Heart Abroad, Part 8
Title: Heart Abroad
Pairings/Characters: Jaejoong/Yamapi
Rating/Warnings: T for language and (eventual) making out
Disclaimer: I own nothing; written just for fun
Summary: The conference turns out to be pretty boring. But not entirely.
Heart Abroad, Part 8
After a week of noise and chaos and sweat Yamapi should be relieved to spend a few hours in the peace and quiet of the climate controlled train car, but he’s too nervous to relax. He took a taxi to the train station at the crack of dawn and his eyes are heavy with fatigue but Yamapi is afraid to fall asleep lest he miss his transfer in Iksan.
At least he thinks that’s where he’s supposed to transfer--Yamapi whips out his phone and quickly types in his password to the Korail app to check his ticket again, a surge of adrenaline pulsing through his sluggish limbs at the thought of missing his connection.
Right now he’s on the local express, the train that stops at every station on the line (some of which are just lonely platforms surrounded by rice fields and pasture land) and travels at precisely the perfect speed to lull him to sleep.
He’s been digging his fingernails into his palms since before the train even pulled out from Jeongeup to keep himself awake. It’s not entirely successful--he has nodded off a few times--but at least he’s prevented himself from completely knocking out.
The sun burns through the haze of morning mist by the time the train stops in Iksan. The outdoor platform is full but not crowded, students with backpacks and guitar cases leaning against posts and toddlers dozing in strollers and old women in baggy pants and sandals squatting in the shade.
Yamapi hurries up the stairs to find the KTX platform but it isn’t too difficult to find. Everything is labeled in Hangul and Romanized Korean, and there are usually chinese characters on signs as well.
The escalator to the KTX platform opens into a spacious waiting area under a high glass canopy. Yamapi dodges the lumbering black suitcase of a distracted businessman and narrowly avoids tripping over a large cardboard box of grapes a wrinkled grandmother is using as a bench rather in the middle of the walk way. He quietly apologizes to the woman who is either deaf or just ignoring him and decides to duck into the nearby convenience store for coffee before he can suffer further public embarrassment.
The shop is tiny, barely big enough to turn around in, but fortunately all Yamapi has with him is a small overnight bag and his computer. He finds the coffee right away, although there are only two options in the little heated glass cabinet on the counter: latte and mocha latte, nothing black.
He settles for a latte but takes a moment to survey the candy and gum. The next KTX to Seoul won’t arrive for another...11 minutes he notes, checking his watch. He yawns. The man behind the counter looks just as sleepy as Yamapi feels, his eyelids drooping and his gray hair sticking up in the back.
The gum selection is just about as exciting as the coffee choices...mint and grape. Grape gum doesn’t exactly sound appealing, but muscadine appears to be the current seasonal flavor if the grape popsicles and gummies and soda on display are any indication.
Yamapi reaches for the mint kind but freezes when he spots a familiar yellow label, bending to pick up the package just smaller than a matchbox. The label is all in Korean but he sounds out the Hangul under his breath and sure enough, it’s Morinaga caramel. Yamapi straightens up with a smile and smacks three of the caramels down on the counter next to the coffee can.
The man behind the counter just surveys him warily as he scans the items but Yamapi can’t stop grinning. He slips the candies into his computer case (since Korean stores don’t hand out bags, apparently) and heads back out into the heat, caffeine in hand.
The train pulls up to the platform a few minutes early and Yamapi files slowly into the empty car behind a young mother with two toddlers. His assigned seat is in the back and no one joins him in his row so he sets an alarm for 20 minutes before the estimated arrival time and leans back…
Yamapi doesn’t wake until his phone buzzes in his pocket a few hours later, his mouth thick with sleep and vision slightly blurry. There is a teenager in a Navy uniform snoring softly in the seat next to him, his round white cap folded neatly in his lap. The TV screen installed at the front of the car informs Yamapi that Youngdeungpo is the next stop. Perfect.
After 20 minutes on the stuffy metro, the hotel lobby is pleasantly cool and quiet. Yamapi’s dress shoes echo as he heads towards a table near the elevators with a large welcome banner printed in Japanese and he figures with a sigh of relief that this must be the right hotel.
“Good morning, sir! May I have your name?” A young woman in a crisp navy suit stands and bows as Yamapi approaches.
“Yamashita Tomohisa.” Yamapi fidgets in front of the table as the woman searches through a plastic tub of folders. He really hopes Boa remembered to inform the organizers of the change and that his name is somewhere on a list.
“From Jeongeup Boy’s High School?” The woman holds out a shiny black file folder and a bilingual nametag.
“Yes, thank you.”
“Here is your schedule. It seems your first session is on the second floor Conference Room A, the first door on left if you use the elevator.”
Yamapi takes the folder and thanks her again but she has already turned to greet the next group of guests, five middle aged men who are talking loudly in Korean as they enter.
Conference Room A is about double the size of the high school’s classrooms and crowded with large tables draped in floor length cream colored table cloths. There isn’t assigned seating so Yamapi finds a chair about halfway into the room on the end of a table. The room is about half full of people in various shades of business dress and everyone is either chatting in little groups or glued to their smart phone. The room is rather noisy and Yamapi can only hear Korean conversations swirling around him. He sighs and drops his gaze to his schedule.
The first session is some sort of opening ceremony. After that is a seminar titled Bilingual Instruction in Elementary Classrooms, and then a briefing on recent educational reforms by a Mr. Choi, and then lunch. After lunch is an optional discussion group on adolescent development, two sessions reviewing newly released curriculum and other classroom aids by textbook distributors, a documentary film viewing, and then finally dinner.
Yamapi starts to search the folder for tomorrow’s schedule when a large man heavily perspiring in a tweed suit despite the blast of air conditioning clears his throat into a microphone at the front.
The man smooths down his hair with a sweaty palm, greets the crowd in Korean, and begins to introduce a string of people sitting on the front row. Yamapi recognizes a few of the names from the seminar schedule and figures the assortment of women with perms and spike heels and men with flashy ties and oiled hair must be the speakers lined up for weekend.
