Page 100 of XOXO

Gi Taek: AJA! AJA!

Angela: JENNY! Fighting!

Sori: Get your man!

I check the time on my phone. It’s 7:40, which means XOXO goes on in twenty minutes.

I try to call Jaewoo but his phone must be turned off because it goes straight to voicemail.

Hurriedly, I text Nathaniel, who I haven’t contacted since the night Jaewoo and I broke up:

I’m at Madison Square Garden. Is there any way you could get me inside?

Even with twenty minutes to showtime, there’s a huge lineoutside the stadium, slowly pouring through the doors where staff are checking tickets and guards are checking bags.

Without a ticket, I’ll never get in.

I open my phone to call Nathaniel and it immediately powers down. I was so exhausted from traveling last night that I forgot to charge it.

I estimate around fifteen minutes until showtime. Or at least, when they’re scheduled to start. If this concert is anything like 95D’s concert in Seoul, it won’t begin on time.

I circle around the building, looking out for something, anything.

There! A side area cordoned off with a single guard. Visible behind the rope is a door, a separate entrance for the road crew.

I hurry over.

The guard, a burly Latino guy with a beard eyes me with suspicion. “The line for entry is on the other side of the building.”

“I need to see XOXO.”

“Yeah, you and the twenty thousand other people.”

“No, like, Iknowthem. I’m a classmate.”

“Sure you are.”

“Seriously, ask Nam Ji Seok. He’s their manager.”

“Nice try. Now if you’d step back...”

No, this can’t be how it ends, foiled by a security guard. My eyes dart behind him.

I can’t give upnow. I need to see Jaewoo, to tell him that I’m sorry, that I was wrong and afraid and...

“Jenny?”

Someone approaches from behind the security guard from where they exited another one of those sleek black vans. My heart lifts, then immediately sinks.

It’s Sun.

“What are you doing here?” he asks. He’s already dressed to go on stage, in a sparkling dark-blue jacket that probably cost a million dollars, his long hair falling elegantly over his shoulders. He’s absolutely beautiful, and the last person I wanted to see.

“I came to see Jaewoo.”

“Ah.” He bites his lip, and I can see him thinking.

“I know you don’t like me,” I blurt out, and he raises a single, well-groomed eyebrow. “I know you think I’ll only distract Jaewoo, that his career will suffer from being with me. But I think you’re wrong. Jaewoo can’t help taking care of people—he’s too good-hearted—but he doesn’t have to take care of me. Because the truth is, I don’t need him. I have a whole life that’s separate from his. But I stillwantto be with him. I want to be there for him when he’s unhappy just as much as I want to be there for him when he’s happy. Though I hope he’s never unhappy because it physically hurts when he’s unhappy, you know?”

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