Heart of Mine (part 1)

         “Link, are you going to keep staring at that, or are you coming to bed?”

         Lincoln Heller took one last look at the sinuous shape moving on his screen, then shut his computer off. He turned from the desk and hopped into bed, only to be confronted by an indignant gaze from Marcia.

         “It’s my job to scope out new artists, babe. What do you want?”

         “You were scoping pretty hard. Is she really that attractive?”

         For instant, Link had to ponder the question. As young pop artists went, Young-il seemed like just another manufactured heart-throb cranked out by the dozen by the South Korean music industry. Yet there was something about her that had infected the Korean pop scene, and was now spreading beyond the Korean peninsula. Something that was taking the music scene by storm.

         “She’s a pretty typical pop star, near as I can tell. I’ve seen hundreds of them. But the boss thinks there’s something different about this one.”

         “So they’re sending you to interview her.”

         It was not a question. Marcia was all too familiar with Link’s routine, or lack of it.

         He nodded.

         “I’m flying to Seoul next week. It’s only for four days, Marcia.”

         He leaned over to give her a kiss, but she lay back down and turned toward the wall. Link sighed and turned out the light. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the faint green glow of an LED coming from his computer. He had only to turn it back on and open the video that Hillary had sent him . . .

         Link shook his head. In truth, his opinion of K-pop was not very high. He disliked the derivative music based on formulas vetted by focus groups, the "boot camps" for prospective pre-teen stars, and what he considered to be the general lack of artistic inspiration within the genre. Link would have much preferred to be in South Korea chronicling the rise of the Jazz scene there.

         But something was different about Young-il. It wasn’t her explosive rise in the Korean pop-music scene. It wasn’t her looks, or her history, or even the quality of the music which his colleagues at the Seoul office told him was pervading virtually all Korean media. As he stared at the ceiling in the darkness, Link pondered whatever that quality was. He would find out when he interviewed her a week from tonight.

         But the same quality that so drew his eyes to the screen when the video played was the same quality that seemed to bother Marcia. Not the fact the he was watching music videos showing young doll-like pop-stars moving seductively to bass-heavy music. No, Link thought he sensed an undercurrent of fear. He dismissed it as some lingering juvenile jealousy on her part.

         It’s just another story for the magazine, and an interview with another pop star. What could there possibly be to fear?

         While he drifted off, Link tried to put the video of the pop singer out of his mind. He focused on the warmth coming from Marcia’s side of the bed, the slight shift in the mattress with every breath she took. In the darkness, he could feel her life fill up the room. He managed to smile as he dozed off.

         As he slept, Link dreamed of a Korean pop singer on a stage, with eyes of ebony, hair the color of tinsel and skin of porcelain, shining brightly in the impossibly white lights above. She swayed in rhythm with the beat of music he could feel, but not hear. As she brought a microphone to her face, Link saw something on her wrist, a tattoo of an animal. He went on to sleep dreamlessly.

*

         The plane touched down at Incheon International Airport carrying a load of thoroughly jet-lagged passengers, among whom was a bleary-eyed reporter from Los Angeles.

         Link stepped out of the gate pulling his wheeled carryon and saw a short balding American in yellow shorts and a white polo shirt which was drenched in sweat despite the air terminal’s more than adequate air conditioning. The editor of Silver Note’s Seoul office was holding a square of cardboard with “Lincoln Heller” written on it in large black letters. He recognized Link right away from their numerous Skype conversations.

         “Good to finally meet you face to face, Mr. Heller!” the man said, shaking Link’s offered hand. “Jim Carver.”

         “Link.”

         “Welcome to Korea! And it’s a real honor! I’ve read most of your articles. I especially liked the retrospective about the rise and fall of hair bands throughout the eighties. You’re going to have to give me the inside story on that one."

         “Glad you liked the article,”mumbled Link, the man’s garrulousness and his own jet lag already taking a toll.

         “Are you hungry? I know all the best places -” Jim patted his ample gut “-as you can see. Hang with me tonight and I’ll loosen your tongue with a little soju. The stuff sneaks up on you, I swear. I hope you had a good flight. Oh, shit, you must be tired! Don’t worry. I’ve set you up at the Sheraton. It’s right across the street from our offices. We have a business rate with them.” Jim grinned. “I think you’re gonna like Seoul.”

         Jim took Link’s suitcase and began walking toward the door. Link glanced around the terminal and a television caught his eye. He paused as he recognized Young-il, singing on a stage somewhere. He had enough time to register the pop star blowing a kiss toward the camera, toward him, before Jim snapped his fingers in front of Link’s face.

         “Hey! You’ll have plenty of face-to-face time with the real thing! Come on.”

