Frankly in Love (Frankly in Love, #1)(58)

I’m about to ask what happened when a booming voice destroys the air around us.

“Okay, everyone, are you ready to shaking loose and party?” says the voice.

It’s the DJ. He’s got an accent. If he has an accent, and everyone here is Korean, why not just speak Korean?

My question is cut in half by a jet of white hissing from a hidden smoke machine. Beats rattle the century-old rivets in the ship’s hull. Beams of rainbow light slice across the tables.

“Ladies and gentlemen of Kang-Chang wedding 2019, aboard such a beautiful Landworth classic steam cruise ship from days of yore, your new Mr. and Mrs. Kang!”

The music dips, only to drop a ten-megaton four-beat onto the trembling chinaware. A spotlight burns away at a tall heart-shaped sheet of glitter that rips open to reveal Kyung Hee and her new husband bursting through. Comets of tinsel eject everywhere. She’s wearing a black flapper dress; he’s wearing a canary zoot suit.

“Some kind of Gatsby thing?” I scream.

“What?” screams Joy.

“Everybody in the place / clap your hands and see

“what a heart full of joy / make it easy to be

“full of love and the things / that important to me

“feel so good deep inside / perfect time wedding,” raps the DJ.

With that, the music lowers to a merciful level to allow the newlyweds to be led by a squirrelly coordinator in a headset from table to table, where they bow and thank the guests. Meanwhile, rivers of stone-faced waitstaff bring out plates of food. Exactly fifteen minutes later, they take the empty plates away.

The newlyweds arrive at our table.

“Heyyyy,” say we Limbos.

“It’s so cute seeing you guys all dressed up,” says Kyung Hee. “Look at my little sis!”

Ella Chang wrinkles her nose—“Yay!”—then goes neutral again.

The groom says a bunch of stuff in Korean.

“Uh, we suck at Korean,” says Andrew.

“I said there’s booze over there and no one’s carding,” says the groom. His jawline could sharpen swords. He points right at me and Joy like a machine inspector and says a bunch more stuff in Korean to Kyung Hee. She says a bunch of Korean stuff back to him, and together they giggle and give us love-eyes. I don’t need to ask what they said.

The newlyweds move on to the next table: another kids’ table, with three boys and two girls sitting in mirror-image arrangement to ours like doppelgangers from an alternate dimension.

The super-Koreans.

They rise from their languor to greet the bride and groom. They bow in this hip, fluid manner that demonstrates how much they really own bowing. They toss perfect bangs and mumble in perfect Korean. And their perfectly disheveled clothes, I realize, are matching white outfits with matching black lapel carnations.

They look so put-together. I could be put-together too if I had chosen the tribe, to quote Q. Suddenly I feel a little shabby. Far from put-together. More like left-apart.

“Why are all the super-Koreans in Asian Death White?” I whisper to Joy.

“Maybe they’re a K-pop group,” Joy whispers back.

“Why not.”

White is the color of oblivion in lots of Asia, not black like it is in America. Movies there fade to white. People think all-white cars look badass. I have a vintage Japan-only Asian Death White mini-disc player in my collection, and I think it looks badass.

The newlyweds vanish. The robotic waitstaff bring in another course of food. A timpani drumroll rumbles forth out of nowhere.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, it’s greetings from under the sea,” says the DJ.

Kyung Hee appears in the spotlight in a tight green sequined dress and a wig of bright red hair. The groom looks like a pirate prince. The room applauds. I raise a hand and Joy claps it, like giving me a high five over and over again.

“So it’s Mermaid Romance,” I say.

“Why not,” says Joy.

“And give a warm welcome to a very special presentation by friends of the groom,” says the DJ.

The lights cut out. The super-Koreans spring to attention. I notice they’re wearing Asian Death White headset mics—when did they get those?—and one of the girls emotes an impassioned speech in a spotlight while a soulful electric piano plays.

“What’s she saying?” says Joy.

“Something about the sea being really deep—I can’t catch it all,” I say. My Korean is only barely better than hers, which isn’t saying much.

A beat drops—this museum-quality late-nineties hip-hop jam—and the super-Koreans skip in time up to the dance floor, where they begin to perform a goddamn song.

“I was fucking joking when I said K-pop group,” says Joy.

The super-Koreans begin to clap, and now everyone’s clapping with them, and I start to get that classic Limbo feeling that I get whenever I’m surrounded by this much Korean-ness: that I am a failure at being Korean, and not doing so great at being American, so the only thing left to do is run away and hide in my own little private Planet Frank.

The super-Koreans now clap at us: Come on, clap!

“I did not sign up for this shit,” I say.

“Fuck’s sake,” moans Joy. “For the sake of Saint Fuck.”

“Let’s go,” I say.

We sneak away in the dark and leave the Limbos, who now clap along in a daze, and escape into the dusky air where the only sound is the muffled music coming from behind the windows and the pink noise panorama of the ocean’s surround. The seagulls have gone quiet for the day. The sun hangs low and fat and orange.