“I can’t believe you bought a ticket.”
“I didn’t know if you wanted me here,” she explained. “I’m an ex-fan, after all.”
“Is that what you’re still calling yourself?” He asked with a little grin, even if she could see him trying to hide the pain in the question.
“Are you nervous?”
“No.”
“Did you tell the guys to be nice to me?”
“They’re always nice to you. KST says hi, by the way.”
“The boy group?” Lia asked, because who didn’t know them at this point? They werehuge,and not just in Korea. They were the third-gen phenomenon that made KPop explode all over the world.
“Yup. They called to wish us luck. I learned they’re the second group Damask signed. Minji was the first.” Cal said. “They…they really like us, at Damask. They want a rock group, so everything I told them about our vision for CoBOLT, the touring, the arena, the festivals, they’re on board. They have subsidiary companies in America, or something, so they’re looking at collaborations, maybe a festival tour in six months.”
“Six months!” Lia exclaimed. “They seem excited! Do…do you feel good about this?”
“I’m terrified,” he admitted, holding Lia’s hand to hold over his chest so she could feel his wildly beating heart. “BINJ gave their blessing. It helped that Damask paid them through the nose for rights to our music, the band name, and this mini album.”
“Theyboughtthe new mini album?”
“They did. And it’s all going to be official at the end of the showcase, and I already feel like I’m going to fuck this up.”
“You’re not going to fuck this up,” she assured him, more certainty in those words than anything. “You deserve all of this,Cal. You and Soobin and Siwan, you worked hard for this, and you should get to have all the things you want.”
“Not everything.”
Oh god, it felt like a stab to her heart, for him to say that. And she knew there was nothing else to say. That speaking would bring them right back to the spiraling conversation of the other night, and she didn’t want him to think about that. Tonight was about the showcase, the bright, glorious future of the band that they both loved.
She didn’t have words anymore, neither in English, Korean or Filipino. So she kissed him instead, tugging at the belt loop of his jeans and tiptoeing so she could press herself flush against him for a kiss.
Every part of her that she’d hidden away, that she thought was gone, seemed to burst out of her in a haze of passion, poured into this kiss. This kiss that Cal gave back as fiercely as she took it, that made her knees feel shaky and her back ache, but who cared?
“Ow,” Lia said as Cal pressed deeper into the kiss and pushed her glasses much too high and much too close to her face.
“Aish.” Cal chuckled when he pulled away, shaking his head fondly before he pulled her glasses away from her face. The lenses were smeared with foundation. Oh jeez. “Where have you been all this time, Lia-yah?”
“In line to enter the venue, outside,” Lia said, holding a hand out for the glasses, but Cal stubbornly shook his head and raised his hand up high where Lia could definitely not reach them. “I can’t believe that of all the places I was running away to, I ran into you.” She shook her head and pressed her forehead against the crook of his neck. He smelled really nice. “It’s like I knew all along.”
“Delusions are powerful things,” Cal agreed, lowering the hand with her glasses to lift her chin up and steal another kiss.“And for the record, you are part of the things I want. I’m not going to apologize for it.”
“Don’t apologize.”
“So you’re not going to have this conversation with me?” he asked, and he sounded hurt, even as he bent lower so she would have to tiptoe anymore, his hands low on her back so she didn’t stumble.
His smile faded, and she felt it, too. They could have stayed like that forever, spending the rest of their time hiding behind a flimsy curtain against some empty boxes, kissing and letting themselves feel all the things that they didn’t admit to themselves before.
But the world continued to turn. And both of them knew it was going to be away from each other. She could see it in his eyes, that wild, frantic expression that she felt she matched, the desperation in the way she clutched him and he held her. They both knew.
“I got a job.” She announced.
As happy as Lia was, her heart felt like it had been cleaved in half, terrified of a life that would move on without Cal. That for all her wishes for this to mean something a little more to her, she would end in the same place she’d been when she came. Rejected. Alone.
“Lia, you’re—” Cal’s hand was already on her cheek, already brushing at the tear that spilled out. Lia jerked, surprised at her own reaction.
“I’m fine, I—“ She shook her head. “I’m fine.”
