Jihoon’s now talking softly as if to himself. “We’ve played hundreds of live shows, and there are two things we can depend on. Something will always go wrong.”
He pauses until I prod him. “The second?”
“That we’ll get through it together.”
There it is, that utter faith in his friendships that brings a lump to my throat. It’s not only the rush of the adulation I don’t want to compete with—it’s this, his loyalty to his friends. That’s why he came back to Seoul in the first place, because he couldn’t let them down.
I hug him close. “You didn’t look nervous at all.”
He leans against me. “We show it in different ways,” he says. “Daehyun paces and whispers his lines. Xin does a dance move over and over.” He demonstrates a pivot-twist-arm thing. It’s simple but so smooth that if you put a gun to my head and told me to replicate it or die, I’d have to tell my mother I loved her as I waited for the inevitable.
“How about you?”
“I had your talisman in my pocket,” he says. “It steadied me.”
Jihoon flops down to lie on the stage, and I break away to walk around, noting the dusty marks of their feet all over. How does he manage to do that much dancing and singing without passing out? I couldn’t walk downstairs for two days after Hana made me go to a booty blaster class. I drift back to sit beside him, only giving a quick thought to the integrity of my white pants.
“You were actually singing?” I ask. “No lip-synching?”
He sits up and gives me a sour look. “Ari, really. I’m a professional.”
“You were dancing. Like, hard. With jumps.” My voice bounces like a ball if I walk too fast.
“It’s a performance. Our fans wouldn’t be happy if we stood in one spot like statues for three hours.”
“It must be hard to keep it up.”
“I have excellent stamina.” His delivery is so straight that at first I don’t see the smirk on his face. Then I burst out laughing.
“Don’t be nasty.”
“Fine, but it’s true.”
He pulls out a tube of lip gloss and runs it over his mouth in a far sexier way than I thought even possible.
“What are you doing?” I croak.
“My lips are dry. You want some? It’s pomegranate.” He holds it out to me.
“No, I mean you’re a pop star. You put on lip gloss.” It’s weirding me out to see Jihoon do regular Jihoon things when an hour ago he was on this very stage making his fans scream their brains out.
Jihoon laughs so hard, he drops the tube, and since I’ve already sacrificed my white pants to the stage dust, I roll over after it. When I hand it back, he grabs my hand. “It’s only me,” he says. “I sing. I get dry lips. You do law. You get dry lips. Same thing.”
This is so wrong, I don’t even know where to start. Instead I say, “My lips are perfectly hydrated.”
Jihoon’s eyes drop down, and he licks his freshly pomegranated mouth. “Really? I should check.”
He leans in, but I’m distracted again. This time it’s the silver hoops in his ears. “Are those?”
Jihoon touches one with gentle fingers. “The ones you bought me. I wanted you with me onstage.”
Worry floats away as Jihoon’s hand snakes around my waist to pull me in tight against him, and he bites softly on my lower lip. I can almost taste my pulse as it surges.
Then he pulls back, finger tracing my eyebrow. “Do you want to go home?”
“Toronto home or your apartment home?” I ask.
“Toronto eventually. Apartment first.”
