7. Thirty Thousand Feet
THIRTY THOUSAND FEET
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.
I knew every detail of his face. Had memorized them without meaning to, the same way I’d memorized choreography and lyrics and the correct angle to hold my head for photographs.
We can’t do this, I’d said last night.
I know, he’d replied.
But we were doing it anyway. Because almost dying had a way of rearranging priorities, of making the impossible seem merely difficult.
I just had to figure out how to keep both my career and the person who made it all bearable.
The plan was simple in theory: discretion.
We’d been discreet already, just in a different way.
Instead of hiding feelings, we’d hide actions.
No public displays, no careless moments, no digital trails.
What happened in hotel rooms stayed in hotel rooms. What we felt for each other would remain invisible to everyone except the people who already knew.
Sun-hee-noona knew. She’d made that clear with one look last night and a text that had made me laugh despite everything: Finally.
Eun-ji probably suspected. She’d seen too much, managed too many crises, navigated too many scandals. But she was also practical enough to know that what she didn’t officially acknowledge couldn’t officially become a problem.
The other members... I wasn’t sure. Woo was too young to notice anything beyond his own exhaustion. Tae lived in his own world of choreography and fashion. Min-kyu paid attention, but he also understood the weight of secrets. He’d been an idol long enough to know what was worth protecting.
Haneul, though. Haneul saw everything. He’d been watching me for months with an expression that was difficult to read. Not judgment, exactly. More like recognition. Like he understood something I hadn’t admitted yet, even to myself.
I’d have to talk to him eventually. Even though I was the center, he was the heart of the team, the one who made sure everyone was all right. I knew that he’d keep quiet, not out of loyalty to me but out of understanding that what threatened one member threatened all of us.
But that was a problem for later. Right now, I had to focus on getting through the next few hours without doing something stupid like reaching for Sang-hoon’s hand in full view of everyone on the plane.
His pinky finger pressed against mine again, just for a second. A reminder that he was there, that last night had been real, that we were in this together.
I pressed back.
The captain’s voice crackled over the intercom: “Beginning our descent into Paris. Please return to your seats and fasten your seatbelts.”
Sang-hoon shifted beside me, straightening in his seat, and the contact between us broke. He tucked his tablet away with practiced efficiency, then glanced at me. “You should try to sleep when we get to the hotel. You need to be rested for rehearsal.”
Professional. Appropriate. His work voice.
“I know the schedule,” I said, matching his tone.
“Just making sure.” He reached up to adjust the air vent above my seat, an excuse to lean closer, his shoulder brushing mine. His voice dropped to a whisper. “Are you okay?”
Such a simple question. Loaded with everything we couldn’t say out loud.
“Yeah. I’m okay.”
“Liar.”
That surprised a small smile out of me. “I will be okay. Eventually.”
“Good.” He settled back into his seat, hands folded properly in his lap, every inch the professional stylist. Beside me, Sang-hoon’s knee remained pressed against mine as Paris rose beneath us.