SEDAT(iv) (Korean: 진정제, romanized: jinjongje; Japanese: 鎮静剤, romanized: Chinsei-zai) is a South Korean boy band formed by PRT Entertainment. The group consists of five members:  Ji-ho, Davey, Sixx, Do-yun, and Eiji. They debuted on November 15, 2013 with the extended play (EP) CATSCAN: the first examination but gained attention for their first Korean studio album, February 2014’s Argos. SEDAT(iv) are known for their musical versatility [1] and are praised especially for their strength as dancers. [2][3] 

SEDAT(iv) have sold ten million albums worldwide.

*

On the last stop of the iDOL’S iDOL promo tour, Do-yun makes a nine minute appearance on Jimmy Fallon. He wears a half-unbuttoned white linen shirt over lightwash Levi’s (for whom he is a brand ambassador). His clavicle shines under the stagelights, the hint of pectorals. Since completing mandatory service, he’s returned beefier, with hair cropped close to the skull. Offstage, a translator mediates an oatmealish string of pre-arranged questions.  

With Fallon, there’s always an activity. Tonight, Do-yun attempts to teach Fallon the “Hot + Heavy” dance, which looks ridiculous without extreme body control. Fallon’s performance is clumsy and half-hearted, which is meant to be funny. The audience is cued to laugh along. 

Once Fallon breaks a sweat, they sit. Normally, this is when he would show the album cover, tell everyone how wonderful Do-yun’s new project is, how they just have to catch SEDAT(iv) on their world tour this summer. 

Instead Fallon, infamously vanilla, journalistically neutered, endlessly placating, goes off script: The host produces a photograph of Do-yun, age 17, wearing a stained white apron behind the plastic divider of a street food cart. 

“Before you were part of SEDAT(iv)—I read this somewhere, please tell me if it’s not true, but before you were the Han Do-yun, you worked at your parents’ food stall, right?”

For a second, the persona falters. He looks offscreen toward his manager. He touches the green translator in his ear. 

The subtitles ask Fallon where he got the picture from. The host smiles veneer-first, asserts his team has their ways. Another look to the off-screen team. A frown, brows drawn. The yellow subtitles flash. Yes. My mother makes good odaeng. I am not as successful.

Any informed host would know this is a sore subject, would know that the idol attempted to juggle training while working in violation of his contract, that this photo would have led to termination if other members of SEDAT(iv) hadn’t (allegedly) threatened to walk. 

“How do you feel, seeing yourself like this?” Fallon prompts. “So young.” 

Do-yun is searching for the right thing to say. He touches the translator again, flattens his palms on his knees, leans back into the couch, smiles and looks toward the crowd. 

He speaks, this time in English, slow and rehearsed. “It’s strange to see him this way. To think about the things he doesn’t know.”

*

By the monitor in her cubicle, Amy displays a thumb-tacked Japan-exclusive SEDATI(iv) World Tour III photocard of Do-yun, his profile over-exposed by flash, chin nestled in his palm, lips parted. He wears a New York Rangers jersey over a white turtleneck, and there’s enough blush packed on his cheeks to suggest eternal shame. It’s the best picture he’s ever taken, which is why it cost her a cool $93 dollars (not including shipping from Hualien, Taiwan to her Washington, DC apartment). Beside the photocard, she taped the cardstock insert that came with her copy of Do-yun’s solo album. A facsimile of a handwritten, heartfelt note for his dedicated fans:  

Thank you for supporting me through the creation of this album. There were so many fun and happy moments because of you. Let’s continue to live each day together~ 

화이팅 !!

She likes when the older ladies at work make the rounds to bitch about unfilled water coolers and fishy smells in the breakroom; she knows, inevitably, en route to or from, one will grab the back of her chair. She’ll inhale flowery Clinique perfume as they lean over her shoulder and coo, “Ooo Amy, is that your boyfriend?” In response she will laugh and say, “Ohmygod no, no.” 

This will give her an excuse to dig her phone from her purse, to flash the screen wallpaper of her actual boyfriend. 

“He’s from China,” she’ll say, turning up the brightness so they can get a good look at his face, sharp and angled and seriously way out of her league. She wants them to say how very handsome he is, to ask how they met. 

“Good Lord, he’s prettier than I am,” one may comment. “I’d be way too insecure to date someone like that,” another will agree. 

“Wasian babies are the cutest,” the woman from accounting once said, taking Amy’s phone into her hand. When Amy told her she was not really sure she wanted to have kids, the woman shook her head solemnly. “You’re too young to know, hon. How long have you been seeing him?” 

“Oh, a few months. He bought me a drink,” Amy told her, has since repeated, will repeat to anyone who listens, flipping her hair over her shoulder, smiling, looking demurely to the side. Humble. “Right after I deleted all of my dating apps, the same night! It was predestined—if you believe in stuff like that.”

He had come over to the tall table where she stood with her friend, flushed and shouting over the noise, wanting to know how they felt about whiskey. At first, she thought he’d been interested in Claire. Men were always walking across rooms for Claire, who was taller and thinner and generally more mysterious—but it was Amy’s hip he’d put a hand on and Amy’s number he’d dialed into his phone, saying something hot and wet about fate.   

Under the flashing lights of the bar, she thought he looked like an angel. She said so, pulling him to the rooftop, brushing sweat from his temple, taking a cigarette when he offered even though she hated the smell. 

“Are we gonna fuck?” she asked, pushing the smoke held in her mouth back through her teeth. He’d laughed toward the light polluted sky, called her very forward, asked what her mother would think about talk like that. 

“She’d be happy you’re not a woman,” Amy said, which made him laugh again, flush harder.

They hadn’t hooked up; they hadn't even kissed. Before they could do anything her mother would’ve considered really scandalous, Claire put herself between them, took Amy’s hand, pulled her into an Uber, and told him if he wanted to see her again it would have to be in the cold light of day. 

“Wasn’t he hot?” Amy asked, fumbling with her seatbelt, which slipped and slipped until finally clicking into place. “His mouth does the same thing as Do-yun, you know the little corner curve? When he smiles? God, I love it when their mouths do that.”

Claire only grunted, let Amy rest her head on her shoulder, patted her hair. “You’re going to be so, so hungover.”

