I was done with the hostel rooftop and the group of what I now considered former friends. 

I spent the next two weeks mostly in my room, eating fast food, playing on my laptop and looking forward to the rest of the journey. Japan was next and there was no point worrying too much about things imploding in Seoul. 

It was during this period that two of the most memorable nights of my time in Korea took place. 

A one night romance. 

& 

A long night of the soul around Seoul. 

I debated whether to include this chapter or not. I had a lot of reasons for inclusion and a lot against. Ultimately the book wasn’t complete without it. 

I don’t want to start a hunt for the individual involved, so as I have throughout the book for various characters, her name has been changed as well as some characteristics. 

We could have been speaking English or a mix of broken English and Korean. 

It was a fine balancing act. 

But I’ve done enough in the writing to muddy the waters and throw hunters and would-be hunters off the scent while still staying true to the events of the night. 

I jumped off my bed full of KFC and in sudden need of something. I didn’t know what, but something. 

I paced around my room for a few minutes with a buzz rising inside me. I grabbed my pack of cigarettes, slid open my window and lit one up. 

I played with the cigarette, rolling it around my fingers between drags on the stick. 

I looked out at the darkening sky. 

‘Fuck it!’ I thought, ‘I’m going out tonight.’

I checked the pile of clothes in the corner for a cleanish shirt. The best option was a light blue one, the same shirt that had led an American girl a few weeks earlier to describe me as metrosexual in a complimentary way. 

‘Metrosexual blue it is then.’ 

I threw on some jeans and my shoes and then stormed out of the apartment, down the stairs and into the streets. 

I walked around Itaewon looking for some action. 

I went over to Seoul Pub on the main street but it looked dead. My next regular spot Gold Bar didn’t have much more going on either. 

I didn’t let myself feel discouraged. I was too amped up, the buzz was strong, the feeling in my gut propelled me forward. 

I headed for a nightclub next. When I got there, again, it just didn’t feel right, the vibe was surprisingly absent. 

‘Oh well,’ I turned away from the boring, low level boom vibrating out onto the concrete and tingling my shoes.

‘I don’t need a pub or club.’ 

It was too early in the night for Itaewon. I was ready for FUN now! Itaewon had barely gotten out of bed. 

I decided to walk in random directions and just see what happened, open to all possibilities. 

I was in the mood for interaction. Any kind of interaction. 

This buzz wasn’t from drugs or drink, no. 

This buzzing inside me was an attack against impending angst and despair. I knew it was coming, my body knew too. I had to fight it with something and human interaction of all varieties was the weapon I had chosen.  

I went inside a 7-Eleven and bought a new pack of Lucky Strikes and a coke. The store was empty and I tried my best to strike up a conversation with the worker at the register but it was awkward, her English was practically nonexistent and she looked embarrassed. 

Outside the store I smoked and drank the can of coke. 

‘What should I do!?’ I thought, scanning my eyes across the streetscape. 

I needed to calm down, I decided. 

“Just walk, just keep walking.” I said to myself. 

I flicked my third cigarette of the twenty minute chain-smoking session to the other side of the street and continued on. 

A few streets over I entered a coffee shop and ordered a latte. I drank it down fast. 

The caffeine surge hit me and combined with the high levels of nicotine in my blood I felt invincible. 

I clenched my fists and started shaking my legs. I thought for a moment of who was controlling the operation – brain or body. 

My brain seemed to have some power to stop the shaking but decided to let the body just get on with it. 

I kept shaking. Fists clenched. Legs shaking. 

After thirty seconds of feeling like I was in the epicenter of an earthquake, I got paranoid about the two girls sitting at the table across from me. 

‘They must think I’m an insane foreigner.’ 

I was surprised when they responded warmly to my conversation starter. 

Both girls looked physically very different, but their clothes matched up as if they were slowly morphing into one. 

One girl was tall and slender with a pretty but plain looking face, the kind of nondescript beauty of a model in an airline passenger safety video or plastered on a giant billboard advertising cosmetics. The other girl was short and a bit pudgy with a more expressive face. 

“Clubbing tonight?” I asked the tall girl. 

My fists opened and my legs stopped their shaking. 

“Oh, nnnnnnnnn, no, no, no, we just came here earlier to meet a friend.” 

A very long, very awkward silence fell over the universe. 

The pudgy girl turned to me, looking thrilled to be able to speak English with a native, “Ya yooouuu ge-ga-go to eh uh uh uh ay, club tonight?” she struggled, smiling from ear to ear. 

“Maybe, later.” I said. 

“Sooo you will stay up all night?” the tall girl asked. 

“Yeah!” 

“We are go-ing home soon,” Pudgy said, “ba b bbbut we, yes, we can be friends on Kakao, yes?” 

I added both girls to my Kakaotalk and not wanting the energy to dissipate I said I’d message them sometime then took off. 

I had been walking for over thirty minutes when I noticed a woman who looked in her early twenties in my path. 

She was wearing a white hoodie and large black jacket and sitting on the side of a concrete flower bed. Hood up, she looked like she was purposefully in disguise. 

Despite the camo, I could tell she was incredibly beautiful. 

I decided to stop for a cigarette. 

I stole a few more glances at her while I smoked and played on my phone. 

Peaking out from below her hood she had a ten-thousand-yard stare. 

I couldn’t tell if she was depressed, if she was thinking deeply about something, or if it was just her natural look. I often wore a stone cold psycho killer look myself, so there was something within it I instantly related to. 

I took out another cigarette. 

I lit the stick and went for it. 

“Are you cold?” I asked her with a smile. 

She looked up at me and took some time to process the question. 

“Cold?” she questioned me back. 

“Yeah,” I said, “it’s summer.” I smiled again and pulled on my shirt, “You’re wearing a warm jacket.” 

