29 Dates

by Melissa de la Cruz

NAME: Oh Minho

  * * *

  INTERESTS:

  Broadway Shows, Baseball, Sneakers

  * * *

  DISLIKES:

  Chemistry Class, Flakes, Heights

  * * *

  Jisu: What’s the best thing that happened to you this year?

  Minho: I saw Hamilton! I have cousins who live in New York and I went to visit them during spring break. It was around my birthday, so they surprised me with tickets.

  Jisu: That’s amazing. I’ve been listening to the soundtrack. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m obsessed.

  Minho: I mean, how could you not? The story is so good, the cast is amazing, everyone has such an amazing voice.

  Jisu: Which one is your favorite?

  Minho: Wow, that’s hard. That’s like asking a mother to choose her favorite child. I love them all equally.

  Jisu: Okay, but if you had to narrow it down.

  Minho: Hmm. I like “My Shot” and “The Schuyler Sisters.” I also really like “It’s Quiet Uptown.” God. I cried my eyes out when they did that one.

  Jisu: I know! Poor Philip.

  Minho: “Philip, you would like it uptown, it’s quiet uptown.”

  Jisu: Oh, my god, you’re going to make me cry. That song is so sad.

  Minho: I absolutely bawled my eyes out when they sang it.

  Jisu: I know! Just listening to the soundtrack is a whole roller coaster of emotions for me. I can’t imagine what it was like seeing the actual thing.

  Minho: Jisu, you have to go. It will change your life.

  Jisu: Do you like any other Broadway shows?

  Minho: Like them? I’m kind of obsessed with theater. Not that I want to act in any way. I just love musicals.

  Jisu: Do you want to work in the theater otherwise?

  Minho: I actually really like set design. And costumes.

  Jisu: Why?

  Minho: You know why...

  Jisu: Why?

  Minho: Jisu, I’m gay. Can you really not tell?

  Jisu: Well, I never want to assume and wouldn’t in this case just because you like theater. Anyone can like theater.

  Minho: Well, I do play up the “I love theater soo much,” because I sort of do want people to know right away. And what could be more stereotypical than that? But guess what else I like? Baseball! But apparently that doesn’t fit the part.

  Jisu: What do you mean?

  Minho: One time, I went on a seon with a girl who was born in Philadelphia and moved to Seoul later, so naturally I brought up Kim Hyunsoo and how great I thought he was. And at the end of the date, when I really had to spell it out for her, she didn’t believe me and cited my interest in baseball.

  Jisu: Yikes.

  Minho: Yikes is right. It’s honestly shocking how small someone’s brain can be.

  Jisu: So, I assume we’re on this seon because your parents don’t know?

  Minho: Yeah...but you know what, I’ve met and made some really good friends through the seons.

  Jisu: Are there any girls who didn’t realize?

  Minho: Oh, yeah, there are some truly clueless ones. One girl kept following up with me weeks after we met. She put me in a tough spot! I had to figure out how to let her down nicely without embarrassing her. It made me wonder if I was really giving off a masc vibe.

  Jisu: Would coming out to your parents be difficult for you?

  Minho: It wouldn’t be difficult for me at all. But it might be for them. I’m their first kid. I’m the only boy in the family. They do everything for me—they’re even supportive of my dreams to work in set design. Honestly, they must know.

  Jisu: But you can’t be happy if you don’t tell them and live honestly as who you really are.

  Minho: I know, I know. It just almost feels selfish. Selfish for me to do that at the expense of shattering the illusion of their nice, straight son, who goes on dates with girls.

  Jisu: Who says they won’t like you the way you are? You’re still the same person you always were.

  Minho: It’s so much more complicated. Because I’m not really in the closet among my friends or anything. It’s a self-preservation thing.

