Page 106 of When Worlds Collide
“Ky…”
His chin wobbled, and I gasped on the edge of a sob barely held together.
“I – I can’t be without you again.”
His head dropped as if holding it up were too much of a burden.
“I won’t. I already told Director Kang that you’re coming.”
I froze, still in the motion of reaching my other hand up to touch his chest.
“You-what?”
He brought his head up just enough to hold my gaze, even as his newly-dyed blue hair fell into his eyes. “I need you. I told her you were coming.”
“Just like that?” I hardly dared to breathe.
He smiled, a tremulous hint of dimples teasing at the edge of his lips.
“Well, there were a few more words.”
“I’m coming with you?”
My heart thumped so hard I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d heard it.
He nodded, carefully watching my expression.
There was no thought. One moment I was standing in front of him, the next I had launched myself at him.
“Oof,” he grunted, barely catching me as my legs wound tightly around his hips, and his hands cupped my ass. I twined my arms around his neck as I unashamedly sobbed into his warm skin.
“Is that a ‘yes’?” He gasped and I loosened my arms. Slightly.
I couldn’t speak, I could barely breathe through the cries. Jihoon rubbed soothing circles into my back with one hand as he patted my backside with the other, eliciting a wet laugh from me.
He’d told Director Kang, before even asking if I wanted to come, and maybe that should have bothered me, that he’d made the choice for me, but honestly all I felt was... chosen. He hadn’t taken the choice from me; he’d made it for us.
When he’d asked me to come to Korea, it had been me, moving for him, but this – bringing me with him on tour, it was because he couldn’t be without me and this time he was moving with me. It felt huge.
Ever since then, we’d made plans for what we’d do in each city we visited. Some of it was pure fallacy. I mean, no way would we get enough time together to see half the stuff we wanted to, but the dream was something that brought me joy. It would not be a holiday, though. I would be working the entire time we were travelling, and Jihoon even more so.
I was going to be joining other, more experienced techs and roadies. Normally, junior assistants didn’t travel, let alone join the world tours, but I was the exception and in this, I couldn’t bring myself to give a shit that I was being singled out for special treatment. In this, I would not prioritise how I felt about that, over how I felt about him.
He came first.
Chapter 33
“Urgh, turnitthefuckoff,” I whined, protesting the loud, shrill noise that cracked through the still morning air.
Jihoon groaned behind me, rolling over to slap at the bedside table where the offending item – his phone – was howling.
Grimacing, I lifted my wrist to look at my watch – 4:12 am on a Sunday morning. That person better have a good fucking reason for waking us up.
Behind me, Jihoon grunted something into the phone, and I listened with half an ear, trying to pick out the individual words I recognised from my Korean classes. I was progressing about as well as could be expected, apparently. My tutor certainly wasn’t the kind of person to blow smoke up my ass, so compliments were few and far between.
I would have drifted back off to sleep, had the silence behind me not taken on the kind of stillness you hear just before a fallen glass shatters on the floor.
“Ne,” he kept repeating – yes in Korean – but it sounded like an automatic response, rather than that he was agreeing with the caller. Then, “Ssibal!” He bit the curse out so viciously it sounded like he’d gnashed his teeth.
