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His ‘safe place’, he’d said, mumbling into my neck one morning when he’d climbed into bed with me, fresh from showering at his parents’ house.

For my part, I barely left the hotel, only venturing out every now and then for fresh air, or to go to the shops for snacks. I ate all my meals in the hotel restaurant, but otherwise I used the time to catch up on my assignments. I didn’t want to go too far in case he came back and found me not there.

The tour was officially on break, so Jihoon’s absence hadn’t been noticed. I kept checking, but so far it looked like we’d gotten away with our hasty departure from Warsaw, which was almost miraculous.

The family hadn’t made any public comment about Baek Hwayeon’s passing, and honestly, I had no idea if they would, or frankly – why they’d want to, after how the press and public had treated them after the passing of Jihoon’s uncle and aunt.

But I also wasn’t naïve. I knew that was not how it worked, and sooner or later, Jihoon would be forced to say something.

He always came back to me in the hours when he’d switched off with someone else at the hall. The idea was that there was always someone there, but it felt to me like Jihoon was there more often than was expected. He didn’t talk about the comings and goings, or how often other people visited. He didn’t want to talk about the funeral at all, really.

But he did tell me about his halmeoni. Not just the facts about who she was to the world, but the parts of her that he had come to know. The texture of her life. The way he had been shaped by a life with her. Not just his memories, but the way she had loved him because of who she was.

He would always seek me out in the pre-dawn hours, sliding into bed behind me and holding me, and through him I came to know Hwayeon. How she had hated gardening, but had forced herself to grow her own vegetables because of a feud she’d begun with the greengrocer so many years ago that when asked, she’d never quite been able to recall what had started it. How she had loved to knit but was terrible at it. How she had loved to watch K-Dramas with an almost obsessive level of enjoyment, and would often send him emails describing them in such detail that despite the fact he never had time to watch them, he knew the plot as well as anyone who had. He’d laughed as he told me how she’d learned to master emails in a community class for seniors, and ever since he’d gotten at least one email from her each week, reading like full-length letters. He’d kept them all, stored in a little folder in his inbox.

His voice broke when he asked me how he’d go on without them. I hadn’t known what to say.

Hwayeon had had a stroke last summer and had moved out of his parents’ house and into a care facility. No one had wanted her to move, but it had been necessary when it became clear she required more care than his parents – namely his mum – could give. Which made it even more impressive that she’d gotten herself from Busan to Seoul to attend his concert in February. It said a lot about her attitude to life, and her love for Jihoon, and I said as much. He hadn’t replied, but I felt his smile against my skin.

Baek Hwayeon hadn’t been otherwise ill. She’d passed away peacefully in her sleep, he said. And I think he took some comfort from that.

The cremation happened on the third day.

Jihoon apologised to me in the morning before he left, saying he might not see me because there was so much to do. I kept reassuring him that it was fine, that I understood. He didn’t need to apologise to me, not for this, but it was like he felt useless, and what he was really apologising for was his perceived inability to be the person who fixed everything.

“Joon, it’s fine,” I said for the fourth time as I watched him try to tug on his shoes, except he was trying to put the shoe on the wrong foot.

I slid off the bed and put my hands on his knees, stilling him.

“You have nothing to apologise for,” I said, running my hands down his calf to pull off his shoe. “You’re not interrupting my plans.” I moved the shoe to the other foot, and he silently lifted his leg for me. “I don’t feel neglected. I want to be here for you.” I began to tie his laces. “Sometimes your plans don’t involve me, and that’s okay. I don’t expect them to.” I tied a neat little bow and picked up the other shoe.

I spared a look up at him and found him watching me with an expression that sat somewhere between the grief I’d gotten used to seeing, and something almost desperate.

I looked down, sliding his foot into the shoe.

“I just want to be close by,” I said, voice catching slightly, but I pushed through it. “In case you need me.”

What I didn’t say as I tied his laces was that there was something almost painfully intimate about the way he was allowing me to see him like this. In the past, he would have locked me out, left me in Poland while he came to Busan alone.

Now, he was leaning on me in a way he never had before. It was unexpected, and I didn’t quite know what to do with it.

He’d told me that there would be a formal dinner after the cremation and interment of the ashes, so I shouldn’t expect to see him until late, if at all.

So, it was no surprise that I was already asleep by the time he slipped into my bed like he had every night since we’d arrived in Busan. But unlike the past two nights, he needed more from me than comfort, or perhaps he needed a different kind. He woke me up kissing a hot trail up my neck, and sighing, I leaned against him, craning my neck to give him better access. He gently pushed me onto my back until he was above me. He leaned his weight on one hand and cupped my face with the other, stroking his thumb over my cheek.

“I love you,” he said softly. “I know it might be too soon to say it, but I never stopped loving you. Not in all those years we were apart, and now I can’t not say it when every day brings a new risk that I might not get to tell you.” He paused, inhaling shakily. “I love you. I have always loved you. Even if you leave me, I won’t stop. I love you, Kaiya.”

My throat felt tight as I stared up at him, like my chest might be about to crack open with the force of keeping my heart inside.

His words weren’t completely surprising. He’d said as much in LA last November, and he’d shown it throughout the months since. What he felt for me was simple. My own feelings were not, and I couldn’t bring myself to say it back just then, because anything I said now would be reactionary.

“Your thoughts are so loud, jagiya.” His lips quirked, that familiar expression that never failed to make my heart skip. “You don’t need to say anything. I did not say it to hear you say it back to me. I said it because it’s true, and I spent years holding it inside me. Now I do not need to, and I do not want to. I love you.”

And then, perhaps to prove that he didn’t need, or expect, me to reply, he lowered his head and kissed me. It wasn’t urgent. He kissed me as though he’d said what he needed to, and whatever I chose to give him would be enough.

Slowly, inevitably, the kiss turned into something more than words. His hands roamed my body with the soft familiarity of someone who’d memorised every inch of me, undressing me between each kiss.

“Lift your hips for me, jagiya,” he murmured, mouth hot against my neck as he licked a trail from my jaw to my collarbone.