“Yeah?” she asked. Out the windshield, the Potomac sweat glitter and stars. “I hope he calls me.” 

He didn’t call, but he did text: Remember me? Your angel?

*

Do-yun was, to Amy, divinely revealed. 

Of all the videos funneled through her YouTube algorithm, nothing held her attention with the white-knuckled grip of SEDAT(iv). She’d been fifteen when their first majorly viral MV, Argos, appeared between cut-crease eyeshadow tutorials and back-to-school hauls. She’d clicked for the thumbnail, a green-lit image of who she now knew to be Ji-ho, a stone hand wrapped around his throat. 

Amy hadn’t encountered anything quite like it—the colorful elaborate sets, the clothes, how the boys slipped around, fusing into one pulsing unit. Comments claimed the video was a modern re-telling of Agamemnon’s homecoming, that the laid-out robes which the boys walked over were a significant metaphor of war, of longing, of yearning. 

Of the five members, Do-yun was immediately without equal. In that era, his hair was a coppery mop that obscured the eyes, drawing attention to his sharp pre-rhinoplasty nose, the fullness of his pink mouth. Do-yun’s brief solo pictures him fully dressed, singing in a claw foot tub. He looked half-dead in a sickly yellow light, steady and unmoving and turned toward the camera as water was poured over him by a hand off-screen (which comment sections and forum boards and high-contrast Twitter gifsets insisted belonged to Eiji. Look at his cuticles, the conspirators said, See the crescent of dead skin?? PRT doesn’t pay enough attention to him : (  they’d never let another members' hands look like that.) 

Amy didn’t care about the hand, only the wrung out after-effect, only about Do-yun moving damp strands from his face, looking into the camera to deliver his lines. 

Translated lyrics in the captions: You soften my will  / Drip into my heart as I sleep

His face was a dream-like smudge, everything about him smooth and soft and blurred at the edges. It was a kind of beauty she’d never encountered in men, of whom she thought about very little before white-gloved hands wrapped themselves around Do-yun’s neck, before his beautiful face had been gently pushed under the water. From his mouth, 

I am the casualty of Truth

For hours she’d sat in her father’s office, leaning off the seat of his creaky wooden swivel chair, hunched over the family computer, consuming and processing and trying to understand what it was she was feeling, the bloom of fire that grew deep in the hollow of her chest as she played and re-played his submersion. 

I am a memory of Pain / Hold Me

Knowing Do-yun was like being Saved in the Christian sense. In the same way her family found answers in the visage of Christ, Amy’s suffering became more bearable when reflected back in Do-yun’s glow. When he looked into the camera, she could feel his eyes on her. When he outstretched his hand, it was for her to take. When he said, “It’s okay not to know the answers, it’s okay not to have hope, it’s okay to feel sad—feelings come and go like the sun. You must hold on to the day in anticipation of night,” Amy felt touched in a way that was singularly profound. Being on the receiving end of Han Do-yun’s good will was not unlike what her father got from the words in his Bible. 

Amy listened to SEDAT(iv) everywhere: on the bus, during gym, in the backseat on the way to church. She spent nearly every evening watching and re-watching special performances, comeback stages, livestreams. He burned into the back of her eyes, like a still image frozen on a flatscreen TV. A playlist of his interviews hummed through the tinny speakers of her iPod each night, muffled by her pillow. It was the only way he would ever truly be inside of her, a low hum slipping from cavity to cavity. 

*

In a 2015 Teen Vogue article, Do-yun described his ideal type as someone who fits into my life like a puzzle piece. Amy liked this thought, liked that Do-yun was the one to have it—a man who could have anyone he liked but chose to stay alone, focused on his art, waiting for a missing piece to complete the image.  

He, like Amy, believed love was kismet.

*

Amy’s boyfriend was raised in Chengdu; this is explicitly stated on his LinkedIn profile.

Before their first date, she watched hours of aesthetic travel vlogs, zeroed-in on the slim shoulders of women in puff-sleeve shirts ordering matcha and pointing their cameras up to get the same underwhelming angle of a climbing panda statue. Amy was prepared to ask about the lanterns that lit Jinli street red, about the winding crop-circle foot bridge. She wanted to show him that she knew  Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan Province, that it’s called the Turtle City. She wanted to show him that he’s appreciated.  

They met after work in front of a comedy club, lingered outside so he could smoke, walked down the street to buy giant, greasy slices of pizza from a shop that seemed to be eating itself from the inside. She tried to prompt him into talking about his life, his past, the four years at UC Berkeley stamped on his LinkedIn, but her boyfriend seemed much more interested in drawing a Venn diagram on paper napkins. He poked and prodded for her likes and dislikes, scratching everything down with a ballpoint pen. They both liked cooking shows, shopping, the color blue. 

“What kind of music do you listen to?” he asked.

“Pop,” she says, automatic, practiced. “Rap. Some R&B, I guess.”

“Like Chris Brown.” Her boyfriend smiled, nodded, pushed his hair back with one hand. But before she could say no, not like that at all, he’d already marked it in the ‘shared’ category. 

*

“Do you know what the pictures people keep of Jesus in their house are called? The little paintings, not the crosses.”

Claire frowns. “I don’t know anything about Jesus.” She’s stretched out over Amy’s rug. One hand dunks and re-dunks a tea bag while the other sorts through loose photocards, temporarily unsheathed from their plastic holders for long-overdue reorganization. 

“The pictures are more popular with, like, the Catholics. You know something about the Catholics, everyone knows something about the Catholics. That’s their whole thing, they’re desperate to be known about.”

“I saw Conclave.”

“Dad always called those little pictures ‘idols.’ Isn’t that funny? The HR lady keeps little postcards of Jesus tacked up in her cubicle. If you think about it, it’s kinda like a photocard.”

“Too big to be a photocard. Postcards are their own thing.”

“But it has the same effect. I mean you feel bad for, like, lying for time off or slacking at the office and then you look up and suddenly you’re cosmically confronted. You know.”

“I don’t know anything about what Christians think.”

“Well, they think it’s bad. And it’s no good to have idols, there’s a whole thing about graven images.” 

“Do-yun’s gonna send you to hell.”

