Page 21 of When Worlds Collide
He held my gaze, but it seemed like couldn’t find the words. So I gave him some of mine.
“Ever since I arrived, it’s felt like you keep having to go and have meetings, and I get that, I do,” I was rushing my words because it felt like I had to get my point across. I needed to say this, so why did I feel like I was in the wrong?
I took a deep breath. “Yesterday, you left me outside the hotel.”
Jihoon opened his mouth, but I held up my hand. “No, give me a sec, just let me say this while I have the nerve.” A nerve that was currently at odds with an innate, awkward need to becompliant in the face of the uneven power dynamic I still felt in our relationship, despite all my attempts to banish it.
“I know you had to go to that meeting, I really do understand. But from my perspective, I’d just arrived in a foreign country, I’d just lost my job, I don’t know anyone here, and you pretty much just dropped me outside and left."
I paused, giving him time to jump in, but he just watched me, so I continued. “The worst thing isn’t that you did the same thing again this morning, it’s that you’re not talking to me about it.”
I swallowed hard past the lump in my throat and mentally pulled up my big-girl pants.
“You’re making me feel like an inconvenience. Like I’m a problem.”
The words slipped out before I could stop them. Words that echoed something I’d said to Jihoon so many months ago:
“I worry that I’ll be a problem for you.”
I’d voiced that very fear right at the beginning of our… 'situationship', but I’d never felt like it might be true. Until now. Saying it out loud made it real, and the truth of it terrified me.
Silence followed my words, a silence so dense it was like the vibrations in the air following the clang of a bell, reverberating in the space between our bodies.
Jihoon’s eyes were pinched, like he was struggling to focus on me. He let out a bone-weary sigh and dropped his head, his hair falling into his face.
“I’m sorry, jagiya. You’re not a problem. Never a problem. I’m just…” He sighed again, his whole body tense with his ragged exhalation. “I’m so tired of explaining our relationship.”
I startled at that, my fingers freezing where they had been running across his forearms. I stayed silent, allowing him to collect his thoughts without interruption.
“The company – Youngsoo told them what happened in LA –”
He was talking about when Celine – the administration lead of Pisces – and Trevor Kyle had walked in on Jihoon and I kissing.
“He had to.” Jihoon lifted his head to meet my eyes, and I saw the slightest hint of shadows in them. “Now the company has questions.”
“About me?”
“Not so much about you…” He closed his eyes briefly. “About us. When we met, how long we’ve been together, when we see each other…”
His jaw clenched and it wasn’t hard to see the distaste he felt at this intrusion. I wasn’t sure how to feel.
“I guess they would have found out eventually,” I offered, trying to shrug off the uneasy feeling that had fallen into my gut. “But you’re allowed to date, right? So what’s the problem?”
“I am ‘allowed’,” he said, his mouth twisting around the word like it tasted bad. “But that doesn’t mean they want me to.”
I tried not to flinch. “Okay,” I said slowly, “so is it just that they’re pissed we’re together? I get that it doesn’t fit their ideal ‘available idol’ aesthetic,” I said, releasing Jihoon’s arms to make jabby little air-quotes. “But it’s not like we’re going down the street and making out in the K-Mart.”
Jihoon smirked and looked up at me, his eyes flicking down to my lips.
“Stow it, lover-boy.” I pressed a finger to his lips when he opened his mouth. He pressed a kiss to my fingertip, which very nearly made me forget what I was going to say.
“Are you in trouble?” I asked, frankly.
Jihoon shoved his hands in his pockets. “No. Yesterday, when I left you –” he winced, “we spent a long time talking about you, and me. They are not pleased, but it’s not against the rules and I told them we weren’t going to go public.”
I fought to keep my face neutral, to not betray the complicated way I felt.
“They accepted it.” He shrugged. “But then they found out about the video. Before that, it was just an annoyance for them.”
