The minute Alex stepped on board the airplane, he started regretting his decision.

When he found the plane ticket to Shanghai, he had gotten so excited that he dashed straight to the airport. The flight was in less than three hours and he was in such rush to catch it that he didn't even have time to head back home to pack his own clothes, so he had to make do with whatever the original Lee Daehyun had packed in his luggage. He felt slightly guilty getting through immigrations with someone else's passport, but since he looked like the person in the passport photo and had the fingerprints to match, he cleared customs without a hitch. Still felt weird though, breaking the law like this.

It was only when the air stewardess welcomed him on board with a plastic smile that he suddenly remembered that he had a phobia for flying. But it was too late. The aircraft door had shut behind him.

Alex gulped, his heartbeat starting to race within his chest.

What if the plane crashes? What if the engines explode? What if there's a hijacker on board! What if the pilot has a heart attack! What if I die before I get to see Eunri again?

All the horrific scenarios kept running through his mind in an endless loop.

"Excuse me sir, do you need help finding your seat?" A beaming air steward with slick gelled hair came over to offer assistance.

"Uhh..." Alex fumbled for his ticket and handed it to the other man with trembling hands.

"Oh! Welcome on board Mr Lee! The first class cabin is this way." The air steward's smile ramped up two notches as he gestured towards the left.

First class?

Judging from the classy apartment in Gangnam and the expensive-looking everything in the house, he had figured that Lee Daehyun was pretty well-to-do, but he didn't realise he was quite this loaded. A first class seat on an airplane could cost as much as six month's rent on his own dingy squatting hole. He followed the steward to the first class cabin, where all the seats were spacious and luxurious compared to economy class where they packed passengers like sardines and doled out convenience store orange juice.

He sat down in his seat and immediately buckled his seat belt, grabbing hold of both armrests just in case.

"Sir, would you like a drink?" the steward asked. "We have red and white wine or champagne. It might help calm the nerves."

He nodded. "I'll have a glass of everything please."

When the steward returned with the three glasses, he immediately downed them all at once.

Maybe if I drink enough alcohol I'll sleep through the entire flight. Assuming it doesn't crash halfway.

To his relief, the effect of the alcohol was almost immediate. Quality made such a difference. His eyelids began to feel heavy within a minute and he was fast asleep within five. The plane hadn't even taken off yet.

An hour into the flight, Alex was rudely awakened by a sudden rumbling of the aircraft. His body jerked to the side and his eyes flew open. Thankfully his seat belt was still securely fastened, else he might have tumbled out of his seat. The wine glass of the passenger across the aisle was rattling dangerously on the tray table.

The PA system crackled to life.

"Dear passengers, this is the captain speaking. We are currently flying through a turbulent patch. We should clear the turbulence very shortly, so please do not be alarmed. In the meantime, please return to your seats and fasten your seatbelts until the seatbelt sign is switched off. Thank you."

Oh my God I knew it. We're going to crash. I'm going to die!

Alex grabbed the armrests so tightly that the whites of his knuckles strained against his skin. He knew that this free plane ride was too good to be true. There had to be a catch, and the catch involved plunging to a fiery death and his body being lost forever in the depths of the South China Sea.

"Oww..."

Alex looked around. The other passengers were either asleep or reading some Fortune magazine. No one looked nearly as terrified as he was.

"Why does my head hurt so much..."

"Who said that!" Alex scanned his surroundings again, bewildered. He could have sworn he heard someone say something, but no one in his vicinity looked like they were moving their mouths.

"Where am I? On the plane? How did I get on the plane?"

There it was again. The voice!

"Is this what happens when you're about to die? They say you begin to hear voices in your head. Oh shit it's real," Alex mumbled. He was beyond himself with fear now. He was hearing voices that he shouldn't be hearing—voices of angels, or maybe devils.

"Where am I? Why can't I move my body! Am I dead?" the voice in his head said with a tinge of alarm. A male voice, not quite as deep as Alex's own voice, but it felt familiar to him somehow.

Suddenly the alarm bells started going off in his head. He knew where he had heard that voice before! It was the exact same voice that he had been usurping since he woke up this morning.