         Reluctantly, Link tore his eyes away from the sight and locked eyes with Jim. Though Jim’s tone had been jocular, his eyes were serious. His stare was fixed, as if he was making an effort not to look at the television himself. Then the moment passed, and he turned, still dragging Link’s suitcase and continued toward the door. Link followed him out.

         They emerged from the terminal, which Link thought vaguely resembled early twentieth-century airships. The first thing he noticed was the heat, which nearly staggered him with another punch from the humidity. Jim’s saturated shirt was explained.

         “Right this way,” Jim said, leading them across the thoroughfare to the short-term parking. “It’s about an hour and a half back to Seoul. We’re lucky there’s not much traffic today. Imagine L.A. without any semblance of sanity, and you’ve got Seoul traffic.”

         Jim raised a key fob and pressed a button, and a battered silver van answered by blinking its lights.

         “Sorry, no air conditioning. Not much in the budget for repairs. Of course, if you write a page burner, we might sell enough copies to buy a new van!”

         Link sighed as they entered the van. It would be a long ride through the sweltering heat. He sank back into the chair, already dripping with sweat, as Jim entered the fray which passed for traffic in South Korea.

         Jim remained silent as he focused on navigating the crush of traffic heading toward Seoul. Link idly watched as they crept forward through the mass of cars. They teemed in black, silver and white, with scarcely any color among them. The highway was an exodus of piano keys, Link thought.

         Link’s mind wandered back to the last conversation he had with Marcia. The parting had been different from his usual trips abroad. Rather than the usual upbeat departure at the airport with a fond farewell, the parting had been bittersweet. Marcia had kissed him as tenderly as she had ever done, and whispered,”Be careful”, her face pressed against his neck. He remembered her warmth, could still feel it against his skin even as his body tried to fight off the Korean summer heat.

         Careful? He had thought. I’m not going to a war zone, or covering an anti-government protest. I’m interviewing a pop star!

         But he had said nothing but a murmured goodbye before entering the boarding gate.

         Yet he thought he saw the beginnings of tears in Marcia’s eyes. What was she thinking about when he walked through the boarding gate? The question had ridden with him on the plane throughout the 13-hour flight.

         It continued to follow him to Seoul.

*

         The two journalists trooped into the room at the hotel, shirts drying under the draft from the building’s powerful air conditioners. Jim set Link’s suitcase down next to the couch. The room was decorated in faded tan with gold trim looking sepia, like an old photograph. The window looked out over the city with its motley assortment of skyscrapers and incessant crawl of vehicles on the street below. A yellowish haze hung over the city, a pervasive yellow dust from far-off deserts mixed with local air pollution. Link remembered seeing some locals wearing surgical masks as they walked alongside the street.

         “Well, I’ll let you get settled in,” said Jim. “Your interview with Young-il is tomorrow at ten. I know you’re an old pro at this, but you should know, she’s a little different.”

         “How so?” Link asked, wondering how much stranger a Korean singer could be than the broad spectrum of artists he had interviewed.

         “You’ll see. I can’t really explain it. You just feel her presence in the room, and it can hit you when you least expect it.”

         “Jim, I think I can handle a nineteen-year-old pop star.”

         Jim just stared at him, a faraway look in his eyes. He shook his head.

         “I’ll give you a call in a couple of hours, after I take care of a few things. We’ll head out. I know the best restaurants and clubs around here.”

         “Sound’s good. I’ve never been to Korea.”

         “You’ll adjust. And you’ll have all day to explore before your interview tomorrow night.”

         “My interview’s at ten pm? Jim, why do we have to interview so late? I’m sure teen pop idols have better things to do during their evenings than talk to reporters.”

         Jim shrugged.

         “She’s a night owl.”

*

         “So, that about sums up her career,” Jim finished over a plate of bulgogi beef. He reached for the bottle of soju.

         “Just like that? Out of nowhere?” Link felt a little tipsy, despite having consumed only one bottle of the deceptively sweet beverage. What the hell is in this stuff?

         “Yeah! So I’ve spoken with various members of her staff, and nobody even knows what town she’s from! They say she has parents, somewhere, whom they’ve never met. She allegedly has friends that she hangs out with, but no one has ever met any of them. She has a Facebook page, but it’s managed by her publicist, and the publicist can’t recall when Young’s ever accessed it herself. Her whole personal life is a big mystery.”

         “She wouldn’t be the first celebrity to want to keep her personal life private.”

         “Yeah, but how long can they keep that part of themselves away from the tabloids? I tell you, it’s almost like she didn’t exist before she popped up on the music scene.”

         Jim was sweating again, despite the restaurant’s air conditioning. Bulgogi meat sizzled and popped on gas stoves and all around them were crowds of Koreans socializing and eating bulgogi with kimchee between lettuce leaves. There were no other foreigners in the restaurant. A television in the corner relayed the sights from a South Korean game show. Link caught a glimpse of a man wearing a blindfold speaking into a microphone while Korean words flashed on the screen next to him. Jim signaled the staff.

