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“Okay, sure,” Becka said slowly. “But none of that is a good enough excuse.”
“I know,” I agreed easily.
“Does he?”
I thought about it for a moment, matching his words and actions in my mind.
“Yeah. I actually think he does.”
Becka was silent for a while.
“So, what happens next?”
“Hell if I know,” I groaned, laying my head down on my knees as Becka laughed.
April 16th
New York
I’d never been to New York before. I’d always wanted to come and see it for myself, but I had never made time for it. When I lived in LA with Becka, it was always a vague notion in my head to get on a plane and come for a weekend. But life had just kept life-ing, and it never happened.
I looked out of the window of the minibus now, mouth unashamedly agape as I stared up at the famous skyline.
“You look like you’ve never seen a skyscraper before.” Sihyeon shook her head.
“I’ve never seen these skyscrapers before,” I said, not bothering to disguise my awe.
I’d lived in LA, London and Seoul. I’d travelled pretty extensively, but something about New York was…
“You’re drooling,” Sihyeon said flatly.
I jerked away from the window and wiped a hand under my chin.
“No the fuck I am not,” I replied, outraged by the deception.
Sihyeon just laughed and kept scrolling on her phone.
The taping of SNL wasn’t happening until the evening. I’d been given the choice to shadow the group to a radio interview that morning, but decided my time would be better spent going for brunch with some friends I’d made while working for The Loop. I’d never met them before, as they were based at the New York office whilst I’d worked remotely in the UK, but we’d collaborated on a few projects before I’d left to move to Frequency. Even my old editor, James Macowski was coming.
Once upon a time I would have baulked at even the suggestion of going to meet a bunch of folks I’d only ever emailed, or video-called, but when I walked into the airy restaurant and immediately spotted the table of my former colleagues, all I felt was welcomed into an inner circle.
The SNL studio was the kind of organised chaos that I had come to expect from a live show. People running around with clipboards and wearing headsets, people carrying mysterious bundles of cables, people inexplicably standing around drinking coffee from paper cups.
It was the kind of bustle that made me simultaneously want to watch in awe of the ant colony-like workflow, and stand very still lest I be perceived in any way.
GVibes were here to do a cameo and a track performance, which while all very par-for-the-course for them, was still endlessly fascinating to watch, because on paper it sounded pretty standard, but in reality, it was like watching them switch between versions of themselves in real-time.
American TV shows loved for them to goof off, flirt or just be generally playful – especially with a live audience. Doing this, the guys were completely in their element, totally at ease – or, at least, putting on a great show of looking like they were.
When the show moved onto their live performance, that was when the shift occurred. It was like watching them tuck away parts of themselves to become something else. They stood in formation even as people buzzed around them, faces smoothed into something almost distant, not quite cold, but focused.
I watched Jihoon roll his shoulders and close his eyes as he moved his head from side to side. My hands twitched like they remembered the feel of his muscles under them. It was in these quiet pockets of time where I had the liberty to observe and to think. Watching him like this – the way he could switch from the media-trained TV personality to the stage persona – it made it clear how he had become used to living like this. Everything he did was an approximation of who he was. A facet of the whole, and while it was fascinating to watch, it also felt bittersweet.
Everything about his life was so public except the man he was behind closed doors. People assumed they knew what he was like, based on the parts he’d let them see. They pieced together ideas of who they thought he was, building a picture of him that was more stick-figure than portrait.
I wrapped my arms tightly around myself as a heady rush went through me from the knowledge that I knew who he was.
As if he’d felt my stare, Jihoon looked over to where I stood. His eyes collided with mine, the full-force of his sultry stage persona slamming into me until I had to take a step back. He smirked, and looked away.