Lee Daehyun?

"Who are you? Who's talking to me!"

Oh goodness it's really you.

"Who are you and why can't I move my body? Why can't I say anything? Am I dead? Am I in heaven?"

Are you... in my head? Alex exclaimed in his mind, not quite sure what to make of the current situation. He reckoned he must be going crazy. How could there be two different consciousnesses living in the same mind? But then again, the fact that he was now in someone else's body was equally impossible, yet it had still happened.

Okay Alex, breathe. Your day has already been completely bizarre and out-of-this-world. This is nothing.

"Who is Alex? Can someone tell me what's going on?"

"Um, Mr Lee Daehyun?" Alex whispered.

"How do you know my name? Where are you! Why can't I see you?"

"That would be because I'm in you. Or at least, my consciousness is. I have no idea what happened, but when I woke up this morning I was already in your body. Except I didn't realise that you were still here. Okay I realise this sounds really weird, but unfortunately that's the truth."

Realising that the woman across the aisle from him was shooting him strange looks, Alex quickly raised a magazine to cover his face. He was reasoning with a voice that was in his head, that supposedly belonged to the original owner of this body he was currently in. It was no wonder people thought he was mental.

"What!" came Lee Daehyun's incredulous response.

He didn't blame the fellow. If it were him waking up to realise that someone else was now in control of his body, he'd be freaking out too.

"Look I know how impossible this sounds, but it's the truth. If you don't believe me, I can show you. Watch. I am now going to raise your right hand." Alex raised his right hand. "I'm going to call an air stewardess over."

He stuck his head out the aisle and said "Excuse me!" to the first stewardess coming his way. The stewardess immediately walked over.

"Can I help you, sir?"

"When will the turbulence be over?"

"I'm afraid I'm not sure about that. It should be over shortly, but in the meantime please make sure your seat belt is securely fastened. We'll resume the food and beverage service once the seat belt sign is switched off." She smiled at him and walked away.

"You're controlling my body. Why can't I control my own movements?"

Alex held the magazine back up. "So you believe it now? Sorry dude. I swear I didn't do anything to cause this. I simply woke up this morning and—Bam!—this was it," he said.

"Who are you?"

"Alex Yang. I think I'm a year older than you. Yeah I know your birth date because I saw your passport. By the way, I saw that you were going on a trip to Shanghai, and I kind of need to get to Shanghai right now? So I hope you don't mind but I took the air ticket."

"Crap! The meeting in Shanghai!"

"Uh... you were going for a meeting?"

"I need to be at that meeting! If I'm not there the company is going to lose over five million USD in investments."

"That sounds like a lot of money."

Alex never dealt with that much money before. Nowhere close. He reckoned he'd never get to be a millionaire in this lifetime at the rate he was going. He was trying hard to succeed as a musician, but it was a competitive industry and he hadn't had his big break yet.

"What am I going to do, what am I going to do, what am I going to do, what am I going to do—"

Alex could sense the panic and confusion coming from Daehyun. It was strange, because he could actually feel the other man's emotions in his head.

"Hey Daehyun?"

"What!"

"How about we make a deal? Even though it's not really my fault that I'm stuck in your body and you're stuck in your body too, I'm going to make you an offer anyway. See, the reason I need to get to Shanghai is because I need to find my girlfriend."

"How is that any of my business?"

"Wait, wait. Hear me out. I need to find my girlfriend Eunri because she broke up with me and I need to get her back, so that's my goal. Since we're stuck in this awkward situation, how about you work with me and let me go find my girl, and then in return I'll go attend the meeting and do whatever you need to be doing in Shanghai as well. Sound good?"

"No! That sounds like absolute balls! Why on earth would I care about whether or not you find your girlfriend? Your problem is none of my business."

Alex bristled with irritation. He was only making the suggestion because he felt bad for stealing Daehyun's body without permission—even though it wasn't his fault—but someone wasn't appreciating his show of goodwill.

"Hey! I was speaking to you nicely, but it looks like you won't have it. Lee Daehyun, in case you haven't realise, you don't really have any bargaining power right now. I'm the one in control! So if you're going to continue being an annoying git and keep shouting in my head, then fine. I'll still go find Eunri anyway and I'll not go for your stupid meeting. I hate meetings anyway."

