MERRY CHRISTMAS or HAPPY HOLIDAYS to you, my readers!
The next two days are an easy schedule I enjoy. I settle my severance with Garcia Brothers and set up an inbox rule so all messages with a garciabrothers.com email go straight to Frank the Lawyer. I hadn't realized how much I dread opening my email and seeing one from Ben.
I devote most of my days to Duna practice and this time I do it right, listing all the ways she could be approached and my planned responses. If someone comes up to me on the street. In the washroom. Wants a photo. Wants a selfie, an autograph. I go on a binge of Duna content until I'm able to parrot her mannerisms to the point that I slip into my Duna persona even when I'm not in public. Taehyung assures me it happens to him when he gets deep into a role.
Because Taehyung, to my utter surprise, has become invaluable. Whenever he's not at the theater, we practice until it feels like second nature to turn to him with a smile and to see his affectionate look. Even if it's not an act, I'm no longer so naïve and desperate to see it for anything but what it is: support for a friend. He's doing this for Duna and her career. I'm only a tool. This hurts less than I thought it would, probably because now that I think about it, the idea of sweeping Kim Taehyung off his feet with my joblessness and lack of fame is so laughable.
It's too bad that his new friendliness makes him more appealing. Not physically, because you can't improve on perfection, but simply as a person. This Taehyung isn't cold and distant but goofy and charming. he's addicted to the 1990s Brit pop and sand all of Oasis's "Wonderwall" with me one evening to Duna's great delight, complete with overly emotive air guitar.
His jokes are terrible, like on the level of dad jokes, which is revealed when he sees him jotting down some notes. "Suzy, do you now why you shouldn't write with a broken pencil?"
"What?" What is he talking about?
"Because it's pointless. Have you heard the one about the sheet of paper?"
"Taehyung, are you okay?"
"Actually, it's pretty tearable." With a beautiful smile, he turns away, happy to have delivered two of the worse jokes in the world.
He's a fucking amazing dancer, which I find out by accident one day when I try to figure out how to do a fad dance I saw on social media. He watched it through once and then repeated it flawlessly as I gaped at him.
He shrugged it off. "My mother says I have good bodily kinesthetic intelligence. From her, naturally."
"There's no way I can do that."
"Sure you can. It's all in the hips."
Only after he spends a futile five minutes trying to teach me to do a body roll does he gives up. Thank God, because if I had to watch him thrust his hips at me while tracing his hands down his distressingly toned chest one more time I would have exploded. he doesn't notice the impact he's having and sits on the couch. "What were you doing before trying to dance?"
"Watching the Architecture 101 again." I decided that it would be good to have another viewing now that I was a little more used to being Duna.
"May I join you?" This Taehyung, too, is scrupulously polite compared to the old one.
"Sure, but you have to tell me the behind-the-scene gossip." I start the movie, then pause it. "Do you find it strange to watch yourself on-screen?"
"I never used to watch my own movies," he says. "Do you want popcorn."
"Yes." He gets up to nuke a bag and I wait for him to continue. "Well?"
"Well, what?" Taehyung bends down to open a cabinet for bowls.
"Acting. Watching yourself. You never used to but you do now?"
"It's an incredibly uncomfortable experience," he says as sharp little pops come from the microwave. "Every scene can be improved but there it is, forever. My idiot expressions. how stupid I look in a costume. I couldn't stand it for ages."
"What changed?"
"My friend Namjoon pointed out that if I never see my own work, I can never improve. It made sense and it's become easier." The microwave dings and he grabs the bag, swearing when he opens it and the steam burns his hand. "That being said, it's hard when I'm sitting with someone taking the mickey."
"Taking the what?"
"It's a term my tutor used. It means to make fun of someone."
"I would never!" I'm affronted he thinks me that mean.
Taehyung bring over two bowls and hands me one. "A bit of a joke . . . I know you wouldn't."
We start the movie again, and a few minutes later, he pauses it. "Do you see it?"
I squint at the scene, which takes place in the nineties in a traditional household setting. "Is that a Ediya cup?"
"No one would admit to leaving it there."
"It was yours, wasn't it?"
When he laughs, his whole face lights up with mischief. "That trended on social media for days. I couldn't tell anyone. Too embarrassed." Then he pats his pocket and pulls out his vibrating phone. His face hardens and he very decisively rejects the call.
