Chapter 269: First Time in Korea, Quiz on the Block (1)
"Jackpot, hehe."
Mid-flight, as everyone was settling in to go to sleep, after triple-checking to make sure she wasn’t on her main, a passenger who had purchased Wi-Fi announced her news to her idol fansite account.
[I think I saw the Pop Star Academy boys on my flight to Korea. (images of contestants attached, videos of contestants attached).]
They were all so handsome in person and friendly despite it being so late at night. And so many of them let me take a picture of them with no complaints. Jamie was especially nice to me, and every time he walked by my seat, he waved at me with that blinding smile of his.]
And as the owner of a sensationalized fansite that reported on people in the idol space, sometimes to the point of violating the privacy of those idols, numerous responses came flooding in.
└ awww, noona, you’re so lucky!
└ Whoa, their outfits are so stylish. The airport fit videos in Korea will look so good.
└ Why was Jamie walking past your seat so much? Toilet?
└└ His seat was in business class, so he kept coming to the back to chat with people in economy because he was apparently bored. Each time he had to go back to his seat, he looked like a kicked puppy. I felt so bad, but also happy because he always took time to say hello to me and smile.
└└└ Oh, to be the child of wealthy parents and fly business class while my supposed friends fly economy.
└└└└ ntm on Jamie! He has writing credits and music copyrights to his name. He’s making his own money!
└└└ Who was Jamie talking to?
└└└└ Benjamin and Carlos mostly. They were seated behind me. I think he also kept trying to talk to Ariel, but since he never woke up, it never happened. It was kind of funny because Ariel looks like a human burrito. If you didn’t know it was him, you would laugh and walk by but thankfully, I got the video of him wrapping himself up. (picture attached.)
└└└└└ Fur hat, sunglasses, face mask, while wrapped in a blanket? Can he even breathe?
└└└└└ Not a single inch of skin is exposed lol
└└└└└ How cozy. It looks like the furhat survived the cooking incident?
└└└└└└ We don’t talk about that cursed day.
└ Can you take off his mask so we can see his sleeping face? Or at least raise his glasses and hat?
└ Can you share the video of him wrapping up or will it be for sale later?
Unfortunately for her, even if she wanted to, he was in a window seat with two other people taking the other seats, but seeing the interest from paying customers, she would have to try later.
└ Can you take sleeping photos of the other contestants? Pleaseeee? I sent a donation!
└└ Of course. Check your DM.
The fansite owner continued chatting online, enjoying the new influx of followers as she answered questions and continued taking secret photos of different contestants sleeping in various positions.
She posted a few and kept the high-profile photos for sale later, while enjoying the comments people made praising her.
As the requests kept coming in along with monetary donations, she kept getting bolder until she had captured almost everyone.
└ Get Levi
└ Where’s Levi?
└ No pictures of Levi?
└ Can you take a photo of William?
└ Is the prince on your flight?
Levi and William were both seated in business class and had never come out, but feeling brave, especially with the flight attendants sleeping, the girl got up and crept forward past the curtain into the business class area.
Enjoying the cool, scented air, she began walking by the closed-off seats and standing on her tiptoes to see who was inside each one.
If it were a contestant she didn’t have a picture of yet, she would quickly snap several photos of them while looking around, then pretend she was stretching.
As she reached a particular seat, she peeked inside and saw a person with a blond buzzcut and headphones over his ears sleeping on a slightly reclined seat.
It was Levi.
She would recognize that handsome, sharp-featured face anywhere.
As she reached her phone over to take a photo of him, pale blue eyes snapped open and glared at her.
"Eep!"
"Eeep, my ass. You don’t know how to respect people’s privacy? You think you’re the only one who can buy wifi on a plane and secretly take photos of people?"
"How did you-"
"It’s trending. Obviously."
At the cold tone and fierce glare directed her way, the fan suddenly hid her phone behind her back, but before she could come up with a way to defend herself-
A lean hand quickly reached up to pull her face mask until it snapped while his other hand held up a device and-
Click!
A bright flash of light hit her face as Levi took a photo of her.
"Ah! No!"
In a rush, the fansite owner quickly turned around to put on another face mask from her pocket before glaring at Levi, who was pressing a button in his seat.
"Are you deleting those photos, or am I sharing your face to the public?"
"It’s a public place. I’m allowed to take photos!"
"Is that right? Oi, flight attendant."
"Mr. Temple, did you need something?" The polite voice of a flight attendant sounded out as she approached Levi’s seat.
"This is not her cabin, and she’s taken a bunch of photos of me and other people without our consent. Can you make her delete it?"
"Unfortunately, that’s not illegal even though it’s heavily frowned upon. I’ll escort her back to her seat, but we can only request that she not do such a thing from now on. Ma’am, would you mind deleting the photos?"
"They’re my property, so no!"
How else would she make extra money if not by selling them?
