Jihoon’s face filled my phone screen, and I immediately felt lighter. I hadn’t realised how anxious the conversation with Becka had made me. It turned out he’d heard a similar story from his management today, as well, but he’d only been told that the footage had been leaked by a member of the Pisces admin team.
I had to remind him of who Celine was. He’d met her a handful of times, but she was apparently quite forgettable.
“I was always focused on you,jagiya,” he said, making my toes curl in my slippers.
“Do you think ENT will go after TK?” I asked, chewing on my thumbnail.
He seemed to consider the question a moment, pushing his now blond hair out of his face. It was getting longer, and my fingers ached to feel the softness of it.
“I don’t think so. He has done too much work for ENT, and technically he did not externally leak the video.”
His mouth turned down in an unhappy scowl, and I knew he felt as I did about the blatant invasion of privacy. For him, it was worse because his identity had always been out there, unambiguous and for all to see. To have so many people openly speculating about who you were kissing had offended him, because so much of it came with the assumption that the other person – me – was unworthy in some way. Not leastof all because the idea I wasn’t good enough had the dual effect of elevating him onto a pedestal, and that made him uncomfortable.
“Will ENT pursue charges against Celine?” I asked, feeling like there was no good answer.
“No.”
My mouth popped open in genuine surprise.
Jihoon continued, “They decided it wasn’t worth the bad image of suing a private individual. It would look like revenge, especially since we’re already taking Pisces to court over it. They are satisfied she has been dealt with by Pisces.”
I nodded, feeling unreasonably grateful, even though I didn’t really believe Celine deserved the grace, it just didn’t feel right that her monumental stupidity be rewarded with a life-changing financial battle.
“So ENT is still going ahead with the lawsuit, then?”
He nodded, and I couldn’t help but see how tired he looked. I knew he was sleeping poorly. I tried to keep my face neutral as I watched him.
“It’s now just…” he frowned and waved a hand through the air as he searched for the English word that corresponded with the Korean word he was thinking. In the end, he sighed, and pulled his phone out of his pocket, spoke a word into it, and it chimed back with, “perfunctory.”
He nodded and said, “It is now just perfunctory. ENT is taking the failure to protect us seriously Setting an example.”
It made sense. Even though it was almost laughable, the culpability was still on Pisces, as the studio had failed to protect the confidentiality of a client, even if it had ultimately been down to the private retaliation efforts of Trevor Kyle. Who was getting away with it.
“They will win the case,” he went on, oblivious to my inner monologue, “the record studio will pay, the case will be over.”
“And they all lived happily ever after.” I smiled, for real this time.
“And then the princess came back to the Kingdom of Korea, and they lived happily ever after.” Jihoon grinned at me, but there was something brittle about it.
A sudden feeling of longing seized the air in my lungs, and I had to take a second to bring myself under control. The urge to reach through the screen, to run my fingers through his hair, to grab the collar of his shirt and bring his lips crashing down on mine was so visceral that for a second, my hands balled into fists.
“I miss you,” I said, eventually.
“Saranghae,” he replied, and for just a moment, it seemed like he wanted to say more but he didn’t, and we ended the call soon after.
Chapter 21
My phone rang with an incoming call from an unknown number. Frowning, I stared at the screen as if expecting it to give up it’s secrets and reveal the name of the caller. Never trust an unknown caller, especially in this economy.
Apprehensively, I accepted the call.
“Hello?”
“Have you made a very short kiwi very mad?”
My brain short-circuited as it scrambled to decode the cryptic message, and to figure out why that voice was so familiar.
“Kaiya? Are you there?”
