Page 73

I exhaled shakily. The duality of this man.

After the show, I was sitting backstage next to Ace while the others got dressed. The group were heading straight to the airport to catch a private plane to Chicago. I saw the tired lines on his face that not even stage makeup could hide.

Even though the flight was only a couple hours, they wouldn’t get to their hotel until three or four am, and again I was reminded of the knife’s edge their schedule balanced on.

This was actually an adjustment, as there had been a security leak. Someone had posted which hotel the group were booked into. Obviously, that had been changed, but arriving so early in the morning was intended to be yet another way to disguise their arrival. It was a frustrating necessity, but none of the group seemed fazed by it, implying that this was not the first such feint they’d had to do. It impressed me just as much as it frustrated me. They acted like it wasn’t a big deal, but they’d had to adjust flight plans, hotels, and sleep patterns all because someone had breached their privacy and leaked their plans. But to them this was just the price of fame, and somehow we’d made this shit normal. It infuriated me.

I was saying as much to Ace, muttering quietly in Korean because we weren’t the only ones in the room. He nodded along, making the occasional noise of agreement, but I could see that he was either too tired to care, or just… used to it.

Not long later, the rest of the group came back. Briefly, I caught Jihoon’s eyes in the mirror. His face was carefully composed, but his eyes were dark and laser-focused on me as he crossed the room.

Until they weren’t.

“Ssibal,” he barked out, stumbling for a moment before falling onto a sofa and clutching his foot.

Not looking where he was going, he’d walked straight into a metal equipment case. It was massive, and hard to miss, but he’d managed it.

Woojin snorted and clapped him on the back as he passed by, calling him a ‘pabo’.

I pinched my lips together as I watched in the mirror. He met my eyes for a moment before ducking his head. Not before I saw the bright pink tint to his cheeks.

Ace looked over at me, yanking his t-shirt up to cover his mouth as he slumped further down in his chair, shoulders shaking.

“Yah!” Jihoon called, throwing a towel at the back of Ace’s head.

I caught Ace’s eyes and we dissolved into giggles while Joon muttered darkly from across the room.

Chapter 24

April 19th

Chicago

The Chicago stop was proving to be a bit of an albatross – according to Jackson. Not only had some of the set pieces arrived broken and the group’s hotel details been leaked, but now apparently half of the merchandise for the pop-up stalls hadn’t arrived.

“How the hell do you know this stuff when even I don’t know about it?” I grumbled as we sat on the floor of one of the scaffold towers, overlooking the venue below, legs dangling off the sides as we leaned against the safety rails.

“Roadie gossip,” he said lightly, shaking his bag of sour sweets next to me.

I shoved my hand in the bag, grabbing a couple.

“You’re not one of us.” He threw a brightly-coloured sweet in his mouth, face pinching as the sour notes hit.

“The hell you mean I’m ‘not one of’ you?” I said incredulously, turning to look at him. “I’m not one of them –” I gestured below to where GVibes were currently moving about the stage while people put blocking markers down in white tape.

Jihoon kept looking up at me. I didn’t try to pretend I didn’t see. I looked right back at him.

He still hadn’t messaged me, but then I hadn’t messaged him. The impasse felt like an awkward silence. My face twisted, only partially because of the sour sweets.

“No,” Jackson conceded as he chewed thoughtfully, “but you’re not quite down here in the trenches, either.”

“Neither of us is ‘down’ anywhere, Jackson. We’re both several metres off the ground,” I pointed out with a wry grin.

He rolled his eyes. “You hang around with the talent, Thompson,” he said, bumping his shoulder into mine.

I scoffed, tossing another sweet into my mouth.

“It’s true,” he insisted. “You go with them to the TV appearances, you’re on first-name terms. I know you’re not mates, or anything,” he scoffed, while I kept the neutral expression plastered to my face. “But still, you know more about them than any of us.” He shrugged. “It’s not a bad thing. It just means you’re not quite one of us. They’re nice enough lads, but there’s a line, you know? Them and us. They’re the clients,” he said, snapping his fingers as if the idea had just occurred to him. “We’re here doing a job, and they’re the clients. You don’t muck about with the client.”