“You said you didn’t know who Ahn Yongjin was!”
“Huy!” Cal exclaimed suddenly, clapping his hands twice in rapid succession. Lia was so stunned that she stumbled, and what do you know, Cal actually wrapped an arm around her shoulders to steady her. This man was so dangerous to her health, and maybe the real reason why she didn’t want to stay here was because she couldn’t even look directly at his face without blushing, and that was just too vulnerable for her and her younger self’s delusions.
“Children, please, let’s get it together.” Cal tutted his lips at them both, letting Lia go. “Teddy, did you not tell your noona that she was staying with me?”
“But she said she didn’t?—“
“Teddy.”
“No.” He grumbled.
“You should have been clearer. Staying at someone’s house isn’t the same as staying in a hotel room,” Cal pointed out, which was exactly what Lia had been trying to say.
Then he turned to Lia. If she was raising her chin defiantly at him, it was more so that she wouldn’t have to look at him. She already knew she was going to fold like a deck of cards if she looked at his face, and she was determined to stand her ground.
“And you.” Damn it. “Lia-ssi.”
Keep. Your. Chin. Up. Do No. Look. At. His. Face.She looked at his throat.Why is his throat so hot to me?
“It is ridiculous to spend money on a hotel when you can stay with me. Also you’re not a joining kitten. You’re my guest. I got new bedsheets and everything, and I would be happy to host you.”
“That’s your argument?” Lia blinked, and why did her heart skip a beat at the idea of Cal buying bedsheets for her? “Bedsheets?”
“Bedsheets and the pleasure of my morning coffee.” He winked, and god help her, she wasn’t going to survive this elevator ride. “It’s a great place if you need to escape everything for a bit. Trust me, I was here for a whole year when we were on hiatus. I was miserable but comfortable.”
Now that, Lia had to admit, was the more appealing argument. Wasn’t that the point of this entire trip? To escape her own life for a little while and figure out what it would be like, after? There were certainly worse places to do that.
“So will you stay?” Cal asked, leaning forward so Lia had no choice but to look into his pretty brown eyes, overwhelmed by him being so close that she wanted to curl up into a little ball and cry.
“Okay,” she said, because he was offering and asking her directly. “Since you bought new bedsheets and all.”
Cal’s face lit up with a smile.
“Great!”
The elevator doors pinged open, and as soon as the new housemates approached unit 3901 (of only four units in thefloor, fancy), the door slowly opened to reveal a pair of hands holding up a cake. The cake was a creamy strawberry-and-blueberry dream that made Lia’s mouth water. The candles cast a soft glow in the hallway's liminal space, and as the door continued to open, they heard singing.
“Is that cake?” Teddy asked.
“And that…isAlmost Paradise…?” Lia asked her brother for confirmation as Cal laughed at his bandmates singing the theme song fromBoys Over Flowers.
“Welcome to Seoul!” Soobin, the maknae, exclaimed with a sweetie pie smile, holding up the cake. Soobin was the band’s drummer and had always been the cutie of the group. Contrary to their fellow second-gen boy-next-door image boybands, CoBOLT had debuted with a leather-and-eyeliner, tough-emo-rock look, and it had never suited her fellow ’91 baby. But Soobin had grown up well, like meeting a childhood friend after twenty years and surprise, he had muscles with that cute smile. Soft baby cheeks had formed into a sculpted face that exuded warmth and kindness, his current perm making him more angelic even as he bounced with excitement. It was hard to picture him as the one to always keep the band in time. “My name is Soobin. Nice to meet you!”
But then again, Lia thought, catching a glimpse of his exposed arms, the well-veined hands of the drummer.Those arms. Were killer.
“Lucky for you, Cal hyung finally moved to a sensible neighborhood.” An American accent floated through the doorway behind Soobin. “Can you believe he used to live in Yeonnamdong of all places?”
“The agency building used to be in Mapo-gu, so I bought an apartment in the district as soon as I could afford it,” Cal explained, although Lia didn’t really know geographically where Yeonnamdong was supposed to be. Near Hongdae, shesupposed, where the agency used to be? She remembered seeing the agency’s old building ten years ago. “But then they moved halfway across the city three years ago, and I was too in love with Yeonnamdong to move.”
“Oh really? I thought it was because the jeonse in Hannam was, in your words, ‘flushing money down the toilet,’” Siwan, the bassist who Lia had no idea was a sass master in both English and Korean, said, tutting his lips. “So you would rather spend money on gas, and get stuck in traffic. Amazing.”
Siwan and Soobin were the group’s maknae line, the babies, as the two hyungs referred to them. But from where Lia was standing, the two thirty-plus-year olds didn’t look like babies at all.
Siwan was the band’s bassist, the international model, and was six months older than Lia and Soobin. He’d always been the tallest in the band, but now he’d fully grown into his lanky stature and stood perfectly tall. Siwan was a skyscraper in real life, impenetrable and almost cold. He just looked like a chaebol’s son for whom all of this was just child’s play. His face was all smooth planes and sharp lines, the brand of handsome where you wanted to smack him across the cheek (affectionately), and then kiss (passionately).
“I gave in, eventually!” Cal pointed out, like Siwan was the hyung here. “I moved in last year. And now look, all three of us are five minutes away from each other. Happy endings all around.”
“Exactly. Now hyung, what we’re not going to do is wear our underwear front and back to save water. We live in a fancy building now, and?—”