Amy straightens, a birthday-exclusive fanclub photocard of Do-yun, nose covered in icing, pinched between thumb and pointer finger. It slips awkwardly under the pressure, out of her hand and onto the floor. 

“That’s not how it works. I don’t think that’s how it works.”

Claire hums. 

Amy’s photocard binders and physical albums are kept in a flat plastic tub, covered with a quilt that once belonged to her grandmother, wheeled under the bed and out of sight. Amy’s collection is at a reasonable volume: one binder that acts as a catch-all for her non-Do-yun centered SEDAT(iv) merch (album pulls, impulse purchases, gifts from Claire); a binder for Do-yun’s A4s; a binder for his postcards and polaroids; another for just his photocards. Claire volunteered to fish through the duplicates, the untradable, the unsellable, the—in Amy’s case—unwanted: her Davey cards. One woman’s trash, another’s treasure, etcetera.

Claire has created a small pile to take home with her. Davey wearing giant headphones. Davey tugging the side of his mouth with a pinkie. Davey in a red bandana.

“I can’t stand to look at him like this, the editing’s gone way too far,” Claire says, frowning at an image plucked from the stack. “At least I hope it’s just editing. Maybe PRT keeps him locked in the basement. My man was not this pale when he debuted.”

Claire turns the photocard so Amy could see. It is standard fare: a high-angle selfie of Davey from SEDAT(iv)’s 2020 album. He held up a peace sign, mouth open wide in frozen, fake excitement. His face was covered in a foundation that made him fluorescent. 

“It sucks they cut his hair,” Amy offers, not really sure what else she’s supposed to see. “I know you liked the shag.”

“It’s not about his hair,” Claire says, rolling her eyes. Amy waits for further elaboration. It doesn’t come. Claire puts the card back and picks up another. Davey circa 2016, pink bowl-cut, scalloped-collared white shirt, light in his eyes. “Ugh, he’s such a baby here.”

Claire’s affinity for Davey was one Amy never understood. He’d always had such an attitude, resting with his arms crossed, barely interacting during international interviews even though he (being from Georgia) was the only truly fluent English-speaker. His responses were canned, obviously written by SEDAT(iv) publicists. Once, on a truth-or-consequences style talk show game, Do-yun called Davey “not much of a team player.” Amy couldn’t help but agree.

Claire made up for this lack of taste in other ways: their friendship made Amy feel worldly. Claire was better read, better traveled, and spoke, like, three languages. They met in a Global Marketing course— Amy in her first year, Claire having transferred from a university in Indiana months before. Amy hadn’t liked college, and often scrolled through Twitter or watched subtitled SEDAT(iv) interviews during lectures. She’d forgotten that anyone and everyone who sat behind her could see her screen. 

When Claire approached her one day after class, saying,“Not to be a freak, but were you watching the Argos comeback stage?” Amy had been extremely embarrassed. 

“No, no, it’s great!” she insisted, handing her phone out for Amy to put in her number. “Last semester I was stuck behind someone who watched an entire season of Law and Order. Super boring. Besides, since I moved here I haven’t had anyone to talk to about this stuff. Actually suffocating.” 

They’d bonded over SEDAT(iv). As people, they had very little in common; as fans it was like they could see into one another's souls. Save, again, their biases, who were frenemies (at best).

“Isn’t Davey’s contract up soon?” Amy asks. She starts to line up the loose cards by the color of Do-yun’s hair. “Y’know, since he didn’t have to do military service.”

“Next month,” Claire confirms, sliding a few of the Davey cards into a little stack to keep. 

“Do you think he’ll stay?” 

“Who knows,” Claire says. “I mean, do I think he should leave? Absolutely. Do I think he’s too comfortable to make that decision? I mean I love him, but he’s a settler.”

“You want him to leave?” Amy asks, incredulous. It was an opinion she’d seen circulating online, among the most delusional of Davey solo-stans—that he’d be better off detached from a company, working on his own music; that PRT and SEDAT(iv) were a bad fit and he was squandering his potential. It was an argument which, at its core, insisted Davey was “too good” to be an idol. 

“I want him to be happy, I guess. He just doesn't seem super happy,” Claire shrugs, nonchalant, holding up a photocard to the light, squinting at it like a hundred dollar bill. In this one, Davey poses with his pet rat. “God, I sound parasocial.” 

“Jesus Claire, you’re allowed to care. I won’t tell,” Amy says. When Claire doesn’t immediately respond, she pushes: “ I think I’d be sad if Davey left. All of the stages would be totally unbalanced. Who would stand in the back?” 

Claire snorts but doesn’t say anything else. 

“It sucks you can’t come over tomorrow for the update vlog,” Amy fishes. 

“It’s whatever. I’ll probably end up watching it on the train back.” 

Claire worked remotely for a global cosmetics company, which meant that she almost exclusively operated on strange, varied hours. It also meant Claire missed the second Thursday evening of every fourth month, when SEDAT(iv) uploaded their time-honored, tri-annual all-member check-in. 

“You could always invite your man over,” she says, not at all looking at Amy. 

“Ah,” Amy says. “I don’t really think he’d be into that.”

“Right.”

“I mean, I’m sure he’d be down if I asked,” she adds, not sounding convinced. “But it would be kinda weird.”

“Why?” Claire asks, squinting.

Amy tries to imagine waiting for SEDAT(iv)’s update with her boyfriend. Attempts to picture their faces lit only by the TV, huddled under a blanket, hands dug into over-buttered popcorn. How would he respond when she turned to him, saying, I think if Do-yun and I met in real life, he would really like me, but I don’t want to meet him, he’s too precious, I couldn’t stand seeing his pores or how badly the dye has fried his hair, it would be too real. What if he had a booger stuck in his nose? But if I did, I think he’d like me anyway, don’t you?

She imagines his eyes wide, his tongue curling around the wrong words, his beautiful face sucking into pinched disgust. Weird, he’d say. This is really weird. You’re really weird. 

“It just would.”

“He hasn’t slept here yet, ” Claire says more than asks, turning from the photocards to Amy’s walls. Specifically, to the glossy, framed poster of Do-yun, shirtless and crouched against a gauzy iridescent curtain. He shoulders a pair of molting angel wings, the feathers crushed under his boots. The flash creates an ethereal glow to the muscled parts of his body, on the high points of his face. iDOL’s iDOL is scrawled over his shoulder in lavender. 

