The Concert That Changed Everything
The heat hit Mia first, before the sound, before the lights—a wall of bodies pressed so close together that the September night felt like the middle of August. Sweat and perfume and someone's cotton candy mixed into a smell she'd remember for years, though she didn't know that yet. All she knew, standing there in the middle of Hongdae's makeshift concert square, was that her sneakers were already ruined from being trampled, and she didn't care in the slightest.
"Told you we should've gotten here earlier," Jake shouted over the crowd's murmur, his elbow jabbing into her ribs as he tried to carve out a few more inches of space. "Now we're stuck behind Godzilla."
Mia followed his gaze to the tall guy in front of them, easily a head above everyone else, his broad shoulders blocking a solid third of the stage. She laughed, the sound swallowed by the din around them. "At least you can see over people. I'm short. I'm basically drowning back here."
"You're not short, you're 'compact.' That's what my mom calls it when she talks about herself." He grinned down at her, and for a second, standing shoulder to shoulder with her best friend in a sea of strangers, Mia felt the particular…
