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I rolled my suitcase up to the front door and slid down the keypad to enter the code Jihoon had sent me. The light turned green, and I heard the door unlocking. I pushed the handle down and stepped into the entryway, kicking off my shoes and leaving my bags on the side.

From the outside, the house looked like it would be dark. Rich wood beams accented an overhanging roof, almost as if the house was frowning, but the inside was a study in contradiction. It was like stepping into an airy loft. The entire front of the house seemed to have been converted into one large, open space, all the way up to the roof. Skylights let natural light stream in and bounce off the cream walls and onto the polished chestnut flooring. I spun around to take it all in, and I had the urge to shout just to see if it would echo. I could see all the way across the expansive room to a wall of windows looking out at the garden.

The living area had an enormous sofa, and an equally enormous TV mounted on the wall, but the house was, for want of a better word, sparse. Now that I was looking closer I noticed packing boxes pushed up against the walls, unpacked.

Jihoon hadn’t said when he’d bought the house, but from the looks of things it had to have been recently.

It was the same upstairs. Three bedrooms, but only one looked remotely lived in. The moment I saw the bed, I burst into laughter, because there were those bloody sheets again. The black, shiny satin I’d first seen in his bedroom in the apartment he’d shared with Ace and Lee. The textbook look for hot, single guys, which only reminded me of what he’d said.

“Jagiya, I haven’t been single in months.”

There was a fluttering behind my ribs, and my grin morphed into something softer. I pulled the corner of the sheets to straighten them, and walked back downstairs to bring up my bags.

That night, I sat in the living room, sprawled over the expansive sofa and watched a live stream from the concert in Busan. I hated that I was missing it. Of all the shows, I knew this one meant something to Jihoon. Busan was home, even if it hadn’t really been for so many years. I’d known he was going to do something to honour his halmeoni, but he hadn’t gone into much detail.

By now it was common knowledge she had passed away, and Vibers had mourned with him. He hadn’t known what to do with that – the way people he didn’t know had shown love for a woman they’d never known. Grieved for her simply because she had loved him, and he had lost her.

He hadn’t known how to react, but he knew how to say he’d seen it.

During the encore of the Busan show, where there typically would have been a song chosen from their vast discography, Jihoon and the vocal line instead chose a song from a popular K-Drama. One that Hwayeon had particularly loved. It was a love song about resilience, and knowing who you are so you could give all of yourself to the people you choose to love. It was well-known, and even over the live-stream, I could hear thousands of voices singing it back to Jihoon. I didn’t need a close up of his face to know what expression I’d see on it.

When the song ended, the members gathered around Jihoon. Woojin pulled him into a hug, and I saw Jihoon’s shoulders slump. The others followed, until the five of them stood, huddled together, on a stage surrounded by tens of thousands.

I knew it was about Hwayeon, but I also couldn’t help but wonder if it was also a show of defiance in the face of all the calls for Jihoon to leave the group.

Both things could be true.

They broke apart just as the fireworks for the final show lit up the night sky. The camera panned to Jihoon’s face. It was tipped back, illuminated by the bursts of colour, highlighting the tracks on his cheeks.

I spoke to him for a while after the show, when he finally got back to his hotel. It was late, because there had been a celebratory meal, and his parents had been invited. They’d gone to the concert, which Jihoon said was only the second show of his they’d ever attended. I couldn’t wrap my head around that. I couldn’t understand how they could sit in a stadium with thousands of people cheering for their son and not feel anything but pride.

Jihoon didn’t like to pick it apart, and I didn’t press him to. The most he’d ever said was that to them – or, at least to his dad – the idea of being a celebrity was much the same as being a clown in a circus. Made to perform at the whim of the crowd, putting on makeup for the entertainment of others. It would never matter how famous he got, or how much money he made. He would always be boiled down to just an entertainer.

I’d had to bite my tongue so many times.

He was happy they’d come to the show. He hadn’t been sure they would, but they’d sat in one of the suites with the managers and watched the whole show, and afterwards had gone to dinner with the group. There was no emotional reunion, he’d said with a wry smile, but he’d said it wasn’t as awkward as it usually was, so perhaps there would be progress. One day.

Jihoon flew back to Seoul the day after. He was coming back earlier than the rest of the group.

I was in the kitchen, staring at my phone, and trying to make sense of a recipe. A kind of welcome home and thank you for letting me crash in your house meal. I had things on the stove, and a whole tray of chopped vegetables, but I must have missed a step, because I didn’t think that the sauce was supposed to have small, gelatinous lumps in it. Was I not supposed to add in the cornstarch directly?

I’d gotten distracted by a video of Jihoon arriving at the airport. I’d navigated away from the recipe for thirty seconds to watch it and must have missed an instruction, because I didn’t think it was meant to look like that.

It had been uploaded about an hour ago just after he’d landed, and it was already going viral owing to how extreme it was. He and his team were well-versed in sketchy airport arrivals, but this had looked less like over-excited fans and more like a kicked hornet’s nest. He’d had to run, his security surrounding him like a wall, but it was clear the situation wasn’t safe. Hundreds of screaming fans surged after them through the airport, a heaving mass of people with seemingly no regard for how it might feel to the people they pursued.

Most Vibers just seemed happy to see him, shouting supportive things and even waving banners, but not all. There were voices calling him a liar, audible even over the deafening buzz of the crowd. Posters with demands for him to leave GVibes were held above the heads of the gathered crowd, all looking similar enough that it felt like an organised protest. Maybe the same people who’d paid for the funeral wreaths outside ENT.

I’d watched, absentmindedly stirring the pot, as Jihoon was pushed through the airport by his team. He never responded to the shouts, hadn’t looked up, eyes straight ahead. So little about him could even be seen. He wore a facemask, baseball cap pulled low and a hoodie with the hood up. But even through all of that I saw his eyes. Saw the way they pinched and I hated it. I hated the way he’d perfected turning his face into a mask, and I hated how emotionless it made him seem, all apart from that slight pinch to his eyes, because that more than anything else told me how unsurprised he was by the reaction. And that itself was heartbreaking.

I’d watched until he was safely in a car, and then I’d closed the app and refocused on the recipe, which was when I’d noticed the stew looked very unlike the picture in the recipe.

I was just frowning at the pot, prodding the lumpy bits, when a pair of strong, warm arms wrapped around my waist. I jolted, but then relaxed when the scent of clean laundry and soap invaded my senses. Jihoon dipped his head down to the crook of my neck, inhaling deeply.

“Do you have any idea how much I like finding you like this?”

“Cooking for you?” I giggled, but the sound came out breathless as his hands roamed my body, lightly skimming under the hem of my shirt.

“In my house,” he said roughly, pressing a hot, open-mouthed kiss to my neck.