Most of them are well into middle age, a few with graying hair and stooping shoulders. Only two figures seem to be anywhere near Yamapi’s age: the young woman in navy from the registration table and a man in an expensive looking dark green suit with thick black hair that sifts into his eyes as he stands to bow. Yamapi can’t really see his face from where he’s sitting but his movements are controlled and graceful with a quiet strength to them that contrasts with the registration lady’s nervous energy and the older speakers’ placid solemnity.
After the blur of mostly Korean names are announced the woman in navy introduces herself in Japanese as Matsushima Mayumi and proceeds to translate the opening remarks, flowery pleasantries and acknowledgements of the conference organizers. Ms. Matsushima reminds everyone to wear their nametags and then announces that the first session is over.
Yamapi looks down at his watch in surprise. Barely 10 minutes have passed since the so called opening ceremony started. All of his previous experiences with such events included a series of self important people competing to outdo one another with beautiful and meaningless sentiments until they were hopelessly behind schedule so this is a little unprecedented. Well, not that he’s complaining though.
By the time Yamapi scrapes his papers back into the folder and grabs his bags the room has mostly emptied, everyone disappearing into other doorways in the dimly lit hallway or queuing up for the elevator.
According to his schedule, Bilingual Instruction in Elementary Classrooms is supposed to be held in room 207. Grateful to avoid the crowded elevator, Yamapi heads down the hall to the left, the room numbers gradually rising as he continues….201...204...206--ahah! The next one should be 207.
Yamapi glances up to check the number plaque with his hand on the door but takes a step back in confusion when it says 208. The room across the hall is marked 209, that can’t be right either…
Yamapi shifts the weight of his computer bag to his other hand and scans the hall for someone ask, but the last group of people in sight are just disappearing into room 201 and there is no way he can reach them without shouting. Shit.
Yamapi bites his lip and runs a finger down the entries on his schedule again, double checking the numbers and times, hoping he just misread it the first time.
Nope. His session is definitely in 207.
“Hey!” a loud whisper startles Yamapi into dropping the paper as the sweating man from the first session charges down the hall, the heavy wooden bathroom door swinging shut behind him. “What are you doing?” he demands in Korean.
“I--”
“Are you lost?” He’s only about two feet away now but hasn’t slowed his speed at all.
“Yes, I--” Yamapi takes a step back, fumbling for words as the man squats to retrieve his paper, wheezing heavily as he bends.
“Thank y--”
“Well get in there! ….already starting!” The man slides the schedule back into Yamapi’s grasp and steers him by the shoulder to room 206.
“But where is--”
“Hurry up!” The man wrenches the door open and crowds Yamapi into the dark room. Yamapi stumbles into the nearest empty seat by the door, blinking to adjust to the dim light as a film clip flashes on the projector screen. The chair in front of him creaks as the sweaty man plops into it.
The footage jumping and flickering on the screen is black and white, the images warped with age. Men with dignified beards in traditional Korean robes bow and smile, the beads hanging from their wide scholars’ hats swinging and dancing. Stiff looking officers in Japanese Imperial uniforms ride by on horseback through a compound of old houses. Somehow, Yamapi has the feeling that this isn’t Bilingual Instruction in Elementary Classrooms.
He momentarily considers the option of quietly exiting to continue his hunt for room 207, but this conference room is so small there is no way he could leave without drawing everyone’s attention, and what if he never even finds 207? It’s not like he is excited about his scheduled session anyway. He doesn’t know why Boa registered for that seminar since she’s a secondary teacher, unless it was for Taemin or something.
The film ends and the room plunges into pitch black for a moment before the overhead lights snap on with a fluorescent hum. Yamapi winces at the glare and ducks his head to pull a notepad from his bag.
“So welcome to The History of Japanese Language Education in Korea!” someone announces in Japanese as Yamapi searches the side pockets for a pen. The voice is warm but a little rough and reminds Yamapi of the hot toast he made for breakfast this morning.
“Who would like to share an observation about the video we watched?” Yamapi looks up to see the graceful man in the green suit gesturing at the front of the tiny room. He looks nothing like Yamapi would have guessed from his voice, all sharp, elegant features with a cool aloofness to his posture.
He reaches up to brush his thick fringe back from his forehead and Yamapi’s breath catches as their eyes meet, the other man’s gaze dark and piercing through him before moving on around the room.
“Um, their clothes are funny?” a girl at the front of the room volunteers with a nervous giggle. Yamapi half expects a sarcastic eye roll of disapproval but the comment startles a throaty laugh from the speaker.
“Ok, ok, I won’t belabor the visual aid if no one’s interested. I have something much more exciting…!” he flips to the next slide, a grainy photograph of a small brick building and a single telegraph wire. “This is Keijou Imperial University, founded in Seoul in 1926 as the pinnacle of higher education in Korea during the Imperial colonial administration. It was later merged with 9 other schools to become Seoul National University in 1946…”
Yamapi finds himself scribbling down notes as fast as he can as the speaker expounds at a furious pace, jumping from anecdotes about educational opportunities under Imperial rule to statistics of school enrollment and adult literacy rates during the first half of the 20th century to integration policies of Korean and Japanese students in public school classrooms…
Yamapi’s hand is cramping in three places as the man in the green suit gives a hurried summary of the lasting legacies of Japanese education in Korea. He breaks off, panting, as he comes to the last slide and gives a radiant smile to his audience. The odd dozen people in the room give a short applause and the large man in front of Yamapi staggers to his feet to announce that it’s time for lunch.
Yamapi glances at his watch and then down at the first fifteen pages of his notepad that are covered in scribbled graphs and the messy blocks of text he copied down without hardly looking, his gaze captured by the dynamic stage presence of the speaker for the entire lecture.
Yamapi isn’t well versed in the history he had to cram back in high school and then quickly forgot, much less Korean history, but he almost wishes he had a question over the material so he could go speak to Mr...what was his name again?