"Okay." Levi turned to give the fansite owner a smile that wasn’t a smile before pointing his camera at her and began recording again, as evidenced by the flash.
"This lady here has been going around recording people’s sleeping faces and sharing them online. I plan on doing the same."
Due to the loud noise and the light, people started waking up and standing to see what the commotion was, inevitably bringing out their cameras to record the interaction, causing the fan site owner to pull her mask even tighter over her face.
"Why are you hiding? Since you like to hide your face while posting others, I will post yours, and ask both my parents to post it and spread it everywhere, and then we’ll see what happens to you."
"...you can’t do that to me! Using your connections to bully me. It will tank your reputation on the show, and I’ll complain about it online!"
"So what? Ask my parents. Since childhood, I’ve really, really disliked paparazzi, and don’t really care what people have to say about me. Delete or I’ll be posting."
Crazed blue eyes tinged with red glared at her, and the fan site owner gulped as people began muttering and recording her.
"Only if you delete my face."
"Naturally."
After a moment of contemplation and staring at the people recording her, the fan site owner brought out her phone and began deleting the posts.
And after Levi triple checked her phone to delete all the backups and online posts, she was finally allowed back to her seat, where the flight attendants glared at her for the remainder of the flight.
Biting her teeth in anger, she began to draft a post to complain tearfully about her innocence.
******
While other people were dealing with drama, another person slept for 12 hours straight without moving.
After the best and longest night of sleep that he had had in a while, Ari woke up feeling refreshed.
He ate the offered breakfast, filled out the documents he was supposed to fill out, and stepped out of the airplane with light steps.
It wasn’t his first in Korea, but the last time he came, he was very young and had no memories of it, so in his mind, it didn’t count.
With eyes full of curiosity and a bit of excitement, he met back up with Jamie as the 2 staff members they had traveled with paired everyone up with a partner, with their documents in hand.
One staff member took the Korean residents through the residential immigration line while the rest of them followed the other staff member through the foreign immigration line.
"I can’t believe you slept the whole flight."
"I’m in my growth phase. Anyway, where’s your guitar?" Ari asked Jamie, who was standing more or less empty-handed.
"Since they switched our plane to a smaller one at the last minute, it was too big to fit overhead, so the flight attendant took it. I hope they treated Sunburst gently. She’s delicate."
"That’s your favorite guitar, right?" Ari recalled the guitar with the bright golden patterns that Jamie preferred over the other ones hanging in his studio.
"Yeah. I’ll be really sad if they mess her up. It was a birthday present."
"It should be okay. Maybe?"
As Jamie began sulking about his guitar, Ari glanced around the airport, trying to sound out the Korean characters he had learned to read while listening to the different conversations all around him.
For it being so early, the airport was surprisingly crowded with both Koreans and foreigners, but the immigration line moved fast, and before Ari knew it, they had retrieved their suitcases, passed them over to a staff member, and were waiting in line with Jamie so the airport staff could find his guitar, which hadn’t come out with the rest of the suitcases.
"It’s a guitar case, a hard black guitar case. Ye high. Ye wide. Flight from LAX," Jamie spread his hands to explain the dimensions to the staff member who once again spoke in heavily accented English.
"I am sorry. No guitar here."
"The flight attendant took it, so it should be here. It wasn’t in the luggage area."
"No. There is no guitar. Everything cleared out. Unless you left it on the plane."
"I came on the plane with a guitar. I don’t understand what you mean by no guitar."
"There is no guitar."
As Jamie began going back and forth with the worker, Ari turned to the side, covered his mouth, and whispered to NOVA.
"How do I use the earrings to talk?"
[Think about speaking in Korean, and it will work.]
[Probably?]
What do you mean by probably.
Although he was a bit doubtful, Ari turned back to the worker.
"Uhm...실례합니다 (shillehamnida)," Ari bowed his head politely to the worker, and as the woman looked at him in surprise, he began to explain what happened in slow Korean, hoping that he wasn’t saying anything strange.
"...so, is there any way that the cabin crew could have stored it somewhere else? He was in business class and paid a lot of money for his ticket. And the guitar is very, very expensive and was a gift from his family. If not, can we fill out a lost and found form? It really is very important."
"A gift?"
"Yes. Despite how he looks, he’s the baby of his family. Doesn’t he look like a puppy? It’s really important to him. Please help if you can."
The woman looked Jamie up and down again, seeing that despite his tall height and build, he did look like a handsome, golden-haired, teary blue-eyed puppy, and then at Ari, who looked like a striking, posh cat, complete with fluffy fur as his hat.
The fact that he was also speaking surprisingly good Korean for a foreigner made it clear that he had studied hard, and she nodded resolutely.
Her heart was touched, and these two were exactly the type she liked to see.
A bossy cat and a crybaby dog duo that were best friends.
