Jisung hated Arizona.
The heat was a physical assault, a dry, relentless pressure that made the air in his lungs feel thin and used. It wasn't the vibrant, ocean-adjacent heat of Los Angeles he’d fantasized about. This was a dead heat, leaching the color from the scrubby landscape and the patience from his soul. He stood on the cracked sidewalk outside the high school stadium, the distant roar of the football crowd a dull, meaningless thunder. His host brother, Timothy—a clarinetist with a nervous sweat stain blooming under each arm—was still inside, packing up his instrument with a meticulous care that made Jisung want to scream. He was stuck. In the middle of nowhere. With a band nerd. The universe was laughing at him.
He leaned against a sun-bleached lamppost, the metal searing through the thin cotton of his t-shirt. He closed his eyes, trying to conjure the damp, neon-cool of Seoul at night, the hum of a recording studio, the weight of headphones that meant something. Instead, he got the scent of fried food from the concession stand and the gritty feel of desert dust on his teeth.
Then, a different sound cut through the stagnant evening. Not the crowd. Music. Blasting from a car idling two rows over in the nearly empty lot. It was raw, guitar-driven, full of a snarling, melodic angst he recognized instantly. American pop-punk. The kind he’d scour the internet for, the kind that felt like a secret handshake back home. It clashed so violently with the shiny, sanitized Americana of the football game it was almost beautiful.
He opened his eyes.
The car was a vintage blue convertible, paint faded by the same sun trying to cook him alive. And in the driver’s seat was a girl. Her window was down, one arm resting on the door, fingers tapping the beat against the metal. She had a high, severe ponytail that swung as she nodded her head. The remnants of a cheerleading uniform—a short, sparkly blue skirt over boy shorts, a cropped top with a megaphone emblem—seemed like a costume she was halfway through taking off. A oversized hoodie was pooled in the passenger seat. The contrast was jarring: the uniform of pristine enthusiasm, and the soundtrack of beautiful disillusionment.
He was moving before he made a decision. His feet carried him across the asphalt, the heat rising in visible waves. He stopped a few feet from her door. She hadn’t seen him yet. She was singing along, under her breath but with feeling, to a lyric about wasted towns and getting out. Her profile was sharp, clean lines, a stubborn set to her jaw.
He cleared his throat.
She turned, and the music didn’t falter. Her eyes were a light, assessing brown. She looked him up and down, not with the bubbly curiosity he’d come to expect here, but with a flat, almost bored appraisal. “Can I help you?”
His English felt thick in his mouth. “This song. What is it?”
A flicker of something in her eyes. Surprise, maybe. She reached over and turned the volume down a notch. “The Story So Far. ‘High Regard.’”
“It’s good.”
“Yeah.” She studied him again. His black hair, his clothes that didn’t quite fit the local uniform. “You’re not from here.”
“Exchange student. Korea.” He gestured vaguely back toward the school. “Waiting for my… host brother.” The term tasted absurd.
Her expression shifted then, the flatness melting into something like genuine sympathy. It wasn’t pity. It was understanding. She leaned her head back against the seat. “Let me guess. They stuck you with a kid from band or chess club.”
Jisung let out a short, surprised laugh. “Band. Clarinet.”
She winced, a full-body commiseration. “Oof. I’m so sorry they sent you here.”
It was the first real sentence anyone had said to him since he’d arrived. Not a polite ‘welcome,’ not a confused ‘where are you from?’ but a genuine, shared acknowledgment that this place was, in fact, purgatory. The tight coil of frustration in his chest loosened, just a fraction.
“It is… very hot,” he said, because it was the most immediate truth.
“It’s a dry heat,” she said, then grinned, a sudden, transformative flash of white. “That’s what everyone says, as if that makes being slowly baked alive any better. I’m Kelsey.”
“Jisung.”
“Just Jisung?”
“Han Jisung. But just Jisung is okay.”
“Jisung.” She said it carefully, testing the syllables. It sounded right in her mouth. “You wanna get out of the sun? You’re gonna combust.” She nodded to the passenger seat. “Hop in. We can wait for your clarinet-wielding warden in here. AC works.”
He didn’t hesitate. He walked around the front of the car and slid into the worn leather passenger seat. The hoodie was warm from the sun. The interior smelled like vanilla air freshener, gasoline, and her—something clean and slightly sweaty, like sunshine and effort. She turned the music back up, not to its previous skull-rattling volume, but to a level that filled the space between them.