  Jisu: Minho. I think you’re a great person. And I think your parents will love you no matter what and, deep down, they’d want their son to be happy. Isn’t that what all our parents want? Even if they send us out to these crazy seons, hoping some of us will hit it off with an eligible, wealthy, Ivy-bound kid. In the end, it’s not really about that shallow stuff—they just want peace of mind and to know that when they’re no longer around, their kids will be okay and happy.

  Minho: Damn, Jisu. Way to drop that on my head. You must be really close with your parents.

  Jisu: What do you mean?

  Minho: From what you’re saying, it sounds like you guys are really tight.

  Jisu: Close enough. Everyone has one issue or another with their parents. Mine are just always on me about schoolwork and making sure I get into a good college. I don’t think they really care what I study once I actually get to college.

  Minho: So tell them that!

  Jisu: Tell them what?

  Minho: That you feel like they’re suffocating you!

  Jisu: Nah. Then they’ll just say, “Well, what exactly is it that you want to do?” And I don’t even have an answer for that, because I’m seventeen and what teenager knows what the rest of her life should be like at age seventeen?

  Minho: I think that is exactly what you should tell them. It’s what you would tell me to do, right?

  Jisu: That’s fair, I guess.

  Minho: I hope one day we’ll run into each other on the street. Me, a proud gay man, completely out of the closet, and you, a confident professional in whatever field you are actually passionate about.

  Jisu: That does sound nice. I want that, too.

  12

  Hiba walked just as fast as she talked, if not faster. This was the second time today already that Jisu had nearly lost sight of her friend. At Pier 39, two kids were giggling and pointing at the famous sea lions that lazed in the sun on docks just below the piers. Jisu crouched low at the right angle to frame the image, mimicking the seasoned street photographers she watched on YouTube and Instagram. She wanted to get the perfect shot of the children’s unadulterated amusement. Jisu snapped away until she realized Hiba was no longer standing next to her.

  They were both members of Wick’s photography club. The actual club itself didn’t meet more than once every three weeks. It was mostly about the different photography challenges assigned at each meeting and the final art show and contest at the end of each year. Hiba and Jisu had decided to spend the day walking around North Beach, capturing whatever stood out and sparked inspiration. They had made a deal: Hiba would show Jisu around the city, and Jisu would teach her how to do more than simply point and shoot. Hiba rapidly learned the basics of photography, but Jisu didn’t catch on to the street names as quickly.

  Jisu scanned the crowds, growing slightly more frantic with each passing second. If she ended up missing and her dead body washed up a week later somewhere next to a confused sea lion, it would all be Hiba’s fault. She was close to giving up and redirecting her attention to figuring out how to take the BART home when she spotted Hiba’s pale blue hijab. She was back by the Pier entrance. Thank goodness Hiba had a penchant for bright, pretty colors. It made her easy to spot.

  “Hiba!” Jisu yelled. “You totally abandoned me!”

  “Oh, sorry!” Hiba said, but didn’t look at all worried. She smiled apologetically, but also as if to say, Calm down, I’ve been here the whole time. “I’ll buy you the best tiramisu you’ve ever had to make up for it?”

  “Hmm.” Jisu took her time pretending she was still upset. “Okay, I guess that would do it.”

  Stella Bakery was only a ten-minute walk from
the Pier, but between wandering into the City Lights Bookstore, where Jisu listened intently to every bit of literary history about Kerouac that Hiba dropped, and stopping every few feet to take more photos of the sky, the buildings and the pedestrians, the two of them wound up at the bakery nearly an hour later.

  Jisu took a bite of the tiramisu. The rich coffee and cocoa flavors seeped from the sponge straight into her taste buds. It was heavenly. Hiba sat across from her, a knowing smile stretching across her face.

  “I’m so glad we did this,” Hiba said. “I couldn’t spend another Saturday on college apps.”