It’s the best picture of him that exists, as far as Amy’s concerned. She’d gasped when extracting it from her album, spent three days shower-steaming and pressing the folds out of his nipples.

Amy looks from the poster to Claire. She feels, suddenly, very naked. 

“Uh no, he hasn’t. Not yet.” she says. When Claire makes a face, Amy asks, “Why?” even though the answer is 15x20 and staring down at them. 

“Be serious,” Claire says. “How can you be with a guy for five weeks, call him your boyfriend, and then say he hasn’t been in your room. Doesn't he think it’s weird? Don’t you think that’s weird?”

“Every couple moves at a different pace.”

“You met this guy at a bar and had sex on, like, the second date. Not,” Claire stresses, “that there’s anything wrong with that, but surely you’ve gotta be tired of going to him all of the time.” 

Amy is tired of it. Her boyfriend lives across the city and is revulsed by the idea of getting a car. She’s spent a lot of stale, early metro mornings crumpled into a seat on the blue line.

“He’s got a nice apartment.” 

“So do you.” 

“Claire,” she says. “Come on.” 

“I’m just saying! Look, you could even invite him over tonight. We can take care of all of this.” Claire  makes a sweeping gesture with her arm. “In an hour, tops.” 

Okay, so there were other posters—a mounted group shot of SEDAT(iv) circa 2017 framed by Do-yun album inserts and exclusive solo merch, a few standees and charms lined her window sill, of course her MEDIbong V1 and V2 light sticks from previous tours were proudly displayed on her bookshelf alongside the signed album she’d won in an online raffle. 

“Amy, if I were him, I’d take two steps into this room, see the K-Pop shit and run for the hills. It’s not just sending a vibe of: ‘Let's talk about music!’ There are…implications.”

“It’s an expression of my interests.” Amy snaps, which Claire visibly does not like. She clears her throat. “My ex had that Pulp Fiction poster, remember? I’m like, if Uma Thurman can watch, why can’t Do-yun?” 

“You’re white.” Claire says, as if this explained everything. Amy stares at her. “You’ve got Do-yun all over your room. To him, that’s gonna smell weird—and fair enough! People know more about the crazy stans than normal ass fans.” 

Amy isn’t a crazy fan. 

Crazy fans were like the saesangs who broke into SEDAT(iv)’s hotel room or the weird middle-aged women who asked Ji-ho to be their oppa or even that German discord group who pooled money together to send one girl trailing Sixx all over Taiwan when he was on hiatus, uploading blurry photos of him doing innocuous things like ordering takeout and (gasp) taking a walk at the park. 

Amy’s worst crime was sometimes, sometimes, she posted photo sets of Do-yun’s elbows to Twitter—but that wasn’t something she’d ever confess, not even to God.

“Don’t you want to get laid in the comfort of your own home?” Claire asks, standing, already wrapping her hands around the edges of Do-yun’s frame. She doesn’t move him, though, only stares at Amy with her brows raised. 

“I–yeah, I guess.” 

Something in Amy burns at the smug way Claire nods, says, “C’mon. We can just tuck them under the bed.” 

When they’re done, Amy’s bedroom looks bare. Self help books and two pictures with her family hung by the door. Claire insists she text her boyfriend to invite him over. To “enjoy the fruits of their labor.” She does, reluctantly. 

None of it even mattered. At the last minute, her boyfriend asked if maybe, possibly, she’d be okay coming over to his apartment instead, which was filled with tall plants and fancy stereo equipment that he spent a lot of time showing off. 

They’d had very fine sex in his very clean room, during which her view had been two pixelated smudges framed in bright red. 

After, when she asked what it was from, he said: “I thought all Americans know Kanye?”

*

Amy takes the train from her boyfriend’s apartment to work. From work to home. She avoids her empty bedroom.

In the early afternoon, she changes for a run. She’ll only get antsy sitting around the house, waiting for PRT’s managers to wake up and post the new video from their offices in Seoul.

Amy started running with her ex, a climbing instructor who moved to DC after ditching an applied physics PhD to, quote, “find a self-application that was resolutely non-industrial”. They’d stayed together eight months before he’d called it off, which was fine. He was always talking to the space above her head, anyway. 

Amy likes to joke she’d kept running to get away from the ex, but really she liked the way it made her feel, like she was totally covered in open wounds and rock salt. 

Caught at a crosswalk, Amy pauses to refresh her YouTube feed, knowing there will likely be nothing. It is only 5 a.m. in Seoul. She switches to Twitter, scrolling aimlessly through a nostalgic GIFset of the boys from their debut stage, a part (1/7) thread that claims to !!SRSLY DEBUNK!! Ji-ho’s recent dating rumors. She only stops to like a tweet from @han-doyuns-bowlcut that read “my shayla ₊˚⊹♡” and attached several zoomed-in, high quality photos of Do-yun’s old nose. 

Below that post, an EXO-L with a Suho profile pic: “guys help, i’m a new Banana Bag & literally cannot pick between davey and do-yun as my bias, convince me in the comments!!!!!!!”

The question was as ridiculous as the comparison it posed. Amy would’ve totally understood if the user had said the objectively-handsome Ji-ho, or Sixx, or even Eiji with his red-streaked hair and terrible butterfly tummy tattoo. But Davey? 

It is her duty as an OG Baggie to inform @greenonioninajar that their endearments are misplaced. So focused on finding the perfect phrasing, she doesn’t even bother to move out of the way when other pedestrians begin to push past her and onto the crosswalk. 

Ams ~ STREAM iDOL!!! ~ @ur.under_sedated

@greenonioninajar if u can’t pick between THE idol’s idol and literal davey?? i think u should stan another group lol….

Once home, Amy dumps her cross-body bag on the living room sofa and sends her boyfriend a selfie, taking advantage of the sweat-glow without having to send the stench. Missing u~

Moving to the bathroom for a quick shower, she again refreshes the SEDAT(iv) channel homepage. Nothing yet. That’s fine—itis only 6 p.m. in DC, 7 a.m. in Seoul. The video will come. She will just have to wait a little longer. 

