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“Where are you?” I calculate the time in my head, and it must be early morning in New York City.

“I’m at the library. Hold on a sec.” She disappears from the screen. I can hear the soft tap of her footsteps as she walks from the library, then the squeal of a door opening.

Jenny angles the phone so that I have a view of her standing in a stairwell. The sound of her voice echoes around her. “What time is it there?”

“Ten o’clock.”

“That’s late! Where are you?”

I move the phone so that she can see the children’s play area behind me. “I needed to think, so I went for a run.”

“Should I be concerned?” Jenny asks.

I shake my head. “I just wanted to hear your voice.”

I close my eyes as I listen to her tell me about her school life.She’s taking music theory, as well as a class on modern composers. The final selection for the quartet is this week.

“If I get it, I could be in Seoul as early as this month,” she says. “I’m sorry I haven’t called much.”

“No!” I say vehemently. “I’m the one who’s sorry.”

Jenny wrinkles her nose like she wants to argue with me, but then she laughs. “Well, we’re talking now. I’m also happy to hear your voice, but you called for a reason, didn’t you?”

Her ability to read me across an entire ocean and continent is truly astounding.

I tell her everything, about my deal with my mother, that in exchange for helping Hyemi’s debut, she’ll give me more independence, but also about Nathaniel living with me for the duration of his hiatus. I feel a tad guilty that I’m telling her, when I made Nathaniel swear not to tell his bandmates, but I think he’d forgive me—I’m calling her because of him, after all.

“How do you feel?” she asks quietly.

She already knows without me having to tell her, that my feelings for Nathaniel have returned, not that they had ever gone away.

I think of the feeling that comes over me when I step off the bus to find him waiting for me.

“I feel happy.” Saying it aloud, it feels like a confession. “Tell me what I should do.”

“I don’t think I have to,” Jenny says, a smile on her face. “I won’t lie, it’s not easy, dating someone who spends half his life in the spotlight. It helps to remember that Jaewoo’s just a person, and that, even if he wasn’t a member of XOXO, I’d still want to be with him.Of course, ithashelped that we’ve kept our relationship a secret. Though some fans have theories that are eerily accurate.” She shudders. “But unlike Jaewoo and me, you and Nathaniel wouldn’t be long distance.”

No, and I wouldn’t want us to be. I’m not strong like Jenny. I want to be independent with my career but not my relationship. I want to need someone, just as much as I want to feel needed.

“I think there are obstacles in any relationship,” Jenny continues. “You just have to decide whether that feeling—happiness—is worth any hardships that might come up.”

I don’t know if it’s worth it; I just know I’m not ready to let it go.

“When are you going to tell him?”

“I can’t tell him anything until after I talk to my mother. She’s in Japan right now...” Secretary Park had informed me shortly after my mother had already left. “But she’s coming back to Seoul for ASAP’s debut showcase.” I could talk to her as early as that night.

My chest flutters with nervousness and excitement. With hope.

“I’m rooting for you!” Jenny says. “You and Nathaniel. I think if any couple deserves a second chance, it’s you two.”

Twenty-three

I read the script for Sun’s drama on the train ride to the filming location, which is a small town on the eastern coast of the peninsula.The Sea Princeis a fantasy romance about an amnesiac deity who washes up on shore during a particularly bad storm—his doing—and is rescued by a local fisherman’s daughter. She’s got a grudge against the god for sending all those awful storms. She, of course, doesn’t know the identity of the mysterious naked man. Rom-com hijinks ensue as the heroine is a level-headed country girl and the sea prince is literally a fish out of water.

Hyemi’s role in the episode is that of a schoolgirl who stumbles upon a magical conch shell holding the Sea Prince’s memories. Nathaniel plays a water god who inhabits a local bathhouse. And I...

“I’m playing a mermaid?” I look up from the script. Secretary Park sits across from me. As Joah’s representative, she’s accompanying Hyemi and me to the filming site. The scriptwriter, who must have worked through the night to come up with our individual storylines, sent the revised script to Secretary Park, who in turn, reviewed the contents before printing them out and delivering them to us.