Jae-seung

Jae-seung was at the police station when his handphone rang. The police officer taking his statement gave him an annoyed look. Jae-seung gave a little bow in apology.

“The agency president,” he explained. “And he must have found out just now what happened.” The officer gave a little resigned shake of his head, but didn’t comment.

“Hello, sajangnim ,” Jae-seung said. “I’m sorry at the police station right now. I’ll call you back later.” And he ended the call while the person on the other end was still sputtering wordlessly. “Now where were we, sir?”

“They let you do that now?” the policeman—Officer Park-- said. “I seem to remember several years ago you could hardly move without someone telling you to shut your mouth.”

“I was an ignorant kid then,” Jae-seung answered. “And I didn’t do anything this time.”

Officer Park grunted in what could have been amusement.

“This is just a small incident, anyway, but you came in to make the report yourself,” he said, giving Jae-seung a look.

“Well, I might as well,” Jae-seung answered. “By now it’s common knowledge I was at the scene and you would have come around to question me anyway. Also, sir, it’s not quite a small incident. I helped to bring the girl to the hospital.”

“And…?”

Jae-seung explained what had happened. Officer Park looked at him with more interest. He admitted he didn’t quite know the proper procedure for locating the family of a crime victim who had lost her memory and who was a foreigner, but he would ask the higher-ups. He did give Jae-seung a suspicious look when he found out about the hospital agreeing to release the girl to him, but Jae-seung reiterated his story and he agreed that Jae-seung was perhaps the only person who was acquainted with her.

“She should be in the custody of her embassy, but we don’t know which embassy. We could take custody, but we have no room for her, and Social Services need their own room for their clients, so you having temporary custody would be a help.” He fixed Jae-seung with a stare. “But what about you?”

“Huh?” Jae-seung asked blankly.

“You. Seo Jae-seung. Your career. Your fans. Wouldn’t it cause a scandal?”

“Sir, you know where I live. I wouldn’t really be alone with her in the house, if that’s what you mean. And I could always send her to stay with one of the secretaries or assistants, not with me.”

“Ah, but you accepted custody. You, not someone else.”

Jae-seung shrugged.

“She’s not my type, Officer. You’d know if you saw her. Besides, do you really need to give the press the details if they asked for the story? Just tell them she’s fine and she’s now recovering from her injury, and the incident will be forgotten in a few days.”

Officer Park tapped his pen on the table.

“All right. But I will be coming around to check on her in a day or two.”

“Sure, Officer. If that is all, then perhaps I can go now?”

The policeman nodded. “We’ll call you if we have any information.”

“Thank you, sir.”

As he headed out of the police station, he reached into his pocket for his phone, then frowned at his hand. This isn’t my phone… whose…? Oh. Right. It’s hers. For a moment he debated going back inside and surrendering the phone, but then that would raise the question of why he had it in the first place and why he didn’t produce it when he made his report. The plain truth—“I forgot”—might not be considered a sufficient excuse.

Besides, the damned thing seemed to have emptied its battery. It refused to turn on. He put it back in his pocket and reached into another pocket for his own phone.

“Yes, hyung , I would appreciate it if you came by and picked me up.”

* * *

“But, Jae-ah!” Kang Nam-seok's voice came out as a whine at the end. “You caaan't!”

“Hyung, we've been over this once already,” Jae-seung said resignedly. “It's not like I'm the only one living in the compound. I’ve got Sam-dong and housekeeper ahjumma living in my house. Everyone else in the compound visits all the time.”

“It's not that! It's... what will the kids think?”

“The kids have their own dorms. They can do the same thing when they get old enough to have their own houses.” Jae-seung held his breath, watching his hyung out of the corner of his eye.

“If I weren't driving, I'd hit you with something,” Nam-seok threatened. “Are you so eager to be a bad influence?”

“How could I be a bad influence? I saved the girl and now I'm giving her a place to stay until she can go home. How is that bad? The only bad thing is other people thinking malicious thoughts.”

Nam-seok braked for a red light, snatched up a small pillow from his lap, and smacked Jae-seung, who was sitting in the seat beside him. Jae-seung ducked and laughed.

“I’m serious, Jae-ah,” Nam-seok said. “And to think I wouldn’t have known that you were out of your house if I didn’t make it a habit to check the Internet before going to bed—and the first thing I saw was your face, trending fast!”

“It wasn’t my fault, hyung! I just happened to be there when stuff happened!”

“Yes, but you know the rules in this kind of thing as much as I do… why couldn’t you just have walked on by and not gotten involved?”

“I could have used the publicity?”

“Be serious!”

“Would you like my noonas to punch me?”

