Popped 3

By Chinggay Labrador

Destination: Seoul, Korea *where dreams come true*

Purpose of Travel: Protect BFF from Fan Woman who wants to destroy all competition for the biggest K-Hip-Hop band's lead vocalist (and maybe hang out with hot Korean guy who looks like K-Pop crush)

Travel Companions: Fellow K-Pop fangirls/BFFs

Seoul Wishlist:
• A total K-Pop makeover
• Violet potato latte fix (a heart swirl on top wouldn't hurt)
• An appearance at only the most happening club in Seoul
• Bumping into your K-Pop celebrity crush
• Buying an adorable Hello Kitty subway card
• Holding hands with the Korean boy you've hopelessly fallen head over heels for (and praying he likes you back)

Will the K-Pop fairy wave her sparkling wand and grant Andie and her friends their wishes as they adventure in the motherland? This time, the BFFs have no idea what to expect! But one thing’s for sure, they're met with K-Pop giddiness at every turn.

"It's rare when a sequel makes you squeal more than the original. But Popped Too does just that. The K-Pop madness and kilig in this book are pure indulgence!" —Candy Magazine

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chinggay Labrador
• Release date: May 6, 2023

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Very little compares to the thrill of unboxing a newly shipped still-smelling-of-Korea K-Pop concert DVD. The minute you slit that box open, it hits you—that elusive fresh-from-Seoul scent that you just want to bottle up so you can spritz the essence of Myeongdong all over yourself at will—whenever, wherever. Unboxing one of those concert DVDs is like opening the wardrobe door and discovering Narnia (but better). It’s like freefalling into Alice’s rabbit hole and waking up in K-Pop wonderland.

What I love about K-Pop merch is that it really is the gift that keeps on giving. Just when you think you’ve gotten all the awesomeness out of that DVD, you get your special features, your bonus cuts, your fan cams, your free poster, your one-of-a-kind fan ID card, your special fan friends-only marathon nights. The fun never stops and the experience only gets better with each viewing.

Every time one of us gets a post office notice that a package from Seoul, South Korea has arrived, my friends and I get our bat signals on because that’s what fan friends do—they unbox merch together. The ritual is something we’ve gotten down pat—get Trixie, our obsessive-compulsive bespectacled friend to open anything that comes in because she will never get any thumbprints on glossy photo book paper or on un-wipe-able DVDs. All it takes is just one neat freak to help keep your collection immaculate and beautiful (the way it’s supposed to be).

This night was no exception.

My Seoul-based BFF Nica, who now had an apartment somewhere in Yongsan, had just sent me a box of goodies off of FedEx. It arrived right after lunch, and I immediately sent Trixie and our other friend, Cesca, a text to tell them that the package had arrived.

Within seconds of sending my message, Cesca replied that she couldn’t make it because she was blackholed at work. She had just scored some huge account for the Philippine Sports Commission and was either shooting football players being macho or macho dancers playing football for some men’s lifestyle magazine.

Trixie, on the other hand, gave me a call right from her workplace. After ten seconds of silent screaming, she told me she would head straight to my house as soon as work was over and volunteered to do the unboxing herself because she had the hands of a surgeon and wouldn’t get any germs on my precious DVDs. 

We were sprawled on top of my bed, barely breathing as we went through the unboxing process step by step. 

Step one, the cutting of the tape. Trixie pushed her black-rimmed eyeglasses up the bridge of her nose as she made a ruler-straight slit on the packing tape that sealed the FedEx box.

Step two, the gentle lifting of the lid, she whispered.

I wrung my hands together and cracked my knuckles in preparation for the unleashing of greatness. I was prepared to take the reins. 

Step three, the removal of stuffing, I continued, lifting the layers of Hangul-covered broadsheets that filled the box.

Molecules from the motherland, I heard Trixie mumble under her breath, eyes transfixed on the package.

And finally, step four, I said, interrupting the hypnotic spell that the package had put my friend under. The big reveal.