Amy tries to finish organizing her photocards, but keeps making chronological mistakes. Eventually, she gives up, returning to the living room to aimlessly scroll on YouTube until the right video presents itself. After a few silly videos of the members in Singapore, the algorithm switches to a random episode of Do-yun’s cooking show.  

The guest is, unfortunately, Davey. For the duration of the video, he and Do-yun switch between half-shared languages, bouncing from English to Korean as Do-yun mocks the slowness with which Davey chops. 

저리 가! Do-yun looks into the camera, in English: “Aish, sometimes I regret teaching him.” 

As Davey chases Do-yun around the kitchen with a spatula, Amy feels the buzz of her phone. She fumbles for it, hoping it’s Claire, off early and ready to rant about the still-not-uploaded vlog. Instead, a blurry photo of her boyfriend wearing a teenie tiny party hat, ripped and cropped from Instagram, smiles up at her.

Sighing, she mutes the video. Closes her eyes. 

“Hey!” he says the minute she picks up, loud and bright. “Are you busy?”

On screen, Do-yun collapses into a squat, covers his face with one arm, points an accusatory finger at Davey. How! the subtitles cry. How can such an unserious person exist?

“A little,” she says. A beat. “Why? What’s up?”

“Okay, okay, I know you were disappointed I couldn’t come here last night. I’m downstairs with a surprise. I tried to bribe the doorman but he’s very stubborn. Could you please tell him we know one another?”

*

Sex with her boyfriend is like short track speed skating. Tight, compact, too fast to catch what’s happening until the end. Tonight he wants to hear her, for Amy to press her mouth against his ear, to say whatever it is that comes to mind. 

“God you feel so good,” she says. 

As he moves in and out of her, legs held up as far as they can go, she can only think about the mingling sweat of their bodies. The objective grossness of their lubricated friction. She thinks of the shine of Do-yun’s stomach.

“You’re so special to me,” she says.

Amy knows it’s polite to keep her eyes closed, but she finds herself staring past her boyfriend at the sad, empty walls of her bedroom. She thinks of the posters under her bed, ultimately rolled up and cracked-in by rubber bands. She’s worried the color will break, will split right through Do-yun’s smoldering eyes. She thinks of the curve of his arms, the shine of his mouth. She wonders if he, only a few inches taller, would be able to pick her up. She wonders how his hands would feel on her back.

Amy says, “fuck, you’re so hot—”

Her boyfriend finishes quickly. 

Afterward, he lays flat on his back, fingers laced across his chest, head turned to watch her untie and re-tie her tangled hair. 

“I’ve been thinking about us,” he says. 

“I’m always thinking about us,” she replies. His  eyes flick over her face in a way she can’t read. She wants to reach out, to stick her finger into the curve of his heart-shaped smile, to pull back the skin and inspect the bright white of his molars. 

Her phone buzzes under her pillow. 

Amy’s boyfriend lifts himself, resettles onto her lap. Instinctively, Amy threads a hand into his thick, wavy hair. It is too long—she’d thought so since she’d first seen him in daylight—but it is the sort of thing that can be endured. Lots of things about men could be endured: hair, clothes, sex. 

“I think they’re going to send me back to the Shanghai office.”

Distance.

“Oh,” she says.

“It will be good for my career,” he says.

“Then it’s good news,” she says, dragging the tips of her fingers over his scalp. He sighs, pushes into her touch. “I’ve never been to Shanghai.”

“I think I’ll be gone for a long time,” he says, reaching his hand around to aimlessly touch the parts of her he can reach. Hip, waist, thigh. She wonders if the video has been posted yet, considers taking her phone from under her pillow, propping it against his head, refreshing with one hand and petting him with the other. Before she sets this plan into motion, he adjusts again, settles on the slight pouch of her stomach so they might face each other. Instinctively, she sucks in. 

“Your body is so refreshing,” he says. Not knowing how to respond, Amy laughs, a breathy ha ha. Her boyfriend is still touching her, moving his hand up to fit under her right boob. He squeezes. “Your nipples are so pink.” 

She laughs again. Ha ha.

“Amy,” he whispers once the silence stretches past what’s natural. “That’s a very Asian-American name.”

“I’m white,” she says in a tone very distinct from Claire’s.  

It’s his turn to laugh, like there’s a joke she should understand. When he laughed his whole face scrunched up, and he had a single dimple that dug deep into his right cheek. 

“I know.” He sits up to kiss her all over. “Trust me, I know.”

There’s an attempt at pillow talk. He asks a myriad of semi-personal questions, hmming and ahhing at her answers. She describes a middle school outing to the Baltimore Aquarium: how, when descending down the shark-tube, she’d become so motion-sick she was made to lay down on the floor while the teacher directed other students to walk over her, gum-wads smashed into the tread of their sneakers. 

“I think that’s the closest real-life experience I’ll ever have to death,” she says. When her boyfriend doesn’t respond, she holds a finger under his nose to check his breathing. Asleep. She escapes as quietly as possible, wiggling a hand between the pillows to locate her phone. 

There are texts from Claire, but she doesn’t open them in fear of spoilers. Amy refreshes the homepage of SEDAT(iv)’s YouTube channel. Refreshes again. Again. Again. 

Nothing. For the first time in eight years, nothing. 

Lightly panicked, she opens Claire’s messages. A spam of complaints about work, a video of a raccoon eating a cheeto, then no txt about sdtv which either means ur actively bleeding out or dead already—pls show signs of life. 

Amy bit her tongue between her canines, pressed down until it hurt as much as she could stand. She messaged Claire HEYY SORRY ALIVEe!!! bf over so haven’t been checking my phone. Then, still no post, abt to crash out. 

SEDAT(iv) Twitter was blowing up with speculations: another poorly timed nose job, Sixx's illness resurfaced, the footage simply corrupted.

Amy refreshes the page again, again, again. Eventually she gives up, slips the phone back under her pillow, and turns to push herself against the back of her sleeping boyfriend. 

Only, he isn’t asleep.

From the glow of his screen, Amy is made audience to an endless scroll of women. Blonde, huge tits stretching thin low-cut spandex. They shoot guns, they chop onions, they pose in Amazon Spider-Man costumes. Their speech is silent and captionless. Their cast catches the edge of her boyfriend’s features, the whites of his eyes. 