Yamapi realizes with a slight sinking of disappointment that he has no idea what the speaker’s name is. The session wasn’t on his schedule and he must have missed the introduction of the seminar since he came in late.
The man in the tweed jacket is standing in the doorway waiting for Yamapi to leave so he can lock up the room, so Yamapi hurries out and mumbles a goodbye, once again the last to leave. There is still bit of time before lunch so he takes the deserted stairs to his small single room on the fourth floor and dumps his bags on the bed. The room is silent and stuffy and kind of suffocating. He hurries back down.
Lunch, served in a private room next to the hotel restaurant, feels a lot like the first session: everyone is sitting tight knots around the tables, chattering away in Korean. Yamapi finds an empty seat with a group of older men who have loosened their ties and are already halfway through a large bottle of soju. A few of them nod as he takes a seat but continue their loud discussion of some sports team.
Yamapi understands enough of the conversation to follow it, sort of, but then the topic switches to politics (either politics or some TV drama, he’s not really sure which) and he’s completely lost. Yamapi decides instead to focus on ingesting his serving of bibimbap and some kind of soup that looks like miso but tastes really sour. That is the perfect strategy for ignoring the awkward silence until he realizes belatedly, spooning the last of his rice into his mouth, that once he finishes eating he won’t have anything to occupy himself with. Shit. He should have just picked at the food, to make it last...
Yamapi glances around the room, not exactly hoping for a glimpse of the dude in the green suit, but if he happens to spot him in the crowded room he wouldn’t mind the distraction. Maybe he can even think of a reason to go talk to him about the session so he can excuse himself from his awkward and progressively more tipsy lunch mates.
Even after three furtive sweeps around the room Yamapi doesn’t see any familiar green jackets so he slips into his own boring black one and proceeds to the main conference room to wait for the documentary to start. He falls asleep just as the lights turn out and doesn’t wake up again until the three hour film is almost over, rubbing his dry eyes and furtively glancing around to see if anyone noticed his lapse into dreams.
He can’t really see anything in the dark but he can hear wheezing snores from the back left corner so it’s probably not too much of a scandal even if someone saw him. Yamapi sighs and slumps further in his chair to wait listlessly for the credits to roll.
Dinner is on their own, and all Yamapi wants to do is find a convenience store to buy some rice balls and coke and collapse on his bed, maybe get online and chat with Ryo for a bit. Sitting on trains and avoiding eye contact with strangers is really exhausting, apparently, and he gets to do it all over again tomorrow.
Yamapi knows though that if Ryo knew he was in Seoul on a Friday night spending his time in a dinky hotel room sweet talking a battered LAN cable into functioning he would never hear the end of it. He briefly considers napping and then going to Hongdae later, finding some club to lose track of time in for a few hours, but the thought of going alone is more suffocating than the August heat. And he really, really doesn’t want to get lost. Not that the Seoul metro is that different from the subway he’s used to, but he doesn’t trust himself to find the alleyway back to the hotel from the station.
Yamapi opens the informational binder on the desk and flips longingly through the takeout menus of fried chicken and fried dumplings and other fried items of tantalizing deliciousness only to realize he has no idea how to order delivery in Korean. So he changes into something not black and dry-clean-only and sets off with his computer bag into the sticky twilight to find adventure, alcohol, love, a park bench, somewhere with wifi he can grade vocab quizzes…
What Yamapi finds is a swingset.
The first cafe Yamapi passes is crowded with sweating bodies and swirling with a blue haze of cigarette smoke. He takes a deep gulp of untainted air and walks right past, across the street and into the convenience store he spots. This shop is definitely bigger than the mini one he stopped in at the station this morning but there is a disappointing lack of sandwiches in the fridge and the shelf below it that should be well stocked with rice balls has only a miserable looking roll of kimchi kimbap. The rice is all hard and dry when he pokes it through the plastic wrapper.
Yamapi settles for a few cans of beer and a bar of red bean ice cream. He’ll be starving in the morning, but he’s almost too hot to eat real food now. The sidewalk outside the store is too narrow to squat in front of to eat and he doesn’t want to go back to the stuffy hotel room just yet, as hard as it was to drag himself from it five minutes ago, so Yamapi wanders another block until he finds a small park between an apartment building and a noodle restaurant.
The swingset is new and sturdy enough to hold his weight and is conveniently mostly hidden behind an overgrown hydrangea bush, so he sits on the red swing and pops the tab on a can of Cass.
The bush obscures his view but doesn’t block out any of the noise from the street, groaning engines of lumbering buses and squealing tires of motorbikes, street vendors hawking indiscriminate lumps of food simmering in vats of red and brown sauces, grade school kids shrieking and pounding their light-up sneakers across the alleyway pavement, a nasally Trot ballad emanating from a radio set out on a narrow balcony, an old woman scolding someone about the price of tofu...Seoul is definitely a city. Yamapi has kind of missed the noise.
A fat mosquito lands on the black band of Yamapi's wristwatch as he’s sliding a finger under the tab of his second can. He flails in surprise, landing on his ass in damp sand with one shoelace caught in the swing chain and warm beer sprayed on his chin and collarbone. The tab breaks off in his hand with the drinking hole only half open.
The mosquito bites him and flies off before he can crush it.
Yamapi starts to laugh, his shoulders jerking, half wishing Ryo were here to share the moment and half grateful that there is no further photographic evidence of his clumsiness. The blackmail folder on Ryo’s phone is full enough as it is.
Yamapi paws through his bag for a spare kleenex, one foot still up in the air, but comes up with a caramel instead. He wipes his neck dry with the heel of his hand and rips into the paper box. The candy is a little soft from the heat and he imagines his whole body sinking into thick velvet sugar as his teeth sink into the smooth richness.
The sweetness coats his tongue in a thick blanket and he gags at the sharp contrast to the sour beer lingering in his mouth.
