Page 103 of A World Apart
We lapsed into silence again, the jets of the tub being the only sound for so long I wondered if he’d fallen asleep. But then I saw him reach for his bottle again, and I decided to ask the thing that had been in the back of my mind for a while, something that felt like it might shift our… ‘situationship’ one way or the other.
I cleared my throat and tried to ignore the way my pulse thumped against my throat.
“Joon?”
He turned to look at me and opened his mouth, and then closed it again, a line appearing between his eyebrows.
“It must be serious if you’re calling me ‘Joon,’” he quipped.
“I call you ‘Joon,’ sometimes,” I muttered, eyes downward.
Jihoon slid towards me until he was right in front of me, one elbow leaning on the edge of the tub, holding his head, his intense stare focused entirely on me.
“What is it?”
“It’s not a big deal…” I bit my lip.
“Kaiya.”
“I was just wondering… if you’d told the other members, you know, about me. About… Us.” I couldn’t bring myself to look up at him, but with him being so close, that limited my options to either pointedly ignoring him by looking at the sky, or fixing my eyes on his pectorals. Which were very nice and in any other circumstances…
So instead, I pretended to scan the sky for… birds? Planes? Courage, a heart or a brain?
Jihoon gently pinched my chin and brought my face back down until he was looking in my eyes.
“Is this what you’ve been worried about? If you’re my secret?”
Well, when he put it like that…
“I would understand if you hadn’t told them, I mean, it’s not like you can announce-”
“They know.” He cut me off. “They’ve known for a while.”
My heart skipped a beat, my chin trembled, and I wondered if he could feel it under his fingers. He held my gaze for several more seconds before he nodded to himself, released my chin and unexpectedly stood, water sluicing off himas he climbed out of the tub while I sat there, cocking my head like a confused pigeon to see him exit the hot tub.
“Wait, where are you going?” I cried.
“Be right back,” he tossed over his shoulder before jogging towards the house. I watched him re-enter through the French windows, the gauzy curtain billowing around him before resettling.
I ran through our brief conversation, trying to find hints of what could have possibly just occurred, but I came up blank. He hadn’t seemed upset...
I didn’t have to sit there confused for long though, as barely a couple of minutes later, Jihoon re-emerged from the house, striding purposefully towards me. He climbed back into the tub, sitting so close to me that his slick skin brushed against mine, raising goosebumps in the wake.
“Where did you go?” I tried very hard not to sound as confused as I felt.
“I wanted to get this.” He held up a small, wooden box with a metal clasp, making sure to keep it above the bubbling water.
I stared at the box for a long moment, ice cubes slipping into my stomach just as my rational brain was panic-pressing the ‘do not panic’ klaxon.
It was a small box, but it wasn’t small enough. It’s absolutely not what it looks like.
“What’s this?” My voice was a breath above a whisper as I looked into his eyes, trying to gauge his expression, but he just smiled enigmatically at me.
“Open it.”
I lifted shaking hands to the tiny, silver clasp holding the two halves of the box together and flipped it open. I took a breath before I lifted the lid, almost flinching as it opened easily.
One half of my brain translated the image in front of me, while the other half tried to interpret the meaning of it.
