Page 107 of K-Pop Double Life

“Then we survive this,” he said.

I wanted to believe him because Aidan and Liam were good at what they did. Because Jason had doubled security. Because Starhouse was taking the threats seriously.

There were still two and a half days until World Cup Stadium. Two days should have felt like time.

Instead, it felt like a countdown.

42

FAMILY DINNER

JIN — SEOUL

As we drew close to the hotel, I turned to Sang-hoon. “I want you to come to dinner with my parents tonight.”

For a moment he just stared at me.

“Joon-hi-ah...”

His voice had gone rough.

“What?”

He looked away first. “You know what.”

I did. Meeting my parents wasn’t just dinner. It wasn’t another security briefing or another stop on the tour. It was an invitation across a line we’d spent years pretending didn’t exist.

“Before Cannes I thought I might die without ever telling you how I felt. Two days from now someone may try again.” I took his hand. “If I’m introducing the most important people in my life to each other, I’m not waiting any longer.”

Sang-hoon stared down at our joined hands.

“Your parents already know I’m your stylist. Your mother already treats me like family whenever we meet. How are we going to tell them things have changed?”

“I don’t think we’ll have to tell them,” I said. “I think they’ll see right away.”

Neither of us had been allowed to say what we felt for each other out loud. But over the course of the tour, I’d learned that everyone close to us had been able to see our connection, even before we told them. My parents would be the same way.

Sang-hoon and I dropped our bags in the room Sun-hee-noona had booked for us, and then a Starhouse limousine took us to my parents’ apartment in time for a late dinner.

The building was the same one I’d grown up in—modest, aging, in a neighborhood that hadn’t quite caught up to Seoul’s rapid development. But my parents had moved to a bigger unit on a higher floor, one with a balcony and a view of the city.

Paid for with my success. With the money I sent them every month from tour earnings and endorsement deals.

The elevator still made that particular grinding sound on the way up, the hallway still smelled faintly of the neighbor’s cooking, and the brass number on my parents’ door was slightly crooked, the way it had been since they moved in and my father had tried to fix it and made things worse.

My mother answered before I could knock.

She’d heard the elevator. She always did.

She pulled me in by the arms the way she had since I had grown too tall to be picked up, and I let her, pressing my face into her shoulder and breathing in lavender soap and the garlic she’d been cooking with and something underneath both of those that I couldn’t name but recognized immediately as home. For a moment I forgot everything except that I was here and she was real and her hands were on my back the way they’d been after every hard thing in my life.

“Joon-hi-ah,” she said into my hair. “You’re too thin. Are they not feeding you on tour?”

“I’m fine, Eomma.”

She pulled back to look at me the way she always did—cataloging, assessing, deciding for herself whether my answer was accurate. Then she saw Sang-hoon behind me.

She wagged her finger at him. “Sang-hoon-ah! Aren’t you supposed to be looking after him?”