  “I know,” Jisu groaned. The thought capping off a perfect day by going back home to incomplete college applications made Jisu want to scream. Even though she knew Hiba had to be so much more prepared than she was. For Hiba, the remaining work was probably just a matter of filling out forms. Aside from Mrs. Kim’s top Ivy League choices—Harvard because it was number one and then Princeton simply because it was just as good, and also because both their mascot and the national animal of South Korea was a tiger—Jisu hadn’t even narrowed down her college selections. And this was just for the American colleges. She was also working on her Korean applications simultaneously. She knew deep down her parents ideally wanted her to stay in the country and go to Seoul National University, where they met as two young, bright scholars. The incomplete applications nagged at Jisu, but for once she didn’t regret setting herself free from the shackles of school. She would not feel guilty for putting herself first.

  “Oh, my god,” Hiba gasped.

  “What?”

  “How did your post already get more than a hundred likes?” Hiba held her phone to Jisu’s face. It was her post of the kids marveling at the sea lions. Jisu had uploaded it to Instagram no more than fifteen minutes ago.

  “Wait, you have over two thousand followers. How?” Hiba asked.

  “I think half of them are bots?” Jisu said. “Also, it’s not that big a deal unless you have at least ten thousand followers, I think.”

  She thought briefly about her seon with Sejun the narcissist. The only good thing that had come out of that date was the boost in her followers. She wondered if those headshots she had taken of him served him well.

  “Okay, I can see why you have so many followers.” Hiba scrolled down Jisu’s feed. “Everything looks so...polished. And professional. What app do you use to edit?”

  “I just use VSCO and play around with their editing tools. If I’m really serious about it, I’ll actually use Lightroom on my laptop, save the photo, email it to myself, download it onto my phone and then post it onto Instagram.”

  “Okay, you need to teach me all that.” Hiba looked up at Jisu. “Are you applying to any art schools?”

  Maybe it was because her parents were always adamant about Jisu not spending too much time with her cameras, but the thought hadn’t even occurred to her. All her knowledge was gained through trial and error and YouTube tutorials. Photography was a hobby, like watching makeup vlogs, playing intramural volleyball or catching up on Riverdale with friends and a big bowl of popcorn.

  Art school was for kids who sketched all the time in class. The painters, sculptors, even the graphic designers who spent their whole day in the computer lab. But Jisu and photography? She flipped through the photos she had spent all day taking. She knew she had a good eye and a knack for this, but just because you were good at something and enjoyed it didn’t mean you had to dedicate your whole life to it.

  “But just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you have to major in it,” Hiba backtracked, sensing an identity crisis about to unfold before her.

  “I’m afraid I’ll start disliking photography if I take it seriously.” Jisu stirred her iced coffee with a straw. “But whenever someone asks me what I want to major in in college, I have no idea what to tell them.”

  “My sister changed her major three times before she declared one in her sophomore year in college. Just start with what you like. What are you good at?”

  It was such a simple question. Jisu looked around the café. An elderly couple gingerly walked up to the counter. They held hands as they perused the pastry case. In front of them, a woman signed a receipt and accepted a large box of cookies. Her toddler son held her hand and gnawed away at a sugar cookie the size of his face. The lady behind the counter expertly boxed up a large cake with quick precision, while taking an order on the phone.

  “I like people,” Jisu said. “I like watching them, capturing them on camera.”

  “You’re also kind of a social butterfly.”

  “A what?” Jisu was fluent in English, but the idioms always caught her off guard.

  “Social butterfly. You know, you like to socialize and be around people. You pretty much befriended half the class in your first week at Wick.” Hiba thought for a moment. “Maybe you could work in hospitality or open a restaurant. Or a gallery! A gallery that displays works of the coolest photographers, you included.”

  They were all real viable jobs and careers—Jisu had just never thought of them in relation to herself. She could imagine herself walking around a gallery, checking in on the staff and the guests, ensuring everything was working well, like a puppet master pulling each string with precision. Curating select pieces and coordinating their placement in a space.

  Suddenly the openness of college no longer seemed as daunting and vast as it always had.

