Yuzuru Hanyu is My Emergency Contact

My sister’s boyfriend is a K-Pop star.

He likes to gnaw on chicken bones and make guppy faces into the camera on V-Live.  It drives my sister wild. He participates in physical challenges on strange Korean TV shows. We call him the Iron Buffalo. At least, when he’s not dressed like a banana. Aren’t bananas a good source of Iron? No. That’s Potassium. But Potassium Buffalo doesn’t have quite the same ring to it. Especially since he’s beefy. Korean beefy. That also drives my sister wild. Come to think of it, everything about him drives my sister wild. The way he gazes longingly at Pringles. The see thru, gauzy pink shirt. His nostrils. I kid you not. Nostrils. Wild. How do I know? Because I receive, on average, about 212 blaze emojis from her a day. You know the one… Imagine receiving those in droves throughout your work day. Working on a spreadsheet? BLAZE. Taking dictation during a conference call? BLAZE BLAZE. In a meeting with your boss while your phone is (fatal error) face up on his desk in front of you? BLAZE BLAZE BLAZE. I can’t decide whether I should worry it will blow up my phone (is emoji overload covered under my pointless iPhone insurance?) or be satisfied that poor Link will finally find that hidden staircase under the fifth bush from the right. Yesterday we upgraded to a Mt. Vesuvius emoji. Someone should alert the villagers.

His name is Chansung. I figure the name “Chansung” in Korea might be the equivalent to the names “John” or “Mike” in America, so his identity is safe. And to protect the innocent, I won’t tell you the name of the K-Pop group he belongs to. Let’s just say it’s “1400 Hours Military Time”. Then again, we don’t talk about military time because of the whole South-Korea-two-year-mandatory-military-service thing. Did you know about that? I didn’t. My sister has already started making care packages. It costs almost $300 to mail a box to South Korea via UPS. Did you know that? She didn’t. “They did hear me say SOUTH; right?” was her response. My response? The facepalm emoji. I use that one a lot. She thinks it would be cheaper to mail herself to South Korea. This idea resulted in another blaze. She’s going to check with USPS (about mailing the box, not herself. I think.)

So until the time comes when I have to start ensconcing her in bubble wrap, my sister will continue to bide their separation by listening to him sing “Make Love” (BLAZE INFINITUM, VESUVIUS ERUPTION….Run, Villagers, Run!).  

And I mean, sure, does it get weird sometimes that she’s never actually met him? Spoken to him? Been in the same time zone as him? Surrre. I guess.

But it’s okay.

My boyfriend is a Japanese figure skater.