         “I can never have just one helping of this stuff.”

         “So, what other background information can you give me before tomorrow?”

         “You now know everything I know, Link. Well, except for what it’s like to be near her.”

         As the waiter brought over another plate of marinated beef, Link went over the questions he had come up with, and began to get a feeling that they were woefully inadequate for this particular interview. What was he missing? What insight would he need to delve into this person’s soul?

         He examined Jim, whose face was fairly glowing, but whose eyes were opaque.

         You didn’t want to dig deeper, did you, Jim? Why did you stop? What put you off?

         “Jim, who are her closest associates? Is there anyone she really confides in? Her agent, maybe?”

         “I’ve spoken with her agent. She’s as big a mystery to him as she is to us.”

         Jim opened his fourth bottle of soju and examined its contents. “You know, she does seem to be pretty tight with her manager.”

         “I’m listening.”

         “Tall skinny guy, old. He’s never far away from her and rarely speaks. Kinda creepy, actually. He seems to know her every move before she makes it.”

         “What’s his name?”

         “Sung. Lee Sung. Remember, Lee’s his family name. It’s always listed first here.”

         “So, am I going to need an interpreter for this interview?”

         “No need. She speaks perfect English.”

*

         A tall Korean man stood perfectly still within the mahogany paneled room at YG studios. Lee Sung looked carved out of wood, only showing signs of life when Link offered his hand. His black eyes gleamed coldly beneath white eyebrows, and his head was completely bald. He wore a perfectly pressed black suit and yellow shirt, and his cufflinks were tiny silver nails poking from his sleeves. He took Link’s hand in his own cold dry palm and shook once.

         “Angyuhasseyo? Welcome, Mr. Heller.” Lee’s voice sounded like it came from inside a dead tree.

         “Uh, hello Mr. Lee. I’m very happy to be here.”

         Lee’s expression did not flicker in the slightest, but he spoke amiably enough.

         “Very sorry, Ms. Young-il not here yet. You wait here, and she join you. About ten minutes.”

         “That would be fine.”

         Lee regarded Link critically. “Would you like refreshment?”

         “It’s been very hot today. Perhaps some water?”

         Lee opened a cabinet in the wall and extracted a bottle of water of with Korean letters on it. He handed it to Link, who nodded his thanks. As he waited, Lee remained standing and stared out the window into the glittering darkness of the night city.

         As he sipped his water, Link looked around and examined the posters on the wall. The wall was a monument to the stars of Korean pop music. Most were of K-Pop acts, or at least the more popular ones. He was aware that this studio handled all of the biggest artists coming out of Korea, and Young-il certainly qualified.

         Link thought back to his conversation with Jim. There had been more, but Jim wasn’t sharing. He also knew that Jim had been more than qualified to interview this artist, but had declined. Hillary hadn’t gotten a satisfactory answer why. Link remembered another task appointed to him by Hillary – to find out what had put Jim off from doing his job. He reminded himself of this as the minutes wore on.

         Just as Link was glancing at his watch, Lee, with no discernible cue, turned, went to the door and opened it.

         A teenaged girl walked in. At first blush, she was not what Link would regard as a knockout, but she was pretty enough. Slender, with relatively long legs, the top of her head came up to Link’s chin. Her round face was framed by her long black Asian hair which was highlighted in scarlet tones which matched her lip gloss. She wore black shorts and a pink tank top upon which was sewn a large patch depicting some cartoon animal.

         What the hell?

         Link felt a wave of déjà vu as she lifted her hand to push her hair aside from her black eyes, and saw the tattoo on her wrist. It was of a black cat in profile. The animal looked like it was pouncing.

         But the eyes held him. Like obsidian mirrors, they seemed to reflect everything, including the light coming off Link’s own blond hair. Link didn’t speak for a few heartbeats. Finally, Lee cleared his throat, and Link came back to his senses.

         “Um, hello Miss Young-il.”

         “Please, it’s ‘Young’, Mr. Heller. May I call you Lincoln?”

         Her voice seeped into his brain like a fog. It sounded like honey dripping from a bee’s nest, sweetness and pain mixing together.

         “Call me Link.”

         “Well, Link-shi, shall we sit and begin this interview? I have been looking forward to it all week.”

         As Jim had said, her English was perfect, with only a hint of an accent betraying her nationality.

         Link nodded dumbly and sat at the heavy wooden table in the center of the room. Young sat across from him, seemingly very close. At that distance, he should have been able to see the pores in her face, but he could not see a single flaw in that porcelain-like skin. Her eyelashes were perfect, spaced evenly and the same length. She looked like a doll.

         “So, I guess we can start at the beginning, Young?”