I pulled out the weighty box nestled in all that newspaper and there it was—MOVEMENT HI DEF. We had entered K-Pop Narnia at last.

Everything about it was sharp and sleek, from the holographic black and silver checkerboard pattern, to the thick translucent glass panel that had the words MOVEMENT HI DEF etched on it ever so precisely.

Nica had stuck a big, bright pink Post-it on the DVD cover. She never sent anything to us without a sweet, handwritten note (sometimes she would write to us in Korean and only Trixie could figure out what it actually said).

Best concert ever.

Wish you were here~

Sending you a little piece of my home ^^

XOXO

N.

I took the Post-it out to slap it on the chalkboard I had hanging over my desk, but had to do a double take when I saw what was under Nica’s note.

Surrounding the DVD title were four haphazardly scrawled signatures in thick black Sharpie ink.

JC/CHOI JUNGSANG. KWON TAE BIN. 

NATTAWUT CHO. KIM JI KYUNG.

Nica had gotten all four members of South Korea’s biggest hip-hop group to sign my DVD. 

MY DVD. *fangirl dance*

Hey, how much will this go for on eBay? I said casually. 

Do not even dare, Trixie sat straight up and grabbed the DVD from me. You don’t deserve this if you’re going to sell it on the black market!

Do I look like the kind of fan who auctions off her merch, Trixie? You think? I gestured to the shelf over my TV—the same shelf that carried all of Movement’s CDs, DVDs, plus a couple of Korea-issued box sets of my favorite dramas. Come on.

Trixie stuck her tongue out at me and plopped down on the floor, still holding the DVD. She cradled her chin with her right hand, and with her left, started stroking Nattawut Cho’s stubby signature (complete with requisite heart). She had a silly schoolgirl smile on her face—the same one that meant she had momentarily abandoned all of first life reality and had jumped full speed into the zone. 

This was our safe space—and no matter how ridiculous we could get when we were in it, the rule was always zero judgment. 

I always marveled at Trixie’s fangirl earnestness. My friend since we both wore pigtails and bow biters, she was always so serious and intense about her K-Pop crush on Nattawut Cho, it was borderline ridiculous on certain occasions. Like the time she took three language classes all at the same time—Korean, Thai, and Mandarin (because she’d discovered that not only was Nat a Thai-American living in Korea, he was part-Chinese too). Sometimes I secretly wondered whether her apartment had a back room with a secret Nattawut shrine. Hmm.

Stop stroking the signature—you’re going to wear it down, I said, throwing my old Tigger stuffed toy at her. 

"Do you think their molecules are still on this DVD?" she asked, laughing grossly at her stalker question. 

If Mac Park could hear us right now, I’m never going to hear the end of it.

Mac Park was my Korean boy friend. Two words.

I will explain later.

Mac liked to viciously rag on me about my K-Pop obsession. When we first met, I thought it was friendly, flirty teasing. He even nicknamed me Fangirl the first time we talked on the phone. And after a couple of trips he made to Manila, and one trip I made out to Seoul, I, the fangirl, had somehow magically, mysteriously, without-even-saying-a-word voodoo’d him into moving to Manila. FOR ME. Yes, that’s what he said.

It had only been a month since Mac moved and even though he did uproot his whole entire life to live here, I wasn’t entirely sure if I had already transitioned from being Andie-Fangirl to Andie-FanGIRLFRIEND. Mac Park’s Andie-FanGIRLFRIEND (one word).

I didn’t want to start The Talk with him because apart from getting settled into his job as one of the producers at Arirang TV Global, he also had to find an apartment, figure out the crazy Manila traffic, buy furniture, go to the dentist—there was this incredibly long laundry list of boring first life things he said he needed to focus on. I figured we could have The Talk when all that first life dust had settled. Plus, I needed to figure out how to bring up the are we boyfriend-girlfriend yet issue without sounding like a juvenile nitwit.

