Page 22 of K-Pop Double Life

“I’m sure Aidan and Liam will handle this now that I’ve forwarded the messages to them. And I’ll ask Hana to keep an eye on his account and send anything new.”

He leaned in to kiss my forehead, warm and familiar and so achingly careful that for a second I wanted to grab his shirt and tell him not to leave at all.

“Try to sleep,” he murmured.

Then he was gone. I climbed into the bed and lay back against the pillows, staring at the ceiling instead of closing my eyes. Until that moment, the danger had felt external. A faceless threat. Someone in the dark with access to fireworks and bad intentions.

Now, for the first time, it felt personal.

And much too close.

Sang-hoon woke me for dinner and we walked down the hall to Eun-ji’s suite. I felt woozy, the way you get when you’ve slept too much, but not enough. I still remembered to keep my distance from Sang-hoon, though I desperately wanted him to hold me again.

Through the windows, the Eiffel Tower glowed against the evening sky, blinking every few seconds as if Paris couldn’t decide whether to be elegant or theatrical.

I’d dreamed about coming here since I was a trainee. Instead I spent most of dinner wondering whether someone wanted me dead.

The room was quieter than our usual meals on tour. Woo picked at his rice. Tae stretched his injured leg beneath the table every few minutes. Haneul answered questions with one-word replies before returning to his soup. Even Min-kyu, who normally carried conversations by himself, seemed content to let the silence settle.

Across from me, Aidan and Liam ate with the calm efficiency of people who had learned never to relax completely. Jason occasionally glanced toward the hallway whenever footsteps sounded outside, while Sun-hee-noona kept making sure everyone actually ate.

Eun-ji finally set down her fork.

“Tomorrow afternoon,” she said, “we have rehearsal at two. You can have the morning off for sightseeing, if you like. Wear ball caps and sunglasses and try to look like ordinary tourists.”

Sun-hee-noona reached for the serving spoon. “You all need to eat. Especially you.” She looked directly at me.

“I’m eating.”

“You’ve moved the same piece of salmon around your plate three times.”

That earned the smallest smile from Woo, and for a moment the room felt almost normal.

Almost.

I forced myself to take another bite.

Sang-hoon had been unusually quiet since we’d arrived in Paris. Usually dinner was one of the few places where he could stop being my stylist for a little while. He would remind Tae to sit up straight or tell Woo to stop inhaling his food, and occasionally Min-kyu would succeed in drawing him into an argument about football or movies. He and the other stylists would talk about costume changes or new makeup. Tonight he hardly seemed aware of anyone except the phone lying beside his plate.

I leaned close to him. “Do Aidan and Liam know about the messages from Hana?”

He nodded. “I don’t know if they have told the group.”

I looked over at Aidan. “Have you said anything about Hana’s messages?” I asked in a low voice.

He cleared his throat and addressed the room. “Apparently a manager who was let go by Starhouse has been posting some angry messages online,” he said.

“Who?” Haneul asked.

“Park Min-woo. Any of you have any problems with him?”

Everyone shook their heads. “Is he angry with Jin for some reason?” Haneul asked.

I swallowed hard. For years I’d worked to become the center. Every extra dance lesson. Every English class. Every media interview. Every time I’d been told to smile one more time, wave one more time, stay five minutes longer because the fans wanted pictures.

I’d believed it meant I’d earned something. Now it felt like someone had painted a target on my back. “I hardly even know Min-woo,” I said.

“And we don’t know who sent the message in Cannes,” Liam said. “Maybe this Min-woo is taking advantage of what happened there to make trouble for Starhouse because of what happened to him and AURORA.”