Struggling to Stand | jhs ff

Chapter 27: Murphy's Law

November 12th, 2014

"You general manager?" one of the staff of Kobe Kokusai Hall asks.

"Yes, please call me Kenna." I respond in Korean.

He shakes his head. "No Korean, sorry, sorry."

"Oh! Yes, please call me Kenna," I repeat in English.

"Haru." the young man says with a bow and a polite smile.

I bow and smile back.

"Why general manager here? Not uhhh, schedule person?" he frowns at me.

I nod to indicate I understand. "Our company is not big enough," I explain. "So I wear a lot of hats."

His face screws up. "You wear hat?"

"Oh! Sorry, it's an expression in English. Um, I do a lot of different jobs."

"Lot hat," he pouts his lips in deep thought and nods. "Okay okay. You run performance?"

"No, our technician is on his way," I explain as I look out at the two dozen people running around unpacking trucks and setting the screens and stage decorations up. "He'll go through everything with you and the crew when he gets here. I'm just here to oversee the setup, and if any of you have any questions, you can ask me. I have pictures, and I know what it's supposed to look like, so I'm just here for a general overview, I guess." I look over at Haru, and when I see that his eyes are glazed over, I stop. "Sorry, rambling. Um, event technician is coming. I'm just here to watch over setup."

"Oh, sorry sorry. English not good."

"Your English is good," I argue and he smiles shyly. "Much better than my Japanese."

His eyes light up. "You know Japanese?"

I grimace and shake my head. "Only the little I've learned from anime," I explain.

"Oh." He nods dramatically.

"Can I help you with anything else?" I ask after a long pause of us just watching the workers below.

"Oh, no, thank you thank you!"

"You're welcome." I pull the radio out of my back pocket and shake it, "Call me if you have any questions."

"Thank you thank you!"

We bow and I leave.

___

"Box put there?" one of the stage hands asks.

I gasp and rush over to help him. His arms are shaking, and the box must weigh over one hundred pounds. These guys are going to throw their backs out if they aren't careful. I help him carry the bulky box of props to the backstage to be unpacked.

My phone starts ringing, and I quickly explain what's in the box before pulling my phone out. "This is Kenna."

"Kenna! How are you?" Hoseok asks. Despite my annoyance at the interruption, I smile.

"Good. Why are you calling?"

"Well, I was told to. We're pulling into the parking lot and we don't know where to go."

"Kenna, radio, please," the burst of static and loud noise startles me.

"Uh, hold on a second, Hoseok," I say, pulling out the radio. "Go for Kenna."

"We- uh- we talk not- uh, you?" the line goes dead for a second then static bursts to life.

"Kenna, we can't understand each other," Mangoo explains in Korean. "I don't know Japanese, and my English is worse than that. We need an interpreter if we're going to get everything set up."