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“Or you could move in with me.”

My eyes flew open as I studied his expression, trying to find the tease, but seeing only a soft kind of vulnerability in the lines of his face. His eyes held mine, but his expression tightened as if bracing for me to say no, or perhaps for me to find enough reasons to do so.

“Don’t answer me now. Think about it. I want you. I have always wanted you. I lost you for so long. I don’t want to keep saying goodbye to you, Kaiya. I don’t care if it’s here, or somewhere else. Just please – think about it?”

I just nodded, slightly dazed as I lay my head down on his chest and listened to the steady thump of his heart, knowing I’d be able to think of nothing else.

Chapter 51

October 11th

I eyed the headline on my phone as I waited at Incheon airport, standing off to the side to avoid the crowd of people streaming past.

Lee Hyejin comes out to deny ‘cheating’ rumours as the real ‘girl in the rain’ is identified as journalist Kaiya Thompson.

We hadn’t asked her to issue any kind of response, which was what made this feel so big. Naturally, when the other photos from Myeongdong had been released, confirming I was the mysterious ‘girl in the rain’, people had begun to demand answers, and fling accusations around. Neither ENT nor Jihoon had formally confirmed, or denied anything.

Truthfully, it hadn’t occurred to either of us to even talk to her, which was perhaps bad form, considering she was involved, however peripherally. When she’d sent Jihoon a message this morning to tell him she was issuing a response, we’d been shocked.

Lee Hyejin of PYT officially wades in on the subject of Baek Jihoon’s alleged girlfriend – tour correspondent, Kaiya Thompson, from the UK.

Hyejin insists no cheating ever occurred, and this publication has confirmed that Miss Thompson was not even in Korea at the time Baek Jihoon and Lee Hyejin began dating.

“Everyone assumed I was the girl in the rain, because someone mistakenly called me the ‘dark-haired girl’,” Hyejin said in a recent interview. “No one ever asked me directly. A statement was made that I did not contribute to. It was not me. These photos prove that.”

When asked her opinion on Baek Jihoon’s alleged girlfriend, Lee Hyejin was reluctant to respond.

“I don’t know her, but I trust Baek Jihoon’s judgement.”

I read the article twice before I put my phone away.

Lee Hyejin was someone I’d had conflicting feelings about for years. There had been times when I’d wanted to hate her, but it had always boiled down to a smaller, but no less ugly emotion.

Jealousy. Because she had something I thought I wanted, which in hindsight had been nonsense.

When she and Jihoon had agreed to pretend to date not long after we broke up, it had been for their mutual benefit – to quell rumours and all the vitriol Lee Hyejin in particular was getting as a result. It didn’t even matter that they had briefly tried to truly date for a time, because even then, it had only been to suit a need. They’d both been lonely, and proximity was the only thing they’d had. It hadn’t lasted.

Guilt pulled down at me, because even now, well after the fact, she was still being drawn into a tangle of our making. I’d never spoken to her, and yet somehow she was caught up in my drama.

I considered that she was regularly at the centre of scandals, and opinions on the conduct of performers, but I suspected she’d never once asked to be, and not for the first time, I wondered how people lived under such scrutiny, and with a slight chill, I wondered if it would be something I would have to get used to.

I had a facemask on, and my hair was down, and for all intents and purposes, I didn’t stand out. But having my face splashed across social media and print tabloids had made me paranoid enough that I kept glancing at the people around me, looking for any hint of recognition, but no one was paying me any attention.

Finally, I saw the person I had come to the airport for.

Because I was standing against a pillar, she didn’t see me when she walked past, pushing her suitcase along.

Grinning mischievously, I moved from the pillar and trailed after her. When she faltered at the far end of the concourse, looking uncertainly towards the doors that led outside, I got close to her and put my fingers against her back.

“Your money or your life,” I growled, my facemask muffling my words even more.

Becka spun around, grabbed my fingers and bent them backwards until I crumpled to the ground like a wet paper towel.

“Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck, I’m sorry!” I howled.

Becka’s face went from screwed up hostility to shocked contrition in a heartbeat.

“Ky! You stupid son of a–oh hell, are you alright?”