Page 63 of When Worlds Collide
“Kaiya wanted to see if we live like animals or humans.” Jihoon shrugged when I gaped up at him, but Seokmin only laughed.
“Come and see,” he turned around and beckoned for me to follow, which I did, with Jihoon close behind me, like he was also getting the tour.
Aside from the three bedroom doors leading off from the wide corridor, the rest of the apartment seemed to have the same layout as Kyungsoo’s. The kitchen was a little bigger, with room enough for a small dining table and four chairs.
“Sungmin-hyung is with Woojin and Minjae,” Seokmin explained as we made our way into the living room. It was also painted white, but unlike Kyungsoo’s apartment, the walls were plastered with various colourful posters. Posters of anime shows, tour posters, even a map of the London Underground. It was giving off student dorm room vibes, and I said as much to Jihoon, who laughed.
“When we lived in the dorm, we didn’t have the money to decorate, so instead we would buy pictures from the different places we visited. I bought the London subway picture in September.”
From when GVibes had performed at the Hyde Park festival. I smiled wryly, remembering how I’d bunked off work to stay home and watch it from the comfort of my couch in LA. It seemed like a whole world apart from where I was now.
Walking around the apartment, I had to concede that it was, in fact, not a cave occupied by trolls. It was surprisingly clean, not a single errant sock to be found. I was just commenting thisto Jihoon, when Seokmin’s phone rang. He picked it up with a chirpy, “Yeobosayo?”
From the immediate way he looked at me, I had to figure whoever was on the other end had something to do with me, and I narrowed my eyes even as a trickle of apprehension went through me. Jihoon had also stopped to listen and, as he understood what Seokmin was saying, I watched his expression. When Seokmin turned to him to ask him something, he held up a hand before moving back to my side.
“Woojin and Minjae want to come and meet you. It’s okay if you don’t want to. They’re not that interesting, anyway. We can bail, if you want to.” I laughed, whilst also feeling a by-now familiar swell of affection as he put my feelings first, even as he tried to brush it off.
“It’s fine. I mean, I’ve met three of you, I might as well collect the whole set.”
Seokmin, having understood my answer, relayed this information into the phone before hanging up.
“They only live ten minutes away,” he said. And I wasn’t surprised by this information. After it came out that Jihoon lived a few floors up from Kyungsoo, he’d told me Minjae and Woojin lived close by as well. Back in LA, he’d told me they all lived in Hannam-dong, but it hadn’t really registered that they all lived within minutes of each other.
I wondered what I would choose to do, if I’d had to live for years with a group of friends, and then I suddenly had enough money to get my own place. Would I also want to stay close, or would I spread further out? It was such a weird dynamic, if you stopped to think about it. The members had lived for years in a small dorm, sharing rooms, and then they’d become so successful they could afford to buy their own places, but they’d basically just moved into bigger, nicer dorms.
In order to distract myself from the thought that I was about to be surrounded by GVibes, I snooped around the apartment, which is how I came to find the ‘ramyeon cupboard’.
“Holy hell,” I half-muttered, half-laughed as I saw dozens upon dozens of neatly stacked and colourful tubs and foil packets, all brands and flavours.
“Do you want some ramyeon noona?” Seokmin surprised me, coming up behind me while I gawked at the open cupboard, more well-stocked than the 7-11 downstairs.
“She’s not your ‘noona’, ‘dongsaeng’”. Jihoon gave Seokmin a light slap to the back of the head, earning him an outraged look from Seokmin, while I quickly turned back around to hide my grin.
“No, thank you.” I said to him politely as I closed the cupboard and moved away.
Jihoon’s room was in some ways everything I would expect it to be. A masterclass in matching black leather and shiny chrome; basically, the basic-bitch of yuppy boy chic.
Against one wall was a massive desk, dominated by two curved monitors, positioned just-so, and littered around the desk was a veritable plethora of high-end gaming accessories.
“I expected you to have a studio set up in here,” I commented to Jihoon as I passed by the desk, running my fingers over the back of the red and black gaming chair.
“I have a private studio at the company,” he replied. “I can’t do that here. I like privacy.”
I looked back over at him, noting the way his eyes followed me as I made my way around his room. On the windowsill he had a collection of Funko Pops, and though I knew they were characters from a game, I couldn’t place which one. One of them had long, cerulean hair and pink eyes. I idly picked it up, running my fingers over it.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” I said quietly, flicking my eyes over to Jihoon, who had moved from where he leaned up against the door frame, watching me.
“I’m thinking about how I’ve never had a girl in my room before.”
His words momentarily surprised me. “Never?”
“No.”
“What about those girls you told me about?” It was an effort to keep my voice neutral. “The trainees?”
Jihoon scoffed, pushing himself away from the door frame as he walked towards me.
“I couldn’t exactly bring a girl back to a dorm I shared with four other boys.”
