Page 109 of K-Pop Double Life

Because if I said it, they’d try to stop me. And I couldn’t be stopped. Not now.

Instead I said, “I love you both. I don’t say that enough. But I need you to know that everything I’ve done, everything I am. It’s because you always believed in me.”

My mother reached across the table and took my hand. “Joon-hi-ah. What’s wrong?” Her voice had gone careful. “You sound like you’re saying goodbye.”

She’d always been able to do that. Cut through whatever I was performing and find what was underneath it.

“I’m not. I just—” The lie arrived smoothly, years of practice making it easy. “I’m grateful. That’s all. I don’t say it enough.”

She studied me for a moment, not quite satisfied. Then she squeezed my hand and let it go.

My father was watching me with that other look. The one that said he knew I wasn’t telling the whole truth and had decided to let me keep it for now, because he trusted I had my reasons. He’d been giving me that look since I was seventeen. He’d been right to trust me, most of the time.

I hoped he was right this time too.

“Is there something you’re not telling us?” he asked. “I saw the limousine waiting outside, the driver leaning on the car and looking all around, instead of smoking like he always did before. And the bodyguards you mentioned. You never had them before.”

“Just being careful. After Cannes, Starhouse wants to make sure we’re protected.”

“But you’re safe? You’re okay?”

“I’m okay, Appa. I promise.”

He looked at me for one more moment. Then he nodded, and reached for more fruit, and changed the subject to the new elevator the owners’ board had finally approved. “Your father is on the council now,” my mother said proudly. “Maybe president next year.”

I let the mundane conversation wash over me and tried to breathe. Sang-hoon’s foot pressed against mine under the table. Just resting there. Not a signal, not a message. Just I’m here.

Two hours later, standing in the doorway as we were leaving, my mother held on a little longer than usual.

“We’ll be there Tuesday,” she said. “Front row, cheering the loudest.”

“I’ll look for you,” I said. “I’ll look for you right away.”

I meant it as a promise. I said it like one.

She kissed my cheek, and then she held my face in both hands the way she’d done since I was a child. That gesture had always meant let me see you, let me actually see you. She looked at me for a long moment without speaking.

“You’re happy,” she said finally. Not a question.

“Yeah,” I said. “I am.”

She let go. “Good. That’s all we’ve ever wanted.”

In the elevator on the way down, Sang-hoon and I stood side by side without speaking. The grinding sound on the way up had been a familiar irritant. Going down it was something I wanted to memorize.

The driver was waiting. We got in.

I lasted about three blocks before the tears arrived—quietly, the way I’d learned to cry during years when I couldn’t let anyone see. Sang-hoon didn’t say anything. He just shifted so I could lean against him, and put his arm around me, and let me cry in the dark of the backseat while Seoul moved past the windows.

“She called you happy,” he said after a while.

“She’s right.” I wiped my face with the back of my hand. “She’s completely right.”

We rode in silence the rest of the way. At some point his hand found mine and stayed there.

My parents would be at World Cup Stadium on Tuesday, front row, proud of everything their son had become. They didn’t know there was a woman in Seoul planning to make sure Tuesday was the last time they’d ever see him perform.

They’d believed in me since I was seven years old. They’d mortgaged years of their lives on the chance that I was worth it.