“Heavens, no. There are four of them and they’re all ferocious as tigresses!”

“Exactly, hyung. And what do you think my four noonas would do to me if they found out I didn’t do anything to help a girl in trouble?” Jae-seung knew he was clutching at straws by then, but on the other hand, Nam-seok was terrified of his sisters. They tended to gang up on him whenever they met.

“But why... it could have been okay that you brought her to the hospital… but to volunteer to take her in afterwards?” Nam-seok’s voice rose again.

“The light changed,” Jae-seung pointed out helpfully. “And don’t whine, hyung. It doesn’t suit you. Sajangnim.”

His former manager and now the president of Royal Ent., the agency he had signed with after leaving Divinity, glared at him and got the car moving again.

“Is she pretty?” Nam-seok demanded after a while.

“No.”

“Then whyyyy?”

“Don’t miss the turn, hyung,” Jae-seung said.

“Don’t change the subject,” Nam-seok said, making the turn.

Jae-seung sighed.

“I had to, hyung. The other guy who helped to bring her to the hospital was a jerk. I couldn’t leave her with him.”

From the look on Nam-seok’s face, he would have banged his head on the steering wheel if he wasn’t driving.

“I would really, really, really like to ground you for the next couple of weeks,” he pronounced slowly.

“But you can’t,” Jae-seung pointed out the obvious.

Nam-seok gave him another glare.

“Of course I can’t. I may be president of Royal, but if I ever grounded you…”

“Ah, but you won’t, hyung.” Jae-seung winked at him. “I’m perfectly happy with the way things currently are—just as long as we keep our personal lives, well, personal.”

“Sometimes I wonder why I ever signed with you…!”

“Isn’t that supposed to be the other way around, hyung…?”

“Don’t change the subject, you punk!”

* * *

It was well past midnight when Nam-seok deposited Jae-seung on his doorstep inside the Royal compound before driving on to his own house, still grumbling under his breath.

The house was dark and silent. Jae-seung let himself in and decided not to turn on any lights. He ended up stumbling over the foot of the stairs and barking his ankles. Grumbling, he managed to stumble over only two more steps before getting upstairs. Then he miscalculated the distance to his bedroom door and almost walked into the wall.

As he was rubbing his forehead, he heard a click and the hallway light came on.

“You really have to stop doing this, Jae-ah,” his personal assistant, Choi Sam-dong, said severely. He was standing at the end of the hall with his arms crossed, scrutinizing Jae-seung through his eyeglasses. “It was bad enough you were suspected of brawling during your days in Divinity. You really can’t afford a black eye now, you know—not when you have a script reading scheduled in a couple of days.”

Jae-seung sighed. He had opened his bedroom door and stepped inside before the full import of Sam-dong’s words struck him. He turned around and leaned back out the door, almost toppling as he did so, and saving himself by clutching the doorpost. Sam-dong closed his eyes and shook his head resignedly.

“What script reading?” he asked.

“I take it Nam-seok hyung forgot to tell you earlier? He was able to get you a part in Silla Doctor. It’s not the lead—they insisted on an established big-name actor for that—but it is the second lead.”

“Jeon-gu Rang ? I got the part of Jeon-gu Rang?” Jae-seung’s eyes lit up.

“Mm.” Sam-dong nodded.

“Yess!” Jae-seung did a fist-pump, lost his balance completely, and was only saved from falling flat on his back by Sam-dong sprinting to catch him, having anticipated what would happen.

“Really, I still wonder how you got through your trainee years and five years in Divinity,” Sam-dong clucked as Jae-seung regained his feet.

“Simple. I never danced if I could help it. There’s a reason Divinity was a singing group, not a singing-and-dancing group.” Jae-seung grinned unrepentantly.

Sam-dong snorted.

“Well, anyway, that means your vacation has ended again, because you’ll start filming soon. You’re going to be busy for the next three, four months,” he said. “So you had better prepare.”

“Speaking of preparing,” Jae-seung said suddenly. “Sam-dong-ah. Tomorrow morning please have someone get one of the spare rooms ready. We have a guest staying for a while. Wake me up tomorrow early so we can fetch her.”

“A guest? Who is it? Your mom?” Sam-dong practically drooled. “I hope she brings a lot of her banchan.”

“No, not Mom this time.”

“Oh, no. Never tell me one of your noonas is finally coming for a visit.”

“No.”

“Then who?”

“Ask Nam-seok hyung, because I’m going to bed now. Good night.” Jae-seung closed the door on Sam-dong’s protests. He walked across the room, shedding a trail of clothing in his wake, and fell right into bed.