He sees me looking. "My mother," he says.
I do some rough mental calculations. "Isn't it five in the morning or something in Seoul?"
"More like three but my mother is not limited by things such as time zones when it comes to trying to control my life."
Hearing Taehyung has trouble with his mom hits me the same way it did when I saw my teacher in the grocery store as a kid—almost disconcertingly intimate. "What's up?"
"Nothing."
My nosiness knows no bounds. "I'll tell you about my secret project."
Taehyung quirks his eyebrow. "I don't believe you."
"It's called Eppy. There's a teaser."
Taehyung gives in. "You know who my mother is."
"Kim Nana. We used to watch her movies."
"My father."
"Cha Changwook, the director."
"Right. My mother is a force." He grimaces. "I've been in twenty-three movies and dramas. I've been acting for over fifteen years. I'm one of the highest paid actors in Korea, and nevertheless, at the age of thirty, I feel the need for her approval."
"Moms," I say.
"Moms," he agrees. "She wants me to quit acting and join my father's entertainment company.
"As an actor?"
"Groomed to be the CEO, like him. It's my duty as a good son."
"That sounds very dynastic."
"It is." He drinks with a closed face. "What Kim Nana wants, she gets. She has enough influence to prevent other companies from hiring me, and she would be confident it's for my own good."
"You don't want to?"
"We're different people," he says with vehemence. "Different ambitions. She doesn't understand that. It's because she loves us, but she also has no boundaries."
I lean back into the couch and pull up my legs. "What are you going to do?"
He points to the phone. "Avoid her calls."
"Not the best long-term plan."
"It's worked so far." He does that head tilt. "What do you suggest?"
"Have you tried telling her how you feel?"
Taehyung looks legitimately horrified. "We are not feelings people."
"Might be time to start unless you want to keep ignoring your own mother because you're scared to have a conversation. At age thirty."
"I'm not scared."
I throw a pillow at him and then marvel at how at ease I am. "Don't lie."
"You don't know my mother."
"I know my mother."
"You have a lot of heart-to-hearts with her?"
"No," I admit. "I wish I had. Do as I say, not as I do."
"Thanks."
He turns the movie back on and we watch in silence for a few minutes. Then he stops it again. "Tell me about this Eppy."
Why is it so difficult to talk about the things that are important to you? I understand in the grand scheme of life, creating a to-do list that works is not on the same level as fixing climate change, but to me, perfecting this list is a Thing. Taehyung has turned to me with his whole body and he's leaning forward as if he's interested.
I deflect. "Just something I'm working on."
When I freeze him out, the atmosphere changes between us. He pulls back, and because I'm a fucking people pleaser, I crumble. "It's a to-do list," I blurt out.
A slight line appears between his eyes. "Of tasks you need to do?"
"No, how to organize one. A planning method. None of the ones I've tried work for me so I'm creating my own." This sounds stupid. I pick at the seam of the couch.
The line fades as his eyes widen. "Like bullet journals?"
My eyes widens. "You like lists?"
In reply, he pulls out his phone and shows me an entire folder of productivity tools. "My assistant, Joon, got me into them but I haven't found the right one."
"Me neither."
"You decided to make your own." He smiles. "Eppy. I like it. I would never have thought of creating my own system."
It's hardly even a compliment but his tone makes me go red. "It's nothing," I mumble. "No big deal."
"Why not? You saw a problem and you're fixing it. Most people would work around it.
"I haven't gotten very far."
The line returns. "There are enough people in the world ready to put you down. Do you need to join them?"
His words hit me in the gut. "Is that your motto?"
Taehyung picks up the popcorn bowl and looks into it. Because we are having a serious conversation, I try not to notice the sharp angle of his face down from his cheekbone to his chin but man, it's hard. "It has to be. Everything I do is criticized. What I wear. Who I date. Movie and drama roles and how I do in them."
Of course. "How do you cope?"
"I don't read the reviews. Good or bad." he passes me the bowl. "Will you let me beta test it?"
"You want to?" This gives me a huge rush that I can't hide.
He laughs. "A chance to organize my life? You bet." The he turns the movie back on and I sit back, almost too happy.