XOXO (An XOXO Novel)

We’ve landed in the middle of the festival. A banner hanging above the street reads LA Korean Festival, and in smaller print across the bottom: Celebrating the Cultural Diversity of Los Angeles for over Fifty Years. Lining the sides of the street are food carts serving traditional Korean food, tteok-bokki simmering in vats of gochujang and eomuk skewered and collected in hot anchovy broth, and more fusion-style food, scallops grilled with mozzarella and cheddar and hot dogs coated in batter, then deep fried.

I look down to find the boy from the karaoke bar and I are still holding hands so I quickly let go.

“Sorry,” I say, turning away from him to hide my flushed cheeks. “About getting us kicked off the bus.” Well, technically we jumped off. But the results are the same.

I feel bad, though. He might not have had a destination in mind, but I’m sure it wasn’t here, a few blocks from Jay’s Karaoke.

“This place seems as good as any to wind up,” he says glancing up at the banner.

“Do you . . . want to take a look around?” I gesture vaguely at the festival. “We’re already here.”

His eyes return to me, and again I feel that odd feeling in my chest.

“I’d like that.”

We start to walk down the street lined with food carts. It doesn’t escape me that I could just go home. Earlier in the karaoke bar, with the competition results churning in my pocket, I’d felt this urge to do something, and I sort of acted on impulse. But challenging him to a karaoke battle wasn’t exactly practical experience. Realistically, I should go home and practice tonight to prepare for my lesson tomorrow morning.

The only thing is . . . I don’t want to go home.

I’m having more fun than I’ve had in a long time, and it can’t hurt to indulge these feelings, at least for one night.

“My name’s Jenny, by the way.”

“Mine is . . .” He hesitates. “Jaewoo.”

I’m about to tease him for having apparently forgotten his name when I catch sight of someone I vaguely recognize down the street, but then she enters a tent, disappearing from view.

“Is Jenny also your Korean name?” Jaewoo asks.

“My Korean name is Jooyoung.”

“Jooyoung.” He pronounces the syllables slowly. “Joo. Young. Jooyoung-ah.”

“Okay, but no one ever calls me that.” I’m feeling a little warm, so I accept a plastic fan someone’s handing out and start fanning myself.

This festival seems to be comprised of booths advertising different kinds of businesses; that and a ton of food carts. We pass one selling dakkochi. A man wearing giant gloves flips skewers over a grill with one hand while alternatively coating the chicken with a thick sauce using a basting brush. He then blowtorches them to get the charred crispiness. I watch as two girls approach the stand.

In an impressive display of ambidexterity, the man takes a twenty-dollar bill from one of the girls and gives her change with one hand, while transferring a skewer onto a plate and passing it over to her friend with the other.

“I feel like I’m back in Seoul,” Jaewoo says deadpan.

I laugh, then add thoughtfully, “I’ve actually never been to Korea.”

“Really?” He glances at me. “You don’t have family there?”

“My grandmother on my mom’s side, but I’ve never met her. She and my mom have a strained relationship.” Honestly, I never really thought about their relationship or that I don’t have one with her. My grandparents on my dad’s side are like super grandparents, always sending me presents on holidays, money at New Year’s. One of the reasons my mom thinks I should apply to schools in New York City is to be closer to where they live in New Jersey.

If Jaewoo thinks it odd that I’ve never met my grandmother in Korea, he doesn’t say anything.

“So you live in Korea?” I ask.

“Yeah, I’m originally from Busan, but I go to school in Seoul.” He pauses. “A performing arts school.”

“I knew it!” I shout, and he grins. “Decent at singing. Please.”

As we’ve been walking I’ve noticed that Jaewoo keeps eyeing the food carts. Catching his attention, I point to a small tented area where an older woman is serving traditional Korean street food to a few customers seated on low stools. “How does second dinner sound to you?”

His eyes light up and dimples appear in his cheeks. “Like you’ve read my mind.”

We head over and he holds back the tarp of the tent so that I can step inside.

“Eoseo oseyo!” The tent cart owner welcomes us in a loud voice, gesturing for us to take stools side by side across the counter from her. “What would you like?”

Jaewoo looks at me, seeing as I’m the one with the money. “Get whatever you want,” I tell him. “I like everything.”

As he places the order, I unknot Mrs. Kim’s plastic bag of side dishes. Inside are five small plastic containers. I put them on the counter between us and take the cover off each one.

“You’ve got quite the haul,” Jaewoo says, studying my movements.

I finish taking off the last lid to reveal garlic chives kimchi. “Never underestimate a friendly neighborhood ajumma.”

“Ah, I can relate. My mom’s a single mom, so while I was growing up, the neighborhood women were always pestering her and giving her unsolicited advice, but that didn’t stop them from dropping off food almost every day.”

I laugh. “Koreans truly are the same everywhere.”

And he and I are the same, at least in that we were both raised by single mothers. It’s not so uncommon, but it makes me feel closer to him for some reason.

I reach for the wooden chopsticks in a cupholder filled with them. I snap a pair apart and hand it over to Jaewoo. “You’re lucky you broke your left arm and not your right. If you are right-handed, that is.”

“I am. Though I’m not sure if I’d call myself lucky.”

Ugh, yeah, that was insensitive of me. “Sorry—” I start to apologize.

