My conversation with Sophie plays back through my head. Maybe she was right—maybe I’m being a diva about Jason not liking me. I squelch any negative feelings, channeling only Zen thoughts in hopes of being at least civil with him.
Friendships are so messy. Too bad they’re not as easy to figure out as a math problem or balancing a chemical equation. If they were, maybe I wouldn’t have such a hard time dealing with Jason.
Still huffing from the walk over here and the climb up the stairs, I slump into the chair opposite him and dump my book bag onto the floor with a thud. He glances up with raised eyebrows.
“You just had to camp out on the third floor, huh?” I ask, pulling out my Korean textbook and notebook and inwardly cringing at my snippiness—can’t I be at least a little nice?
I force a smile and add, “I’m really glad you texted me. I’m freaking out about this test. I don’t feel like I understand anything.”
It’s then that I see what’s open on the table in front of him—not our textbook but a notebook of paper with musical bars printed on them and his penciled-in notes dotting the lines.
“Have you worked more on the song?” I ask, relieved to find something we can at least talk about without blowing up.
He nods. “I fixed something in the chorus, and I finished all the verses.”
“Wow! Can I see?”
He slaps the cover of the notebook closed, and I startle. “Studying first,” he says.
I straighten my back and salute. “Sir, yes, sir!”
His eyebrows meet in the middle of his forehead and he studies me a second before shaking his head and pulling out his textbook. Judging by his lack of response to my sarcasm, I’d bet Sophie had a talk with him, too. And for some reason, this puts me in a much better mood.
We delve into the composition of Korean grammar and how to string sentences together, and I follow along pretty well. I even manage to write the few characters we need to have memorized, which includes our names, written phonetically. A grin stretches across my face at seeing my name drawn out in Hangul, the Korean writing system.
“You know, this kind of writing is a lot more artistic than English writing,” I say. “It looks more like a picture than a word.”
“They’re just different,” Jason answers. “The symbols represent the pronunciation of one syllable, symbols built from multiple Hangul characters in the alphabet, so they’re sort of compounding on each other.” He brushes bangs out of his eyes. “Different kinds of writing systems.”
I stare down at the characters on my paper again, comparing the ones I wrote to his examples. Although he has messy boy handwriting, his lines are clearer, the spaces between them more distinct. I focus on making mine look more like his.
“You know, you sound a little bit like a smarty-pants when you talk about language,” I say, keeping my gaze focused on my paper.
He snorts, his voice thick with sarcasm, when he says, “Anyone would sound smart to you. You don’t know anything about languages besides English.”
I shoot him a glare. “Look, I get it, I should have studied harder in my foreign language classes. But I didn’t know I was going to move to the other side of the world. And I’m pretty sure my Espa?ol is still a lot better than yours, so why don’t we cut the attitude?”
He holds my sharp gaze with his reserved one for a few moments before asking, “Are you done yelling now?”
“If you’re done insulting me.” I huff. “Can we take a break? Let me see the song.”
Hesitantly, he pulls the notebook out of his backpack and hands it to me. As it transitions from his palm to mine, our fingers brush for the briefest moment, and my mind catapults back to Saturday night and his hands resting on my hips. Heat builds in my chest and threatens to spread, so I tilt my face down and try to hide it with my hair as I study the sheet music.
“I recorded the guitar part on my computer.” He pauses. “Do you want to hear it?”
I yank my attention from the papers. “Of course!”
He hands me his iPod, and I place the gigantic headphones over my ears and press PLAY. Jason’s guitar floods my thoughts, and I shut my eyes to better concentrate on each chord and how they all fit together, my head nodding to the steady beat. He has improved the chorus, though I can’t help thinking it lacks personality. But it flows well with the verses, and the bridge at the end shows a lot of promise.
Admiration sparks in me. I look up and see him watching me, waiting for my response. Okay, I admit it—he’s a lot more talented than I gave him credit for originally. Even if he does have an attitude problem.
I give him my assessment.
“I was inspired by Shin Joong Hyun, one of Korea’s most famous rock stars. But you think I should make it more like your American music?” he asks.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
He levels a skeptical gaze at me, which speaks more than his words could. And I’m struck with the realization that he has the most expressive eyes of anyone I’ve ever met. No wonder he doesn’t talk much—he doesn’t need to.
“Look, just hear me out.” I flip through my notebook for an empty sheet of paper. “I’m sure these are some amazing Korean rockers; I just don’t know them. You can get inspired by them, too, but I’m going to give you some songs to listen to. Take notes. Maybe you’ll actually learn something.”
He looks at me like I’m inflicting physical pain, but he takes the paper anyway. What we do for the sake of our art.
“If you’re making me listen to your music, then you can listen to mine.” He makes up a list of his own and gives it to me.
I stare at the scribbles. “Umm … you realize that I can’t read almost every word on here, right? My Korean isn’t that good yet.”
“Sophie can read it for you. I’m sure she has all those songs. They’re pop, but I have some Korean rock you can listen to later.”