Yamapi doesn’t like caramel. He’s not really sure why he’s eating it now, except that it was in his hand and then the wrapper was open...
He severs the gooey bite from the lump in his hand with a slice of his teeth and swallows it down as fast as he can, shuddering as the sweetness paints his throat in a slow, sticky slide. He opens the last can of beer successfully and washes down half of it in a swishing gulp but it only helps so much. The candy’s glued into the crevices of his teeth and he’ll probably be tasting it all night.
He’s not really sure anymore why he even bought the caramels, since he didn’t plan on actually eating them. Homesickness? Maybe. He’s only been gone two weeks, though, and he hasn’t thought about Morinaga caramel since...5th grade? Yeah, he’s pretty sure it was 5th grade when Fukuda Kyoko, a sixth grader from class F, confessed to him by the bike rack and then forced him to eat a caramel representing her affections. He tried to politely decline but she willingly retracted them when he vomited on her shoes. Not his proudest moment.
Yamapi feels a twinge of nausea at the memory and groans, not sure whether to be amused or disturbed by the possibility that such a mental association would reduce him to a grinning mush of nostalgia in a foreign convenience store a decade later. Yeah, he’ll just chalk it up to pre-caffeine ditziness. Definitely not homesickness.
Yamapi dusts the sand from his shorts and drops the half eaten caramel in the plastic sack with the beer cans and the melted ice cream bar he forgot to eat. He stops for a box of takeout chicken on the way back to his room and eats it in bed in front of some variety show on mute.
Saturday he doesn’t have to wake up quite as early as he did the day before, especially since he opts out of a lonely breakfast of greasy food in the hotel restaurant, but the schedule is even more inane. Yamapi politely takes scant notes through the first two sessions but can’t help zone out 20 minutes into the third, his hollow stomach becoming a more pressing concern than than the controversy over whether kanji should be integrated into grammar textbooks or taught with a separate curriculum.
At lunch Yamapi ends up sitting with two young teachers in matching peplum tops and pencil skirt ensembles that look too tight for them to take deep breaths in and intimidatingly bright shades of lipstick. They are polite enough to introduce themselves though, a Ms. Lee Songmi in the orange lipstick and a Ms. Lim Seungmin in the coral.
Yamapi smiles pleasantly and doesn’t mind at all that they chatter away about moisturizing products and the upcoming Rom Coms without hardly pausing for a breath or a bite because he needs to replace the majority of his skin care products in the near future anyway and he’s worried that Ms. Lim’s skirt can’t handle any major lung or diaphragm expansion she might be at risk for if she attempts to eat or inhale.
It’s also really nice that he's finally speaking actual Japanese to someone at the Japanese Language Education Conference. Yamapi wonders if the dude in the green jacket would speak Japanese to him if they ended up at the same table. His accent was nearly flawless, but Yamapi assumed he was Korean because of the fashion. Also, the haircut, although Yamapi can see a longer cut with maybe a scrunched perm looking really good framing those cheekbones and--
“Hey, Yamashita-san, are you listening?”
“Huh?” Yamapi snaps back to attention and drops the clump of dried anchovies in his chopsticks into his soup. Ms. Lim giggles behind her phone, the high waistband of her skirt straining at her waist.
“Do you want to go out with us tonight? Chicken and beer?” Ms. Lee blinks her dark eyes questioningly at him and tucks a clump of red wavy hair behind her ear. “Or, if you want, we know an izakaya that has decent sake. We just figured you’d want to try Korean food, since you’re in Seoul and all…” she trails off with an uncertain smile.
“Oh, I really wish I could, but I’m heading back tonight. My train leaves just before dinner.” He smiles apologetically and stirs his soup with his chopsticks.
“Aww!” Ms. Lim looks up from her game of candy crush to pout at him. “Can’t you change your ticket?”
“Well, my school reserved it for me, so I don’t know…”
“Aww. Well, that’s too bad.”
“Yeah,” Yamapi agrees with a sigh, biting back a smirk at the realization that he just might ditch his itinerary for the company of a certain other individual at this conference, KTX reservations be damned.
No one else asks him out though, or even says a word to him until he’s waiting on the KTX platform that evening and his phone rings. It’s Erika.
“Hello?” he answers after the first ring, surprised to hear from her since she said she would be out of town all weekend.
“Tomo-kun! Hi.” Yamapi can hear a man with a husky voice and congestion singing along to a ballad duet in the background. “Where are you?”
“I’m...at Yeongdeungpo station? Why?” Yamapi feels like he’s missing something here. “Where are you?”
“Oh good, you’re not busy then! I was worried you were still at your conference or whatever.” Erika laughs breathily. “I’m stuck in Daegu traffic in the back of a taxi, so I’m making my schedule for next week. When are you free? How is next Sunday?”
“I see,” Yamapi nods dumbly even though she can’t see. He tips his head back and shakes out his hair, trying to remember his plans. “I think I’m free. Yeah, Sunday should be fine.”
“Sweet! 8:00! I’ll bring dinner.”
“Ok, 8:00 it is. Wait, bring dinner? To my place?”
“Yup! Don’t worry, I know all the best takeout places in Jeongeup. Just meet me at that 7-Eleven at five til. You live near there, right?” she asks cheerily, as if she were requesting his opinion on the veracity of the weather forecast and not inviting herself over to his house.
“Yeah, I live near there.” Yamapi has got to buy some hangers and a bottle of dish soap before Sunday. Shit.
“Awesome sauce! How was your weekend? How was the conference?” Yamapi sucks in a deep breath to answer but the words “I need to learn Korean” and “I met a mysterious handsome stranger but I don’t even know his name” and “Do all Korean hotels label room numbers out of order?” and “You should teach me how to order takeout on Sunday”, all the words he could say, just stick in his throat and swell like a nasty tonsil infection.
“Hey, Tomo-kun? Are you there? You ok?” The quiet concern in Erika’s voice dislodges the lump and Yamapi swallows, hard.