“Ahhh!” she slowly replied, still not answering my question. 

’Well, that’s that then.’ I thought. 

As I went back to my phone, I saw her stand up out of the corner of my eye and take a step towards me. 

“Where are you from?” she asked with a brighter sounding tone. 

“England.” 

She asked my age and I asked hers, we were similar ages. 

I was acting cool but in my mind I was frantically searching for things to say. 

“What are you doing tonight?” I asked her. 

“Just need some ah fresh air,” she said, throwing her arms out wide as if she was about to hug attack me before dropping them to her thighs with a slap, “what about you?” 

“Just out for a walk.” I said, smiling back. 

“Ok! Let’s walk together.” she slipped my cigarette out from between my fingers and held it between hers. 

Now that her natural defenses had dropped her face looked more at ease and even prettier than before. 

“Do you smoke?” 

“Hmm…” 

“Nooo!” she groaned, before taking a sneaky inhale. She held the smoke in and then exhaled it from her lungs as far as she could. The cool display was followed by three short cute coughs. 

Kur. Kur. Kur. 

My body was jumping with nerves and hormones, still unsure where the conversation was going. It was on a knife-edge, it could have ended at any moment or continued all night. 

As we walked I told her about my journey so far, about my time in Korea, about The Frenchman and his stereotypical Frenchman ways, of Red Highlight, of the treacherous ex-friends. 

She was a good listener, whatever that means… 

Maybe it means that I felt she was really interested in what I was saying. I got that sense from her. 

She was hesitant to divulge too many details of her life. 

I gathered that she was going through a difficult time with her family but nothing too dramatic and that she was training to be a singer. 

I was piecing together a picture of her life when I suddenly realized it was getting late. 

My mind began to race. I needed to make a move. 

The conversation fell silent. 

Then came a direct command from within. 

‘Boldness. Now!’ 

As we wound our way around Itaewon and towards my apartment building, I decided to take the leap. 

“Are you hungry?” I asked her. 

“YES!” she shouted, before putting her hand to her mouth, embarrassed by how loud the reply was. 

“You want to get some food and take it back to my apartment?” 

“Yeah, okay!” she said, excitedly, “I can’t stay for too long though.” she added, less excitedly. 

We loaded up on junk food at CU and carried the tubs of ice cream, prawn flavoured crisps, ramen and microwavable burgers in the direction of my apartment building. 

It was a gamble. Would Red Highlight be back in? Would The Frenchman be there now, drunk and dramatic, ruining the mood? 

As we climbed the stairs of the building to my apartment I held my breath and hoped. 

I opened the door. 

The apartment was silent. I looked at the bottom of the room doors – no lights were on. 

I took a moment and listened harder. 

They weren’t home. It was still too early in the night for them to be asleep and neither had a habit of sitting silent in a darkened room. 

What were the odds! 

Both The Frenchman and Red Highlight were still gone. I had the whole three bedroom apartment to focus on this perfect girl. 

We emptied the bags on the kitchen counter and had a feast. Well, I had a feast. 

“Not hungry anymore?” 

“Hmm.” she slid her fingers across the snacks, lifted the tub of ice cream, took a spoon and scooped out a mouthful. 

We switched to the sofa and watched clips of Korean variety shows on her phone. 

At this point it was mine to lose. It was obvious what she wanted and I definitely wanted it too. 

Devilish smiles, glances and touches. 

It was time for the inevitable. 

I lifted my arm and swung it around her shoulders, she jumped up, before falling back. 

The moment was coming, the moment of action. 

As another video came to an end I committed. 

“How much longer can you stay?” I asked her, moving my face closer to hers. 

“Hmm,” she murmured, as she moved her face closer to mine, “I don’t know, maybe a few hours.” 

“Well, we should probably kiss now then.” 

Three hours later and an hour and thirty minutes after we had fallen asleep in a pile of sweat and exhaustion I heard her moving about in the living room. 

I looked at the time on my phone. It had just gone five. 

I thought about going back to sleep and letting her sneak off by herself but I wanted to see her. 

I knew this would be our first and last night together. In a matter of days I would be off to Japan and she would continue her life in Seoul. I decided it was best to say goodbye. 

“I have to go.” she whispered, putting on her boots, the tone made me want to scoop her up and take her back to bed. 

We hugged and kissed and then she left. 

Years later I would see her again. 

||| 

In 2017 while living back in London and going through a period of nostalgia for my time in South Korea, I became interested in K-pop and K-culture again. 

I started listening to the Girls Generation and 2NE1 songs that would blast from the rooftop every night. 

After I had played all the old stuff to death, I began searching for the new stuff and started watching music videos and variety shows online. 

One day while drinking my daily two litres of Pepsi, eating donuts and doing some solid procrastinating with a binge of K-pop content, she hit me. 

A ghost 

I left some doubt in my mind in case of an extreme case of mistaken identity. 

I opened a new tab and searched. 

Everything matched up. All the pieces of information I had gleaned from her that night as well as photos of her taken around the same time we had met. 

It was her. 

She was now a member of a successful girl group in the K-pop world. 

Even though the idol persona was different, a necessary show, I could still see flashes of the girl I knew that night and the time we spent together. 

How long had that time been? Four hours? Five? Six? 

Flashes of her sitting there in that big jacket in the summer heat, hood up staring off into space. 

Flashes of her lips, flashes of her flawless flesh, the salty sweat droplets running from her body and onto mine. 

Flashes of her boots, flashes of that tender, last kiss before she left. 

Flashes. 

I was happy for her, she looked happy. 

We were both different people now. 

I closed my laptop, drank a pint of Pepsi and ate a jam donut, then got up from my chair and looked out the window. 

Time’s arrow flies forward.