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“Did you think I never noticed that? Kaiya, I’m your best friend. Anyway. It’s not that I’m trying to push you together.” She rolled her eyes dramatically. “It’s just that… fuck. It seems unfair that you don’t get to experience what that relationship might be like when you’re… you. Not just ‘Jihoon’s girlfriend.’ You. Kaiya Thompson.”

“Isn’t that kinda the same thing?” I asked with a light chuckle, but my throat felt tight. I had to push the words out.

“I don’t think so,” she said, shaking her head.

We fell into silence for a moment where I pretended to be very interested in her ceiling fan, and she pretended to not see the way I blinked rapidly.

“I think the hardest thing would be the part where you’d need to move past what he did,” she said in a tone that implied she wouldn’t be able to.

I looked back at her.

“Which part?” I sighed heavily, because we both knew there was more than one thing he’d done wrong.

Becka leaned against her bed, rustling the crinoline ruffles her mum insisted on putting on her bedding.

“I just don’t know if I could move past the part where he decided that breaking up was the only way to deal with that psycho,” she said, mouth twisting in disgust – though whether that was for Jihoon’s actions, or Hana’s, I wasn’t sure. Maybe both.

“Yeah,” I sighed again. “I get it.”

“But you forgave him,” she said in a tone that was part question, part confirmation.

I nodded slowly. “I did.”

And I had. I’d forgiven him last November. The night he’d come to my hotel room.

Becka shook her head, blowing out a breath. “I don’t know if I could forgive it.”

“You don’t need to,” I said tightly, picking at a spot on the carpet that was discoloured from some long-forgotten spill.

“Did you really forgive him? Or did you just want to?” Becka asked, tilting her head. Her focus made me squirm before I pulled my shoulders back and took a breath.

I hadn’t gone into too much detail about what had happened between Joon and me in November. I’d given her the gist. That he’d shown up. That he’d explained about the blackmail. About Hana, and the photos she had. The ultimatum she’d given him if he wanted to keep my identity from being exposed. The actions he’d taken to prevent it.

And in fairness, that seemed to have worked. I hadn’t heard from Hana in years. My identity remained safe, and Lee Hyejin’s reputation was rescued as a bonus. Everyone won.

My mouth tightened.

Except, apparently, us.

But even knowing all that, it was difficult to let go of the resentment I’d built up since learning the truth. I was angry at him.

But I was also a lot of other things less easy to define.

“The way I feel about him isn’t as cut and dry as that,” I admitted begrudgingly. “I’m pissed at him. I forgive him. I can multitask,” I scoffed.

Becka made a noise in the back of her throat that could have been an agreement, or a wordless way of calling me a fucking idiot. Maybe both.

“I’m not excusing his behaviour. I’m not. Stop looking at me like that, Becka. I’m not naive.”

I looked down, biting my lip as I thought about how to say what I wanted to say.

“I really believe he did what he did because it made the most sense to him. I believe he’s gone through too much to think it would have worked out any better. I believe he was trying to protect me, and sure, he fucked up. He took the decision from me about how to react. But I can’t bring myself to hate him for wanting to protect me so badly that he’d throw himself on the grenade. People are flawed. I am, you sure-as-hell are–”

“Excuse the hell out of me!” Becka spluttered.

“Some people wouldn’t forgive him,” I went on, biting back a smile. “Some people would hate him for what he did, or at least the way he went about it, but he was never perfect, and I never expected him to be.”

I pulled my knees up to my chest and frowned. “I never had this inflated version of who he was. I knew who he was, and maybe that’s not who he is now, but I knew the person he was, and the more I think about it… yeah. What he did – it was wrong, but I see how, to him at least, it was the only way he had to take back the power, and protect everyone,” I said quietly.