I fixed the strap of my purse which was slung over my shoulder as I stepped out of the international arrival gate at Incheon International airport. With my earphone still stuck tightly to my ears, I still concentrated on the Smashing Pumpkins song that was playing on my iPod and hummed the lyrics to Ava Adore as I walked towards baggage claim. I glanced towards the exit gate and saw that my aunt Grace was already standing there with her bright smile beaming, looking somewhat a little out-of-place in the midst of native Korean, being half-American and half-Korean. I smiled back and waved excitedly at her and as soon as I saw my suitcase on the conveyor belt, I quickly snatched the heavy thing and practically ran towards the exit gate, the little wheels on my suitcase made a weird grinding noise as I dragged it behind me. I could see aunt Grace shaking her head slowly at my silly routine every time I arrived at Seoul for the summer. I dropped my suitcase as I got to her and wrapped her in the biggest most suffocating hug I could do.

                “Do you always have to do this every summer?”

                “Cause I just missed you so much!”

Aunt Grace laughed lightly and let go of me, before putting a palm on the back of my head in a loving manner as we walked towards the airport exit. I breathed in the soothing air outside of Incheon Airport and was instantly reminded why I always went home to Seoul every summer. One of the many reasons I still call Seoul as home even though I’m only there for the summer. Aunt Grace just smiled knowingly at me as I just stood there at the exit looking over the busy city of Seoul.

                “It’s home again for the summer, Alice.”

I opened my eyes and looked to my side at Aunt Grace and smiled back at her.

                “Yeah… Home…”

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The shaky braking maneuver of the car pulled me out of my sleeping state. I’m a fairly light sleeper so it wouldn’t take more than a noise above average and a sudden movement to wake me up. I sat up groggily on the reclined car seat and looked around my surroundings, noticing that I’m not at Aunt Grace’s house.

                “Aunt Grace, where are we?”

Aunt Grace only answered with a smile before saying,

“A week before you’ve even arrived he already called me practically begging me to take you here once you’ve arrived so… I just didn’t wanna let the boy down.”

It took me a few seconds to fully process what Aunt Grace just said, but as I finally let the realization of where I was currently at sunk in, everything that Aunt Grace said made much more sense. I remember the tall building that consists of exclusive apartment rooms, which I remembered vividly as probably one of the sickest apartments I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I finally remember this parking lot, the one that I always associated with that sad look on his face each time I have to go back to California after summer was over.

                “Maddie!”

And of course I remember that deep voice that always called me Maddie, even though he’s well aware that my name is Alice. I looked over at Aunt Grace with a helpless look on my face and Aunt Grace clearly looked like she was trying so hard to stifle a laugh.

                “Seriously, Aunt Grace? I just got here.”

                “The boy is so convincing, okay, what was I supposed to do?”

                “You owe me one for this, Aunt Grace.”

She just shrugged her shoulder while giggling slightly as I got out of the car, and was immediately run over by a huge bull. Well, I was exaggerating when I said it was a bull, but I surely wasn’t exaggerating when I said he was huge. My air supply was almost cut off when my best friend Nate engulfed me in a tight hug that surely can kill at least a domestic animal. But no matter how I tried to say how annoying this is, I just simply couldn’t. He’s one of the major reasons why Seoul is still so appealing for me after all these years I spent living in the States. I found my home in Seoul, and most importantly, in him. For the next couple seconds we just stood there holding each other, enjoying each other’s company just like we used to for the past 16 years. Yes, that’s how long we’ve been best friends. I couldn’t even believe it myself that it’s been that long, and the dorky little 7-year-old boy that I met 16 years ago and became my best friend had virtually transformed into a man. After what seemed like forever, which I didn’t have any objections in so far, Nate finally let go of me. We looked at each other in the eyes and I noticed that that glint that he always had in his eyes is still there, meaning that he’s still my Nate, that all these years we spent talking on the phone and meeting only in the summer excitedly is real. Then Nate started blabbering away in Korean and I just rolled my eyes at that.

                “Nate, quit it, you know I can’t speak a word of Korean!”

                “And when are you gonna learn Korean, Maddie, you’re at least half Korean, for Christ’s sakes.”

                “I don’t have to since I stay here only for 3 months in a year. And my name is Alice.”

                “Then you can call me Siwon if you want me to call you that.”

                “But I don’t wanna, you know that. Besides, Nate sounded WAY better, right?”

                “It’s still gonna be Maddie, then.”

                “Are we gonna do this every summer?”

Nate and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. It was indeed our routine every time we meet each other for the first time in the summer, insisting to call each other with our correct names yet we never really got ourselves to do that, we were just comfortable with being Maddie and Nate to each other. I lived in Seoul for 6 years when I was little and went back for every summer after that but I can’t speak a word of Korean. I have my reasons not to learn and Nate was well aware of that. How we came to call each other Nate and Maddie is a totally different story, though. My real name is Alice and when Nate and I were little I used to imagine that I was in the story Alice in Wonderland. I remembered vividly at that time how Nate just burst out into a giggle when I told him that and he said that instead of Alice, I’m more like Mad Hatter. I got so mad at him because of that that I didn’t even want to see him for a good whole week. He would come to my house every day to tell me he was sorry and I would just ignore him. And then this one time, he came once again to apologize and I didn’t even open the door to my room for him. He amazingly stayed for at least an hour in front of my room and he flat out refused to leave. Then he said softly through the door, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t think you’re like Maddie at all’. And that somehow melted everything away. I opened the door to my room and instantly forgive him, I didn’t even know why. And since then he always calls me Maddie, it’s like he somehow knew that that’s what made me forgive him. And the reason why I call him Nate goes waaayyy back. His real name is Choi Siwon, but since I’ve been calling him Nate for as long as I can remember, that name kinda got stuck and I didn’t wanna call him by another name. It’s been like that for 16 years, why bother changing it?

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