“You said that,” I said faintly.
“She didn’t want money or a promotion. Nothing like that.” He hung his head, fixing his eyes on the space between our bodies. “She demanded I end it. That was her price.”
I stared at him, unblinking for what felt like minutes.
“She… what?”
Jihoon leaned back, one arm dropping into his lap, while his other hand dragged down his face.
“It was the only thing she wanted. Me, to break up with you. I offered her anything she wanted, but she refused it all.” His jaw clenched as he studied the carpet. “I did not react well. I was angry. I said things to her I should not have.”
He shook his head, like he was berating himself for a foolish mistake, instead of having a normal, human reaction.
“I threatened her with legal action, but she laughed at me. She said she could do much worse to me – to us – if I tried that again.”
Because of course we’d already had the company look into Hana’s involvement withENT Tabs. They’d been unable to find anything to link her to it.
“I don’t get it,” I said honestly. “I don’t understand why she would care.”
I didn’t understand why anyone would care, but I didn’t bother saying that. I’d said it enough.
Jihoon was quiet as he stared at the floor, and it allowed me the time to really study him. He was as unchanged as he was changed. His face was the same in so many ways, but harder. There were edges to him that hadn’t been there before, and I wondered what had put them there.
This time when Jihoon spoke, it was as though he’d rehearsed. His voice was emotionless. “She told me I belonged to the fans. She told me I was putting my members at risk, because of you. She said, ‘Baek Jihoon, I’m saving you from yourself’, like she was doing me a favour,” he scoffed bitterly. “She told me to either break up with you, or–”
He paused long enough to take a shuddering breath and drag his eyes up to mine. Even in the low light, I saw how they shone.
“She said she’d leak the photos and make the world believe you were a foreign gold digger.”
I blinked, feeling the words sink in. It wasn’t the ‘foreign’ part that made me feel queasy, it was ‘gold digger’. Such simple, little words, thrown around so easily and yet somehow they worked so effectively at painting a narrative.
In a brief moment of disassociation, I could see how it would go.
Foreigner. Famous Korean performer. Gold Digger.
I almost scoffed. The story wrote itself.
Oblivious to my inner narration, Jihoon went on.
“She said it didn’t matter if it was true or not, because it would be easy to believe it was. She said you would be hunted down. Doxed. Exposed as someone only interested in money or fame.”
Jihoon’s voice cracked, and my eyes laser-focused onto him, watching as he blinked furiously, and gripped the fabric of his trousers so tight his knuckles went pale.
But still, he continued.
“She told me that you were going to cause the group trouble. That you were ‘a problem that needed to be fixed’.”
I didn’t mean to, but a harsh laugh burst out of me a second before I slapped a hand over my mouth. Jihoon’s eyes collided with mine, and his brows furrowed.
It wasn’t funny. It was the furthest thing from funny. But his words – Hana’s words… They were a mirror to something I’d said to Jihoon right at the beginning of our relationship.
“I worry that I will be a problem for you."
Turns out I’d been right all along.
“She told me I’d lose everything. Not because of you,” he said quickly, like he thought this part made a difference, “but because it would look like I had lied to everyone. Betrayed the fans.”
He exhaled heavily, and that’s when I saw the invisible weight on his shoulders. I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to see the way this affected him. It had been so much easier to pretend otherwise.
