S1 E1 Pilot (4)
I lost at basketball again.
Eileen teabagged me this time, too, and instead of answering, I counted the tokens I had left. The urge for revenge was definitely there, but once I accepted that I couldn't win no matter how many rounds we played, I found I didn't particularly want another one.
"Let's play something else. Anything else."
"Not so cocky about basketball anymore?"
"Yes, yes. On behalf of the Republic of Korea, I formally surrender to Ireland."
By the time we'd burned through our last token and stepped outside, the sunlight had mellowed considerably. I walked alongside Eileen, wheeling our bikes toward the main road. She had a fluorescent plastic ring on her finger — a prize she'd won today, or so she claimed.
"How much did you blow trying to win that?"
When I asked, eyeing the ring, Eileen hid her hand behind her back.
"Don't do the math."
"Maybe you should've saved it and gone for something next time."
"It was fun. That's what counts."
I couldn't argue with that. We parted at the fork in the road, and as Eileen swung a leg over her bike, she said,
"Don't be late tomorrow."
"Yeah. See you at school."
She gave a quick wave and pushed off on the pedals, red hair swaying behind her. I turned my bike in the opposite direction.
When I got home, my father was watching television in the living room. He asked where I'd been; I said I'd been out with Eileen, and he nodded and turned back to the screen. It made all the time I'd spent hovering at the door wondering whether I should say something more feel completely wasted. By the time I'd washed up and come back down, dinner was on the table. Father asked whether I had everything packed for school tomorrow, and Mother seized the opening to rat me out — how that very morning I'd pretended not to know classes were starting.
"I wasn't pretending not to know."
"So you genuinely didn't know?"
Instead of answering, I feigned a sudden, consuming interest in my rice. In this house, when a conversation turned against you, the cure was to keep chewing.
I was fishing tofu out of the stew when the phone rang. Father, being closest, picked up the receiver and promptly held it out to me.
"Junwoo. It's Mac."
I swallowed the rice in my mouth and got up. The moment I pressed the receiver to my ear, a familiar voice came through.
"Hey, Andy. Heard you've been hanging out with Eileen?"
"You talked to her?"
"Just now. I was going to come too, but I was a little late. Working the cotton field."
There was a strange note of grim resolve buried in his voice.
...
Malcolm "Mac" Carter. This friend of mine is Black. And Mac's family runs a fairly sizable cotton farm. The first time I watched the show, I assumed I'd misheard the English; only later, when the farm itself finally appeared on screen, did I confirm I'd heard it exactly right. Every time the subject came up, Mac made a point of omitting the fact that he was the farm owner's son, and he harbored a truly vicious hobby: savoring the sight of the show's characters desperately fighting to keep their faces straight whenever a Black person made a Black joke. Even now he was talking as if he'd been hauled off somewhere and put to forced labor.
I turned away from the dinner table.
"Unbelievable. A Black man working a cotton field in 1999. Abraham Lincoln must be rolling in his grave."
Laughter burst out on the other end of the line.
"Ah, shit..."
Mac laughed for a beat, then stopped short.
"Wait. This is Andy, right?"
I rubbed my forehead.
I was hoping to go one day without hearing that question.
"Well, you saying stuff like that doesn't exactly help."
"You're the one who brought up the cotton field."
"Exactly. I knew you'd pull that pained, awkward voice again — oh my, was it very hard?"
Mac cracked up all over again.
"That's the funny part — you do it every single time. I mention I worked the fields, and you act like you have no idea what you're supposed to ask next."
"I'm used to it by now. Inherit the farm and hire me."
"You any good at farm work?"
"I'm the diligent Asian American society loves."
"Pretty sure you weren't, just now."
"Acting like that all the time gets boring, so I'm quitting."
Mac let out a laugh.
"Fair point. I'll take a funny Asian friend over the Asian America wants, too."
Someone was calling him on his end. Mac told me to hold on a second, then dropped the receiver away from his mouth to answer. His voice was a little hurried when he came back.
"I'm being summoned to dinner too. See you tomorrow."
"Not doing your usual fried chicken and watermelon jokes?"
"Trouble is, tonight's dinner actually is chicken."
"Oh, Lord."
Mac hung up laughing. I set the receiver down and went back to the table, where Father picked up a piece of tofu and asked,
"What were you two talking about, laughing like that?"
"He says the farm work is rough."
"Helping your parents out is a good thing. You should come by the laundromat on weekends too."
My spoon stopped halfway to my mouth. How did the conversation jump all the way there?
The next morning, my eyes opened before the alarm even had a chance to ring. I stared up at the unfamiliar ceiling and felt a small pang of disappointment. It wasn't that I'd entirely ruled out the possibility of falling back asleep and waking up in my own room.
