mind," she whispered.

I tossed her bag into the back seat, and opened the passenger-side door. I remembered what she said about Jisoo having a ty ride and braced myself for her assessment of the drive. It wasn't much, I knew that, but it got me from point A to point B without any trouble. I slid into the driver's seat and made sure I had the right address to the airport.

"Omo, you have an eight-ball stick shift? Cool."

Whew.

"So I made us a playlist, easy listening's your jam, right?" I said.

She wrinkled her nose. "What?"

I started the car as GOT7 exploded through the speakers.

"Just messing with you."

Her smile fueled me.

After dropping off my car and checking into the airport, we landed on Jeju Island. An hour and a half into the ride we had exhausted every hokey car game. Twenty questions. I Spy. And a version of the license-plate game that hadn't start out as but quickly debased into primary school humor. Suzy had declared me the winner for Astonishing Wombat-365 for using an unexpected adjective with a mammal native to Australia. We were already into Pennsylvania but still had about an hour to go. We were both about to tear the roof off.

"I bet we aren't even going to Jeju Water. You're kidnapping me, aren't you?"

"You're right. We're heading to Japan."

"Mountains or city?"

"Um, mountains."

"The Hot Springs," she said, as if it were a real decision we were making. "What would do there?"

"Enjoy the hot spring?"

"Omo, nooo."

"Ohhkay . . . then, what?"

She put her feet up on the dash, hugging her knees into her chest. "Is this okay? That my feet are up here?"

"You really have to ask?"

"Okay, then this is what we'd do - we'd get roasted peanuts and ride the cable car up the mountain, then we enjoy the nature around the hot spring before relaxing."

"Relaxing?"

"Yes, 'cause it's perfect and hear the environment speaks to us, then we'd window-shop in the neighboring market and get a headache from the incense in the head shop."

I laughed and glanced over at her. "A headache from a head shop?"

"Yeah." She smiled and looked out the window. "And then we'd get lost and take in all the insane colors of the Japanese history, and listen to street performers and walk and walk until our legs felt like they were going to fall off."

"Wait, when does this get fun?"

"Then we'd find this little ramen restaurant that serves the best udon soup you've ever had in your life. And we'd drink red wine for the extra flare. And when we come out, it'll be nighttime and the full moon along the skyline will make you feel like you're in another world. And it will be the best day ever."

She spoke with such detail and conviction, it sounded more like a memory.

"You've done this, haven't you?"

"There are perks to having a family friend who is a pilot. Juhoon took us when I was sixteen. Around spring break. we went for a long weekend. It's one of those places that just stays with you."

"Cool. Have you gone anywhere else?"

"We went to Hong Kong once. And Taiwan . . . but nowhere worldly like Europe or anything."

"Well, the worldiest place I've been to is, like, Lotte World. We had to wait thirty minutes so my sister could get her picture taken with the Beast. Go me!" I said, fist pumping.

She took her feet down from the dash and shifted in her seat so she was partially facing me. A good ten minutes passed with the sputtering of the rental the only noise between us. We'd even exhausted my road trip playlist at that point. I concentrated on the road, but all I wanted to do was look at her.

"Everything's okay?"

"That guy Juhoon, the one you met when I dyed your hair - he's my father."

"You call him Juhoon?"

"Yes, I call him Juhoon because up until about a month ago I didn't even know he was my father. He didn't know either. My mother told us because, well, she's 'living her truth' in yoga, but that's a different story. He's here kind of figuring out some stuff, and I guess she thought why not throw this into the mix too."

I should have been able to come up with something that would make it all better, or to show that I understood, but all I could come up with was, "Suzy . . . whoa . . . ."

She laughed. "Yeah, that was pretty such my reaction."

"I mean, he seems cool."

"He is cool, and I think he's having the same problem as I am - how are we supposed to think differently about each other? But we're trying. I didn't want to put a downer on the day, Jjwogi. It's a good thing, really. I just, well, I wanted you to know. It felt like I was keeping a secret from you and I don't want to do that. Friends know about each other's lives."

"Jjwogi? That's cute. Um, are they together?"

She shook her head. "No. They've been friends, like, forever, but I always wondered why they never got together. I guess they sort of did, at least for one night. Which is kind of weird to think about."

"Wow."

"Now you have to tell me something about your family."

I changed lanes to let a pickup truck speed by us. "We're not that interesting."

