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My old, fabric suitcase had two wheels, and while perfectly good for moving my crap between Cumbria and London, I had been sceptical of its reliability for continuous travelling.

“That settles it. Gets it out of my wardrobe, at least. It’s been in there for years.”

I was wholly unprepared for the lump that rose in my throat, and I turned away to clear it as I busied myself. Behind me, I heard a rustle, and then my mum was kneeling next to me, rearranging my pile of clothes, and neatly folding my underwear as if I was a kid going away on a camping trip.

“Love,” she started, and immediately, I knew where this was going. “Are you going to be alright?”

I blinked to clear my eyes before turning back to her and laying the designer luggage down to unzip it.

“I think so, Mum. It’s a lot, but I really want to go. It’s a huge opportunity.”

“I get that, I do, but… is it too much? Will you not feel awkward?”

I snorted. “Yeah. Probably. But I won’t–can’t let it get in the way of my job. I want this. I’ve worked bloody hard for it. And honestly, I’ll barely see him.”

It was only a slight lie, I had individual and group interviews to do, but there was no point bringing that up.

Mum made a noncommittal noise that ended up communicating plenty. I sighed and pulled the case open with perhaps a little more force than necessary.

“Everyone seems to have decided that I’ve agreed to go on this tour because of some unrequited love bollocks,” I said tersely. “I’ve not. Mum, when one of the world’s biggest entertainment companies asks for you by name to follow the most-anticipated comeback tour in K-Pop history… you don’t say no. You don’t even stop to consider it. The answer is ‘yes’, every time. It was ‘yes’ the moment the Director called, and frankly, it would have been yes years ago, too. Remember how you used to keep banging on at me about finding the thing that ‘sparks joy’ – and don’t say you didn’t, it was right around the time you started reading those organisation books. Well, this is it, Mum. This is my joy. This is what I want, and I’ve worked too bloody hard to not suck it up just because my ex-boyfriend might make my life a little uncomfortable for a few months.”

Mum stared at me for a few moments before-

“Alright love, no need to make a scene.”

I threw my hands up in the air and she laughed.

February 3rd

It was the first time I’d been in a hotel since LA last November. The room wasn’t the same, it didn’t look the same, but it also did, in that way that all hotel rooms followed the same blueprint, no matter how big, small, fancy or basic.

ENT had booked my flight from Heathrow, so staying five hours away in Cumbria hadn’t been a possibility. I’d gotten the train down here this afternoon and congratulated myself on my forward-thinking. But I’d been at the hotel for a few hours now, and I’d had entirely too much time to think.

I looked out the window. It wasn’t a nice view. The hotel was very practically-placed, which meant the window directly faced the departures part of the terminal. I stood there, in the fading light of day, watching people coming and going. Taxis pulling up, depositing passengers, and then leaving, only for an almost-identical variation of the same thing to happen again, and again until my eyes began to blur. The process allowed me entirely too much space to think, and I couldn’t help but realise how many pivotal moments of my life had happened in hotel rooms.

I smiled as I remembered the first of such occasions, where Jihoon and I had had breakfast together in his hotel room in LA. The morning of our first date. God, I’d been so nervous. At first. Feeling at ease with him had happened shockingly quick. In some ways, falling into a relationship with him had been almost too easy. As if we both knew what it was right from the start. What it could be. Then there had been the blissful days we’d spent in the hotel in Seoul. A departure from real life as I’d eased into my new one, in a new country. A bubble of time. Not real life at all, as it had turned out.

And then, the last hotel we’d been together in. LA. After the awards show.

It all felt so cyclical. Parts of my life. Themes repeating. Things I couldn’t move past, or that seemed to keep coming back into my life.

People.

Places.

I looked down in time to see a couple embracing. I wondered who they were. Friends? Lovers? One of them pulled away and got back into a car, while the other picked up their suitcase and headed towards the terminal.

I swallowed hard, backing away from the window and letting the curtains fall closed, resolutely ignoring the confusing butterflies in my belly, telling myself it was just nerves.

I didn’t know what time it was. The room was dark, except for a bedside lamp, casting everything in a dim, ephemeral glow. There was a knock at the door, and my feet were already moving towards it. I opened it. He stood there. Rumpled in his suit, shirt buttons open at the neck, exposing the smooth line of his throat. My fingers and lips remembered the feel of it. Of him.

“Let me in, jagiya.”

I couldn’t tell if I stepped back, or if he simply moved forward, but suddenly he was inside, brushing past me.

He turned to face me, staring so intently that I felt my expression falter, resolve weakening. “Why did you leave?”

“I told you – we don’t work.”