Evidence that Korean dramas have eaten my brain :-p
THIS ABOVE ALL
This above all: to thine own self be true. - William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I don't own.
Technical Notes: The story begins in August 2010, one year after the events of You're Beautiful. Also, Korean honorifics give me a headache, so I'm sticking to the very basics.
Chapter One - Hello I Love You (The Doors)
"You're wearing that to the concert?!"
Puzzled, So Ha-neul looked at her best friend, then down at the faded jeans and baggy T-shirt she was wearing. "What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"
Moon Su-jin put her hands on her hips. "You look like a boy!"
"I'm going to a concert, not a wedding," she retorted. "There's going to be a lot of people, it will be hot inside, and we'll be standing. It... it'll be just like a basketball game!" Ha-neul finished triumphantly. She and Su-jin had watched, as well as played, their fair share of games over the years. They definitely knew what it was like to go to those events.
"But you don't get a backstage pass after a basketball game," Su-jin told her. Without bothering to ask for permission, she opened her friend's closet and started digging through it. "We're going to meet the band after the concert! You need to look nice! Didn't your dad say you had to dress up a little?"
"I don't know what that means," Ha-neul said, but at that point she noticed that Su-jin's outfit - black leggings, flat black shoes and a floaty-looking pink blouse - looked very different from her own.
"Well, now you're going to find out." The other girl pulled something out of the closet. "Wear this. You can keep those jeans and sneakers on."
She arched an eyebrow at the T-shirt that her friend tossed on the bed. It was one of Ha-neul's newer ones, bright yellow with video game graphics on the front. "It's not different from what I'm already wearing."
"All you have in your closet are jeans and T-shirts. At least that shirt will fit you better. You need to go shopping and buy clothes that will show off your figure more!" Su-jin sighed melodramatically. "I'm the one who has to hide mine."
Ha-neul rolled her eyes as she pulled on the new T-shirt. While her best friend was on the short and curvy side, and always worried about getting fat, she was naturally thin and almost six feet tall in her bare feet. She felt like a gigantic stick next to Su-jin. "I think you look cute, Su-jin. I wish I could look more like you."
"Aww, thank you. Here, put this on, too." A clump of dark blue material landed on the bed. "I bought this vest for you last Christmas, and you've never worn it! It will look cute over that shirt. Now for some accessories..."
As Su-jin rooted through her dresser, Ha-neul sighed and wished she could just stay home, or at least do something else, but her father said that being seen at the concert would raise her public profile and be good for her modeling career. Well, she told herself, a concert didn't sound like a bad way to spend the evening. There was just one little problem... "Who's having the concert again?"
Su-jin rounded on her with a scandalized gasp and a bright orange accessory (more presents that Ha-neul had never worn) in each hand. "I know you don't listen to pop music much, but I can't believe you don't know A.N.JELL!" she exclaimed, then tossed the bracelet and ponytail holder on the bed. "Put these on, and then I shall educate you."
By the time Ha-neul had donned the accessories, Su-jin had opened a Youtube webpage on Ha-neul's computer. "This is A.N.JELL," she began as the video began to play. She pointed to each member of the group as he came into focus. "That's Hwang Tae-kyung, the lead singer... Go Mi-nam, who plays keyboards and does a lot of singing, too, is the newest member; he joined them last year... and that's Kang Shin-woo, he plays guitar-"
"Hey, wait a minute." Ha-neul peered at the computer screen. "Did you say 'Kang Shin-woo?'"
"Yes," Su-jin replied, surprised. "Why?"
She frowned thoughtfully, trying to get a closer look at the band. Which one in the video was he again? "It's not important, but the name-"
Just then, there was a firm knock on her door. "Girls," rumbled the voice of So Kang-dae, Ha-neul's father. "Let's go. We don't want to be late."
"We're coming, Uncle," Su-jin called. "OK, close that computer and put this on," she told Ha-neul, pushing a tube of lip gloss in her hand, "and let's go!"
***
The A.N.JELL concert, the last one of their summer tour, was held in a concert hall almost as big as the Jamsil Arena. Even though the venue was very big, it was packed with thousands of excited fans. "They seem really popular," Ha-neul said, speaking loudly so to be heard over the noise of the crowd.
