Page 116 of When Worlds Collide
She returned my grin, reminding me again of a piranha. “Oh, I’ll get it out of you. Eventually.”
“That’s it,” I sighed, leaning my head back to rest on Jihoon’s knee. He sat behind me on the sofa, while I was on the floor between his legs. “My visa application is formally submitted.”
It had been thirty days of continuous employment with ENT, which was the minimum time necessary to request my employer file for my working visa.
Jihoon rubbed my shoulders, which always seemed to ache these days. I’d actually gained some muscle definition from all the manual labour, and running around I did. I closed my eyes, giving myself over to the sensation of his warm hands working the knots from my shoulders.
One very unexpected, but delightful side effect of how hard the guys worked was that not only did they get regular physiotherapy and sports massages, but they’d also learned how to give massages, just in case they ever needed to.
I’d learned from Seokmin that Woojin often got bad cramps in his calves, and apparently Jihoon was the best at getting them out.
I didn’t need a massage to tell me how good Jihoon was with his hands; I knew that from many, many personal experiences.
“What’s that smile for?” Jihoon murmured, leaning over me to press a soft kiss to my forehead.
“Just thinking,” I said on the back of a groan as his skilled hands worked knots from my tired shoulders.
“Hmm,” his voice rumbled in the way that I liked, “looks like dirty thoughts.”
I didn’t deny it.
“You’ve worked hard. You deserve a treat.”
And with no other warning, he scooped me up as easily as if I were a doll, carrying me away from the sofa and towards the bedroom.
“Jihoon,” I giggled, clasping my arms tightly around his neck, “my Visa application-”
“Will take time to process,” he pressed a kiss to my jaw. “Let me distract you while we wait.”
I laughed as he kicked the door to the bedroom shut behind us, but didn’t protest again.
By the next morning, I’d received an email from the office of Director Kang to confirm my Visa application had been processed, and to await the decision from the immigration office. I read the email twice, fluttering excitement filling me with something that felt suspiciously like hope.
Chapter 36
Weeks passed until eventually it seemed that people had moved on from the footage leak. The online sphere seemed to have settled into an acceptance of the theory that Jihoon was currently seeing someone, and most news sources had now moved onto speculating who it was.
The main story they’d initially run with was that it had been someone working for Pisces. Becka had confirmed they’d received countless press inquiries. People had even been lining up on the street outside the building, taking pictures of people as they went in and out. Eventually, they’d had to call the police to cordon off the building.
“It was a total shit show,” Becka moaned late one evening, mouth full of spaghetti.
“People kept stopping our engineers in the street, asking who had 'assaulted' Jihoon.”
“Assaulted!” I cried, appalled at the idea.
Becka just rolled her eyes. “Tell me about it. We got so many social media comments from people saying that no way would Jihoon willingly kiss some random worker, so he must have been assaulted.”
I was speechless. I didn’t know whether to be insulted or amused. Both, I think.
“Little do they know.” She waggled her eyebrows at me.
“You’ve got sauce on your chin.” I’d pointed out.
The most popular theory was, of course, Lee Hyejin. It wasn’t helped by the fact that PYT had no public performances in the week of the time-stamped footage, so publicly it couldn’t be ruled out.
ENT were choosing not to address this rumour to confirm or deny. For some, this was tantamount to a confirmation of the identity of the woman on the tape, and as was to be expected, Lee Hyejin was taking some hits because of it. Interestingly though, their latest album had well over-sold what had been expected of them, and their streaming records had earned them a double platinum. Although to be fair, their new song was very catchy. Even I had to begrudgingly admit to the brilliance of the arrangement. The scandal helped, there was no doubt about that, but it would have done well in any case.
It made me feel entirely too cynical to see how well PYT and GVibes were doing off the back of the rumour, and yet how poorly Lee Hyejin was being treated as a result.
