Page 17 of K-Pop Double Life

JIN — AIR

The BBJ’s leather seat cradled me like expensive guilt. Sang-hoon sat beside me. Close enough that our elbows touched on the armrest, far enough that anyone watching would see only a stylist attending to his primary assignment. Professional. Appropriate. Safe.

I wanted to hold his hand.

Instead, I kept mine folded in my lap, fingers laced together to stop them from reaching across the small distance between us. The cabin hummed with the white noise of flight: engines, recycled air, muted conversations from the seats ahead where Min-kyu and Woo were watching something on a shared tablet.

Across the aisle, Tae had his injured knee elevated on a pillow, earbuds in, eyes closed. Haneul sat alone near the window, staring at clouds. Sun-hee-noona moved through the cabin with practiced efficiency, checking on everyone, distributing bottles of water and packaged snacks. The other crew members were scattered around the cabin

Eun-ji was up front with Jason and the bodyguards, probably reviewing security protocols for Paris. I saw Aidan’s profile through the gap between seats. Calm, alert, the kind of watchful stillness that suggested he never really stopped working.

I envied him that. The ability to focus on the job without his entire world tilting sideways every time the person beside him shifted in their seat.

Sang-hoon nudged my shoulder. “Look.” Outside the window, the Alps broke through the clouds. “That cloud looks like one of my sister’s Labubu dolls,” he said.

I laughed despite myself.

“There,” he said. “You’re thinking about clouds instead of danger.”

My phone buzzed. A text from my mother: Saw the news about the incident. Are you safe? Please call when you can.

Incident. Such a polite word for what had happened. I still smelled the smoke, felt the stage tilting beneath my feet, heard Sang-hoon’s voice cutting through the chaos—I need to get to him.

I typed back: I’m fine, Eomma. Just tired. I’ll call tomorrow.

Her response came immediately: Your father says to rest. We’re so proud of you.

Proud. They’d been saying that for years, since I was accepted into Starhouse Academy at fifteen, since Pryzm debuted three years later, since our first music show win. Every milestone documented in my mother’s photo albums, every achievement celebrated with modest dinners in our small apartment in Incheon.

They’d mortgaged their future for mine. Singing lessons at seven, dance classes at nine, weekend trips to Seoul for auditions that cut holes in the family budget. My father worked double shifts at the factory; my mother took in sewing at night. When Starhouse accepted me, there was no tuition. The company owned you instead, running a meter on everything they spent: vocal coaching, choreography, housing, food, the clothes on your back. By the time Pryzm debuted, my share of that debt was close to sixty million won.

My first two years of earnings went almost entirely back to Starhouse. That was the contract. Standard, non-negotiable, the same math every idol accepted. My parents understood. They waited.

I was twenty-three now. The debt was nearly cleared. For the past year I’d been sending enough home that my father had retired from the factory, that my parents had moved to an apartment with a balcony where my mother grew herbs.

If the image collapsed, the income stopped immediately. Not gradually but immediately. Starhouse would restructure the group within weeks, and my share of the revenue would disappear the day my name did.

The debt to Starhouse didn’t stop if I left the group. I’d still owe them. Paying off the training costs of a career I no longer had.

My parents would have to return to work. My father, back at the factory at sixty-one. My mother picking up alterations again, her hands already rough enough. The apartment, the balcony, the herbs. All of it was contingent on a check that stopped the moment a scandal broke.

Then the military. I’d been deferring enlistment since debut, the way every idol did. If Starhouse cut me loose, that leverage disappeared. I’d begin eighteen months of mandatory service, zero income, no visibility, while the industry moved on and my parents figured out how to cover the gap.

I’d be released at twenty-five with no degree, no group, no solo fanbase. No dramatic fall. Just a quiet erasure. My face airbrushed out of the group photos, my parts redistributed in the choreography, my name spoken in the past tense until it stopped being spoken at all.

But then Sang-hoon’s hand moved. Just slightly, his pinky finger extending to touch mine where our hands rested on the armrest. The smallest point of contact, invisible to anyone who wasn’t looking for it.

My chest tightened.

Last night came rushing back. The way he’d kissed me like I was precious, like he’d been waiting forever for permission. The way his hands had trembled when he touched my face. The way he’d looked at me this morning, soft and awed and terrified.

No one had ever looked that way before. Not like that. Not meaning I see you, all of you, and I’m choosing you anyway.

The fans loved Jin, the idol. My parents loved Joon-hi, their son who’d made them proud. The company loved my marketability, my ability to smile on command and hit my marks.

But Sang-hoon cared for me. The person between the performance and the production, the one who existed in the quiet moments backstage when the cameras stopped rolling.

I glanced at him from the corner of my eye. He was scrolling through something on his tablet. Probably reviewing the Paris schedule, making notes about costume changes and makeup requirements. His profile was sharp in the cabin’s soft light, jaw tight with concentration. There was a small scar near his temple that I’d noticed years ago, from childhood probably, barely visible unless you knew to look for it.