Around the end of Grease’s run, I happened to stumble into a job at a medium-size shipping company. A company willing to pay me more than I was worth, to be honest, but there was one problem: the physical, the last formality in the hiring process. This being a relatively large corporation, they had subcontracted their physical exam to a hospital that could run full blood work panels. The university hospital doctor from whom I got my prescriptions assured me that it was illegal for them to test for the virus without my consent. But I couldn’t quite take to heart what he was saying or shake off my sense of dread. Lo and behold, according to my Internet searches, someone had had his forthcoming employment contract at a major chaebol company canceled because of precisely what I was fearing. Seeing me worrying, Gyu-ho came up with a plan.

—I’ll go instead. We have the same blood type.

In the beginning of our relationship he had asked for all sorts of stupid info like my blood type and astrological signs, saying he wanted to see if we were compatible—who knew that stuff would come in handy now? Not only did we have similar height and weight, but we were both type AB. Not to mention that people who didn’t know us often had a hard time telling us apart (although I couldn’t for the life of me understand why). A situation that was exacerbated when we both put on weight. Anyway, good for us, it was worth a shot. We decided to send him out instead of me. On the day of the exam, for which he took my citizens’ registration ID with him, I was on pins and needles all day, worried that he’d do something stupid to blow his cover.

Easy as pie.

I sighed when I read his text message.

In the end, with two more performances to go before the curtains came down on Grease, I was able to enter the shipping company’s training center. That Grease production, which had started with a triple-casting and shrunk to the two main principals with the narrowest vocal ranges, ended with over two hundred programs still unsold.

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