Amy considers letting this go. Is planning on it, really, because she’s already feeling sick and worried and tired and, honestly, doesn’t this just give her permission to turn back over and refresh YouTube again? Amy wants to let this go, would let this go if she hadn’t watched her boyfriend pause his endless scroll to watch—and re-watch—a woman in a cheap, shiny yellow wig spread her legs over a farm stool. She flashes a white smile at the camera, adjusts the ruche of her blue-gingham milk-maid top to better show the lace line of her bra, and bends over to squeeze the udders of a cow.

“What on earth are you watching?” Amy asks, milk dribbling down the model’s hands.  

Her boyfriend looks over his shoulder. He should be embarrassed, Amy thinks. He’s not. 

“Reels,” he says. 

“This is the kinda thing you…” she peers further over her boyfriend’s shoulder, frowns deeper as the woman, once again, squats onto the milking stool. “Interact with?”

“It’s harmless,” her boyfriend says. “This is how she’s paying for medical school. She’s an excellent student.”

“Oh my god you follow that girl?” This is what makes her boyfriend snort, sit up. He swipes away from the repeating reel, but leaves his homepage open. 

“Yeah.” A beat. “You look upset.”

Amy has neither the words nor the energy to respond, so she shrugs. Her boyfriend looks from her to his phone. Starts typing. Amy watches the flash of his FYP, the flip to her own profile. 

“What are you doing?”

He holds the phone up, the brightness makes her squint back at her own hyper-saturated image.

“I thought we could look at who you ‘interact with,’” he says, and though there’s a joking lilt to his voice, Amy’s blood runs cold. 

She thinks of what clogs her 1,700 “follows.” Most of it was normal: high school friends, frat party acquaintances, corporate connections, DC influencers.

“Let’s see…” he says, scrolling and scrolling through a colorful stream of profile pictures. He stops. Framed by a girl from her college composition course and a family friend, a photo of Wonho, the former Monsta-X member who is capital-f Famous on r/gaykpopfanboys, stares back at them. Her boyfriend’s finger presses into the image. Immediately, a flurry of skin, of sweat, of “oh, I didn’t see you there” gym photos. Her boyfriend zooms in on a white towel, barely covering the idol’s ass.  

“You liked this one,” he says, holding it up for her to see. 

When Amy fumbles to take the phone from his hand, he laughs. She turns it off, tosses it back toward his side of the bed. 

“I get it,” she says. “Let’s just sleep.” 

Amy tosses. She turns. She unsuccessfully tries to hold her breath into the pillow, hoping to pass out. Eventually, when light begins to seep through the gauzy curtains of her east-facing windows, Amy locks herself in the bathroom with the intention of masturbating her way into an hour or so of sleep. 

On the toilet, two-fingers deep, Amy finally receives the notification. 

New from SEDA(TV)

ReCap22.08.26: HOTPOT / CATCH-UP / World Tour Prep + BTS

She watches the video, pink-striped pajama shorts a puddle of fabric under her feet, eyes glued to the auto-generated English subtitles. The boys talk about upcoming projects, poke fun at one another. Eiji recounts throwing the opening pitch for a Dodgers game, Sixx dances around his recent musical contribution to a BL drama, Davey makes sideways jokes and takes food from the other members’ plates. Do-yun is uncharacteristically quiet: head bowed to the table, only offering opinion when directly asked, smile tense and forced. 

The teased “World Tour BTS” is a heavily butchered clip collage tacked at the end of the vlog. In it, Do-yun hardly looks at the camera, barely raises his voice when talking about the production and recording process. He keeps running his hands through his hair, forcing through knots. During dance practice, Do-yun falls trying to complete a complicated move. Instead of getting back up, he stays flat on the ground, places a hand over his eyes. 

You all hate me.

Amy’s sleep is shallow, dreamless. When she and her boyfriend fuck again in the morning, all she can think about is Do-yun, how wrong he looked. 

Amy doesn’t finish but pretends she has to be polite. 

*

“Do you think he’s hurt?”

“How should I know?”

“I’ve heard that can happen to idols, where they go on a sneaky hiatus and then come back totally refreshed. Maybe PRT just needs to send him to a spa.”

“He could just be over it. Maybe he wishes he was back at his mom’s food stand. Maybe he wishes he was no one. Maybe he just needs a vacation. Maybe, maybe, maybe—it’ll hurt your head, sitting around and speculating.” On the other end of the phone, Amy can hear the whoosh of the metro. Claire blows her nose. “This weather, I feel like I’m in a spin cycle.” 

*

Han Do-yun is soaked. The blue button up he once wore is abandoned on the edge of the stage. He flicks back his hair, a spray of water, raising the microphone to the roaring Waterbomb crowd. 

“Did you miss me?” he asks. “Show me how you miss me!”

When the next song starts, the idol immediately falls to his knees, lit green by the stage. He runs a hand down his body, up his neck, unties the ribbon wrapped around his wrist with a tug of his teeth. 

His background dancers are shadows, perfectly mimicking every movement, a sea of Do-yuns lifting their arms in the air, praying to an undefined being, to themselves. The first notes of “Hot + Heavy” hiss through the speakers. 

“Show me how you’ve missed me!” he calls again, and the crowd screams. The camera tightens on his face, his dark eyes reflect the mass of lightsticks, producing Two Perfect Tears.

The sea of Do-yuns move to stand, but the real one stays put, uses his soaked shirt to wipe away the sweat and tears and filth.

“Promise me you’ve missed me!” he calls, voice breaking. The dancers spin into place, continuing their choreography over the incomplete backing track, skipping silence where Do-yun should be singing, but he still hasn’t moved. 

Comments praise Do-yun’s acting ability, the closeness he creates with the viewer even when she knows she is one of thousands, when she knows his tears aren’t for her, for anyone, for anything. 

Months later, Amy still holds the top comment: Please keep inviting Do-yun, we want to see him perform until he’s eighty!! 

*

After two days of silence, her boyfriend asks if she can grab a drink after work. They meet at one of the nicer rooftop bars in the city, the kind with slick wooden tables and twenty dollar cocktails. He orders two glasses of whiskey, and says, again, that he’s going to move to Shanghai. She lets him talk about the apartment his company will assign him in the city, about the years it will take before he can move back to the US, about how difficult it will be to go long distance. 

