I was here, dealing with the situation, and he was there, dealing with the fallout. Two sides of the same coin, but flipped in different worlds.
Chapter 5
The sun had barely slipped through my bedroom window when my alarm sounded, shaking me out of a sleep so deep that it took me several moments of looking around to remember where I was.
Before it could sound again, I reached over to grab my phone, and looked at the screen, confused.
Visa Expiration
Instantly, I was transported to another place, another time.
“You’re setting an alarm?” Jihoon smirked.
He was lying back against a mound of soft, white pillows, his arm thrown behind his head. He looked like a Greek God, and for a moment I allowed myself to become distracted by the wide expanse of skin on display.
“It helps me to have a visual reminder,” I protested, forcing my eyes away from my half-naked boyfriend, and back to my phone.
“Jagiya, if it gets to the point that your alarm goes off, we’ll be in the car racing to the airport.”
“Will we be running from the police?” I grinned.
Jihoon sat up, the muscles flexing beneath his skin in the most distracting way.
“I wouldn’t let them catch you,” he murmured, threading his fingers through my hair. “We’ll go on the run.”
“Like Bonnie and Clyde.”
He laughed and kissed me softly.
“You’re staying here with me,jagiya.”
I’d shed so many tears in the past week, that it was amazing I had any left, but they fell easily down my face now.
It had just gone 7 am. It would be around 3 pm in Seoul.
We hadn’t fallen into a routine yet, everything was too up in the air. Back when I’d lived in LA, we’d fallen into a pattern of carving time out of our days. Here it was sporadic and unsettled.
I hit call, using the front-facing mirror to quickly run my hand over my messy hair. Joon picked up almost immediately. He looked so happy to see me, that for a moment my heart lifted off the ground, and my lips curled into a smile that felt both natural, and yet disused.
“Jagiya,” he murmured, the word making everything feel like it was going to be okay.
“Hey, you,” I said quietly, conscious of the early hour.
Jihoon pulled the camera away from his face, enough for me to see that he was in the gym at ENT, the company logoemblazoned on the wall behind the weight rack he was sitting in front of. His forehead was beaded with sweat. He looked tired.
“I miss you,” he said.
I flinched at the sudden pinch in my chest.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
He hung his head, his shoulders slumped for a moment before he ran a hand down his face.
“Ne,” he said nodding, but then, with a sigh, “ani.”
I tried to smile, but it slipped off my face.
“Which is it?”