         Young-il gave the barest hint of a smile. “Do beginnings matter so much, Link-shi? I like to think about where I am.”

         “You like to live for the moment, is that it?”

         “I like to take the world as a gift given to me every moment. Why dwell on the past if it doesn’t matter?”

         This certainly doesn’t sound like a nineteen-year-old, Link thought, but he kept his attitude pleasant and soft, which wasn’t difficult when listening to Young’s hypnotically melodic voice.

         Link began with the standard questions about her career, which in itself was not remarkable. She had come up through the K-pop training like so many other stars. She had managed to make a splash on the Korean music scene with the all-girl act J-Sky, before going solo. From there, her popularity went ballistic, taking her to the charts in France, Britain, and knocking on the door in the U.S. and Canada with her hit single “Heart of Mine.”

         Throughout the interview, Young was charming, articulate, and even vivacious at times. Link found himself drawn to her, wanting to know more, wanting to see and hear the secrets which flitted between the words she spoke in answer to his questions.

         But when he began asking personal background questions, she became vague. She referred to a family living somewhere in Seoul, but did not give him enough information to fathom what they were like or what influences they had on her life. Every avenue he tried into Young’s personal life ended in a smooth evasion. Yet, something prevented Link’s journalistic instincts from kicking in and making him press the issue. His normally pit-bull like insistence on definitive answers lay quiescent before her demure gaze. He could not bring himself dig deeper.

         Is this what Jim was talking about? Is this why he wouldn't interview her?

         Mysteries upon mysteries jostled in the back of Link’s mind. As Link tried one last time to take the questions further, he found himself beading up with sweat. Had the air conditioning failed?

         He looked at Lee, still standing near the window and looking as dry as driftwood. Probably didn’t even have sweat glands, he thought. Link thought he detected just the faintest hint of disapproval radiating from the man.

         As the heat rose, he turned back to Young, and for an instant, saw something else. The pale, cool skin became even more doll-like, the eyes glassy, the hair, artificially straight like something from a factory. Young’s skin seemed cool to his vision, and he suddenly had to resist the urge to reach out and brush his fingers across her cheek. No, he thought, not cool. Cold. Like a gravestone on a winter day. He blinked, and the vision was gone, replaced with the living and breathing pop star seated in front of him. Young still had that faintest hint of a smile on her face, as if she had guessed at what was in his mind.

         Suddenly, Link wanted to end the interview. The girl in front of him no longer seemed pretty, charming or engaging, and Lee was now looking ominously irate. He fumbled through the rest of his interview and thanked her.

         Lee walked to the door and opened it as they stood to make their departure. Young smiled at him, and Link simultaneously shuddered and was enthralled inside.

         “I very much enjoyed this interview,” she said. “As you know, I have a concert tomorrow. The concert hall in Gangnam. I trust you will come? Lee will give you passes.”

         She brushed her hair from her eyes, and Link once again saw the tattoo. The image of a black cat crouched, ready to pounce.

         Hadn’t that cat been in motion?

         Link rubbed his eyes, and looked again, but Young had lowered her hand and the tattoo was out of view. He chalked it up to jet lag and his general condition of being out of sorts. Despite his apprehension, he knew he could not say no to the invitation.

*

         Link stood in a lake of living darkness. Around him, shapes writhed and gyrated as the deep bass of the music thundered in the endless expanse. Somewhere above, lights glared yellow and white, illuminating the girl on stage. Her hair was scarlet and silver, and her lips were as red as a fresh wound. The unseen crowd screamed – in terror or ecstasy Link couldn’t tell – as she brought the microphone to her lips. On her wrist, the cat sitting with its head cocked, almost facing him. The cat’s eyes glowed yellow in the burning light, the pupils like black daggers.

         The girl’s mouth opened, but instead of melody or lyrics, a torrent of blood-red rose petals flew. The petals flew toward him and engulfed him, and the music quickened. Then, he realized the beat he felt was his own pulse. From over the microphone in her hand, her eyes met his. He stared into those eyes as the red petals flew about his head, moving faster and faster until they seemed to congeal into a liquid. Suddenly they withered and turned black, and he was sinking into a pool of black liquefied roses. He struggled to rise to the surface, but coppery sweet liquid entered his mouth and flooded his lungs. As oblivion rushed toward him, he realized that the liquid he was drowning in was blood, and he didn’t even care. As the darkness closed in, he felt only bliss.

         Link awoke and sat bolt upright. Sweat drenched his shirt and the bed covers and he felt clammy and cold. The clock announced 6:00 pm. He muttered angrily to himself. His power nap had turned into three hours! He jumped out of bed and headed toward the shower.

Heart of Mine (part 2)  (13+) Part 2 of Heart of Mine #1944052 by Graham B.