But the wall still had a pop star who'd ruled the early 2000s plastered across it, and beside the desk stood the bag I was supposed to take to school. I lay there looking at the poster for a while, then sat up. Having come this far, school was something I had to see through.
I ate breakfast and was on my way out the door when Mom called from behind.
"Junwoo! Lunch!"
I trudged back and accepted the paper envelope. So this was what going to school meant. Life-altering turning point or not, forget your lunch money and you still had to turn around and go get it.
I got on my bike and headed for school. The closer I got, the more kids with backpacks appeared. Parents' nagging leaked out of cars with the windows rolled down, and the students climbing out answered while hauling their bags off the back seat. Out front, a line of cars crept along in slow procession, and I dismounted to wheel my bike toward the sidewalk.
The red brick building rose up dead ahead. The arch above the main entrance, the ivy climbing the walls — I'd seen them so often in the drama that they were almost too familiar. I tipped my head back and looked up at the front gate. This was the shot where the camera panned skyward and the opening theme kicked in. I'd watched it so many times it was already playing in my head.
"Andy."
I turned at the voice beside me. Eileen stood there in the same glasses as yesterday, chewing gum around a grin.
"Why are you just standing there?"
"I was looking at the school."
Eileen gave the building a slow once-over.
"What, was there a fire?"
"Doesn't look like it."
"What a shame. Come on."
I set my bike in the rack and snapped the lock shut. While she waited, Eileen pulled her class schedule out of her bag and asked what my first period was. I opened my mouth to answer — and closed it again at the sight of a boy walking toward us.
Trey Calloway. The male lead.
I'd thought he was handsome even in stills, but in person his face was almost comically, unfairly good-looking. He had his bag slung over a single shoulder, and somehow it looked genuinely cool. If I carried mine like that, people would worry about my spine. A football teammate walking beside him said something, and Trey tipped his head back laughing; my head turned all on its own, following that face.
This was first-season Trey — a face that hadn't yet lived through the headaches of the later seasons, a face that took it for granted that when he smiled, the world smiled back. He passed right by us, tossing Eileen an easy hello. Eileen nodded back. I missed my window to say anything at all.
"You got something to say to Trey?"
"No."
"Then why were you staring like that?"
"He's handsome."
Eileen gave me a look of pure incredulity.
"...Don't tell me you've switched teams like Mac?"
"No — no, I like girls. But he is good-looking. That's just a fact."
"Well, I mean, fair."
Inside the building, it was the cheerleading captain's turn — Savannah Price. She was standing in a cluster of friends, talking, and when someone came up and struck up a conversation, her smile changed. The corners of her mouth stayed lifted, but her eyes couldn't have cared less. I knew that expression too. In the original show, anyone who saw that smile and let themselves relax generally lived to regret it.
Across the hallway was the other male lead, Cole Maddox. He was digging through his bag in front of his locker, and when a passing student clapped his shoulder, he tossed back a reply of roughly two words. Hearing even his voice, I felt a laugh slip out of me before I could stop it. They really are all here.
Eileen grabbed my arm and yanked me aside. Two students coming up behind us walked right through the spot where we'd been standing.
"If you're done sightseeing, let's actually walk."
"Got it."
That's what I said, anyway, but I hadn't made it five steps before my gaze snagged on something again. Down the hall, walking toward us, was the female lead: Cassidy "Cass" Monroe. The blonde hair registered first. Her head was tilted slightly, listening to the girl beside her, and then she burst out laughing mid-stride and caught the girl's arm.
I stared, dazed. It was Cass. The female lead who used to keep me clicking "next episode" late into the night; the one who made me restart a drama I'd already finished, from the very first episode. I'd cursed at her out of frustration plenty of times, too. She'd bury things that a single honest word to Trey would have settled, then go find Cole at exactly the moments she shouldn't have. And then she'd have the nerve to cry about it. And, truly astonishingly, she still hadn't picked which of them to date by season five — the ending didn't settle it either. She was fucking infuriating every single time I watched, and every single time, I still pressed play on the next episode.
And now that face was coming toward me with no screen border around it. She was a teen drama heroine, so yes — I knew she was pretty. I just hadn't known it would hit like this in person. Cass laughed and swept her hair back behind her ear. Her voice, answering her friend, threaded through the hallway noise. I leaned in, straining to catch what she was saying — and a sharp jab caught me in the side.
"Hey."
I turned to find Eileen withdrawing her finger. She shot a quick glance toward Cass, then said, pitched just for me:
"Quit staring at Cass's chest."
"I was looking at her face."
"Then at least blink. It's creepy."
Only then did I remember to blink. Eileen tugged at my bag strap.
"Come on. We'll be late for class."
There was the faintest hint of a sulk in her voice.