Page 35 of When Worlds Collide
“TK has gone AWOL and Celine is positively spitting blood. She’s been a complete bitchface all week, but especially today, so something’s obviously going on.”
The news hit me like two punches to the gut. “What do you mean he’s gone ‘AWOL’?”
Pouring wine into her glass, Becka didn’t look up as she said, “Literally that. We’ve had to cancel or reschedule his bookings.” She picked up her glass and took a swallow. “And the chief has been in every day this week.”
Liam Fenway, the Chief Operations Officer that had come in specifically to fire me when I’d been caught with Jihoon.
I really didn’t want to care about Pisces business. I mean, I wasn’t even in the same country anymore. But, coupled with Jihoon’s hours of meetings with his company this week, it didn’t take a genius to figure out that something was occurring and it was a direct result of that one kiss.
“Oh, bloody hell,” I said, suddenly so tired of this shit.
“Tell me about it,” Becka sympathised.
“Do you know anything about what’s going on?” I was starting to get that familiar throbbing feeling behind my eye that usually happened when I was stressed.
“Probably less than you do,” Becka sighed before falling silent. I watched as she pushed her wine glass across the counter with her fingers, her mouth pulled down in an unhappy frown. I recognised that face.
“Becka, spit it out.” I already knew what was coming.
“Ky, is he worth-”
“Yes.” My response was immediate, cutting her off mid-question, but the brevity didn’t stop me from hearing the rest of the question that she barrelled on with, as though she hadn’t heard me.
“- because you know this isn’t where it ends. What happens when people find out?”
“We’ll deal with it,” I said tightly.
“Who? Because he has a whole team of managers and a global, billion-dollar company. Who’s behind you?”
“He is.”
But for just a second, I felt a tiny crack in my conviction, like a window that had been left open slightly, just enough that you can feel a cold breeze coming through. And it wasn’t because I didn’t believe in Jihoon, but if I couldn’t even convince Becka, how would we convince anyone else?
Becka was silent as she considered my response. I watched her think over my answer as I gave her the space to take in my words. This is how it always was with us. She’d get in her head about something and consider it from all the worst possible angels until she’d spill over with unsolicited advice. She knew she did it, and she was constantly apologising for it. But it came from a place of love, and though I hadn’t always known that, or been able to give her grace for it, I knew now it was because she cared more than her words implied.
Eventually, she looked back at the phone where I sat waiting for her.
“I’ve been paying attention, babes. I’ve seen how this usually goes for the women who date celebrities. Even other celebrities. It’s always worse for the women.”
I fought the urge to bite my nails, a nervous habit I was always trying to combat, and only sometimes succeeding.
“I know.” I admitted, I’d seen the same stories. They were everywhere – cautionary tales of two people who dared to be together, and it was almost always the woman who got the most criticism. The most scrutiny. The most hate. And while neither of us said it, it was especially true of the K-Pop industry.
Dating bans weren’t only to preserve the appearance of availability of the performer – it was also to protect them.
Seeing that I wasn’t going to offer any further response – what could I say? – Becka picked up her glass of wine and the phone, and I watched as she moved back over to the sofa.
“Next episode?” she asked, propping her phone up.
“Yup.” I reached for the remote and, signing into Netflix, clicked onto the next episode of Married at First Sight.
By mutual agreement, we put aside the things we could not change, and focused on the thing we could: catching up on our favourite show.
After Becka and I had finished catching up, she’d gone to bed, and I’d similarly retreated back to the comfy, massive bed Jihoon and I had shared for nearly a week. Except, instead of going for a nap, I’d dragged my laptop with me, intending to catch up on some industry news. Just because I wasn’t currently working in music, didn’t mean I didn’t want to stay involved, even if from a distance. I bookmarked a few articles I wanted to read later, just little things here-and-there that interested me, that I thought would perhaps make good blog subjects.
But, one errant click led to another, and suddenly, I’d managed to fall down an internet rabbit hole of clicking on one news article, then another, and another. There was some new kind of flu spreading around, and while it was currentlypredominantly in China, there was some speculation that the holiday season would spread it around.
I was all prepared to dismiss it, but the phrase ‘novel virus’ kept leaping off the page at me. I’d always liked history at school, and I remembered an obscure fact from when we’d briefly studied the Spanish influenza outbreak. This seemed to be a different kind of virus, but they’d called that virus ‘novel’ as well. For some reason, it stuck with me – the idea that there was a new virus out there, somewhere, that no one had any immunity to.