In the meantime, Mac had made a hobby out of making fun of what he called my infantile pastime/second life. I could’ve easily let it go, but sometimes, the sarcastic scowls and eye rolling whenever Movement would come up could get a little bit annoying. I mean, you never really expect the kind of guy who moves thousands of miles for you to also be that guy—the kind that gets all up in your business about your guilty pleasures. In my case, K-Pop. 

I don’t know how well-versed guys could be at guilting their girl friends (two words) out, but Mac’s go-to retort was about how the only reason we met was because I was on a serious celebrity stalking expedition in Seoul, and he was just collateral damage. Which was kind of true.

Whenever Mac played the almost-boyfriend jealous card, I found it cute. His pretend-possessiveness made me feel like the lead in a K-Drama. Except those K-Dramas had a one-hour time stamp and Mac’s making fun of my Movement love didn’t seem to have an expiration date. I wished there was a Korean or English equivalent to the word pikon that I could throw at him because lately, his K-Pop condemnation was really getting on my nerves.

Trixie said that my Mac rants were ludicrous and I was being, for lack of a better word, pikon. Cesca, on the other hand, said that my neurotic rants were totally justified and if I had to go through an almost break up with my almost boyfriend for the sake of second life sanity (and a chance to win over my hypothetical second life superstar boyfriend), it would be okay. Because logic has no place in fangirls’ hearts, she would tell me.

I don’t know. You tell me.

Maybe I wouldn’t have been so jumpy if Mac could have just made a move and gotten us out of our gray area relationship. 

Cesca didn’t seem to have any problems with her first life boyfriend, who, lucky for her, has always been the number one cheerleader for practically all of our harebrained K-Pop schemes. Steven was bass player for the indie group FreeWire—and despite his being part of the alternative-electronic-pop persuasion, he managed to juggle his musical tastes and his girlfriend’s K-Pop playlists just fine.

Fully supportive of Cesca’s long-time love for Daniel Henney, Steven even went so far as to act as personal matchmaker between Nica and whichever K-Pop dude she fancied at the moment (it was currently a toss-up between Jungsang and Movement’s events manager, Harvey Kim). Not only did Steven look like Jericho Rosales (my and Nica’s local hottie love), he could also keep up with our spazzing on Movement, volunteer to go to Seoul with us, and yes, become an official fan of our K-Pop-ness.

On the other hand, Mac Park, who was from Korea, land of female and male-targeted cosmetic surgery, slash fan fiction, and beauty stores that used guys to market makeup to girls, just couldn’t seem to let go of my KJK fixation.

Tsss. He was lucky I wasn’t jonesing on some pretty flower boy. I knew how to pick them well. Kim Ji Kyung was a superstar with legitimate MAN credibility, for crying out loud.

Before you start bonking me on the head, here’s my beef. 

Mac was the perfect-est, most thoughtful, sweetest guy—when he wasn’t: one, being so hot and cold it’s like Katy Perry wrote the song about him; and two, ragging on the likes of Kim Ji Kyung, my rapper/would-be-K-Pop-knight-in-shining-armor. 

The funny thing was, Mac looked just like KJK. It was kind of unnerving how he kept hating on someone who was his actual doppelganger. And for the record—I never told him that I saw the resemblance. That would be totally asking for it.

Sometimes, I imagined KJK and Mac Park getting into an actual mud-slinging brawl over me. The worst part about my stupid fantasy was that I couldn’t pick who the winner would be. In my head, the sapakan would just go on and on. 

When I get really pikon at Mac, in my head, I tell him off and say (in dramatic Filipino movie fashion), "I could replace you with him in a snap—one phone call. All I need is one phone call to Nica and I am out—I am going to meet him and he is going to love me! And make me his girlfriend! ONE WORD!"

It was true. Well, not all of it. Technically speaking, I really could make that one phone call to Nica and I would, in all seriousness, get that introduction to KJK. She’s pals with him. With them—Movement. By some fluke of nature/unbelievable act of charity by our favorite imaginary friend, the K-Pop fairy, Nica had secured her spot as actual Movement friend (or girlfriend).

