“Yes.”
I opened my eyes, and willed them to focus on the screen in front of me. Splashed across the front page, arranged like the photos of a crime scene, were a series of grainy pictures – clearly taken on a phone camera, from a distance – of a boy and a girl, standing in the rain in the middle of the street, kissing.
The boy wore a hat, and the girl had her hands on the lapels of his jacket, pulling him down to her.
The most damning of all though was the shot where the girl had pulled away, no longer obscuring the boy’s face. A face that was unmistakably Jihoon’s.
In the picture, he smiled down at the brown haired girl, both of them thoroughly soaked through with rain, and seemingly uncaring of their surroundings.
And even though the photo quality was poor, you could see it on his face, in the way his hands held her. They were a couple. Undeniably.
Oh, shit.
Chapter 7
Ihung up on Becka, telling her that I needed time to think. She protested, but I ended the call anyway.
My eyes were glued to the screen the same way you couldn’t look away from a car crash, even when you knew you should.
There were thousands of comments piling up underneath the photos of the couple in the rain – us, I tried to rationalise with myself – but I knew better than to delve into that pit of vipers.
Instead, I automatically scrolled further down the page, seeing for the first time the photos taken during the ball. That one, magical night where we’d danced under glittering chandeliers, and I’d worn a dress that looked like a storm cloud.
There were dozens of them, all obviously taken covertly, judging by the blurry quality of them. Some you could even see the edges of furniture, clothes, fingers. It wasn’t quality work, but it didn’t need to be. You could see the subjects clear enough.
One of them – the best quality photo – was the one that Hana had shown me.
Chills ran down my spine as the moment suddenly came back to me with all the clarity of a flashback.
We’d been sat in the canteen, and she had suddenly brought up that theTabshad published photos they’d obtained from the Christmas masquerade ball ENT had hosted A ball I had attended with Jihoon. Hana had slid her phone across the table to show a screen full of images of two people dancing closely together.
Two people who had been wearing masks, but only the identity of one of them was anonymous.
I groaned, pushing a hand into my hair. I hadn’t forgotten about the photos, I’d just been… distracted.
Was this Hana? At the time, I’d been sure it was her. I didn’t know if she was behind theTabsbut maybe she was at least a source.
Hana had worked the night of the ball. Once she’d told me, it had clicked in my mind that I had seen her that night, working in the basement admitting guests into the building. It wasn’t a stretch to believe that she’d taken photos of the event. And if she’d recognised me…
A throbbing headache was beginning in my temple, and I rubbed the spot absently as I tried to connect the dots.
Hana was kind of an asshole, but she wasn’t a storybook villain. Just because she knew, or suspected that Jihoon and I were in a relationship, didn’t prove this leak was her.
I really didn’t want it to be her. Maybe it was a misplaced sense of loyalty to the only friend I’d made in Korea.
I’d often pushed aside that knowledge, but really, she had been the only person who’d made any effort to interact with me. I don’t know if it was the language barrier, but besides Joon, therewere whole days that went past where she had been the only person I had spoken to.
Maybe that was why I’d dismissed so many of her red flags. She had made me feel less like an outsider.
Now, I was wondering if she’d tolerated me because she knew something dangerous about me. About Jihoon.
The comments she’d occasionally made, the snide little asides, the side-eyes. They were all starting to take on a different shape in my mind, slotting together neatly, like a jigsaw puzzle my subconscious had been working on.
I leaned back in my chair, blowing out a breath.
Despite it all, despite the looming scandal, despite the drama… the memory of that night still filled me with warmth.
No one, and no scandal could take that from me.
