Page 25

I yanked the shock from my face just as Jihoon turned to me, replacing it with something that I hoped was more neutral, but I saw the way his eyes crinkled, and I was hit with the sudden realisation that he still knew me too damn well.

“This is Kaiya,” he introduced me in Korean. “She’s a journalist from England. She’s coming on tour with us. Kaiya, this is Baek Hwayeon. My halmeoni.”

His grandma’s eyes focused on me, giving me the opportunity to study her. I’d seen photos of her, of course, but I’d never met her. She had a shrewd air about her as her eyes travelled over me, seemingly with no regard for discretion.

“Kaiya-ssi,” she said in a voice that was somehow both soft and a little rough around the edges, “you’ve come a long way.” She spoke in clipped Korean, in a manner that suggested she was trying to make sure I could understand.

“Ne, halmeoni,” I replied as I politely bent at the waist, “mannaseo bangapseumnida.”

“You speak Korean?” She exclaimed in surprise, her pace picking up to a more natural speed.

I smiled, and my shoulders relaxed a little.

“Not well,” I assured her.

She patted the sofa next to her, and for a second, my eyes slid to Jihoon. He shrugged and shoved his hands into his pockets before sitting on the floor in front of her, stretching out his long legs and crossing his feet at the ankles, looking for all the world like the picture of nonchalance. I sat next to the older lady and turned to face her, trying to ignore the grin on Jihoon’s face.

She looked me over again, now that we were on the same level, and I paused for her scrutiny, for whatever it was she was looking for. She was elegant, her hair neatly arranged in a style I could imagine her wearing for decades, and she smelled faintly like orange blossoms. She looked tired though, and now that I was close, I could see the tremor in her hands, even as she neatly folded them in her lap.

She tilted her chin up, and hummed as she peered at me. “You must practice,” she said eventually.

Jihoon let out a strangled sort of noise that was too quiet to be a laugh, but too obvious to be anything else. I shot him a look.

“I will,” I promised, my cheeks heating.

“Joha,” she said in a tone that implied my compliance was as good as settled, and I could only watch in bemusement, remembering that this was the woman who had gone against her son’s wishes and taken Jihoon to his audition when he was just a kid. Who had stood with him for hours in the heat, and bought him a flavoured ice cone. It made me smile at her in a way that was perhaps a little familiar.

“You are a journalist?”

“Ne, halmeoni.”

“And you are an expert at what you write?”

My first instinct was to be slightly affronted at the question, but I saw the way her eyes crinkled ever-so-slightly, and instead was somehow… charmed.

I tilted my head to the side and shrugged. “I try.”

She laughed. “I think you must be good if you are here. You lived in Korea before? Jihoon-ah tells me you did.”

I startled slightly, looking over to where he was sprawled on the floor, trying to see from his expression what he had told his grandma, but he was looking at her, not me.

“Ah, yes. Four years ago.”

She nodded slightly, and smiled, like she’d already known the answer.

“I know all of Jihoon’s members,” she looked over at Jihoon, and her entire face softened, blurring the tired lines of her eyes. “But he has never introduced me to any of his other friends,” she sighed. “It made me think perhaps he had none.”

Jihoon coughed, while I let out a surprised bark of laughter, lifting a hand to my mouth.

“Halmeoni,” he moaned, while she waved a hand at him, making a dismissive sound.

“I have met many people in the press, but none that I liked very much,” she said in a tone that implied it was some great tragedy, but considering how she had been treated, I couldn’t blame her.

When her son – Jihoon’s uncle – had died alongside his wife, they had harassed her to the point where she’d left Seoul to move in with Jihoon’s parents in Busan. I’d probably hate them, too.

“I feel I might like you,” she went on, “but I need to be sure. Are you coming to the restaurant with us?”

“Oh, I’m not sure...” None of the the media team were coming – I had checked. It didn’t feel allowed.