Page 111 of When Worlds Collide
If Jihoon was in a relationship, he would tell us!"
My mouth twisted as I read one particular comment that stood out to me, almost immediately followed up by derisive replies.
Lol! Look at the way the crowds are treating HIM – how do you think they would treat her?AndWould you want your partner to go through that? Smdh some Vibers don't know how to behave. Keeping her a secret is protecting her.
Comments flew in under a video of Jihoon going through Incheon airport. He'd been mobbed – there was no other word for it. Even his security had struggled to hold people back. Usually, fans were pretty polite when going to see idols at the airport. But not this time. My blood had run cold watching those clips. His distress was plain to see in the way his shoulders were hunched, his eyes downcast. I wondered how he endured it.
Questions were screamed at him from people crowding into the bubble of space his team attempted to create around him. They followed him all the way through the airport, as far as security, but even then they hovered at the partitions, hurling words at him like projectiles until he was finally able to escape into the area beyond.
I hadn't known about any of this until Hana showed me, later that morning, as we took the Hellevator downstairs.
"I don't know what he expected," she smirked around a mouthful of apple.
"No one deserves that," I snapped. I hadn't intended to reply, but the words were out of my mouth before I could think better of rising to the bait.
"Maybe not," she conceded, "but it's the price you pay for being a celebrity." She shrugged.
I gaped at her, even though this wasn't the first time she'd displayed such callousness towards celebrities. "They're all grown men, why shouldn't they be allowed partners?"
"Because they belong to the fans," Hana replied nonchalantly, chewing her apple. "Don't get pissy at me, England. It is how it is."
"How it is, is bullshit." I muttered, folding my arms around myself to disguise the way I felt my body trembling.
I'd meant that to be the end of the conversation, but Hana continued.
"You don't get it because you're not from here."
I opened my mouth, but she held up her hand.
"I don't just mean Korea – I mean thisworld. You think you know this industry because you like K-pop? You don't. I'm not trying to be mean, you just don't get it. You see everything through a certain lens. You don't understand that not everything fits into your worldview. You can say it's 'bullshit', and yeah, maybe it is. But it's the way it is. Who's gonna change it? You?" She scoffed.
Just then, the doors slid open, depositing us in the warehouse.
"This is why I'm gonna be an amazing manager," Hana said, sauntering through the doors, throwing me a look over her shoulder. "Because I do get it, and I'm not afraid of the way this world works."
Becka
Are you ok?
Sent 20:21
What could I possibly say to that? ‘Yes’ would be a lie. ‘No’ wouldn’t be quite right either. I was sitting upstairs in the apartment Joon shared with the two youngest members. Lee and Ace were making a good production of pretending ‘the big bad’ wasn’t unfolding online right this moment. They'd come round just after I'd gotten home – on Joon's orders, I suspected – to invite me upstairs and keep me company.
I’d done the thing I wasn’t supposed to do: I’d gone online – briefly – to make sure no one was constructing any gallows. Honestly, I had been surprised at the overwhelming amount of support there had been. Most people had fallen firmly – andloudly – into the camps of ‘he’s a grown man’, and ‘he’s allowed to date’. Which had been so encouraging, and so unexpected, that I’d had to quickly excuse myself into Jihoon’s bedroom to catch my breath very quickly, and very quietly. The relief was so powerful I’d been inconsolable for several minutes, before I was able to pull myself back together, to stuff all the bits back in that had come pouring out of me.
But of course, not all were so supportive. A lot of people were pointing the finger at the girl – me. ‘She’ must have seduced him, ‘she’ is only using him for fame (ha!), ‘she’ must be an American, which made ‘her’ easy. Various other comments like that had me swiftly closing the apps, berating myself, because what had I expected? I was pleased that Jihoon was coming out of this largely unscathed. For my part, I was disappointed, but not surprised to see that I was being made out to be some villainous harlot. It wasn’t even so much that I was being labelled as this, or that; it was the fact that I was being proved correct in my assessment that the women in these situations often had it far worse.
Because I was effectively anonymous, I had been able to emotionally detach myself from the situation… mostly. In a way, it made it easier. Because netizens were calling someone else a whore. Not me. They were threatening some poor, unsuspecting slut. Not me.
So, even if the comments did make my stomach twist, it wasn’t about me. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
So, no. I didn’t know how to respond to Becka. I tapped out a brief reply, then put the phone on the bed beside me, heart much too full, while the rest of me felt empty.
Me
I’m fine.
Chapter 35