My former co-editor here in Manila, Nica nabbed a modeling job for CeCi Korea, which got her behind the velvet ropes and into the music scene. That stint led her to another job just a few months after living in Seoul. Right now, she was deputy lifestyle editor at Nylon Korea and from the looks of it, was walking, talking, and looking like a regular important famous person over there.

So yeah. I could get that KJK introduction if I wanted to. SNAPS TO ME.

If there was one thing all our K-Drama and K-Popping had taught me, it was that anything was possible. We’d seen a dozen shows on girls pretending to be boys, love robots turning into humans, guys turning themselves into pets for the women they loved—they were all just as crazy as real life. If I kept believing in the K-Pop fairy, I wouldn’t be surprised if Nica, Cesca, Trixie, and I would be able to time travel to the Joseon Dynasty, where we would fangirl over cute, historical costume-wearing university students. With hats.

In my defense, I fangirled over Mac Park, too. I practically chased him from Manila to Seoul and all the way back (twice!). I promised to purge myself of everything K-Pop, and willed myself to let go of all the KJK posters* ¹ up in my room if I could only have a shot at the real thing with him. That was the fangirl sacrifice I was willing to make—which, come on, is kind of asking for a lot when your whole happiness is founded on cheap thrills.

And who would have thunk? Like all my other wishes, the K-Pop fairy wholeheartedly said yes to my little request and sent my Black Hoodie Guy all the way here. To be with me.

Sometimes I feel like a real nut for complaining about his pretend-jealousy. Really. I should consider myself lucky.

My boy friend (two words) looked just like my K-Pop crush. *blink blink* Issues notwithstanding, this was one case where the real life sweetheart needed to win over the hypothetical superstar second life boyfriend. No questions asked.

And now, Trixie and I were on the precipice of yet another one of my diversionary tactics—the autographed (cough) special edition Movement HI DEF DVD. 

Two hours worth of splashy live performances against a mafia-inspired gangster-looking stage, with incredibly snazzy black and white suits that would put Boss, Armani, and the whole lot of them to shame. Movement’s huge spring concert at Seoul Olympic Stadium wasn’t as crazy hip-hop as their shows from the past couple of years, but Jungsang, KJK, Nat, and Taeb totally stepped up on the handsome meter for this one, let me tell you. That, and a full DVD of behind the scenes, extras, and a glaringly embarrassing parody of Dream High was more than enough to wipe away all my Mac exasperation.

Truthfully, all I needed was a minute’s worth of KJK beatboxing and everything was right in the world again. Of course, Mac Park didn’t need to know that the biggest douchebag in all of K-Pop was the antidote to the real life irritation he kept instigating—that would be my dirty little secret to keep.

Beep, beep.

Trixie was still stroking Nat’s signature when I got a text from Mac.

Working late at studio tonight :( FaceTime on my midnight break, Fangirl?

His timing couldn’t have been more perfect. I could spend the entire night watching my DVD—no interruptions.

Sounds good. FaceTime later :)

Psst, I called out to Trixie, trying to stir her from the dizzy spell Nat’s signature was putting her under. Do you have to head home to finish up work or can you stay to watch?

She bolted straight up and sat cross-legged on the floor. First ten minutes of the ‘Dream High’ parody. After that, I need to head back to the office to help with the midnight shift’s data processing issues, she said, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. 

Trixie’s IT job always had her running back to the office at odd hours to help solve some impossible-to-understand crisis. But a slight delay on her time card, she said, was worth seeing Nica’s Jungsang dressed up in drag and watching the guys bust out their acting chops.

Perfect! I stood up and clapped my hands while Trixie bobbed up and down in her seat, waving her fists in the air. Eeeee! we squealed.

I unhooked my laptop from its power cord, sat next to Trixie on the bed, and slipped the DVD in. Seeing the West Entertainment label pop up on my screen and lead up to the Main Menu with Movement’s current hit, Punch Drunk playing in the background sent chills down my spine.

"Can