“Yeah. Fine. Do you like caramel?”
Pairings/Characters: Jaejoong/Yamapi
Rating/Warnings: T for language and (eventual) making out
Disclaimer: I own nothing; written just for fun
Summary: The conference turns out to be pretty boring. But not entirely.
Heart Abroad, Part 8
After a week of noise and chaos and sweat Yamapi should be relieved to spend a few hours in the peace and quiet of the climate controlled train car, but he’s too nervous to relax. He took a taxi to the train station at the crack of dawn and his eyes are heavy with fatigue but Yamapi is afraid to fall asleep lest he miss his transfer in Iksan.
At least he thinks that’s where he’s supposed to transfer--Yamapi whips out his phone and quickly types in his password to the Korail app to check his ticket again, a surge of adrenaline pulsing through his sluggish limbs at the thought of missing his connection.
Right now he’s on the local express, the train that stops at every station on the line (some of which are just lonely platforms surrounded by rice fields and pasture land) and travels at precisely the perfect speed to lull him to sleep.
He’s been digging his fingernails into his palms since before the train even pulled out from Jeongeup to keep himself awake. It’s not entirely successful--he has nodded off a few times--but at least he’s prevented himself from completely knocking out.
The sun burns through the haze of morning mist by the time the train stops in Iksan. The outdoor platform is full but not crowded, students with backpacks and guitar cases leaning against posts and toddlers dozing in strollers and old women in baggy pants and sandals squatting in the shade.
Yamapi hurries up the stairs to find the KTX platform but it isn’t too difficult to find. Everything is labeled in Hangul and Romanized Korean, and there are usually chinese characters on signs as well.
The escalator to the KTX platform opens into a spacious waiting area under a high glass canopy. Yamapi dodges the lumbering black suitcase of a distracted businessman and narrowly avoids tripping over a large cardboard box of grapes a wrinkled grandmother is using as a bench rather in the middle of the walk way. He quietly apologizes to the woman who is either deaf or just ignoring him and decides to duck into the nearby convenience store for coffee before he can suffer further public embarrassment.
The shop is tiny, barely big enough to turn around in, but fortunately all Yamapi has with him is a small overnight bag and his computer. He finds the coffee right away, although there are only two options in the little heated glass cabinet on the counter: latte and mocha latte, nothing black.
He settles for a latte but takes a moment to survey the candy and gum. The next KTX to Seoul won’t arrive for another...11 minutes he notes, checking his watch. He yawns. The man behind the counter looks just as sleepy as Yamapi feels, his eyelids drooping and his gray hair sticking up in the back.
The gum selection is just about as exciting as the coffee choices...mint and grape. Grape gum doesn’t exactly sound appealing, but muscadine appears to be the current seasonal flavor if the grape popsicles and gummies and soda on display are any indication.
Yamapi reaches for the mint kind but freezes when he spots a familiar yellow label, bending to pick up the package just smaller than a matchbox. The label is all in Korean but he sounds out the Hangul under his breath and sure enough, it’s Morinaga caramel. Yamapi straightens up with a smile and smacks three of the caramels down on the counter next to the coffee can.
The man behind the counter just surveys him warily as he scans the items but Yamapi can’t stop grinning. He slips the candies into his computer case (since Korean stores don’t hand out bags, apparently) and heads back out into the heat, caffeine in hand.
The train pulls up to the platform a few minutes early and Yamapi files slowly into the empty car behind a young mother with two toddlers. His assigned seat is in the back and no one joins him in his row so he sets an alarm for 20 minutes before the estimated arrival time and leans back…
Yamapi doesn’t wake until his phone buzzes in his pocket a few hours later, his mouth thick with sleep and vision slightly blurry. There is a teenager in a Navy uniform snoring softly in the seat next to him, his round white cap folded neatly in his lap. The TV screen installed at the front of the car informs Yamapi that Youngdeungpo is the next stop. Perfect.
After 20 minutes on the stuffy metro, the hotel lobby is pleasantly cool and quiet. Yamapi’s dress shoes echo as he heads towards a table near the elevators with a large welcome banner printed in Japanese and he figures with a sigh of relief that this must be the right hotel.
“Good morning, sir! May I have your name?” A young woman in a crisp navy suit stands and bows as Yamapi approaches.
“Yamashita Tomohisa.” Yamapi fidgets in front of the table as the woman searches through a plastic tub of folders. He really hopes Boa remembered to inform the organizers of the change and that his name is somewhere on a list.
“From Jeongeup Boy’s High School?” The woman holds out a shiny black file folder and a bilingual nametag.
“Yes, thank you.”
“Here is your schedule. It seems your first session is on the second floor Conference Room A, the first door on left if you use the elevator.”
Yamapi takes the folder and thanks her again but she has already turned to greet the next group of guests, five middle aged men who are talking loudly in Korean as they enter.
Conference Room A is about double the size of the high school’s classrooms and crowded with large tables draped in floor length cream colored table cloths. There isn’t assigned seating so Yamapi finds a chair about halfway into the room on the end of a table. The room is about half full of people in various shades of business dress and everyone is either chatting in little groups or glued to their smart phone. The room is rather noisy and Yamapi can only hear Korean conversations swirling around him. He sighs and drops his gaze to his schedule.
The first session is some sort of opening ceremony. After that is a seminar titled Bilingual Instruction in Elementary Classrooms, and then a briefing on recent educational reforms by a Mr. Choi, and then lunch. After lunch is an optional discussion group on adolescent development, two sessions reviewing newly released curriculum and other classroom aids by textbook distributors, a documentary film viewing, and then finally dinner.
Yamapi starts to search the folder for tomorrow’s schedule when a large man heavily perspiring in a tweed suit despite the blast of air conditioning clears his throat into a microphone at the front.
The man smooths down his hair with a sweaty palm, greets the crowd in Korean, and begins to introduce a string of people sitting on the front row. Yamapi recognizes a few of the names from the seminar schedule and figures the assortment of women with perms and spike heels and men with flashy ties and oiled hair must be the speakers lined up for weekend.
