A heavy disappointment seeps through me at the loss of what could have been. I wish it could have been different. I wish he lived here and that he was who he said and that we could have tried to build something together. If he’d been a normal guy, we could have gone long-distance. We could have kept connected. But there’s that crowd in front of my condo and all the footage of StarLune hurrying toward cars and safety. How can any relationship survive that, even without the distance? I don’t compete in contests I can’t win, and Jihoon doesn’t need me when he has that much public adoration at his fingertips.
I bury my face in the pillow and try to think rationally. This reveal could be for the best. It keeps my time with Jihoon short and mostly sweet, and in a few days, this’ll be nothing but a memory. I’ll be free again to concentrate on my career.
Exactly what I want.
Twenty-Four
Even though Jihoon has seen me stumble around with tangled hair and eyes puffy with sleep, I take my time getting ready in the morning. It’s for me, I assure myself as I fix my hair so it falls loose behind my shoulders in waves from my night braid. Not because I feel intimidated now that I know who he is. Ariadne Hui does not get intimidated by pop culture celebrities, even if Jihoon is on a completely different level than some season three reality TV reject.
However, Ariadne Hui doesn’t usually refer to herself in the third person, so it looks like all bets are off.
I did another hour of research when I woke at dawn, unable to sleep and shaken from a nightmare of my office surrounded by television cameras. This time I focused more on StarLune news and concert footage. There are videos of the band arriving and departing various places surrounded by buff black-clad security guards holding back crowds of screaming fans clutching cell phones. Half the time, I can’t even tell which one is Jihoon, since they’re covered in masks and sunglasses and hats as the flashes strobe over them. The experience looks both physically and mentally unbearable and provides a fresh understanding of his fishbowl life.
It’s the concert footage that astounds me, though. I watched stunned as he performed in stadiums for tens of thousands of people.What kind of person can do that, hold so many people’s unwavering attention for hours on end? Hana can talk all she wants about personas and multilayers of self or whatever, but the fact remains that Jihoon is one man, and that one man has people from around the world panting for him and watching videos of him napping. That one man has enough confidence, enough well-earned arrogance, to step on a stage and know he can control the crowd with a single movement.
What does he want with me?
Looks like Ariadne Hui gets a little intimidated by celebrities after all.
This might be the last time we talk, but I want to know everything I should have known in the first place. I feel almost calm. Resolute. Nothing will happen between us because whatcanhappen? I was a fool to think otherwise. Despite this conviction, my muscles are so tense my teeth chatter when I finally send the text I’ve been sitting on for minutes.I’m ready to talk if you’re free.
Jihoon’s at my door within thirty seconds, but when I open it, he steps back, eyes flickering over my face as if to read the future of the conversation.
“Hi,” I say.
This encourages him enough to come in, and I wave him to the table by the window. The curtains are open to show Bloor Street, muted gray from the older buildings stained with pollution and the cloudy morning. Jihoon’s white shirt plays up the tan of his skin and reveals the thickness of his neck and little divots of his collarbones. His hair is pushed back from his face, and two small hoops decorate his left ear, and one hangs from his right. I hadn’t realized his ears were pierced.
When we’re both seated, I look him in the eye. “What else didn’t you tell me?” Better to have the great cleanse right now.
“Nothing.”
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
His head jerks up. “No, of course not.”
“Boyfriend?”
“No boyfriend either.”
“Are Kit and Daehyun mad?”
“They are displeased.”
This seems like an understatement since they had to come halfway across the world to haul his ass home, but I leave it alone. “Are you going back to Korea?”
“Yes.” He tugs on one of the silver hoops. “I have to.”
“Why?”
Jihoon wrinkles his nose as he looks out the window. “The company is furious. I have to fulfill my contract.” He pauses. “I owe it to my members. StarLune is five people, and no matter what my personal feelings, I need to act in their best interest.”
“At the expense of your own?”
He gives me a confused look. “I can’t make the decision to break up the band by myself, no matter how I feel. That would be selfish.”
“You were going to.”
He tucks his hands into the sleeves of his black sweater. “I had a fantasy, and it ended. Like all fantasies.”