“I assumed,” she says after he’s finished. “But I believe in us, we’re going to make this work. I’ve got the time and money saved up to come visit.”

Her boyfriend sighs, eyes flicking up from his drink to her, back to the table. He raises his hand to the white collared waiter who passes, mumbling something about another round. 

“Amy,” he starts again. “Amy, you and I—”

“I’ve never been to Shanghai,” she interrupts, swirling her own untouched drink, leaning over the table. “Or to China. But I’ve been reading! And I can pick up phrases to get around, of course I wouldn't want to be a burden. I’m just really happy you want me to come with you.” 

“Come with me,” he repeats.

“Well, yeah,” she says. “That’s what you were going to ask me, right?” 

“No.”

“Oh.”

“I enjoy your company,” he says. “We have good chemistry.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But,” he thanks the waiter as he ferries away the glass clouded with the imprint of fingers, lips, sweat. “Our connection is physical.”

“Isn’t that good?” she asks. 

Her boyfriend holds up a hand, produces a napkin from his pocket to smooth between them. Faded, rumpled, the Venn diagram from their first date stares up at her: Food, TV, Blue, Shopping, Chris Brown.

“We don’t have many things in common,” he says, pointing to the little section where the circles overlap. “In five weeks, this is all I know.”

“But doesn’t that keep things interesting? Our differences? I like that we’re different. It’s like cross-cultural exchange.”

Her boyfriend pauses, then, slowly, “It would be interesting if you were interesting, but you are uninteresting. If you are uninteresting in America, you’ll be uninteresting in Shanghai. This,” he motions between them, “let’s leave it in a good place, okay?” 

Despite wanting to, Amy does not cry. Her boyfriend—ex-boyfriend—pays for an Uber home. When the driver asks how her night is going, she says “bad” and stares out of the window. 

She doesn’t feel like being lectured, so she texts Claire instead of calling, adding: not rlly up to talking abt it :( for good measure. 

Amy buys a bottle of cheap wine from the convenience store by her building and tells her doorman never to let “that guy” up to her apartment again. When he asks her which guy, she tells him the Asian one. When he asks her to clarify, she only waves her hand and walks past him. 

In an act of pure grief, she watches all eighteen episodes of Do-yun’s cooking show. Eventually, the sun rises behind her curtains. Amy calls out of work. She watches the sun set again. 

In the final episode, released right before Do-yun left for military service, he makes crepes with an actor whose career never really took off. As they mix batter, the actor asks Do-yun what his secret to happiness is. The idol pauses, raising the whisk. Flour mix drips from tip to counter. 

I think to be happy, sometimes you must say no, the captions translate. Do-yun’s eyes connect with the camera, and he seems startled to see it there. His serious expression cracks into a smile as he shoves the whisk back into the bowl. “Or maybe just good food. It depends on the day you ask—the other members always criticize me for not being able to make decisions.”

“Are you the indecisive type?” The actor asks, peering from his own bowl into Do-yun’s, frowning at the difference.

“Yes.”

*

It happens at work. 

She sees Claire’s text in the bathroom during her annual performance review: SOS, 911—DO-YUN!!!!! 

Attached, a link to a KP-Weekly article. 

The headline image is a group shot of SEDAT(iv), an debut-era promotional photo when Do-yun had human-hair extensions and hardly any lines. In the thumbnail, a paper tear is edited between him and the other members, a crying emoji plastered over his face. 

SEDAT(iv) member Han Do-yun parts with company of 13 years over alleged breach of contract; fans unsure of artist’s future

SEDAT(iv)’s Han Do-yun announces in an Instagram post he will officially be parting ways with PRT, the idol’s company of 13 years:

“As of yesterday, PRT have decided to release my contract. Thank you to the hard-working members of SEDAT(iv) and our loyal Baggies. I hope you will continue to support me in future projects.” 

KP-Weekly reached out to PRT and SEDAT(iv)’s manager. Both declined further comment. 

Amy hasn’t been able to stop shaking by the time she returns to the conference room. One of the older HR ladies who sometimes swings by her desk offers water, rubs her back, asks if everything is alright. 

“Um,” she says, cotton-mouthed, on the brink of tears. Shaking, shaking, shaking. “Not so much.”

“Oh,” The faces of everyone in the room turned to look at her. “What happened, dear? Do you need to go?”

Of course she wants to go—she wants to take an Uber straight home, drink one of the Watermelon Celciuses in her fridge and call Claire. She wants to take two CBD gummies and go to sleep and stay asleep. She wants to watch SEDAT(iv)’s Toronto concert where Do-yun fumbles through his English greeting three times before getting it right. She wants to be buried deep in a hole with only the light of her screens, the pale lacquer of Do-yun's face. She wants to fucking scream. 

“It’s family. It’s a family thing—can I—”

She’s told to go home. They’ll reschedule the performance review later in the week. Family, of course, comes first.  

*

When Amy calls to sob “how could he do this to me?” Claire assumes she means her ex- boyfriend.

“Henry’s a piece of shit,” Claire says immediately, “I’ve always thought so. Super self-interested. Honestly, I’m surprised you went out with him in the first place considering the whole cornrows thing.” 

“The what?”

“That picture of him. On his Weibo?” Claire says. When Amy doesn’t react, she clarifies. “It’s like Chinese Twitter.” 

Before Amy can respond, Claire says, “Hold on a sec,” and mutes herself. Within moments, photos appear in their text thread. A screenshot of her ex-boyfriend, squatting in front of a blue-glass building. He wears a bright orange basketball jersey, Adidas track pants, a black sweatband over a head of fire hydrant–red cornrows.

Claire unmutes. “See?” 

“Oh. My god,” Amy says. “When even was this? He looks like a teenager.”

“2018, so it’s not even that old. The caption says uhhh—hold on,” Claire sounds out the words slowly. “Yeah, it means like, ‘Do you like my Sexy New Style?’ Gross.” 

“How did you even find this?”

“It’s public,” Claire says. “If I’d seen this I’d never’ve let him near me, much less in me.”

“Well I hadn't seen it, Claire.”

“Only because you didn’t look.”

