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“Fucking wonderful,” I muttered, squeezing my eyes shut.

“Hmm? What was that?”

“Nothing, nothing,” I sighed, sitting up straight. “I’m gonna sit out there,” I said, waving my hand at the seating beyond the glass doors. I got up before she could say anything and walked through the suite to sit out on the balcony, looking down on the stadium pitch, grateful for the noise of the crowd below to drown out the sound of my own internal monologue.

When the concert started, everyone came to sit on the balcony, and I had to pretend all over again that I wasn’t acutely aware of just who was in that group. She was impossible to miss, or perhaps that was a me problem, because I couldn’t seem to keep my eyes off her.

She was just as stunning as I remembered from when I had last seen her. In a dance studio at ENT all those years ago. Looking at Lee Hyejin made me so aware of all the flaws I had. My skin wasn’t nearly so dewy, my hair certainly didn’t bounce like that, my makeup skills were rudimentary at best, and frankly my body simply did not move in the effortless way hers seemed to. I was a smart, funny, successful woman, but when comparing myself to someone like Lee Hyejin, I felt… average. I hated feeling like that, and I hated that I couldn’t seem to stop myself.

I blew out a breath and folded my arms, forcing myself to stop looking.

Or, tried to. It was on one such instance where I ‘tried’ to stop looking that I noticed she was inexplicably staring at me. For the first time, I caught her eye, and I didn’t know what I expected – some form of animosity? A complete unawareness of my existence? What I hadn’t expected was the obvious curiosity. If I was staring at her with something in the vicinity of envy, she was staring at me with an expression of speculation.

I’d never really considered the possibility that she knew who I was, but it seemed clear that she did.

We held this staring match for longer than was polite, until a group of people walked between us, breaking the connection.

It didn’t matter that I couldn’t see her. I knew she was there. My thumbnail was bitten down to the quick by the midway point of the concert.

Even though I knew now that everything between her and Jihoon had been manufactured – choreographed as a means to an end – I couldn’t not see the photos of them in the airport, holding hands in a way that screamed to the world they were in a relationship. Something we could never have done.

It didn’t even matter that I knew she had a boyfriend.

She’d had a side of Jihoon I never could have, and even if they’d been fake, they’d still spent time together. Talked, shared stories, comforted each other over the things they’d had to endure because of who they were.

Maybe more. I hadn’t asked.

The thought ate at me.

May 26th

The second leg of the Reset Tour had formally come to an end. Tonight was the celebratory team meal and I couldn’t skip it, although I’d spent longer than I should have trying to think of reasons not to go.

The entire group was flying out of Brazil in the morning to head back to Korea for a brief break, before the third leg of the tour in Australia in just under two weeks.

I would be flying back to the UK to stay with my parents.

I was just sending my dad my flight information when the bus pulled up outside the restaurant. I shoved my phone in my pocket and followed everyone off the bus. The restaurant was more like a banquet hall, and it was absolutely packed with people from all parts of the tour. GVibes were seated on a large table off to the side, while everyone else was scattered throughout the space.

I saw Jackson waving at me, and I took a seat next to him, grateful to have avoided the school lunchtime awkwardness of trying to find someone to sit next to. As the tour went on, I’d seen more and more the way that groups had formed. It was just the natural order of things, it seemed. Engineers sat with engineers, dancers with dancers, techies with techies, that sort of thing.

Me? I was the journalist who bumbled around with a notebook in one hand, watching what everyone was up to. Sure, I could – and did – hang around with the media team, but we were a small crowd, and not really integrated all that much – as Jackson had pointed out.

I was on the fringes of the tour. I didn’t help carry equipment boxes, I didn’t wire the venue, I didn’t organise the wardrobes. I wasn’t a part of the team that made the tour move. I was just sort of there.

Everyone was chattering, excited, happy, and I tried to go with it. I talked to Jackson, but even he had found his place in the group, bridging the language gap with his vast personality and he didn’t need to rely on me anymore.

I felt alone. Even in this room full of people.

Maybe especially in this room full of people.

The group were directly opposite from where I sat. I had met Ace’s eyes a couple of times, and he’d given me a few smiles. I had also caught Jihoon looking at me on more than one occasion, and maybe it was petty, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. Looking at him made me see her, and I would be the first to admit that I was not always emotionally mature enough to separate the person from the pain.

I felt the weight of his stare on me the entire night. It grew heavier as the night wore on, and by the time the meal ended, and all the drinks had been drunk, I was relieved when we filed onto the buses and back to the hotel for our last night in São Paulo.

I was looking forward to going home. Being somewhere that felt like home. Somewhere I didn’t have to worry about constantly running into the one person I simultaneously didn’t want to and was desperate to see.

Somewhere I could breathe.