I was just jotting down some notes, when my eyes raised of their own accord, drawn inexplicably. To him. Always to him.
My lungs seized for the barest moment, a contraction that would have doubled me over had I not had such rigid hold over my body. I was frozen in self preservation.
He didn’t meet my unintended stare. His eyes were fixed on the hand holding my pen. His gaze was intense, his brow sharply furrowed. I couldn’t read his expression. How was it so familiar to me and yet utterly unknown?
Reflexively I looked down, but it was just a notepad–
My ring.
He was looking at my silver and amethyst ring. My eyes slid closed briefly, as a knife twisted in my gut.
I still wore it.
In an instant, I was back in a hot tub, in a garden, not all that far from where we were now.
My next breath caught in my throat as Jihoon gently slid the ring onto my finger. It fit as perfectly as if it’d been made for me. Jihoon brushed his thumbs across my hand, looking down at the ring now settled there, before raising my hand to his mouth and placing a kiss on the back of it.
I’d moved it from my left hand onto my right long ago. I still remembered the debate I’d had with myself, hovering over the jewellery box, trying to convince myself to take it off, but being unable to part with it.
My fingers clenched reflexively, and I pushed the moment to the back of my mind. It was a herculean effort not to look and see if he still wore his – a companion to my own, a simple band of braided silver – because I didn’t know which outcome would be less painful.
I shuffled my paper, trying to cover the moment that had felt like minutes, but in reality had spanned mere seconds. I cleared my throat in an effort to regain control over myself. I’d been doing so well.
“Sorry, excuse me,” I muttered, fishing a hand into my bag and drawing out my bottle of water. For an excruciating moment, I tried to juggle the notepad and pen on my lap, while trying to open the bottle, but the lid…would not…
“Please,” Minjae said, appearing in front of me, though I had not seen or heard him move. He held out his hand for the bottle. I stared up at him with eyes I knew were entirely unguarded inthat moment, and then he did the most unexpected thing. He moved subtly so that he was standing in front of me, effectively blocking me from both the camera and the rest of the group.
I allowed my eyes to slide closed, and I exhaled in ragged, quiet relief, as I held out the bottle.
“Kamsamnida,” I murmured, without thinking.
In the brief moment it took Minjae to twist the lid off the bottle, I had composed myself. When he stepped away, my notepad was balanced, my pen held firmly in my grasp, and I took a small sip from the bottle in my other hand.
By the time I put the bottle back in my bag, the smile was repainted on my face.
I focused on the sofa as a single entity, not a group of five, individual people.
“You’ve spoken before about how your sound evolves with each new album. Was there something specific you aimed for with this next comeback?”
I opened my eyes, reciting the question off the paper.
Minjae picked this one up again, as the interpreter softly repeated my question in Korean for anyone who needed it.
“As artists in an ever changing world,” he began, gesturing with his hands, “we too change in reaction to what we see around us. Music has always been an expression, whether it’s protest, encouragement, love or hate.” He shrugged. “What we have to say from one year to the next changes, as well. We want to be something people can look forward to. We want to put hope into the world because it seems there’s so little of it these days. We want to be a source of peace for our fans.”
“We want them to rely on us,” Seokmin added, surprising me. His smile seemed wider than the answer merited, and I quickly looked away.
The other members nodded along with the sentiment, though I felt my eyes burn, ever so slightly. I blinked rapidly to clear them.
“Just one more question please, reporter Thompson.” The organiser said from where she stood unobtrusively at the back.
I nodded.
“Last one, then,” I said, more to myself than the room. I looked through my notes, giving myself a moment, before I folded my sheet of questions up and tucked it into my bag.
“As you’ve said, the world has changed over the last few years, including the face of music. If you could meet yourselves in the past – before your enlistment, before Covid – what piece of advice would you have given yourselves?”
The question was intended for all of them, and as they conversed among themselves, I took a moment to enjoy observing their dynamic. Even if I did purposefully avoid looking at the far corner of the sofa.
