I sniffled, trying to pull my emotions back in, but it was like trying to roll up a ball of wool that had rolled across the floor. I was all tangled up.
“You’ve seen the pictures?” He guessed, when I didn’t respond.
I nodded, forgetting that he couldn’t see me.
“What do we do?” I eventually asked.
Jihoon sighed, but I was taken aback by how… unaffected he seemed.
“We already discussed it,” he said, “and the best response is to not make it a big deal. I will put out a public statement that it is still my wish to not discuss my private life.”
I rolled his words around in my head for a moment, but they kept catching on the ‘we’.
“Who’s ‘we’?”
I moved over to the bed and sat down on the edge, feeling my heart slow down to a more normal tempo.
“Our managers and the PR team. We talked about it this morning.”
I nodded automatically, and said, “Oh, right. Okay.”
“We are going to only say that the photos were taken last year – and again, without my consent.” He sounded pleased. His reaction was not what I’d expected.
“The PR team said that pointing out they are old photos means we can get away with not actually denying the relationship rumours.”
From his tone, it felt like he expected me to be happy. And while I could see the merit of this – I could acknowledge it was a good idea – I couldn’t help but notice that he mentioned having this… war-meeting this morning, hours ago. Without me.
Again.
I could hear him talking, but it was like background noise to the overwhelming narrative I had running through my head. That once again, our relationship – I – was something to be denied in favour of public image, of pandering to the select few people who would react poorly to one of their idols being in a relationship.
I clenched my teeth, swallowing down the bitterness on the back of my tongue. I almost choked on the unfairness of it all.
But what made me sick was that I didn’t have a better solution.
“The team are working on finding who took the photos from Christmas,” Jihoon continued, unaware that I hadn’t been listening. “But the websites won’t disclose the information, so we probably won’t find them.” He sighed “It may not matter anyway, the photos have already been picked by many tabloids-”
“I think I might know who it is.” I blurted, cutting him off.
“What? Who?”
I told him about Hana. How she seemed oddly invested in the site. About how she’d dropped hints that she’d known about us. Once I started talking, it all kind of spilled out, and once the words were in the air, I could see how much I’d brushed under the rug.
Jihoon was silent for a few moments.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” He sounded… hurt?
“I only really started suspecting it recently. There was a lot happening…” I said, weakly.
“This was important, Ky.”
“Yeah, and so is everything else at the moment, Joon.” I didn’t mean to snap, but my lips seemed to close around the words like a bear trap all the same.
Jihoon sighed, and I could imagine him dragging a hand through his hair.
“I’ll talk to our team,” he said at last. “Anything else I should know?”
I took a breath. “Actually, yes. Do you remember that picture I showed you of you and Lee Hyejin getting out of the elevator?” My breath was suspended on the edge of a knife as my body tensed as I remembered the morning I’d first seen the photo. It had been at the end of February, and the gossip site,ENT Tabswere claiming to have photos from the masked ball. Hana was speculating on the identity of Jihoon’s ‘secret girlfriend’. Her theory had been that it was Lee Hyejin – a member of PrettyYOUngthings – and her evidence had been to show me a picture she had taken of Jihoon and Hyejin getting out of an elevator together.
