Fly With Me
By Laura Schiller
Based on: Nae Il's Cantabile
Copyright: Tomoko Kinomiya/KBS2 Network
We're on the plane back from Austria to Seoul after the Salzburg Competition. It's a few minutes after takeoff, and I can't help noticing that Yoo Jin's gone quiet again.
And I don't mean just his usual state of not talking. I mean quiet quiet. He's got a white-knuckled grip on the armrests of his chair, his lips are pressed together, and he's tense as overwound piano wire. I wave my hand in front of his face. His eyes are open, but he doesn't look at me.
Which, yeah, okay, is understandable. I'm not used to flying myself. All this up-and-down, side-to-side business is making my insides roll around. But for me it's almost fun, like a roller coaster, and seeing my hometown like a little patchwork quilt through the window is just plain awesome.
But not for him, apparently. This may be his fourth time on a plane, but I guess a phobia's not that easy to get over, after all. Even Maestro Stresemann's magic pocket watch has its limits.
"Poor Orabang." I brush his hair back from his sweaty forehead. "Are you still scared?"
He bats my hand away. "I'm fine."
"Don't be scared. Did you know, statistically speaking, you're more likely to die in a car crash than on a plane? And, you've already been in a plane crash, so really, how likely is it that the same thing will happen again? Wow, listen to me, all logical."
"You're not helping."
"I know! I'll make you laugh. Laughter is the best medicine, right? What do you call a cow with no legs?"
He doesn't bother to ask "what?", but I answer anyway. "Ground beef! Ha!"
He just blows out air from his cheeks and rolls his eyes like, kill me now. But if he can be snarky, he must be feeling at least a little better. So maybe my approach is working.
So I do what any sane, mature adult would do in this situation. I tickle him.
"Coochie-coochie-coo!"
But my fingers only get to reach under his shirt for about half a second, before he shoves me back so hard that I'd be flying into the aisle if not for my seat belt.
"Get OFF!" he barks.
The other passengers are staring at us. There's an old lady with a fur stole across the aisle, making a face like she just found a dead squirrel in her soup.
"Sorry, folks," I say loudly. "My Orabang's got issues about flying. Childhood trauma, you know."
"Seol Nae Il," he says through gritted teeth, "If you don't stop now, the embarrassment will kill me before the plane does."
But there's some color in his face now, and even though he's glaring daggers at me, his eyes look human again instead of like a pair of glass marbles. Mission accomplished. Sort of.
"Okay, okay, I'll stop. Hey, can I borrow your headphones? I kind of broke mine."
"Honestly … " He shakes his head and digs up his prized pair of Boze headphones out of his carry-on bag.
I plug them into my phone. In a few minutes, I'm dead to the world and neck-deep in Beethoven's Ode to Joy. I'm trying to figure out how a deaf guy with some serious mental health issues could have written some of the most jump-off-your-seat happy music I've ever known. I'm also kind of annoyed with the orchestra. They're so obviously rushing to get to lunch. Not to brag, but Rising Star could play it better.
Yoo Jin is so going to roll his eyes at me when I tell him that.
I look over at him, and for the first time, I realize I'm doing that thing again where I pretend to play the piano in thin air. Air piano. The plane must have finally stopped climbing and leveled out in the sky, because it's easier to keep my hands in balance than I would have expected. And because Yoo Jin looks much better.
He's watching me. And smiling.
God, those dimples in his cheeks.
"What?" I pause the music, take the headphones off, and grin at him. "Can't take your eyes off me, can you? Careful, Orabang, you'll make me vain."
He completely misses the opportunity to take a swipe at me for being vain already. Instead he just looks at me with eyes so intense, they wipe the smile right off my face.
"Nae Il-ah … "
"Yes?"
"I, uh … just in case this tin can crashes, I want to tell you something." He takes my hand and turns it around to look at the ring he gave me.
"What?"
My whole hand is tingling. Who knew there were so many nerve endings in there? I can hear my heart pound. Is this the moment he tells me he loves me?
"I would have given this to you no matter what," he says, very quietly, turning the ring this way and that. The friction of the warm metal goes right through me. "When I said it was to help you win, I didn't mean … look, you could have been last in place and I wouldn't take it back. Do you understand?"
Yes. Yes, I do.
I only met Cha Dong Woo once, but the guy gave me chills up and down my spine, and not in a good way. From the little hints that Yoo Jin's mother, and sometimes Yoo Jin himself, drop sometimes, it sounds like he raised his son by keeping back love as some kind of motivation. He wouldn't even come to Yoo Jin's concerts until Yoo Jin got his name in the paper. Sort of like when Yoo Jin kept holding the ring too high for me to reach – except over a whole lifetime.
Cha Dong Woo probably thinks he's doing the right thing. But how any parent could treat their kid like that is beyond me.
You could have been last in place … Somehow that makes me feel like crying. I was expecting Yoo Jin to say he loves me, but I think, in his own way, he just did.
I swear, sometimes it's like dating an alien. But he wouldn't be my Orabang if he showed affection like a normal person. Anyway, no one's ever accused me of being normal either.
"I love you too, Orabang. And I guarantee you, you're nothing like your dad."
"How did you – what does that have to – " He sputters for a bit, going beet red, before he settles on: "You're impossible."
"Thank you, kind sir. I do my best."
I wrap both my hands around his arm and put my head on his shoulder, and he actually lets me do it. It's a privilege I'll never get tired of.
Dang, he smells good, is my last thought before I fall asleep.