My Summer in Seoul

I didn’t look over my shoulder. “Are you writing music?”

“Trying.” He sounded so tired.

I turned. “Want help?”

“You write music?”

I could only shrug.

His interest must have been piqued; he tilted his blond head then patted the seat next to him.

I made my way over, sat a bit farther away from him, and hugged one of the throw pillows. “Is it for this album?”

“No, that’s done.” He still sounded frustrated. “Because of the scandal, we were going to release a special edition song, but Lucas refuses to work on it… for obvious reasons.”

“Was it really hard on him?”

“Was?” He looked up, locking eyes with me. “It’s going to be hard on him his entire life. Nobody will forget this. It doesn’t matter if we chart on Billboard, if we have a billion views on our MV, people like to hate you when you’re on top, and Lucas, well, he’s one of the best. It was only too easy for people to turn on him, almost like they were waiting for a reason to hate him.”

I was quiet for a minute, thinking about the differences in the music industry back in the States vs here. “Does it ever die down? Do people ever forget?”

He locked eyes with me. “I want to say yes, but from what I’ve seen… people don’t want to forget.” The emotions whirling in his eyes broke my heart even as he broke our gaze and stared down at his guitar.

How many hours had he spent chasing this dream? How many hours had he spent trying to fight for it? Keep it?

Ignoring the tightness in my chest, I crossed my legs and hugged the pillow. “What do you have so far? Can you share?”

He tapped his pen against his notepad. “I have a bunch of words and no melody, so I’m not doing so great right now. What’s the word? I’m screwed?”

“Or fucked, there’s that too,” I offered without thinking and immediately squeezed my eyes shut. “Please ignore I just said that.”

Silence ensued, and then laughter, a lot of laughter.

I opened up one eye, then the second.

He shook with uproarious mirth, his pen dropped on the pad. “Sorry, it’s just refreshing sometimes when people have no censor.”

I exhaled roughly. “Tell that to my dad. He’d probably be grounding me even though I’m of legal drinking age.”

“That’s family.” His shrug said it all. “Do you want to hear the lyrics?”

“Yup.” I felt dumb over how excited I got but couldn’t help it as he cleared his throat and started to speak.

“You can’t laugh,” he said.

“Wait, is that the first line?” I giggled.

His head shot up with a glare.

“Kidding!” I held up my hands. “Okay, keep going.”

He nervously cleared his throat again. “Why do you keep me waiting, always waiting in the shadows. He’s in the light, always shining bright, while I sit sullen and weary, waiting for the fight. It happens every day, you’re with him all night, yet I can’t stop this feeling that something ain’t right.”

Enthralled, it took me several seconds to realize when he stopped.

“That was…” I couldn’t form words. “Really, really good so far. Why are you stuck?”

His cheeks pinkened a bit, making me curious. “I…” He grabbed the pen and started to scratch his back with it before looking away. “I don’t have that sort of experience. My entire life has been about debuting, so to be that obsessed over a girl, it’s not really something I can comprehend.”

“Ah…” I nodded. “Makes sense, so basically, you have no experience with girls whatsoever and feel lame coming up with lyrics you can’t even believe?”

He barked out a laugh, “Well, I mean, I’ve had, like… experience.”

I wanted to search out more about that answer but didn’t. Not my place.

“But not relationship experience, everything has been—” He groaned. “Why am I even telling you this?”

I hugged the pillow. “I’m easy to talk to?”

“You work for us.”

“True, but I’m also an intern, which means I’m supposed to be here for you in every capacity. I think you’re just in your head too much. Imagine loving someone so much that you can’t stand to see them with someone else that it kills a part of your soul. You just need to dig deep to come up with the rest. I mean, have you ever been jealous?”

He didn’t move for at least ten seconds, and then he almost scooted away from me as though I was the source of his irritation, just like Lucas. “No,” he finally said. “I mean, I’ve felt jealous, I guess, but it wasn’t real.”

“How so?” I asked.

“It just wasn’t… real.” He gulped. “Anyway, I’ll work on this tonight. Thanks, that was good advice.”

Am I being dismissed?

I yawned so I didn’t look dumb, then got up and put the pillow back. “Good talk, Rae. I hope you find your muse.”