For a few minutes, they didn’t talk. They just listened. He watched the stadium lights cut off, one by one. He watched Timothy emerge, looking around frantically with his instrument case, and felt a petty thrill at making him wait. He watched Kelsey’s hand on the gear shift, her short, unpolished nails, a silver ring on her thumb.
“This your car?” he asked.
“My project. My dad and I.” She patted the dashboard. “She’s temperamental, but she’s mine. The only thing that makes this place bearable. You drive?”
“In Seoul? Not really. Too busy.”
“What’s Seoul like?”
He tried to find the words. “Loud. Fast. All night. So many people. You can be… anonymous. Or you can be seen. Your choice.”
“Sounds like a dream,” she sighed, and it wasn’t a platitude. She meant it. She looked at him. “What do you do there? When you’re not being anonymous or seen?”
This was the question he’d been dreading. The one that led to awkward explanations or blank stares. But in the dark cocoon of her car, with her music as a buffer, he told a sliver of the truth. “Music. I… write it. Sometimes. I want to perform.”
Her eyes lit up. “Seriously? What kind?”
“Hip-hop. Rap. But I like this, too.” He gestured to the stereo. “Anything with… feeling. Anything real.”
“Real,” she repeated, as if it were a precious commodity. She looked out at the emptying lot, at Timothy now pacing by the lamppost. “There’s not a lot of that here. It’s all surface. Pom-poms and pep rallies and pretending you give a shit about who catches a ball.” She said it without bitterness, just as a fact.
“You are a cheerleader,” he pointed out, a smile tugging at his lips.
She looked down at her sparkly skirt and laughed, a low, rough sound that was better than the music. “Yeah. It’s complicated. Free ticket to games, something to do. The outfit’s cute. Doesn’t mean I drink the Kool-Aid.” She shifted in her seat to face him more fully. “So you’re a musician. Play me something.”
“What?”
“You heard me. You rap, right? Freestyle. Something. About…” Her eyes scanned the dismal parking lot. “About this. About Arizona. About waiting for a clarinetist.”
He felt a jolt of panic, then a surge of something else. A challenge. No one here had asked him for anything real. They’d asked for his name, his country, his favorite American food. They’d never asked for *him*. He looked at her expectant face, the way she’d tucked one leg under herself, completely at ease. He took a breath, his mind scrambling for words, English words, that could hold the feeling.
He started slow, a beat tapped out on his thigh. “Landed in the desert, dust on my shoes… sun so mean it’s chasing the blues… got a host brother who’s living a snooze… trapped in a daydream, paying my dues…” He faltered, his cheeks heating. “It’s stupid. My English is—”
“It’s not stupid,” she cut in, her voice firm. “It’s good. Keep going.”
He met her eyes. She wasn’t humoring him. She was listening. Really listening. He took another breath, the words coming easier now, painting the frustration, the isolation, the weird, sharp beauty of finding a blast of real music in a fake town. He didn’t rap for long, maybe eight bars, but when he finished, the car was quiet save for the idle of the engine.
Kelsey stared at him. Then she smiled, slow and wide. “Yeah. You’re not from here at all.”
Timothy finally spotted them and hurried over, his face a mask of relief and mild annoyance. Kelsey gave Jisung a look that said, *Your prison guard awaits.*
“I should go,” Jisung said, not moving.
“Yeah.” She bit her lip, then grabbed an old receipt and a pen from the center console. She scribbled something. “Here. My number. If you need a rescue from the land of reeds and sheet music. Or if you just want to… not be here for a while.”
He took the paper. The digits were written in a quick, slanted hand. “Thank you. For the… not-being-baked-alive.”
“Any time, Jisung.”
He got out of the car. The heat felt different now. Less oppressive. Just heat. He walked over to Timothy, who launched into a worried monologue about schedules and his mother’s dinner. Jisung nodded, barely hearing him. He looked back.
Kelsey was still watching him. She lifted her chin in a slight nod, then put the car in gear. As she pulled away, she turned the music back up. The snarling guitars and desperate vocals filled the night, a fading battle cry as her blue convertible disappeared around a corner, taking the only real thing he’d found in this entire state with it.
He folded the receipt carefully and put it in his pocket. It felt like a lifeline. It felt like a beginning.