Most of them are well into middle age, a few with graying hair and stooping shoulders. Only two figures seem to be anywhere near Yamapi’s age: the young woman in navy from the registration table and a man in an expensive looking dark green suit with thick black hair that sifts into his eyes as he stands to bow. Yamapi can’t really see his face from where he’s sitting but his movements are controlled and graceful with a quiet strength to them that contrasts with the registration lady’s nervous energy and the older speakers’ placid solemnity.
After the blur of mostly Korean names are announced the woman in navy introduces herself in Japanese as Matsushima Mayumi and proceeds to translate the opening remarks, flowery pleasantries and acknowledgements of the conference organizers. Ms. Matsushima reminds everyone to wear their nametags and then announces that the first session is over.
Yamapi looks down at his watch in surprise. Barely 10 minutes have passed since the so called opening ceremony started. All of his previous experiences with such events included a series of self important people competing to outdo one another with beautiful and meaningless sentiments until they were hopelessly behind schedule so this is a little unprecedented. Well, not that he’s complaining though.
By the time Yamapi scrapes his papers back into the folder and grabs his bags the room has mostly emptied, everyone disappearing into other doorways in the dimly lit hallway or queuing up for the elevator.
According to his schedule, Bilingual Instruction in Elementary Classrooms is supposed to be held in room 207. Grateful to avoid the crowded elevator, Yamapi heads down the hall to the left, the room numbers gradually rising as he continues….201...204...206--ahah! The next one should be 207.
Yamapi glances up to check the number plaque with his hand on the door but takes a step back in confusion when it says 208. The room across the hall is marked 209, that can’t be right either…
Yamapi shifts the weight of his computer bag to his other hand and scans the hall for someone ask, but the last group of people in sight are just disappearing into room 201 and there is no way he can reach them without shouting. Shit.
Yamapi bites his lip and runs a finger down the entries on his schedule again, double checking the numbers and times, hoping he just misread it the first time.
Nope. His session is definitely in 207.
“Hey!” a loud whisper startles Yamapi into dropping the paper as the sweating man from the first session charges down the hall, the heavy wooden bathroom door swinging shut behind him. “What are you doing?” he demands in Korean.
“I--”
“Are you lost?” He’s only about two feet away now but hasn’t slowed his speed at all.
“Yes, I--” Yamapi takes a step back, fumbling for words as the man squats to retrieve his paper, wheezing heavily as he bends.
“Thank y--”
“Well get in there! ….already starting!” The man slides the schedule back into Yamapi’s grasp and steers him by the shoulder to room 206.
“But where is--”
“Hurry up!” The man wrenches the door open and crowds Yamapi into the dark room. Yamapi stumbles into the nearest empty seat by the door, blinking to adjust to the dim light as a film clip flashes on the projector screen. The chair in front of him creaks as the sweaty man plops into it.
The footage jumping and flickering on the screen is black and white, the images warped with age. Men with dignified beards in traditional Korean robes bow and smile, the beads hanging from their wide scholars’ hats swinging and dancing. Stiff looking officers in Japanese Imperial uniforms ride by on horseback through a compound of old houses. Somehow, Yamapi has the feeling that this isn’t Bilingual Instruction in Elementary Classrooms.
He momentarily considers the option of quietly exiting to continue his hunt for room 207, but this conference room is so small there is no way he could leave without drawing everyone’s attention, and what if he never even finds 207? It’s not like he is excited about his scheduled session anyway. He doesn’t know why Boa registered for that seminar since she’s a secondary teacher, unless it was for Taemin or something.
The film ends and the room plunges into pitch black for a moment before the overhead lights snap on with a fluorescent hum. Yamapi winces at the glare and ducks his head to pull a notepad from his bag.
“So welcome to The History of Japanese Language Education in Korea!” someone announces in Japanese as Yamapi searches the side pockets for a pen. The voice is warm but a little rough and reminds Yamapi of the hot toast he made for breakfast this morning.
“Who would like to share an observation about the video we watched?” Yamapi looks up to see the graceful man in the green suit gesturing at the front of the tiny room. He looks nothing like Yamapi would have guessed from his voice, all sharp, elegant features with a cool aloofness to his posture.
He reaches up to brush his thick fringe back from his forehead and Yamapi’s breath catches as their eyes meet, the other man’s gaze dark and piercing through him before moving on around the room.
“Um, their clothes are funny?” a girl at the front of the room volunteers with a nervous giggle. Yamapi half expects a sarcastic eye roll of disapproval but the comment startles a throaty laugh from the speaker.
“Ok, ok, I won’t belabor the visual aid if no one’s interested. I have something much more exciting…!” he flips to the next slide, a grainy photograph of a small brick building and a single telegraph wire. “This is Keijou Imperial University, founded in Seoul in 1926 as the pinnacle of higher education in Korea during the Imperial colonial administration. It was later merged with 9 other schools to become Seoul National University in 1946…”
Yamapi finds himself scribbling down notes as fast as he can as the speaker expounds at a furious pace, jumping from anecdotes about educational opportunities under Imperial rule to statistics of school enrollment and adult literacy rates during the first half of the 20th century to integration policies of Korean and Japanese students in public school classrooms…
Yamapi’s hand is cramping in three places as the man in the green suit gives a hurried summary of the lasting legacies of Japanese education in Korea. He breaks off, panting, as he comes to the last slide and gives a radiant smile to his audience. The odd dozen people in the room give a short applause and the large man in front of Yamapi staggers to his feet to announce that it’s time for lunch.
Yamapi glances at his watch and then down at the first fifteen pages of his notepad that are covered in scribbled graphs and the messy blocks of text he copied down without hardly looking, his gaze captured by the dynamic stage presence of the speaker for the entire lecture.
Yamapi isn’t well versed in the history he had to cram back in high school and then quickly forgot, much less Korean history, but he almost wishes he had a question over the material so he could go speak to Mr...what was his name again?
