“I could tell,” I say honestly. “You were fantastic.”
Kit’s smile is reluctant but real as he gives me a small bow. “Thank you.” He pulls Hana away to chat with him and Daehyun. Apart from a slight tap on my arm, I barely notice her go because I’m filled with conflicting emotions as I try to separate the man in front of me from the performer I witnessed dominating the stage and twenty thousand people.
“You look beautiful,” Jihoon says. He leans down, but then his eyes flick around the room and he straightens. “Do you want to see what it’s like on the stage?”
“Yes.” The weight of the stares around us makes me nervous.
“We need to wait for the arena to clear out.” He brings me to an empty side room and collapses on the couch.
I sit beside him. “What’s it like, being onstage?”
He smiles, and his nose wrinkles adorably. “When it’s good, it’s a mix of nervousness and excitement and anticipation. Knowing a performance is coming fills me with a buzz, and being onstage is the only way I can release it. It took me a long time to get here, though.”
“It did?”
“I had such bad stage fright in the beginning they almost cut mefrom the band. Compare that to Kit hyeong. For him, performing is like an addiction. He craves the stage for itself, but I want only the connection the stage brings.”
He sees me frowning.
“When I started, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be an idol, but I knew music was for me. Our producer asked me, ‘Do you want to write songs or make music?’”
“That sounds like the same thing.”
“It’s not. I could be in a tiny room in Busan writing songs, but I need to share them with others and get their ideas. I need them out in the world. It’s a constant tension between fame, which I endure, and creating, which I need. Before you say anything, I accept I love the attention I get onstage.” He gives me a wry look. “Contradictions.”
“Is it worth it?”
He rubs his face against the side of my neck. His skin is cool from the ice pack. “I don’t know.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
“Think about it later.” He runs his lips along my neck, making me shudder, before settling back with a low growl. “I need to stop. Anyone can come in.”
Good call. There’s a snack table, and Jihoon takes another bottle of water and a plate for the two of us to pick at. It’s a combination of Korean and Western food, a mix of junk and healthy. Jihoon eats chips and carrots, sushi and pizza, while I work through the doughnuts, twisty and covered with sugar. Finally, he glances at the clock.
“That’s enough time,” he says, standing and then extending his hands to haul me up.
I follow him back through the corridors to what looks like a lift. One hand catches me around the waist as the other pulls my ponytail off my shoulder.
“Wait a moment,” he says into my neck. Then he calls out to a hidden someone, and a grunt comes from somewhere in the back.
“The crew is safe. Everyone works for Newlight and signs NDAs with their contracts.” Jihoon steps with me onto a platform. “Hold on.”
That’s all the warning he gives. The platform rises, and when I crane my neck up, I see what I thought was the bottom of the stage is actually a hole and the darkness is the distant arena ceiling.
I try to imagine what it feels like to be Jihoon, standing here as people scream for him, but I can’t. It’s completely foreign to me.
“How do you feel?” I ask. “When the platform rises?”
“For this show, we started off with mics instead of headsets. I think of how it feels, pressing into my palm.” He traces a line down my hand. “I listen to the crowd.” He nods to the left. “Sangjun stood there, and he always waves at me before we start a show. That’s when it feels real.”
The platform surfaces, and I take a cautious step onto the stage. It’s bigger than it looked from my seat, and there are crosses and lines taped on the floor. Quietly I watch Jihoon as he stares out at the empty seats, his face blank.
“What if something goes wrong when you’re onstage?”
“Things go wrong all the time. Daehyun once fell and took me down with him. We nearly rolled off the stage. I’ve dropped hand mics. One ended up in a fan’s lap, and she fainted. I forgot the lines to a song, and Xin covered for me. Tonight the lights were wrong for the second song, and Kit hyeong’s voice broke. A few years ago, he would have cried all night.”
To think I get stressed stumbling on a curb if there are people around.