Page 19 of Lethal in Pink

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Incheon International is the size of a small city and twice as loud. I stand at the check-in counter with my passport in one hand and my ticket on my phone in the other and the distinct, unsettling sensation of being entirely on my own. No manager with a clipboard hovering at my elbow. No security guy with an earpiece scanning the crowd for phone cameras. No handler materializing out of nowhere to steer me through a side entrance because the main concourse is “too exposed.”

Just me, in a baseball cap, pulled low over my forehead with a carry-on at my feet, and a line of people ahead of me who have no idea who I am, which is the entire point.

The woman at the counter takes my passport, types something, looks at my face, looks at the passport photo, types something else.

“Final destination Los Angeles?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“Any checked bags?”

“Two.”

She tags them, prints my boarding pass, and hands everything back with a smile that is professional and completely uninvested in whether I live or die.

It’s magnificent.

“Have a nice flight, Mr. Kim.”

Mr. Kim. Not Kai. Not the stage name plastered across multiple continents. Not the heir. Just a regular ass last name, same as anyone else’s, belonging to a body moving through a line like any other body.

I could get used to that.

The security check is a nightmare, but not for the reasons you'd think. The line is super long and winds its way through those barriers that can be moved around. There are families with babies in strollers, business people with big bags on wheels, and this one guy in a tracksuit who's talking to himself like he's having a big argument. Announcements cycle through Korean, English, Japanese. The whole place smells like a mix of perfume, shitty airport coffee, and that specific synthetic carpet smell that exists nowhere else on earth.

I remove my cap and shoes, and then I empty my pockets into a plastic bin. My belt has to go through the scanner, and I also put my phone, wallet, and keys in the bin.

The experience is alien compared to the private jet I would normally travel in.

There is a kid nearby, maybe five or six. He stands in line with his mother two people ahead of me, wearing light-up sneakers and a backpack shaped like a dinosaur, and he turns around and stares at me with the unfiltered intensity that only small children can sustain without apology.

No blinking.

No looking away.

Just a full, frontal assessment conducted with the solemn focus of someone evaluating a suspect.

I stare back.

The child narrows his eyes.

“농구 하세요?” (Do you play basketball?) he asks.

The question is so earnest, so devoid of agenda, that it takes me a second to process.

I shake my head. “아니요.” (No.)

He thinks about it for a moment, his face showing a mix of emotions. Maybe disappointment, maybe just a change in his thoughts. Then, he shrugs and turns around to watch the security officer checking people with the metal detector.

Just like that. I am unremarkable. I am forgettable. I am a man who does not play basketball and is therefore of no further interest to a five-year-old boy in light-up shoes.

I collect my things, place my hat back on my head, and put my shoes back on before picking up my bags and moving on.

The gate is C27. I found it pretty easily, and now, I'm settled into a chair by the window, watching the planes move around the runway, taking off and landing.

The nervous energy that carried me through the morning—through the goodbyes, through the driveway, through the check-in counter—has dissipated like a misty fog, and what’s left underneath is quiet and certain.