On My Side

Chapter 5

**TW: MENTION OF MOONBIN'S DEATH

Night had fallen on sunny L.A. by the time they reached the hotel. Filming the show had taken more than the few hours Mr. Suh had predicted it would, but at the very least, he had met Paloma. He wasn't sure what to make of her. She was quiet and serious, much different from the image she had tried to project during the show.

When they got to the room, Eunwoo ordered some food and then slipped off to take a shower. He arrived in sweatpants, his typical white T-shirt, and wet hair just in time to pull the room service cart into the room. Paloma perused the food. There was a plate of lobster risotto, a green salad with mandarin orange slices, and a tray of chopped papaya.

"What? You don't like it?" Eunwoo asked as he watched her studying the food.

"No, it's good," she replied. "I've been living in East L.A. too long," she continued. "A late-night snack ends up being elotes or tamales," she explained.

"I don't know what any of that is," Eunwoo admitted.

"Oh, well, you've probably heard of tamales, I imagine," Paloma replied, pronouncing the word in an American way so that he would recognize it. "But elotes are ears of corn slathered in mayonnaise and sprinkled with cheese and chili powder," she said.

"Mayonnaise?" he asked incredulously.

"Yeah, but it has to be Mexican mayonnaise," she specified, "because anything else would just be disgusting."

"Oh, I see," he replied with an amused grin. "You'll have to take me to your side of town one of these days."

"Of course," Paloma replied animatedly. "We can go tomorrow."

"Oh, I guess, we could," Eunwoo replied, worried that he shouldn't have suggested that they continue to see each other after that day, but what was done, was done. It wasn't that he didn't want to spend time with her. It was only that he didn't want her to get the wrong idea about his availability.

Not knowing where to take the conversation from there, Eunwoo turned on the TV and found a generic zombie movie. It was a rather low-budget offering, nothing to the level of Korean zombie movies, but it filled the room with sound, which is what he needed. He had this latent fear that if he talked too much with Paloma, he would find that he had too much in common with her, that he liked her too much. And that would be disastrous because he had no room for love in his heart, nor in his life.

Paloma took a bite of the risotto and shrugged her shoulders. "I would have just as soon had arroz con pollo, chicken and rice, but it's not bad," she commented.

Eunwoo wasn't sure how to respond to that remark. So, he moved on. "So, that show was pretty crazy, or was it just me?" he asked.

"No, it wasn't just you," Paloma admitted. "I guess, being Latina, and growing up with Spanish television, I sometimes forget how weird it is. Like, for example, all the weather ladies wear really sexy clothes and sometimes break into dancing salsa out of nowhere," she laughed. "It's easy to forget that other people seeing this stuff would find it odd," she admitted.

"Yeah, I mean, dating shows in Korea are definitely not that daring," he observed.

"No, I imagine they wouldn't be," Paloma agreed. "But there is something about parading and preening that seems to work, even in nature," she posited. "I mean, take doves, for instance, like my name. A male dove courts a female by flying noisily toward her, puffing out his chest, and shaking his head until he calls for the female to become his for life," she explained. "But from that point on, only death will separate them," she said wistfully.

"Wow," Eunwoo whispered. "That's pretty deep," he said. "It's hard for me to think about forever because I've never met anyone that I thought I could be with long-term," he admitted. "I really want to get married someday, but I need to find someone I can talk with about literally anything, like someone who would let me share the most embarrassing and darkest parts of my soul," he opined. "But I don't know anyone like that," he repeated.

"Well, maybe you'll meet her someday," Paloma said helpfully, feeling a bit shy after saying it. "For my part, I like to make my own decisions. I want to be the Queen of my own kingdom. I don't like being told what to do. So, as much as I might like to have company sometimes, I won't take it if it means losing my freedom," she explained.

"That makes sense," Eunwoo agreed.

"Well, tell my family that," Paloma scoffed quietly. "From the way they talk about me, you would think I was 60 years old and living with 20 cats," she quipped.

"So, what do you do for work?" Eunwoo asked. "You already know what I do," he added with a laugh.

"Yeah," she returned his laugh. "I'm an ESL teacher. I teach kids who come from Spanish-speaking households so that they can get mainstreamed into the regular public school system," she explained. "So, as a teacher, if my students get transferred out, it just means that I've done my job."

"Does it ever bother you that you work with them for so long just to have them move on?" Eunwoo asked.

"Does a mother bird mourn when she kicks her little chicks out of the nest?" she countered.

"So, you're kind of like a mother who works her way out of a job," he observed sagely.

"Exactly," Paloma whispered. For a moment, they sat silently as the movie played in the background. "So, you like zombie films?" she asked.

"They're okay," he replied. "Mostly, I just like watching late-night movies. It relieves the loneliness a bit."

"Mm, do you know why zombie movies are so popular?" Paloma asked.

"I have no idea," he admitted.

"It's because we love the idea of killing people but seeing them as zombies makes it easier to do so without guilt. They remind of us people we know --- a teacher, a cop, a shopkeeper, etc., but they aren't quite human anymore. When we take away their humanity, we make it easier to kill them without any of those pesky moral compunctions," she replied.

Eunwoo was struck dumb yet again by her highly analytical mind. She seemed to understand people very well and what made them tick. She held this insight into the psyche of others that was slightly unnerving for Eunwoo. He wondered what it was about being vulnerable with someone else that was so frightening, and yet so longed-for. He was struck by a wave of emotion over how solitary his life really was. He swallowed hard, hoping she wouldn't see the tears forming in his eyes.

But he would have no such luck. Her green eyes met his again for probably the fifth time that day. "Existential angst?" she asked with a knowing nod of her head. "I get that too. I suddenly feel swallowed up by how alone we really are in this life. How many of our paths are walked alone?" she asked rhetorically.

"Yeah," Eunwoo breathed. She got it. She understood him in a way that no one ever had before. He felt strangely compelled to tell her more --- about the lonely nights in his single bed after a show, or about what it felt like when his bandmate, Moonbin, had committed suicide. He was in trouble, and he knew it. After all these years of Lone Ranger-ing his way through life, he had finally met someone who threatened his fortress of solitude.