  “I bet you could even run a nice café like Stella,” Hiba said. “But I bet it would be more polished than this. Ooh, and you would have your photographs and other artwork hanging on the walls. But it wouldn’t be like the cheesy art that they put up at Starbucks. Basically, you’re a visual learner.”

  “Hibaaaa.” Jisu gave her friend a hug and squeezed her tightly. “You really think I’m too good for Starbucks?” The girls laughed.

  Good friends gave good pep talks. Jisu was pretty sure nobody their age (not even Hiba) actually knew what the hell they were doing. But it was nice to support and cheer each other along, even though deep down inside she was pretty sure everyone was terrified about how to approach the future.

  * * *

  Despite being tired from walking around all day, as soon as she got back to the Murrays’, Jisu uploaded all her photos onto her laptop and started to edit them. Hiba had been like her personal life coach today and sparked something in her. Now, each edit and change she made to enhance the photos felt so much more significant. She did have a knack for this. It was more than just a hobby. Jisu looked at her Instagram page with new eyes. Maybe there was a way to incorporate her feed into her college applications. But would they care about any of this? Did Ivy League schools actually want visual learners?

  Jisu opened Kakao and sent a sampling of her photos from the day to her grandfather.

  Hi, Haraboji! As promised, here are some more photos. I walked around San Francisco with my friend Hiba and took these.

  Jisu went back to Instagram to check her notifications. The sea lions post was still gaining a steady amount of likes. There were a lot on a photo of a hostess standing outside an Italian restaurant, frantically—and somewhat desperately—waving around menus to attract diners. But the post of two men posing for their engagement photos had gotten three times more likes than the other photos. She checked the Pier 39 geotag and the hashtag #loveislove, and her photo showed up as the top image for both.

  Jisu’s phone vibrated—there was a Kakao notification. Haraboji had already seen the photos and replied back.

  Wow, Jisu! Who knew my granddaughter had such a great eye! Haraboji is very proud!

  The message was accompanied by five thumbs-up emojis. For an old man well into his eighties, Haraboji’s style of texting was akin to a teenager’s: more is more. Jisu smiled. Every bit of affirmation from her grandfather left her feeling a little bigger, a little stronger. Like a spring bud being encouraged
to bloom. When she first expressed interest in photography, her parents simply nodded their heads. Haraboji was the one who gave Jisu her first camera.

  Visiting Haraboji had been as easy as hopping on a bus and riding it for three stops. Who was making sure he was watering his houseplants now? Surely Mr. Kim was still visiting his father regularly, but Jisu wished for a bus that would take her from the Bay Area to her grandfather’s apartment. At least she could stay in contact with him through Kakao. Surviving here would be difficult without his encouragement. How did anyone survive without their phones?

  Jisu checked Instagram again. In the comments section, Min had added several emojis. Euni had also chimed in.

  Amazing shot, Jisu!

  Hiba had also commented five minutes ago.

  Luv this and u so much!

  Aside from the occasional bigot and troll, people—both friends and random internet strangers—were gushing about the soon-to-be wed couple in both Korean and English. It was bizarre and oddly uplifting to see strangers from two different continents converge in Jisu’s corner of the internet.

  And then it hit her. Jisu scrolled through her photos to find the one. There it was. It was a candid of Hiba looking up at the Japanese Consulate building. All the consulate buildings of various countries were within walking distance from the North Beach neighborhood. Whenever they’d walked past one, Hiba had pointed out the flag waving outside the building: Switzerland, Japan, Mexico, Sweden, France, Indonesia, Brazil. Jisu closed Instagram and called Dave.

  “’Sup, Jees?”

  That stupid nickname was starting to grow on her.

  “I figured it out.”

  “Figured what out?”

  “Our IS project.”

  “Oh, word? What’s your idea?”

  “Go on my Instagram page. The latest post. It’s blowing up.”

  “Did you just call me to impress me with your professional IG feed?”

  “No, Dave,” Jisu said sternly. “Just let me get to my point.”