Chapter 5

It’s been a more than year since Han Geng left, and I’ve recently graduated from the academy. For the past few months, I’ve been working with various entertainment companies in Shanghai as a freelance choreographer. Turned out the dean was right, as always. I was a better choreographer than I was a dancer. With my academic record, the recommendation from the academy and being a graduate from the academy, it wasn’t that hard to get a job. But the icing on the whole cake was the job I’d just landed. I’m finally going to Korea.

I’ve been contacted by a recruitment agency in Korea and I’ve been requested to join their client’s company as a full time trainer and choreographer. Their client, whose name they’d yet to disclose, was one of the largest entertainment companies in Korea. I was to fly to Korea, at their expense, to sign the employment contract.

“Is this Sierra-shi?” a lady speaking English with a heavy Korean accent had called.

“Yes, this is she.”

“I’m calling regarding your application to our agency.”

“I see.”

“Our client is interested in hiring you. When are you able to come to Korea to sign the contract?”

When I first received the call, I thought that someone was pulling my leg. Am I really that lucky? I’m going to Korea! According to the recruitment agency, I was selected because I’d studied the Korean language at the academy, and it was important for the trainer to know how to speak Korean. To be honest, I don’t think my Korean was that good. I hope they don’t send me back when they realize that I can’t really speak the language.

After I’d hung up the phone, a single thought crossed my mind; would I be able to meet Han Geng? We’d not called each other or even sent each other letters or emails since he left for Korea. But the last time he changed his mobile phone number, he dropped me a text message to inform me of his new number. I guess we just didn’t trust ourselves to speak. We didn’t want to talk about our lives, because they were no longer connected. But the fact that he’d left me with his number showed that he was still waiting for me to go to Korea. It’s been more than 6 months since I received that text message. Would he still be waiting for me?

For weeks, after he’d left, I felt like a zombie. I’d thought that I would just learn to get over him once he wasn’t there, but no such luck. Everything reminded me of him. The academy, the alleys we’d walked together, the hostel, the dining hall, no matter where I went, I was assaulted by memories of him. I spent each night crying myself to sleep, to the point that Dou Dou finally lost patience with me, and forced me to snap out of my emotional breakdown.

“You can’t keep acting like this Sierra,” she scolded me one night.

“Leave me alone,” I said as I turned away from her.

“You’re a wreck now. How do you intend to graduate when you’re behaving like this? And if you never graduate, how do you think you’re ever going to see him again? Did you think he’d come back for you?”

I spent the whole night thinking about what she’d said, and she was right. The only way we would ever have a chance to meet again was if I did well at the academy. Even if I’m not doing it for him, I need to do this for myself. I need to get back on track. From the next day onwards, I threw myself into my training, into my classes at the academy, and I ended up not just passing, but with honours.

I’m at the Shanghai Pudong International Airport now, sitting in the waiting room at the departure gate, waiting to board my flight. I flipped open my wallet and traced my index finger over the worn out photo stickers in my wallet. We’d taken the photos together on one of our outings at the mall.

“Let’s take some photos,” Han Geng said as he dragged me toward the machine.

“Bu yao. They always turn out faded and ugly,” I protested.

“This machine looks new,” he said.

“And everyone would’ve thought the same thing and rushed to use it. Let’s not waste our money.”

“Come on, Sierra. I’ll pay,” he said.

“Bu yao,” I pouted.

“Yi chi, zui hou yi chi. If they turn out bad, I’ll burn them and I’ll never ask for you to have photo stickers taken ever again.”

“Zhen de?” I eyed him as he nodded.

“Wo bu hui pian ni de,” he smiled.

“Hao ba,” I sighed as we walked towards the machine.

The photos turned out great, and I was forced to eat my words. I made him keep those photos where he’d made weird faces, while I kept the nicer ones.

An announcement that the plane was ready to be boarded woke me up from my reminiscing. As I was closing my wallet, a slip of paper fell out. It was a photo of him, walking down the catwalk during his debut in May, 2005, about a month ago. Before he’d left, he’d grown out his hair, and it seemed that they’d let him keep it that way. It was even longer now, and they’d made it look edgy. He looked so different from the boy I used to know. He was now more of a man. Ying Ru was the one who found the picture on the internet and printed it out for me.

“Look at him now!” Ying Ru said as she handed me the photo she met me for lunch one day. It was printed on a piece of A4-sized paper.

I took the paper from her and stared at it. It was him, but a whole new him. I walked away wordlessly, holding the paper at my side.

“Wait up,” she yelled as she chased after me. “Sierra,” she said worriedly, “you’re still not over him?”

I didn’t reply.

“I shouldn’t have showed you his picture,” she sighed.

“It’s fine,” I replied. “I just have nothing to say about it. I’m fine.”

“Okay,” she smiled. “So what are we eating?”

When I got home, I cut it out and put it in my wallet. I felt somewhat like a fan, like some stalker, but I didn’t care. He was just a memory for me, and I had a right to keep my memories right where I want them to be.

As the flight took off, I silently bid China farewell. It had been my home for the past 5, 6 years, and I was now about to build a new home in Korea. Someday, maybe someday, I’ll come back. When I do, Yi He Yuan, the place where memories of happiness and romance will always greet me, will be the first place I visit.

5 hours later, I’m walking out into the arrival hall at Seoul’s Incheon International Airport, touching my hair consciously. After years of having only long hair, I’d recently cut it short, really short. We were advised to have long hair back at the academy since it was easy to style and adapt to whatever role we were dancing.

“Why won’t you cut your hair short?” Han Geng once asked me when he saw me eying the photos of some short-haired models.

“You know why,” I sighed.

“Who cares? Just cut it,” he said. “I think you’d look good with short hair. You’d probably look more dangerous than you are now,” he winked.

“Zhen de ma?” I asked him.

“Zhen de,” he smiled.

“Then I’ll cut it when I graduate from the academy.”

I’d taken his word for it, and cut my hair as I’ve planned with him. He was right. I looked better now. I preferred my new look to the old one. Who knew a haircut cut bring me a whole new personality.

I looked around among the groups of people who were crowding at the arrival hall. The company had informed me that they would send a person to collect me and found a lady holding a sign with my name on it, in Korean. Thank god that I could at least read my own name.

“Sierra-shi?” she said inquiringly as I walked towards her.

“Nae. Choneun Sierra-imnida,” I said.

“Come with me, please,” she said as she led me out of the arrival hall to a car waiting for us.

After a long drive, we arrived in what I would consider a business district; tall buildings and luxury stores on my left and right. Seoul was pretty much like Shanghai; skyscrapers, big department stores and the likes. The only difference was that there weren’t huge packs of bicycles and motorcycles on the roads. We finally pulled up at a big yellow building, which was the client’s offices, I was told. As I got off and stood up, looking at the sign on the building, I almost fell over in shock. The sign said: SM Entertainment.

Chinese Notes:

Bu yao.
Don’t want.

Yi chi, zui hou yi chi.
Just once, this is the last time.

Zhen de?
Really?

Wo bu hui pian ni de.
I wouldn’t lie to you.

Hao ba.
Fine.