"It's all new, everything's interesting." She reached around the backseat and rustled through the Soop bag, pulling out a small container of fruit and cheese. "Want some?"

I shook my head.

"Come on, just a grape," she said, holding one out to me.

"Toss it."

"You're driving."

"You look like you have good aim." I opened my mouth as she tossed the grape. It grazed my ear. We swerved a bit. "Okay, maybe not a good idea."

"Here." She leaned over and popped the grape into my mouth. "Now give me something."

"Information for a grape?"

"Something like that."

I thought a minute while I chewed. "Those were my parents you met the other night. Abeoji's an ex-producer turned developer professor wannabe author. Eomeoni's an accountant. I still walk in on them groping each other - it's gross."

"Or adorable."

"No - it's gross, period. I have a little brother, Joon, who doesn't speak much yet, so he's okay, and a ten-year-old sister whose main mission in like is to make mine miserable."

"I think you're being mean. No grapes if you're mean." She smiled.

"They're okay, even Josie when she wants to be. Better?"

"Yep." She fed me another grape. "Why don't you wear your infinity bracelet anymore?"

I practically did a double-take. "You noticed that?"

She flustered slightly. "Oh, um - you used to wear it in Soop. I always thought - well, I thought it was cool, and now I see you don't have it on."

"That story might cost you a cheese cube."

"Ha, here," she said, honoring my request.

"It was from my ex, Sungkyung. We had matching wristbands. She's with the old developer from Samsan."

"Wait - is that - Was he in the band that played at CJ E&M Dance?"

"Yeah, why?"

Her brow raised, she chewed her lip and nodded, as if she'd just figured something out.

"What?"

"Nothing, how much longer do we have?" She clasped the top of the takeout container and put it back into the Soop bag.

"Our ETA is about an hour to go."

She yawned. "Mind if I take a nap?"

"Wait, so that's it? I don't get to ask you anything else?"

She reclined the seat, curling her legs beneath her. "I'm so tired."

"I think you're just avoiding it.

"See, you know me already." She snuggled into the seat, closing her eyes. "And I may snore, so don't like me any less."

"Impossible," I whispered.

✿ Secrets of Attraction ✿

"Hey," I nudged Suzy.

I'd managed to make it through the gates, and even paid the parking fee without waking her up. Her face was scrunched against the seat, mouth slightly open. She had snored a bit, but I decided to keep that to myself. She snorted awake on the third nudge, rubbing her nose and squinting as he scanned the wooded area we were parked in.

"Omo, we're here!"

Suzy was out of the car before I wrestled the key from the ignition. She reached for the sky, staring up at the canopy of trees, then shivered, crossing her arms.

I shrugged off my jacket to her protests.

"What are you doing?"

"You look like you need this. I've got a hoodie in the trunk, consider it a birth-"

"Lalalalala," she said, plugging her ears. "We're not using that B word, okay?"

"Take it." I held it out for her until she put her arms into the sleeves.

We walked through woods, to a gazebo, and picked up our tour tickets. Suzy wandered around the pavilion, as if she'd been a captive on a desert island and hadn't seen anything quite like this. She ran her hands across the railings, looked up at the rafters, out to the forest. Her lips moving every so often, she laughed to herself.

I waved her over and she took my arm again as we walked with the other tourists, down to a mossy path that followed along a stream. The sound of rushing water echoed through the dense, bare trees as we squished our way along the soft earth toward the house. It was overcast, and slightly misty, but suddenly the house was there, across a wide ravine, in our sight. Suzy slowed down while the other people in our tour group flowed around us.

She pulled me over to the side, so we were directly across from the front of the house, or maybe it was the back - I wasn't sure. It looked exactly like the picture online - all modern, windows, and rushing water, with a staircase that led to the water below - but smaller somehow. To be honest, I didn't understand what was so impressive about it. The colors were sort of oatmeal and that burnt umber crayon that's always broken and no one uses. Suzy was captivated as she took in everything.

"You know, I really don't get-" She put her fingers against my lips, still staring straight, eyes darting over the lines and angles, until a small smile crossed her lips.

"It's real," she whispered, finally looking at me. She laughed. "It's real."

"One-thirty tour," a voice called.

"That's us!" She tugged on my hoodie, leading us over to the group. Suzy dragged us front-and-center while the tour guide, a woman about eomeoni's age wearing plaid rain boots, gave her a head-to-toe once-over.

