I keep the questions going. “When are you leaving?”
“Soon. This was terrible timing.” Jihoon stares at the ground. “I added to everyone’s overwork and the stress we always get when we’re releasing new songs. I forced them to lie for me.”
“Right.” His self-flagellation is making it hard to stay mad at him. We might as well end on a friendly note. I stand from the table and start pacing to get rid of the jumpy energy that’s playing over my skin and driving into my bones. “Why did you even start all this with me?”
He lays his head on the table with an audible thump. “I wasn’t thinking, Ari. I only wanted you—selfish again. I didn’t think of StarLune or the future or even your feelings, only of myself. I felt a connection when I met you that first day. You see me. You treated me like my family does.”
“They pull knives on each other?”
“That part, no.” He grins, but it quickly slips away. “They don’t act like I’m different from anyone else. I’m not an idol, only Jihoon, a man who works as a performer but who also nearly burned down the kitchen making nurungji when he was thirteen. I feel normal with them, and with you. Calm. Safe.”
When I woke up, I was sure what I wanted or at least confident as to what would happen. We’d talk, say goodbye, and then I’d be left with memories. When I turn and see Jihoon frowning on the other side of the room, it’s clear that I might not have been as certain as I told myself. I like being with him, too, and it hurts to give that up. We’ve barely known each other a month, but the intimacy of living in the same apartment has made me comfortable with him in a way I don’t usually feel. Actually, in a way I never feel, not even with Hana. He lied and the residual of that hurt remains but both Hana and Jihoon have made it clear they had reasons. I might not fully agree, but I understand enough to forgive them.
“People do things for me because they have to or they think it will benefit them.” Jihoon runs his hand along the edge of the table. “You never did. At first you seemed so hard and cold, like you are at work, but your actions were kind. Generous.”
Pretend it’s a legal negotiation. You’re working for your client, Ms. A. Hui, and your job is to get all the details and figure out the best plan of action.
“I like things to be organized,” I say. “Predictable. This is the opposite of that.”
He crosses the room and reaches out to touch my jawline, letting his fingers trace down to my throat. My pulse flutters as he passes over my skin. “Have you thought perhaps you don’t crave routine as much as you tell yourself?”
I pull away. “What do you know about people anyway?” He lives the rarified life of a pop star. He never has to interact with the hoi polloi.
Jihoon looks at me in disbelief. “I study people. I watch them.Do you think I write songs out of the blue? I watch people live and bleed, and I bleed, too. That’s what people want, what they need so they don’t feel alone.”
“I see.”
“No, Ari, because you don’t bleed—ever. You don’t know yourself at all.”
“You don’t know me well enough to say that,” I snap.
“Yet it’s true.”
I open my mouth to argue…but I can’t.
“You saw me, the real me, before all this”—he points around the room—“got in the way. I want you to keep seeing me like that, not as Min. Can you?”
I examine him. He looks tired and worn and painfully genuine. Right now he’s Jihoon and not Min. What about when he leaves this room? Who is he then?
“What do you want out of this?” I ask as I walk back to the table and sit. “Us, whatever that is.”
“It would be best if I go home and we forget we ever met,” he says, looking me in the eyes.
My skin tingles, then goes cold, because these are my own thoughts from last night. “I know.”
“Do you want that?” he asks.
“Do you?”
“I asked first.”
“You’re the one who likes to talk and who caused this mess.”
“Then no.” Before I can speak, he continues, “I want to be with you, learn you. We’re new together, but I see a path. I don’t know how it will happen, but that’s what I want.”
“So do I.” I rush the words out without thinking, but they feel right. I let myself believe them even as I wonder what the hell I’m doing. This isn’t what I had decided. This isn’t a plan based on logic and a cold assessment of the facts.
Living with my heart, I guess. I don’t know that I like it.