“If I’d broken my right arm, you’d have to feed me.” He reaches out with his chopsticks to pick up a slice of braised beef from the container of jangjorim.

I eye him. Did he just say that? I glance around at the other tent cart patrons, but the only one paying us any attention is a girl sitting with a friend to the left of him, out of his line of sight. She’s been watching him since we entered the tent, presumably because of how good-looking he is.

“Your food is here!” The tent cart owner hands three dishes over the counter. Jaewoo’s ordered a few classic pojang staples: tteok-bokki, eomuk, and kimchi pajeon—kimchi pancakes with green onions. With all the plates and containers of banchan, there’s zero space on the table. We have to play Tetris with the dishes in order to make things fit.

As we eat, our chopsticks reach for food and crisscross one another. At one point, the owner offers Jaewoo a small cup of broth and he reaches across me to accept it. As he stands, his shoulder bumps mine.

“Sorry,” he says.

“It’s fine,” I say, though I feel a tingling sensation where he touched me. Like before, I look around at the other patrons, noticing that the majority of the people at the other tables are couples, flirting over food and drinks.

Jaewoo pushes the plate of tteok-bokki toward me, and I see that he’s left me the last piece. Anyone observing us might think we were on a date.

Behind Jaewoo, the girl who was staring earlier approaches, along with her friend.

I glance at Jaewoo, wondering if I should warn him. He probably gets hit on by people on a regular basis. Though I wonder who these girls think I am? What if this were an actual date? Are they really about to flirt with him in front of me? For some reason, I have this sudden urge to scowl.

“Hey,” the first girl says, “you look so familiar. Have I seen you somewhere?”

The cup Jaewoo is holding stops midway to his mouth.

For a moment, no one speaks. Then I look up and realize the girl’s eyes are on me.

“You were at the All-State competition last weekend, weren’t you?” she says. “I saw your performance. It was incredible.”

I stare at her. I don’t know what to say. I’ve been praised before, usually following performances, but no one has ever approached me out of the blue, as if I were a celebrity. Jaewoo slowly puts down his chopsticks. Propping his good elbow on the counter, he rests his cheek against his hand as he watches for my reaction.

I wave off her compliment. “Thank you.”

“Seriously, my mother, who was a cellist for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, said you’re very talented.”

“I don’t know what to say—” I start, then cut off when I meet the eyes of the second girl. “Eunice.”

Eunice Kim, Sookie’s daughter. She glances at the counter and I have this wild premonition that she’ll yell at me for sharing her mom’s cooking with a boy.

“Hey, Jenny. I’m surprised to see you out on a Friday night.” She smiles, and it’s subtle, but she looks a bit hurt. “You’re always so busy. I didn’t think you had time to hang out.”

“Oh,” I say, “yeah, it just turned out that way.” Could I be more awkward? It’s just that we haven’t really spoken much in the past five years, and before that, we were practically inseparable.

“Anyway, we gotta go,” Eunice’s friend tugs at her arm. “Enjoy your meal!”

Eunice throws me one last glance. “Bye, Jenny.” They leave the tent.

In the awkward silence that follows, I say hurriedly, “We used to be friends when we were younger. But then I started to become more serious about cello and . . .”

I don’t know why I’m telling him this. It’s like whiplash, one girl telling me how great I am in front of him, only for another to reveal I’m actually a terrible friend.

Jaewoo leans back from the table. “Something similar happened with me. When I moved to Seoul from Busan, some of my friends back home thought I was a sellout.”

“Wow.” I don’t really know much about cities outside Seoul, but I guess the equivalent would be someone moving from their hometown to New York City.

“So you’re a cellist,” he says.

“Yeah.”

“Was that always your dream? To be a cellist.”

“Sort of. My dad played the cello. He wasn’t a professional or anything, but when it came time to choose an instrument, a rite of passage for all Asian American kids—”

Jaewoo laughs.

“My dad’s cello was there and, yeah, I ended up really loving it. It’s also been nice having that connection to him.”

This is the most I’ve opened up about my dad to anyone. I wait for that sense of sadness, that familiar pain, but all I feel is comfort. Five years isn’t a long or short time, but it is time.

I look at Jaewoo. What is it about him that makes me want to open up to him? Is it because I know I won’t see him again after tonight or for another reason entirely; that with him, I can be myself?

“That’s really cool,” Jaewoo says. When he smiles, I feel my heart melt a little.

“What about you?” I ask, hoping the dim lighting beneath the tent will mask my blush. “Do you have any dreams?”

An indecipherable expression flits across his face, gone in a second. “I don’t sleep enough for dreaming.”

“Wow,” I drawl, “what an answer.”

He winks.

On the other side of the tent, a group of people enter. I glance at my phone to see that it’s a quarter to midnight already. Jaewoo hands over our empty plates to the tent cart owner as I start to cover and pack the leftover side dishes. As we stand, I lift my head and make eye contact with a guy directly across from me.

It’s the rude guy from the bus. He’s surrounded by his college friends, most of whom are jostling for a seat at the counter.

“What are the odds he recognizes us?” I say to Jaewoo, who’s noticed the direction of my gaze.

At that moment the college guy points at us, like we’re in some sort of action movie and Jaewoo and I are criminals.

“I’d say very likely.”