"They're only the most popular idol group in Korea!" Su-jin told her. "I can't believe you don't know!"
"Well, I don't," she answered as the lights on stage suddenly blazed on and screams filled the air.
Ha-neul didn't know anything about A.N.JELL, but the concert was an electrifying experience. The band was like a big-league basketball team, controlling the crowd's emotions with every little move they made. But unlike basketball games, the concert had all sorts of cool effects like colored smoke and giant video screens. The screens gave Ha-neul the chance to get a closer look at the scowling, intense vocalist, the suave and confident keyboardist, the bleached-blond drummer banging happily away on the drums. Most of her attention, though, was on the guitarist. She and Su-jin were too far away for her to get a good look at him, but the video screens occasionally focused in on his face.
"It is him," Ha-neul murmured.
***
"Wasn't that amazing?!" Su-jin exclaimed as she and Ha-neul made their way to the backstage area after the concert. She was speaking loudly, which made some of the exiting fans glare at them, and then look enviously at the backstage passes hanging around their necks, but Ha-neul could understand why her friend was speaking that way; because of all the loud noise during the concert, her ears felt as though they were stuffed with cotton.
"It was great." Ha-neul's voice sounded strange. She hoped the ringing in her ears would go away soon.
Suddenly, there was a vibration in her shoulder bag. Her father had sent a text message to let them know that he was waiting for them near the entrance. "And the band is with him!" Su-jin said. "This is so exciting! But wait, before we go in..." Out came the lip gloss again.
After the retouch, the girls made it through the venue security without any problem - Ha-neul was willing to bet that her father had already told security to watch out for her. Once they were finally backstage, it was easy to spot Mr. So, who at well over six feet, towered over everyone in sight.
So Kang-dae smiled when he caught sight of Ha-neul. "There she is now! Ha-neul, come here, please."
Pasting a smile on her face, Ha-neul obeyed, with Su-jin not far behind. "This is my daughter, Ha-neul," her father said, "and her friend, Moon Su-jin. Ha-neul, you remember my old friend and former manager, Ahn Sung-chan, and I am sure you know the members of A.N.JELL."
"Hello," Ha-neul said, bowing politely. "Congratulations on a great concert."
Ahn Sung-chan, President of AN Entertainment, did an exaggerated double take. "This is little Ha-neul? She's all grown up now! Beautiful! Beautiful!" he exclaimed in English. "You look just like your mother."
"Thank you, President Ahn."
He wagged a finger at her. "No, no, no," he reprimanded her, again in English. "You must call me Uncle, the way you did before!"
"Yes, Uncle," Ha-neul repeated dutifully, ducking her head to give Su-jin an amused look. She remembered this man only vaguely; the random spouting of English she didn't remember at all.
President Ahn then decided to formally introduce her to the band. Hwang Tae-kyung, who didn't look particularly sociable, surprisingly gave her a small nod and smile. Ha-neul received more enthusiastic greetings from Go Mi-nam and Jeremy.
"Actually, Ha-neul and I have met before," Kang Shin-woo said when he was presented. "We went to elementary school together."
Ha-neul nodded. "Kang Shin-woo! I knew your name was familiar! You... you were shorter than me then," she blurted out.
That made Su-jin gasp and Jeremy chortle, but Shin-woo just smiled pleasantly. Those days were long past; today, they were just about the same height - in fact, she might even be a little shorter than he. "Well, you were the tallest girl in our class," he replied, then nodded respectfully to Mr. So. "And everyone knew who you were because your father was a professional basketball player."
"Really?" Jeremy asked, looking up at Mr. So in wonder. Go Mi-nam looked impressed, too, but he was too cool to say anything.
"Yes," President Ahn confirmed. "You probably don't know it, Jeremy, because you grew up in England, but Mr. So played for Busan when the Korean Basketball League first opened. I was his manager." He chuckled. "But now I only manage singers because their careers last longer."
"Leaving me to manage the star athletes," Mr. So added, grinning at his old friend.
"He's the Jerry Maguire of Korea!" the other man joked. "Show me the money!"
"I didn't know you were from Busan," Mi-nam remarked to Shin-woo as the elders started talking business, leaving the younger ones to their own devices.
