Page 19 of A World Apart
“Yes.” He replied, frowning.
But a couple of minutes and some tentative strumming later, we were done.
I strummed a few chords, just to make sure. The sound out of this thing was honestly such a treat, I couldn’t help myself.
Smiling slyly, I looked up at Jihoon from underneath my lashes, waiting to see his reaction. I was a handful of bars in before he noticed and laughed.
“Broken Promise?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.
I looked back down at my fingers, tapping my foot in time with the beat I could hear in my head. “It’s your song — you tell me.” I quirked the corner of my lips in a half-smile.
“You asked me before,” he said, his gaze shifting to the instrument in his hands, “if I ever get homesick. I do, but not for Seoul. I grew up in Busan.” He paused, his fingers brushing over the strings. “I miss Busan. I wrote this song about what I thought my life was going to be — back when I lived there. Before I moved to Seoul. Before GVibes.”
I froze mid-strum. I hadn’t known he’d written ‘Broken Promise,’ much less the reason behind it. Hearing him talk about why he wrote it struck a chord deep within me. It felt like a parallel to my own feelings — those quiet, bittersweet aches I sometimes felt, when I let myself think too deeply.
Something shifted inside me, an unseen string between us.
I was so distracted that I didn’t realize I’d started playing the intro over again until Jihoon slid his fingers up the strings.
He counted himself in by tapping his fingers on the body of the ‘Bird before picking up the tune with me. He strummed for a bit and then started to quietly sing along, taking over all of the other vocal line parts and turning the solo into an acoustic performance.
The smile on my face was so wide, it almost hurt.
It wasn’t to last.
We played our way through 'Broken Promise', 'Basket Case' by Green Day, and were half-way through the introduction to Metallica’s 'Enter Sandman' when his manager, Youngsoo, came looking for him.
Jihoon knelt in front of my chair as he carefully put away the guitar, looking up at me to smile as he zipped up the bag.
Holy hell. Everyone always talks about dimples being this amazing feature and I never really cared for them, but when this boy in front of me smiled at me and I saw those dimples… my breath literally caught in my chest. I bit my lip. I knew I was doing it, just like I knew my eyelids lowered slightly at the same time. I know what this look on my face felt like.
The sight of Jihoon on his knees in front of me sent me somewhere and by the assessing look on his face, he knew it too. I tried to rein it in, but it was an effort.
After an eternity, he rose to his considerable full height. He placed the guitar carefully on the table against the far wall and moved to the door, where Youngsoo stood waiting, hopefully oblivious to the exchange we’d just had. Or, at least I’d had.
Jihoon put one hand on the door frame and turnedback to look at me.
“Thank you for the fun,” he said, smiling at me. It wasn’t a small, shy smile, nor was it that big, famous smile. This was a different one altogether; it was one that made me tuck my leg tighter over the other and made my fingers clench around the neck of the guitar I held.
Holy hell.
Chapter 8
Ididn’t see Jihoon again for the rest of Friday. Work kept me running around all day, I didn’t even have time to troll past Studio 3, hoping for a sneaky glance in through the port window.
Except for the very end of the day.
Becka and I were both late leaving.
Me, because I’d gone practically blind trying to make out the tiny writing on packs of switches.
Becka because she was on the phone arguing with someone fromThe LA Sun.
It had been well after 6:00 by the time we made our way across the lobby. The glass doors to Pisces are polarised, which is why I hadn’t seen the black SUV parked up at the kerb outside until the doors slid open as we approached.
Which is about the same moment Jihoon looked over his shoulder, standing in the open door of the SUV, aboutto climb in.
His bodyguard − Eun, I’d learned − and Youngsoo were standing on either side of him, effectively blocking him from being seen on either side of the sidewalk, but it was a clear visual between where he stood and where I emerged from Pisces.