* * *

Despite Jae-seung’s plans, however, it was noon by the time they arrived back home from the hospital the next day. For one thing, Mi-ah was still asleep when they arrived, since she hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before; for another, Doctor Choi insisted on giving her another checkup before he released her. And then there were paperwork to see to, bills to settle, prescriptions to fill, and last-minute instructions to note down.

Finally, though, they walked into his house, to be met and welcomed by ahjumma, who clucked sympathetically over Mi-ah and led her upstairs to the room that had been readied for her. Sam-dong excused himself to see about lunch, and after a while Jae-seung went up to his own room.

Ahjumma had already tidied up; the clothes he’d left on the floor were gone, and the contents of his pockets were lined up on his desk. He frowned when he noticed Mi-ah’s handphone; he’d forgotten it was in the pocket of the hoodie he’d dropped on the floor last night. Making another mental note to have Sam-dong hunt up a charger, he opened a drawer and tossed the phone in for safekeeping.

He was changing into more comfortable clothes when ahjumma knocked on the door and put her head in.

“I put her in the bedroom your mother always uses,” she said. “I’ll go set the table so you can have lunch.”

“Thank you, ahjumma,” Jae-seung said, and she nodded and withdrew. He finished pulling on a gray t-shirt and left the room. In the hall, he hesitated a moment then walked over to Mi-ah’s door and knocked.

“It’s open,” she called, and he went in to find her sitting on the bed. She got to her feet quickly.

“Lunch will be soon; are you ready to go back downstairs?” he asked.

She looked uncertain.

“I—I would like to take a bath first,” she said. “Could I have lunch here instead? I don’t want to delay your meal.”

“It’s all right, we can wait,” he said.

“But… my clothes might take too long to dry,” she said, and then bit her lip, as if she shouldn’t have said what she did.

“Huh?” Jae-seung asked in confusion.

“I… don’t have anything to change into,” she clarified.

“Oh!” He could have kicked himself for not realizing it sooner. She was still wearing the clothes she’d worn the previous day. He thought about going downstairs and asking ahjumma to lend her some clothes—but on the other hand, ahjumma was busy.

“Just go take a bath,” he said, indicating the bathroom. “I’ll see about borrowing something you can wear.”

She smiled gratefully, and padded across the room barefoot. He realized he’d better do something about slippers as well. But first, clothes. And then he better go have Sam-dong make a list and head out for some shopping.

* * *

“I don’t know why you don’t just ask her what she needs,” Sam-dong grumbled as he made notes. “Or better yet, just take her shopping.”

“Do you want to take her shopping? Because if I do, you’ll have to run interference and make sure I don’t get recognized.”

“That I can do,” Sam-dong assured him. “Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t know, where Mi-ah wants to go, I guess.”

“I heard my name,” she said from the stairs. “Are you talking about me?”

“Finally, lunch,” Sam-dong said in English.

“I’m sorry for the delay,” Mi-ah said hastily. “I hope you aren’t too hungry!”

Both Sam-dong and Jae-seung looked up as she reached the foot of the stairs. Sam-dong gave an odd little cough.

Jae-seung stared. When he’d decided to lend Mi-ah some of his clothes to wear for the meantime, he’d mostly been thinking about whether they would fit her, since she wasn’t really that thin. Apparently they fit all too well in all the right places, although they were too long for her. She has a waist, he found himself thinking stupidly as he took in the sight of Mi-ah in one of his gray t-shirts and sweatpants, carrying the matching hoodie folded over her arm. She was still barefoot.

Ahjumma chose that moment to announce that lunch was ready.

“Your mouth is hanging open, boss,” Sam-dong murmured as he walked past Jae-seung.

“Shut up, or I’ll send you to buy lingerie,” Jae-seung retorted.

Those pants really do fit all too well, he thought as he walked behind Mi-ah to the dining room, trying not to look lower than her waist and failing.




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Footnotes:

Sajangnim – “Mr. Company President,” “boss”

Hyung – “older brother”, how a Korean male addresses his older brother, as well as older male relatives or close friends who are in the same generation. In this case, Jae-seung uses it to address an older male friend.

Ahjumma - literally, "auntie," an older woman in one's parents' generation.

Noona – “older sister”, how a Korean male addresses his older sisters, as well as older female relatives and close friends in the same generation. Jae-seung is referring to his real sisters here.

Silla – one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, existing from around 57 BC to 935 AD.

Rang – An officer in the Hwarang (literally, “flower boys”), the elite military corps of Silla, composed mostly of young men from noble families.

Banchan – the side dishes that customarily accompany a Korean meal. They may be as few as three varieties and as many as twelve, including different kinds of kimchi.

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