The Concert

The walk back to the hotel room was met with an extreme range of emotions. It felt like my chest was on fire, and my hands were tingling—numb, almost. I was excited because I had just met Jessica and Krystal. I was flustered because I actually stood face-to-face with Jessica, spoke to her, and bought her a drink, even if it was only from a vending machine. I was in disbelief because never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine any of that to happen. And lastly, I was disappointed because I knew, deep inside, that I would never get to experience those moments again.

Who knew that meeting the girl of your dreams was such an emotional roller coaster ride?

I took the elevator down to the lobby to find a rather large crowd of people gathered at the entrance of the hotel, running around and screaming with their phones out, which could have only meant one thing: someone famous must have been in close proximity.

There was a whole lot of yelling, along with the obvious confusion from those who weren’t familiar with K-pop watching from the sidelines as hotel security tried to keep all the excited fans from overrunning the guys from SHINee who were entering with their managers and bodyguards.

“Yo, John! We’ve been looking all over for you!”

I looked back to see James and Jake all dressed up in the new clothes that they had bought earlier. Their shirts still had fold lines, and one of Jake’s cuffs even had the tag still attached, although I wasn’t sure if he was aware of it.

It’s barely even 7pm, don’t tell me they’re about to go to the bar already.

“Where have you been?”

“Oh—uh—just walking around,” I said, my mind almost immediately drifting back to images of Jessica by the vending machines.

“Damn, SHINee is making one hell of an entrance, huh?”

“Yeah,” I replied robotically.

“We were trying to find SNSD or f(x) earlier, but I think we’re not allowed to go up to the floors that SM’s staying in.”

“Really? They banned the whole floor?” I asked.

“I think so.” Jake sigh. “Sucks, I really wanted to see them.”

“You’ll see them tomorrow,” James said, bumping his elbow onto him. "Relax."

“Nah man, I want to breathe the same air as Tiffany,” Jake said, closing his eyes. “I want to see her pretty eye-smile in person in front of me. I want to smell her perfume and—”

“Jesus dude, you’re such a creep.” James laughed. “I guess it’s a good thing for her that you’ll never get close enough to smell her.”

“I'm a creep? Says the guy who talked about bringing Taeyeon back to the room and even asked his friends to leave!”

“I mean, it would be creepier if you stayed.”

Jake rolled his eyes and changed the subject. “You hungry, John? Want to get dinner? I feel like we haven't been to k-town in a while.”

“Dude! That’s an amazing idea!” James said excitedly with a loud clap that startled a family a few feet from us.

“What, eating?” Jake said. “Yeah, eating when you’re hungry is generally a good idea.”

“No, I mean I’m sure they’re all going to be at that one place! We can see them there!”

“That one place. Very specific.”

“On 32nd street, dude. The bbq place that all the celebrities go to, they have photos of them on the wall. Remember my aunt took us there when she visited last summer?”

“Oh shit, you may actually be right, huh,” Jake said, putting his hands on his waist.

“Come on, let’s hurry before other people find out!”

“Wait—why would they come from Korea to New York just to go to a Korean BBQ place?” I said, but the guys had already rushed out of the hotel.

By the time we got to the restaurant, there was already a crowd out by the door. Somehow, for whatever reason, James was right; almost the entire crew was in there. It was the most chaotic sight I’d ever seen, but all I could think about was searching for Jessica somewhere amongst the sea of people.

After squeezing our way through all the fans screaming at the top of their lungs every time someone looked out the window, we were able to get to the unnecessarily heavy front door—only for the owner to tell us that the restaurant was fully booked out and was not accepting any more customers.

“Dude, this is bullshit, we were too late!” James groaned as we stepped back outside. “If only we got here before they did, we would be in there with them right now.”

“This is your fault!” Jake said, shaking his head.

“How the hell is it my fault?”

“You wanted to take the subway instead of just calling a cab!”

“It was only two stops away!”

“Yeah, but it took 20 minutes instead of five! So we saved $15 just to miss our chance to be in the same restaurant as them.” He pointed at the large window. “Do you see those people at those tables right there? They’re not part of SM, but they’re in there—that could’ve been us!”

“Shut up, if it wasn’t for me we wouldn’t even be—”

“Look!” Jake suddenly pointing again, smacking James’ shoulder. “They’re inside dude, look! Holy shit!”

“Well, obviously they’re inside—”

“No, I mean Taeyeon is right there! Look!”

James raised a hand over his brows. “Oh shit!”

Aside from SHINee who had just made it to the hotel, all the SM artists were gathered at three long tables in the center of the restaurant, as well as a bunch of people I assumed were staff members and managers. For some reason, the SNSD girls weren’t sitting together and instead were scattered amongst the other groups, so it was kind of difficult to find them. Taeyeon was sitting with Sooyoung, Yoona, and Tiffany at the first table, while Hyoyeon and Sunny were with Luna and Amber at the third, but Jessica was nowhere to be found.

Is she still with Krystal back at the hotel?

“Taeyeon!” James continued to yell, along with all the fans looking in from outside. “Taeyeon!”

“Tiffany! I love you!” Jake continued jumping up and down, waving his hands.

“Sooyoung! Sooyoung!” A guy who looked like he was still in high school shrieked at the top of his lungs.

Jake kept waving at Tiffany, hoping she would somehow see him, but she didn’t turn around even once. In a desperate attempt to get Taeyeon to notice him, James took his scarf and waved it around like he was the last survivor on an island waiting for a helicopter to rescue him.

“Look! She’s looking at me! She notices how handsome I am!”

“You mean she sees everyone out here watching her—oh—Tiff—Tiffany!”

Within just a few moments, the owner came out and asked everyone to move away from the windows to respect the idols’ privacy, but only a handful of people actually listened.