Yamapi realizes with a slight sinking of disappointment that he has no idea what the speaker’s name is. The session wasn’t on his schedule and he must have missed the introduction of the seminar since he came in late.
The man in the tweed jacket is standing in the doorway waiting for Yamapi to leave so he can lock up the room, so Yamapi hurries out and mumbles a goodbye, once again the last to leave. There is still bit of time before lunch so he takes the deserted stairs to his small single room on the fourth floor and dumps his bags on the bed. The room is silent and stuffy and kind of suffocating. He hurries back down.
Lunch, served in a private room next to the hotel restaurant, feels a lot like the first session: everyone is sitting tight knots around the tables, chattering away in Korean. Yamapi finds an empty seat with a group of older men who have loosened their ties and are already halfway through a large bottle of soju. A few of them nod as he takes a seat but continue their loud discussion of some sports team.
Yamapi understands enough of the conversation to follow it, sort of, but then the topic switches to politics (either politics or some TV drama, he’s not really sure which) and he’s completely lost. Yamapi decides instead to focus on ingesting his serving of bibimbap and some kind of soup that looks like miso but tastes really sour. That is the perfect strategy for ignoring the awkward silence until he realizes belatedly, spooning the last of his rice into his mouth, that once he finishes eating he won’t have anything to occupy himself with. Shit. He should have just picked at the food, to make it last...
Yamapi glances around the room, not exactly hoping for a glimpse of the dude in the green suit, but if he happens to spot him in the crowded room he wouldn’t mind the distraction. Maybe he can even think of a reason to go talk to him about the session so he can excuse himself from his awkward and progressively more tipsy lunch mates.
Even after three furtive sweeps around the room Yamapi doesn’t see any familiar green jackets so he slips into his own boring black one and proceeds to the main conference room to wait for the documentary to start. He falls asleep just as the lights turn out and doesn’t wake up again until the three hour film is almost over, rubbing his dry eyes and furtively glancing around to see if anyone noticed his lapse into dreams.
He can’t really see anything in the dark but he can hear wheezing snores from the back left corner so it’s probably not too much of a scandal even if someone saw him. Yamapi sighs and slumps further in his chair to wait listlessly for the credits to roll.
Dinner is on their own, and all Yamapi wants to do is find a convenience store to buy some rice balls and coke and collapse on his bed, maybe get online and chat with Ryo for a bit. Sitting on trains and avoiding eye contact with strangers is really exhausting, apparently, and he gets to do it all over again tomorrow.
Yamapi knows though that if Ryo knew he was in Seoul on a Friday night spending his time in a dinky hotel room sweet talking a battered LAN cable into functioning he would never hear the end of it. He briefly considers napping and then going to Hongdae later, finding some club to lose track of time in for a few hours, but the thought of going alone is more suffocating than the August heat. And he really, really doesn’t want to get lost. Not that the Seoul metro is that different from the subway he’s used to, but he doesn’t trust himself to find the alleyway back to the hotel from the station.
Yamapi opens the informational binder on the desk and flips longingly through the takeout menus of fried chicken and fried dumplings and other fried items of tantalizing deliciousness only to realize he has no idea how to order delivery in Korean. So he changes into something not black and dry-clean-only and sets off with his computer bag into the sticky twilight to find adventure, alcohol, love, a park bench, somewhere with wifi he can grade vocab quizzes…
What Yamapi finds is a swingset.
The first cafe Yamapi passes is crowded with sweating bodies and swirling with a blue haze of cigarette smoke. He takes a deep gulp of untainted air and walks right past, across the street and into the convenience store he spots. This shop is definitely bigger than the mini one he stopped in at the station this morning but there is a disappointing lack of sandwiches in the fridge and the shelf below it that should be well stocked with rice balls has only a miserable looking roll of kimchi kimbap. The rice is all hard and dry when he pokes it through the plastic wrapper.
Yamapi settles for a few cans of beer and a bar of red bean ice cream. He’ll be starving in the morning, but he’s almost too hot to eat real food now. The sidewalk outside the store is too narrow to squat in front of to eat and he doesn’t want to go back to the stuffy hotel room just yet, as hard as it was to drag himself from it five minutes ago, so Yamapi wanders another block until he finds a small park between an apartment building and a noodle restaurant.
The swingset is new and sturdy enough to hold his weight and is conveniently mostly hidden behind an overgrown hydrangea bush, so he sits on the red swing and pops the tab on a can of Cass.
The bush obscures his view but doesn’t block out any of the noise from the street, groaning engines of lumbering buses and squealing tires of motorbikes, street vendors hawking indiscriminate lumps of food simmering in vats of red and brown sauces, grade school kids shrieking and pounding their light-up sneakers across the alleyway pavement, a nasally Trot ballad emanating from a radio set out on a narrow balcony, an old woman scolding someone about the price of tofu...Seoul is definitely a city. Yamapi has kind of missed the noise.
A fat mosquito lands on the black band of Yamapi's wristwatch as he’s sliding a finger under the tab of his second can. He flails in surprise, landing on his ass in damp sand with one shoelace caught in the swing chain and warm beer sprayed on his chin and collarbone. The tab breaks off in his hand with the drinking hole only half open.
The mosquito bites him and flies off before he can crush it.
Yamapi starts to laugh, his shoulders jerking, half wishing Ryo were here to share the moment and half grateful that there is no further photographic evidence of his clumsiness. The blackmail folder on Ryo’s phone is full enough as it is.
Yamapi paws through his bag for a spare kleenex, one foot still up in the air, but comes up with a caramel instead. He wipes his neck dry with the heel of his hand and rips into the paper box. The candy is a little soft from the heat and he imagines his whole body sinking into thick velvet sugar as his teeth sink into the smooth richness.
The sweetness coats his tongue in a thick blanket and he gags at the sharp contrast to the sour beer lingering in his mouth.
