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“Because I think he’s left the decision to you, and while I don’t want to get involved in your personal lives – please believe me when I say that – given the circumstances of where we are, and what role you currently play on this tour, it feels important.”

I exhaled heavily as I took a moment to think. My hand reached for my necklace, fingers worrying the sharp points of the little wings as I debated how to respond. I argued with myself over if I even should, but then, because I believed he wouldn’t have asked if he didn’t feel it mattered, I answered.

“For now, we’re friends.”

His mouth pinched like he believed me but didn’t like my answer.

“Whatever you decide to do is your choice,” he said slowly, fixing me with a stare that felt like he was trying to read me.

“But?” I asked, temper snapping faster than I could suppress after the day I’d had.

“Friends don’t make friends feel like more than just friends.”

I recoiled, arms falling slack at my sides as he gave me a final look before jogging back to Jihoon’s room.

Chapter 34

July 18th

Today was supposed to be a free day, and while I hadn’t had any concrete plans – maybe grab a croissant, wander around the city for a while – I was still frustrated that my entire day was going to disappear inside a police station.

In the morning, I went to the station accompanied by a member of the travel liaison team and a security guard. Monsieur Lallouche met us there.

“Ready?” he asked, buttoning up his suit jacket.

“Not really,” I admitted.

I hadn’t even tried to eat anything that morning, settling for a strong cup of coffee whilst I called Becka to tell her everything. She’d reacted about as well as I’d expected, swinging between horror, fury and concern. Mostly, I’d let her rant while I’d gotten dressed.

“We’ll get through it together,” Monsieur Lallouche assured me, smiling in a way that was both reassuring and competent.

The liaison and the security guard sat in the waiting room while Monsieur Lallouche and I went into a room with the same two officers I’d spoken to yesterday, along with a French interpreter.

It took several hours, and it felt like we went over and over each detail of not only the incident – as they were calling it – but the surrounding details, circumstances, people, and relationships. Every tiny thing that might provide context except for the one detail that might matter the most, and also the least. My relationship with Jihoon.

Monsieur Lallouche had counselled me prior to my interview that it was actually immaterial if I was, or was not, or had ever been in a relationship with Jihoon. What mattered was that Hana appeared to believe that we were, and that belief might have motivated her to lure me into a locked car with a member of the paparazzi.

Whether it was intended as a kind of punishment, or to expose Jihoon, was speculation, and because that’s all it was, my relationship status did not go on record. I didn’t bother pretending this wasn’t an enormous relief. Whatever Monsieur Lallouche intuited from my reaction, he kept to himself.

We were well into the afternoon by the time we were done at the police station, and after so many hours of describing the incident, and every detail that might have led up to it, it had started to feel like the story had become a formless, squishy thing in my mind. Malleable and open to interpretation depending on perspective.

When we got back to the hotel, I almost cried when I realised we were expected to sit down with executives from ENT in a video conference.

I felt fried. Mentally and physically exhausted. Picked apart and scrutinised.

I was asked to again recount the events of the prior day, while a group of well-dressed men and women in a Seoul boardroom watched silently.

Once I was done, attention turned to Monsieur Lallouche and the Korean interpreter. My head thumped because I couldn’t turn off my own, internal interpretation. At that moment, I kind of hated that I spoke both languages, because I heard Monsieur Lallouche, and then the interpreter repeating the story, but with a nuance that made the retelling slightly different. Nuance and concepts that took me moments to attribute meaning to, all the while fact-checking it for accuracy. All I wanted was to put my head on the table, and my neck ached with the effort of not doing exactly that.

“My office has been able to gather a limited amount of information from the other side,” Monsieur Lallouche was saying as I tuned back in. “The driver of the taxi and his firm claim he was booked for an airport transfer. The notes on the form claim he would be picking up a celebrity and a local news reporter, which would necessitate an expedient departure from the airport. The police have reviewed the booking information, and nothing they’ve seen so far indicates that he was aware of, or involved in any deliberate subterfuge.”

“Do we have any information about the paparazzo in the car?” This came from one of the ENT executives.

“Not yet,” Monsieur Lallouche replied, after the question was translated for him. “But we do know that the police have seized her equipment.”

“Will that prevent the footage from being published?”

“No,” my lawyer confirmed with a shrug. “The original footage will be preserved as evidence, but that does not guarantee copies weren’t made before the equipment was confiscated.”