Shin-woo was about to answer that he remembered telling Mi-nam this, but caught himself; it wasn't Mi-nam whom he had told, but Mi-nam's twin sister, Mi-nyeo. "You probably hadn't joined the band yet when I told everyone," he said instead. Suppressing the little pang that still ran through him at the thought of Mi-nyeo, he turned back to his old classmate. "The middle school was very disappointed when you moved away. The girls' basketball team there was really looking forward to having you as a member."
Ha-neul gave him a small smile and a shrug. "Well, I couldn't help it; we had to leave."
"Why did you have to go away?"
"My father signed a contract to play for the Knights. He played for one season, then he had to stop because my mother got sick."
That familiar prickly warmth, a sure sign that he had said something embarrassingly wrong, started creeping up the back of Shin-woo's neck. He could tell from the sadness in Ha-neul's voice and the fact that Mrs. So was not around that she did not recover. "I'm sorry," he managed to say.
A silence fell as Su-jin patted her friend's back comfortingly. To his mortification, Shin-woo saw that Jeremy fidgeted uneasily, and Tae-kyung, always uncomfortable with emotional displays, looked like he wished he were somewhere else. Mi-nam, however, jumped in to save the day. "Mr. So and President Ahn said that you played basketball for Korea in the Olympics," he said, flashing her the smile that sent A.N.JELL's fans swooning. "That's really cool."
The change of subject (or maybe it was that smile) seemed to cheer up Ha-neul. "Oh, yes, I did," she answered, trading grins with Su-jin. "Su-jin and I were teammates. That's actually how we met - training for the national women's team."
Jeremy peered down at Su-jin, who was almost a foot shorter than Ha-neul. "You played basketball?" he asked in disbelief.
"She is the best point guard on the team," Ha-neul told him. "She took us all the way to the quarterfinals."
"And don't forget the gold medal in the FIBA tournament that let Korea qualify for the Olympics in the first place," Su-jin added tartly. She had seemed awestruck a while ago, when she first met the band, but it looked like that feeling was gone.
"Awesome," Mi-nam said, earning him a brilliant smile from the smaller girl.
The blond young man, however, still looked skeptical. "Is girls' basketball as hard as boys' basketball?"
"Why don't you play a game with us and find out?" Su-jin challenged him. Ha-neul nudged her, murmuring for her to keep her cool, but the other girl ignored it and kept her eyes on Jeremy, a fierce expression on her round face.
"I'm not a girl!" Jeremy exclaimed.
"We can dress you up like one if you don't want the other players to find out you're a boy."
That made Tae-kyung and Mi-nam burst out laughing. Shin-woo, knowing that they were remembering the story of Mi-nam's entry into the group, soon followed. Jeremy tried to laugh, too, but he still looked disgruntled.
Eyes wide with bewilderment, Ha-neul and Su-jin watched the boys laugh. "I wasn't joking," Su-jin whispered to her friend.
***
"You did well tonight," Mr. So told his daughter in the car, later that night. They had just dropped off Su-jin at her house and were driving home. "President Ahn was very impressed with you."
"I'm glad," Ha-neul said, watching headlights speed past them in the night.
"He promised to help us by having you attend the events that his agency holds from time to time. He can introduce you to people in the modeling industry."
"That's very kind of him."
"It will be a very big help to your career," her father agreed. "Being a former member of the Korean women's basketball team will help people remember your name, but we know it does not really get the modeling jobs to come in." So far, Ha-neul had done work for some casual clothing lines, a facial wash and a children's health drink - they were good assignments, but nothing particularly high-profile.
"I know."
Silence fell for several moments. "The injury wasn't your fault," Mr. So said finally, his voice gruff. Ha-neul and her father had always thought that she would go on to play in the Women's Korean Basketball League after her Olympic eligibility was up, but a knee injury in the quarterfinal against the USA had made that out of the question.
"I know," she said again. She had been devastated in the beginning; two years later, the loss of that dream still stung but with her father's help, she was moving on. "But it did happen," she added, repeating what he had told her over and over, "and the best thing we can do about it is find a different path."
"That's right." Without taking his eyes off the road, Mr. So reached over to pat her arm. "Taking a different path is hard," he said encouragingly, "but it won't be as bad as you think. You'll do very well as a model, the way you did as a basketball player."
Straightening in her seat, Ha-neul nodded. I hope so, she thought.