Yamapi doesn’t like caramel. He’s not really sure why he’s eating it now, except that it was in his hand and then the wrapper was open...
He severs the gooey bite from the lump in his hand with a slice of his teeth and swallows it down as fast as he can, shuddering as the sweetness paints his throat in a slow, sticky slide. He opens the last can of beer successfully and washes down half of it in a swishing gulp but it only helps so much. The candy’s glued into the crevices of his teeth and he’ll probably be tasting it all night.
He’s not really sure anymore why he even bought the caramels, since he didn’t plan on actually eating them. Homesickness? Maybe. He’s only been gone two weeks, though, and he hasn’t thought about Morinaga caramel since...5th grade? Yeah, he’s pretty sure it was 5th grade when Fukuda Kyoko, a sixth grader from class F, confessed to him by the bike rack and then forced him to eat a caramel representing her affections. He tried to politely decline but she willingly retracted them when he vomited on her shoes. Not his proudest moment.
Yamapi feels a twinge of nausea at the memory and groans, not sure whether to be amused or disturbed by the possibility that such a mental association would reduce him to a grinning mush of nostalgia in a foreign convenience store a decade later. Yeah, he’ll just chalk it up to pre-caffeine ditziness. Definitely not homesickness.
Yamapi dusts the sand from his shorts and drops the half eaten caramel in the plastic sack with the beer cans and the melted ice cream bar he forgot to eat. He stops for a box of takeout chicken on the way back to his room and eats it in bed in front of some variety show on mute.
Saturday he doesn’t have to wake up quite as early as he did the day before, especially since he opts out of a lonely breakfast of greasy food in the hotel restaurant, but the schedule is even more inane. Yamapi politely takes scant notes through the first two sessions but can’t help zone out 20 minutes into the third, his hollow stomach becoming a more pressing concern than than the controversy over whether kanji should be integrated into grammar textbooks or taught with a separate curriculum.
At lunch Yamapi ends up sitting with two young teachers in matching peplum tops and pencil skirt ensembles that look too tight for them to take deep breaths in and intimidatingly bright shades of lipstick. They are polite enough to introduce themselves though, a Ms. Lee Songmi in the orange lipstick and a Ms. Lim Seungmin in the coral.
Yamapi smiles pleasantly and doesn’t mind at all that they chatter away about moisturizing products and the upcoming Rom Coms without hardly pausing for a breath or a bite because he needs to replace the majority of his skin care products in the near future anyway and he’s worried that Ms. Lim’s skirt can’t handle any major lung or diaphragm expansion she might be at risk for if she attempts to eat or inhale.
It’s also really nice that he's finally speaking actual Japanese to someone at the Japanese Language Education Conference. Yamapi wonders if the dude in the green jacket would speak Japanese to him if they ended up at the same table. His accent was nearly flawless, but Yamapi assumed he was Korean because of the fashion. Also, the haircut, although Yamapi can see a longer cut with maybe a scrunched perm looking really good framing those cheekbones and--
“Hey, Yamashita-san, are you listening?”
“Huh?” Yamapi snaps back to attention and drops the clump of dried anchovies in his chopsticks into his soup. Ms. Lim giggles behind her phone, the high waistband of her skirt straining at her waist.
“Do you want to go out with us tonight? Chicken and beer?” Ms. Lee blinks her dark eyes questioningly at him and tucks a clump of red wavy hair behind her ear. “Or, if you want, we know an izakaya that has decent sake. We just figured you’d want to try Korean food, since you’re in Seoul and all…” she trails off with an uncertain smile.
“Oh, I really wish I could, but I’m heading back tonight. My train leaves just before dinner.” He smiles apologetically and stirs his soup with his chopsticks.
“Aww!” Ms. Lim looks up from her game of candy crush to pout at him. “Can’t you change your ticket?”
“Well, my school reserved it for me, so I don’t know…”
“Aww. Well, that’s too bad.”
“Yeah,” Yamapi agrees with a sigh, biting back a smirk at the realization that he just might ditch his itinerary for the company of a certain other individual at this conference, KTX reservations be damned.
No one else asks him out though, or even says a word to him until he’s waiting on the KTX platform that evening and his phone rings. It’s Erika.
“Hello?” he answers after the first ring, surprised to hear from her since she said she would be out of town all weekend.
“Tomo-kun! Hi.” Yamapi can hear a man with a husky voice and congestion singing along to a ballad duet in the background. “Where are you?”
“I’m...at Yeongdeungpo station? Why?” Yamapi feels like he’s missing something here. “Where are you?”
“Oh good, you’re not busy then! I was worried you were still at your conference or whatever.” Erika laughs breathily. “I’m stuck in Daegu traffic in the back of a taxi, so I’m making my schedule for next week. When are you free? How is next Sunday?”
“I see,” Yamapi nods dumbly even though she can’t see. He tips his head back and shakes out his hair, trying to remember his plans. “I think I’m free. Yeah, Sunday should be fine.”
“Sweet! 8:00! I’ll bring dinner.”
“Ok, 8:00 it is. Wait, bring dinner? To my place?”
“Yup! Don’t worry, I know all the best takeout places in Jeongeup. Just meet me at that 7-Eleven at five til. You live near there, right?” she asks cheerily, as if she were requesting his opinion on the veracity of the weather forecast and not inviting herself over to his house.
“Yeah, I live near there.” Yamapi has got to buy some hangers and a bottle of dish soap before Sunday. Shit.
“Awesome sauce! How was your weekend? How was the conference?” Yamapi sucks in a deep breath to answer but the words “I need to learn Korean” and “I met a mysterious handsome stranger but I don’t even know his name” and “Do all Korean hotels label room numbers out of order?” and “You should teach me how to order takeout on Sunday”, all the words he could say, just stick in his throat and swell like a nasty tonsil infection.
“Hey, Tomo-kun? Are you there? You ok?” The quiet concern in Erika’s voice dislodges the lump and Yamapi swallows, hard.
“Yeah. Fine. Do you like caramel?”