My Stubborn Seoul

The first thing Emeka noticed about Seoul was that nobody stared. Back in Lagos, if you walked through a crowd looking lost, someone would either help you or laugh at you. Here, people moved like water around rocks like smooth, unbothered, eyes forward. Nobody cared that he had three heavy bags, a dying phone, and absolutely no idea where the Seoul Arts Music Academy shuttle was supposed to pick him up. He stood outside Incheon Airport, sweat already forming at the back of his neck despite the cool air, and stared at the sheet of paper in his hand like it would magically translate itself into something useful. It did not. "Okay Emeka," he muttered to himself. "You wanted this. You prayed for this. You got a full scholarship to study music in South Korea. This is fine. Everything is fine." A woman with a rolling suitcase nearly took out his knee. "Okay," he said again. "Almost fine." He pulled out his phone, fourteen percent battery and tried to load the academy's address on Google Maps. The screen froze. He closed the app. Opened it again. Froze again. "You have got to be kidding me." "You're blocking the walkway." The voice came from behind him. Low, flat, and carrying exactly zero warmth. Emeka turned around slowly. The guy was Korean, maybe a few years older than him, with dark hair falling slightly across his forehead and the kind of face that belonged on a billboard somewhere. He was dressed simply in white shirt, grey jacket but he wore it like someone who had never had to try hard at anything in his life. He was also looking at Emeka the way someone looks at a traffic cone that has appeared in an inconvenient location. "I'm not blocking anything," Emeka said. The guy glanced pointedly at the stream of people forced to split around Emeka's three bags. Emeka looked. Looked back. "I'm about to move," he said. "When?" Emeka blinked. "Excuse me?" "You said you're about to move." The guy's English was precise, slightly accented, and completely unbothered. "When? Specifically." For a moment Emeka just stared at him. In twenty-two years of life nobody had ever spoken to him like that. Not even his mother, and she had opinions about everything. "Who raised you?" Emeka asked. Something flickered across the guy's face. Not quite amusement. Not quite irritation. Something in between that disappeared too fast to read. "Move your bags," he said, and walked past him into the airport. Emeka turned to watch him go, mouth slightly open. "Rude," he said to nobody in particular. "Incredibly, historically rude." He gathered his bags, found a spot against the wall, and spent the next ten minutes successfully loading the academy's location. The shuttle pickup was on the other side of the building. Of course it was. By the time he dragged everything around and found the small group of students waiting with a sign that read Seoul Arts Music Academy — New Intake, his phone was at three percent and his left shoulder was threatening to file a formal complaint. He joined the group, dropped his bags, and exhaled for the first time since landing. Then he looked up. Standing at the edge of the group, slightly apart from everyone else, arms crossed and eyes on his phone, was the rude guy from the walkway. Emeka stared. The guy looked up. Their eyes met. Neither of them spoke. Emeka looked at the academy sign. Looked back at him. "You're kidding me," he said quietly. The guy looked back down at his phone like Emeka was a minor inconvenience he had already forgotten about. Emeka picked up his bags, moved to the opposite end of the group, and made a decision. He was going to be the bigger person. He was going to be mature and professional and unbothered. He lasted about four seconds before he muttered, "This is going to be a long year." From across the group, so quiet he almost missed it, the rude guy said, "Yes. It is."