“On Weibo? Why on earth would I have a Weibo account? I didn’t even know you could get Weibo in the US—”

“It’s easier than you’d think,” Claire says, dismissive. 

“Okay well you could’ve sent it to me? So I could’ve asked about it?”

“Literally what is there to ask about.” 

“How am I supposed to ask—to talk—about a thing I don’t even know exists.”

“Well, now you know. Silver linings. You’re out of his league, morally, thank God.”

Ridiculously, Amy thinks, shut up shut up you don’t even believe in God! 

“So you were never going to tell me. You were going to let me marry a guy who did—that.”

“‘That’ being cultural appropriation?” Claire says. “Obviously if it seemed like rings were becoming involved I’d say something.”

Implicit: There would never be rings involved. Implicit: Claire thinks Amy’s entire five (!) week relationship was a sham, and also that she is stupid. She isn’t sure which hurts more.

“I just think it’s crazy this is apparently such a big moral thing for you now,” Amy says, “considering you bought Ji-ho’s solo album after he performed on Inkigayo wearing sewn-in hat braids and a big ass silver grill.” 

Claire scoffs. “Okay, that’s so different though. PRT basically contractually owns his body, I can’t imagine Ji-ho was like, flipping through a catalog and suggesting his stylist give him a fucking grill.”

“You don’t know he didn’t.” 

“Besides, you know I bought that album for someone else—”

“Okay, but you gave PRT money. You gave this specific project money. That’s just as good as co-signing it, right?” Amy asks. Claire says nothing. Drunk with the upper hand, she pushes: “Even if it’s like, ‘not his fault,’ or whatever, you’re approving the styling by placing your silly little pre-order and downplaying it all, ‘Tee-hee, Amy, no ethical consumption under capitalism.’”

There’s a long, staticky pause. “Fuck you, at least I wasn’t fucking him, at least I don’t prowl the streets fucking any Asian guy—”

“I’ve literally only dated two,” Amy says. 

“Okay, and? You were weird about both of them. Remember when—” 

“OH my God, I didn’t even call to talk about my stupid ex-boyfriend,” Amy spits. “I just wanted to grieve Do-yun.”

“Jesus, Amy, he’s not dead. Sorry if I was at least trying to pretend you care about something that tangibly affects your real life.” 

“This is real life for me—”

“You have no real life! You literally have no life, Amy!”

“You’re such a self-righteous bitch, Claire.” 

Between them, there’s nothing but breath. 

“I’m sorry,” Amy says eventually. “I didn’t mean that.” 

“It’s fine,” Claire replies, but she doesn’t sound like she means it. Another long, seemingly endless pause. “Yeah, okay. Maybe I am. But you’re being hysterical, and oblivious, and I can only handle one at a time.”

“Hysterical,” Amy repeats. “Uh, wow. Ouch. Fair, I guess, but ouch.” Even she knows her laugh sounds phony.

She waits for Claire to say something. To apologize back. She only hums. Amy clears her throat. 

“Are we—do you still want to see SEDAT(iv) in June?” Amy asks.

“I don’t know.” 

*

Amy decides she’ll let Claire apologize in her own time. 

A month goes by. Two. 

Amy waits for Claire to text her; she doesn't. 

A black-screen / white-text post to Do-yun’s personal Twitter confirms he will not be appearing with SEDAT(iv) this summer with a simple “i’m sorry.” 

A black-screen / white-text post to SEDAT(iv)’s professional account says they “Promise to still be a shining constellation for our Banana Bags <3 We hate to see you suffer.” The post is made in English, in Korean, in Japanese, Chinese, Thai. 

Amy screenshots both messages, sends them to Claire with a pathetic i’m actually heartbroken. When it’s been three days, she follows up: still wish davey would leave lol ? Both messages are left on read. 

When May turns June, Davey renews his contract with PRT. Amy sells her tickets for less than the member-exclusive presale. Instead of using the money to pay off her credit card, Amy shells out an exorbitant “buy now” price for SEDAT(iv)’s CATSCAN mini album on Ebay (unopened+all inserts+photocard). She hopes to pull Do-yun’s debut photocard, a card so rare it resold for $250. 

Instead, Davey’s crooked smile grins up at her. Bitter, Amy puts him into the binder sleeve backwards.

*

Seven months after his contract is severed, a video is uploaded to a new YouTube channel simply called “Han Do-yun.” 

The footage is grainy and muted and shakes with authenticity. He’s tanner, glowing, sitting on a beach wearing a big army green shirt and touching his hair, adjusting his hair, never really looking at the camera. Eventually, Do-yun speaks.

You have an image of me, the captions read. I am exhausted of him. I am ashamed of my exhaustion. This shame is paralyzing. 

The video cuts. He’s not on the beach anymore, but arranging dishes on a low table. In the background, an older woman is bent over a stove. Her back stays entirely to the camera, her hair is striped grey. 

In voice over: Sometimes, I wonder: how much do I cost? Many people have asked me this. 

Another cut. Do-yun in a loose white shirt wearing square-frame reading glasses and little gold earrings. His feet are bare, his forearm wrapped with the cellophane of a new tattoo. He squats low on a cement porch, pouring water from a glass into the bowl of a fat white cat. The Levi’s tag has been ripped from the band of his jeans, leaving only a pale square. 

My name will never be in the mouths of my friends again. I cannot know if this is relaxing, he says. The video is congested with the white noise of a box fan. I want to be happy you’re watching, but you want more of me than there is. 

Do-yun props up the camera, maybe on a bookshelf. He’s caught at an awkward angle; the frame cuts off the top of his head. He moves to open a window on the other side of the room. I was encouraged to make this video. “You may still have a career,” my brother said. “Remind your fans you love them.” I intended to reassure you, but each time my words were false. 

He leans outside, turns his head to look up and down a street which must be below, waves to someone passing by, shouts something obscured by the voice over. 

These moments are the last I can offer. Your eyes are too heavy. 

The video is three minutes long. 

Three minutes stretched into six. Six into nine. Nine into a half hour—an hour into two then three. Over and over Amy watches him set the table, feed the cat, adjust the camera, open the window. Over and over again she reads,  

your eyes are too heavy

your eyes are too heavy

your eyes are too heavy