"You've got the coolest job," Suzy said, instantly winning the woman over. By the end of the tour, she knew Suzy's name. In fact, by then, everyone knew Suzy's name. From the moment she set foot in the house, she was like me at thirteen on Christmas morning, the year I opened up the Digital Storm console I'd begged for three months. She flitted through the house, taking in the furniture, the artwork, stopping and staring and holding herself back from touching the flat stones that made up the walls.

"Look at this, isn't this just genius?"

It was the staircase to the water.

"Convenient for swimming," I said.

She laughed. "Weren't you listening? The water regulates the temperature when it's warm out: a built-in cooling system. And it's so pretty, isn't it? Bringing the outdoors in, and the indoors out? I love that. Can you imagine chilling here, reading a book or watching the world go by, probably drinking something like a Rob Roy?"

"I see trees," I said. "And what's a Rob Roy?"

She slapped my arm.

Suzy's favorite words on the tour were Can you imagine?

Can you imagine waking up to this view?

Can you imagine someone famous stayed here? We're walking where they walked.

Can you imagine . . . it's a freaking Pablo Picasso, right there in front of us, as art on your wall?

And all the while I looked at her. Experienced her. On the master terrace - sort of the nerve center of the house that went out over the water - she took my hand.

"Close you eyes, Jjwogi, listen. Hear that?"

"Yep," I said, listening but not sure if the rushing sound was the water below or the blood through my brain as I felt her hand in mine. It was small and cold, but strong and soft at the same time.

"It wasn't enough for Yoo Jaesoon that his client had a view of the waterfall, he made them the waterfall. They were in it."

She turned us around to face the house. "Open your eyes. See? See the lines now? How it just-"

"Makes sense. Feels like a part of the forest."

She squeezed my hand, then let go. "Yes!"

"You still can't walk through the rooms."

"Because that's what I look for in a house." She walked back into the house to join the tour again.

Her enthusiasm was contagious, She tossed out words like cantilever and organic architecture and when we reached a small room one of the occupants had used as an office, where a half circle had been cut out of a desk to accommodate the opening of a window so the room would have no corners, she whispered, "Brilliant." The tour ended up by the guest house, a place we reached by climbing a wide, winding stairway covered by a curved cement canopy that connected it to the main house. Whoever stayed here must have been in decent shape.

"Can you imagine this being your room? Your own swimming pool and everything? Damn. And look, see how it all starts here," she said, her fingers following the line of the canopy that went to the house. "The cascading lines follow all the way down to that staircase to the water, to make it look like the waterfall."

"Hence the name Jeju Water."

That earned me another slap. It was worth it. The ninety thousand won. The three and a half-hour flight and drive. The absolute undiluted joy on her face was worth it all.

"Come on, I want to see it from the front again." She skipped off ahead of me.

I caught up to her and we walked toward a vantage point where a group of people were taking a picture.

"Your turn," I said, pulling out my phone.

Suzy posed with the house behind her, First serious, then funny, then cute.

"I can take a picture of the two of you if you like," said an older gentleman who'd been waiting his turn to get a picture.

"Yes, come on, Jjwogi."

I handed him the phone, already set to take a picture, and walked over to her.

"Don't push me in," I said.

She put an arm around my waist and pulled herself closer to me. I was sure the autofocus would zero in on my smile, clearly the biggest focal point. We thanked the guy for taking the picture.

"Okay, let's leave, if I stayed any longer we'll be here until the sun goes down. I'm so hungry I could eat a handful of that moss."

"Now on to phase two."

"Phase two?"

"Aunt Lia's."

 

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Dodal94 #1
Chapter 26: Aww a happy ending.thank u,i enjoyed reading ur story.i hope u wrote more of namzy..i am a big fans of dis couples too😉
Dodal94 #2
Chapter 23: Thanx for the updates ,i loce how dis story goes..and im waiting for next update..fighting!!!
Dodal94 #3
Chapter 18: Omg aunt lia.why were you awake.haha
I love your story,i have liked namzy since start up.its so great to found this story.keep it up.hope more story coming out💕
Ghad20
11 streak #4
Owww just my cup of coffee ♥
mialees #5
Chapter 1: Hi, writer. I'm waiting for your update.
Hot Yogi and barista ❤️