Page 11 of K-Pop Double Life

He turned to face me. I smelled the hotel soap on his skin, saw the faint redness around his eyes from smoke and exhaustion.

“Look at me.”

I couldn’t. If I looked at him, he’d see everything. All that longing and careful distance and the moments I’d let myself imagine a different world where I was able to touch him without permission.

“Please.”

That word broke me. I looked at him.

He lifted one hand. Slowly, giving me time to pull away. He touched my face. Palm against my cheek, thumb at the corner of my mouth, the same way I’d touched him on the stage when I was checking for injuries.

“I heard you,” he said quietly.

My heart stopped. Literally stopped. For a second I thought I might pass out, might crumble right there on the expensive hotel carpet.

“Jin, I⁠—”

“I’ve been waiting a long time for you to say something.”

The world tilted.

“What?”

He smiled, and it wasn’t his stage smile or his press-conference smile or even his genuine-but-tired smile he gave the other members when they needed reassurance. This was something else. Something I’d never seen before because he’d never let me see it.

“You thought you were the only one?” His voice was barely above a whisper. “Sang-hoon-ah. I’ve had strong feelings for you since you stayed up all night fixing my jacket before our debut showcase because I tore it during rehearsal and I cried about it like a child.”

“You were eighteen⁠—”

“And you stayed.” His thumb moved against my cheek, a touch so gentle it hurt. “You always stay.”

I couldn’t process this. Couldn’t make it fit into the reality I’d constructed over years of careful distance, professional boundaries, and convincing myself that what I felt was one-sided, impossible, and something I’d eventually learn to live with.

“But you never—you didn’t⁠—”

“How could I?” Something flickered across Jin’s face. Frustration, maybe, or old pain. “You’re staff. I’m talent. I’m still under a dating ban, and even if I weren’t, staff relationships are career suicide. They wouldn’t need a rule to fire you. And the fans...” He stopped. “They’d destroy both of us, but you’d disappear first. No statement, no goodbye. Just gone.”

I knew he was right. The industry had no room for this kind of complication. Idols didn’t date staff. Staff didn’t fall in love with idols. And if they did, they certainly didn’t act on it.

But his hand was still on my face, and he was looking at me like I was something precious instead of something forbidden, and I was so tired of being careful.

“Jin—”

“I almost died tonight,” he said quietly. “I was standing on that stage and the world exploded and all I thought was that I’d never told you. That you’d never know.”

My breath caught. “I thought the same thing.”

“I know.” His smile turned sad. “I heard you tell Aidan.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t.” He stepped closer, and now there was no space between us at all. “Don’t apologize for this. Not after tonight. Not after so long pretending we’re just colleagues when you look at me like…” He stopped, swallowed. “Like I’m the only person in the room.”

“You are,” I said helplessly. “You always have been.”

He kissed me.

Soft at first, tentative, like he was afraid I’d pull away or disappear or turn out to be a dream conjured by smoke and exhaustion. His lips were warm and dry and tasted faintly of toothpaste, and I made a sound I didn’t recognize, something between a gasp and a sob, because this was Jin, this was Joon-hi, this was the boy who’d spilled water on me once and apologized like it was the end of the world.