"Okay...I will go and check again, so please wait here. Take a seat."
"Sure. Thank you once again."
The two of them took a seat and waited nervously until the same woman finally came back holding a familiar guitar case.
With teary eyes, Jamie ran up to her and grabbed the guitar, repeatedly bowing his head.
"Thank you. Thank you. Cam sa mida. Thank you so much."
"Of course. Take care."
As the two of them bowed toward her before finally stepping out the door to the main terminal of the airport, they were stunned by a large crowd of people yelling and screaming while trying to push through a line of security personnel.
"Kyaaaaaa!!!"
"Oh my gosh! It’s Golden Generation!"
"Mingyu! Mingyu, look this way!"
"JM, JM Oppa, you’re so pretty."
"Oppa, look this way!"
"Who are you wearing today?"
With the way cameras were flashing, and the names people were screaming while shoving, Ari knew he was immediately in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Glancing to the side, he saw a group of 6 boys dressed in all white suits walking among staff members and posing for photos, causing the crowd to scream even louder.
Quickly looking away, he and Jamie did their best to move to the side while avoiding pushing people until they finally got through to a clear space.
"That’s insane. It looks worse than a football game."
"No kidding. Let’s find everybody and get out of here."
The two of them began walking around the terminal, looking for their group, but no matter how Ari looked, there was nobody they recognized at all.
Even after the group of boys dressed in white suits left and the area calmed down, they still didn’t see anybody from Pop Star Academy.
They were completely alone.
"Jamie...I think they left us behind."
"I think so too."
What the heck?
Did they not do a head count before leaving?
We literally told them we were waiting for your guitar.
The two of them stared at each other before speaking simultaneously.
"Do you have the staff member’s number?"
"No, you?"
"No."
Another pause.
"Taxi? We have the address, right? We’ll just get a refund afterward."
"Let’s just take the train. We have the address, right? Let’s do it!"
Ari: ಠ_ಠ
"Why the train?"
"It looks like it will be fun. Plus, we can see the city and stop for snacks. They took our suitcases and we don’t have any plans but sleeping until the evening, so let’s do it. Train! Train! Train!"
"You’re an adult. Take the train by yourself. What if we get lost?"
"That’s why we should go together. Unless... You would abandon me in a foreign country where I can’t speak the local language by myself? It’s a dark, scary world, and I’m scared."
"You’re 6’2 around 170. I think you’ll be fine."
"Wow. My feelings are hurt." Jamie gave him a sad puppy dog look that just got increasingly sadder.
Ari: "..."
"I thought our friendship meant something to you."
Ari: "..."
"I thought we were closer than that."
Ari: "..."
"You went to eat with Levi, but you can’t take the train with me. Especially after ignoring me on the plane and sleeping peacefully. Wow. I’m hurt. The pain."
Seeing Jamie sulking and looking away before peeking at him from the sides of his eyes, Ari just blinked in shock.
Blackmail?
Who are you and what have you done with Jamie?
Who corrupted him?
Who?
"I thought that-"
"Fine! Fine! Let’s take the train! But you have to message the PD on social media and tell her what happened."
"Yes! Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm, Korea train."
With Jamie happily humming away, Ari went to speak with someone to figure out the best train to use, and off they went.
*******
"Ahhhh, we’re filming another episode of First Time in Korea, Quiz on the Block, but why are there no attractive foreigners that will satisfy our Korean audience? Our beauty standards are too high, so the ratings will suffer if they’re not attractive enough." Yoo Jae-bong, a variety TV host, sighed as he stared at the people rushing past him to their destinations on the streets of Hongdae, Seoul.
"Ahhh, I know. It’s getting harder and harder to find foreigners who are smart but also pretty. Especially men. What are we going to do?" Choi Soobin, his partner and assistant, chimed in as he sipped the cold Americano to cool down while his eyes scanning the crowd in search of at least one person who would fit their criteria for their show.
His Chuseok bonus would depend on the ratings of the show.
"Wait, what about them?"
Choi Soobin turned to point his finger at 2 handsome boys who seemed to be having a passionate discussion.
One had blonde hair that gleamed like strands of gold in the morning sun and a guitar strapped to his back, while the other had red hair that gleamed like fire and had a bookbag with a fur hat tied to it, and was fanning himself
Their looks were contrasting as well, with the shorter one having clear green eyes and fox-like features, while the taller one had rounder, blue eyes and a friendlier disposition.
Both boys wore simple yet fashionable clothing in 2 different styles, and as they spoke back and forth in English, one of them had an unmistakable Southern American drawl, and the other sounded European making the contrast between them stand out even more.
Yoo Jae-bong nodded in approval.
"Oh, Wow. They’re good-looking enough to be idols, and one of them even looks like a musician. Shall we approach and see if they’re interested in taking a quiz? Even if they do terribly, they look good enough to be on TV, so it’s not a loss."