Daehyun fell silent. After a long while, a single word echoed, quite reluctantly, in Alex's head.

"Fine."

"What did you say? I didn't catch that."

"I said fine!" Daehyun exploded. "You can go find your girlfriend! But you have to go for the meeting, are we clear?"

"Sure. I'm a reasonable person. Deal. Let's shake on it."

"I can't bloody shake on it you idiot. Does it make sense to shake hands with yourself?"

"Good point."

#

By the time the plane landed in Shanghai, Alex had found out that Lee Daehyun was an up-and-coming business consultant extraordinaire who held about a dozen portfolios ranging from oil to IT investments. That was completely out of his league. He was only a wannabe musician who had almost nothing to his name except rent debt. Daehyun was meticulous to a fault. He was a scatterbrain. All Daehyun cared about was work and money. All he cared about was music and love.

There couldn't have been two more starkly different people stuck in the same body.

"Right. Where should we go now?" Alex mumbled to himself as he stepped foot outside Shanghai's Pudong airport. The signs around him were all in Chinese. He couldn't understand a thing.

"I've booked the Four Seasons Hotel."

"Where's that?"

"Just take a taxi..."

Alex waved his hand and obediently flagged down a taxi. "Four Seasons Hotel please," he said to the driver, who simply nodded and drove off.

Apparently Daehyun was a frequent visitor to Shanghai on business trips. He always stayed in the same hotel in the exact same suite, so the concierge recognised him the moment he entered through the revolving doors. The bell boy immediately rushed over and took the luggage out of Alex's hands.

"Mr Lee! Welcome back to the Four Seasons!"

"Uhh... thanks?" Alex stammered, not quite expecting such a warm welcome.

"Just smile. Quit acting so awkward, you're cramping my style."

Alex completed the check-in and followed the bell boy up to his room. The minute he walked in his jaw dropped open in awe. The suite was massive and it had a view overlooking the city, with the Shanghai Bund and the open sea clearly visible in the far distance. He ran over to the window and stuck his face to the glass.

"What the hell are you doing? Go back and tip the boy!"

Alex turned and found the bell boy staring at him strangely. He smiled and dug into his pocket, handing the boy a crumpled dollar bill. The boy stared at the dollar for a moment, then bobbed his head and shut the suite door behind him.

"One fucking dollar..."

"Dude this is the life!" Alex ran to the adjoining bedroom and jumped onto the king-sized bed. It was amazingly soft. Like lying on a cloud.

"Can you stop being such a frog in a well."

"Sorry but this is the most luxurious room I've ever seen in my entire life!" He continued bouncing up and down on the bed like an excited child before running to check out the bathroom. The taps were gold plated and the flooring was white marble. It was a bathroom fit for a king.

His Majesty Alex Yang—he could get used to that.

"The meeting is in two days, so you need to get some things ready. My laptop's in my bag."

"What? Two days? That's plenty of time! I need to go find Eunri first." Alex's mind immediately re-focused on his mission. Eunri was somewhere in this city and he bubbled with anticipation at the thought of seeing her again very soon.

"What? No! You need to complete the slides for the briefing!" Daehyun yelled.

"I'll do it for you when I get back tonight, okay? I need to find Eunri. That's more important." If he waited a minute longer, there was a higher chance that some other guy might get to her first. He couldn't have that.

He wished there was a volume control button in his head, because Daehyun burst out in a loud string of swear words and he couldn't turn it off. "Okay fine! You can go find your Eunri! But you've got to complete the slides by tonight, do you hear me? Where is this girl anyway?" the leech screamed.

Alex stopped in his tracks, right in front of the floor-to-ceiling glass windows. He turned and looked at the view of Shanghai that lay in front of him. Dozens of skyscrapers littered the landscape, interspersed with hundreds of smaller buildings cramped shoulder to shoulder. Cars teemed the streets like little ants, horning impatiently at one another as they wove their way to their destinations. Shanghai was huge. Huge and foreign.

"Uh, I have no idea..."

#