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There were plenty of ‘who the fuck is this’ comments and plenty more claiming I couldn’t possibly be with Jihoon, owing to the fact that I was a total nobody. But overwhelmingly the comments were skewed towards the opinion that Jihoon was a grown man, who could – and should – date whoever the hell he wanted, and I was basically removed from the narrative.

That might have been comforting, had it not been for what Sihyeon had said – it wasn’t just Busan. Busan had been the thing that made people see who I was enough to notice the bracelet, the cat pictures. To find out that I’d worked for ENT.

In isolation, it was just coincidence, but all together it framed a picture worth looking at.

This was not my first go around with being in the crosshairs of a dating scandal with Jihoon. We’d been here before. More than once. But this time, they knew my name.

Shoving my laptop away with a frustrated huff, I pulled my phone out and called Jihoon.

“Jagiya.” His voice was warm and had an almost immediate calming effect on me.

I lay back on my bed and took a breath.

“My roommate just asked if I was seeing you.”

There was silence on the line for a moment, and I heard a rustle, like he was sitting up.

“Seeing?”

“As in, am I your girlfriend,” I clarified, biting my thumbnail.

“What did you say?”

I couldn’t tell from his tone how he felt. It was carefully neutral, but also strained. His words were clipped, like they were when he did interviews.

“I denied it. Of course. She didn’t look convinced, but…” I blew out a breath, waiting for him to say something that reassured me, but he said nothing, so to fill the silence, I asked, “What should we do?”

Because this was his area of expertise. Even before me, he and his team had dealt with half a dozen instances like this. Jihoon and I hadn’t decided yet how to handle the ‘after’. Only that there would be an ‘after’.

“You won’t like my answer,” he said plainly.

I paused. I even stopped breathing for a brief moment, my inhale catching in my throat.

“Say it anyway.” My voice came out thin, and I cleared my throat.

“We could admit it.”

Everything went still, giving his words the space to echo in the air between us. I had to pull the phone away for a moment to collect myself, blinking quickly as I fought off a wave of dizziness. I closed my eyes, took a breath in and brought the phone back up to my ear.

“Jagiya?” he said loudly, like he’d been trying to get my attention.

“I’m here,” I said weakly.

“Are you okay?”

“No.”

“You’re not okay?”

“No,” I cut in loudly, and then tried again. “No. No, we shouldn’t–we’ve been over this, Joon. It’s not the right time. The tour, the other members. Your family. My family. It’s not… it’s not the right time,” I faltered. The excuses kept coming, and somewhere in the middle of it all, I heard myself, and it hit me just how much the tables had turned.

I’d never exactly been in favour of going public, but I’d also hated being a secret. Now? Now the idea of being exposed made my blood run cold.

Jihoon was quiet for so long that I pulled my phone away to see if the call was still connected. After a moment, I heard him sigh.

“Alright, Kaiya,” he said gently. “Then we say nothing.”

“Nothing?” My brow furrowed.