“I remain very mad at you,” I warn as I let her in.
“I know. I completely deserve it.”
“I’m willing to table that for now because I need help.”
“Understood.” She nods. “What help?”
I wave at the laptop. “Jihoon. Min. I have no idea who this guy is. It’s like he’s two separate people, and I don’t know which is the real one.”
“They’re the same. Min is only his stage persona.”
Her phone lights up, and she makes a face. “Hold on.”
I glance over and see who it’s from. “Oh no.” If there’s one person who will be more upset than me, it’s Mrs. Choi, who is currently blowing up her daughter’s phone.
Hana rolls her shoulders. “It’s been a real party.”
“She’s mad?”
In response, Hana shows me about three screens worth of a text block. I catch a few English words, and it’s enough to see that, as usual, Mrs. Choi is pulling no punches: lie, shame, embarrass, respect.
What’s left of my anger turns to sympathy. Hana’s never had an easy time with her mother, and for Mrs. Choi to resort to berating her over text means Hana must have reached the end of her almost limitless patience and started to ignore her calls. She pushes the phone away with a resolute gesture. “Back to Jihoon.”
“Do you want to talk about—”
“Jihoon. Yes. Only Jihoon.”
“Fine, but—”
“We are not doing this right now.”
I catch sight of her red eyes. The kind thing is to let her be. “Okay.”
She turns away, and I pretend not to see her dash the back of her hand across her eyes. “His duality confuses you.”
“They’re too different to be the same guy.” I navigate to a video that shows Jihoon wearing a mesh top under a leather harness as he kneels, doing a violent hip thrust. The curves of his thighs in skintight black vinyl pants are honest-to-God catching the stage lights as his fingers trace up his throat to his face…I cough, feeling like the room suddenly became very warm.
“This is weird to watch with you,” Hana says.
“Yeah, I get that.” I can’t look away.
“You need to get to know him when he’s Min but not performing, because that’s pretty intense.” She frowns at the wall before her face clears. “I know!”
She grabs the laptop and pulls up a video of StarLune sitting casually in jeans and hoodies, staring at a video inset on the screen.
“What’s this?”
Hana skips an ad. “Reaction videos.”
“I saw those. There’s lots of screaming.”
“No, this is a band reaction. Those were fan videos.”
“They sit around watching their own music videos and tape it?” I try for Amused Avenue and end up taking a hard left at Snide Street, where I put myself in cruise.
“It’s a thing to not watch the final cut until they’re together. Quit being ignorant.”
“Hey!”