18. The Distance
THE DISTANCE
SANG-HOON — AMSTERDAM
She didn’t have a fancy suite the way Eun-ji did. Just a bedroom with a king-sized bed for her and Jason, which was stacked with suitcases and boxes.
Once the door closed, she turned to face me.
“You think this is the right thing to do?”
“I do. Have you spoken with Eun-ji?”
She nodded. “I think you should stay, but she agrees with you, that it’s best for you to leave. I tried to tell her that I think Jin’s performance will suffer without you, but she made it clear that the public relations impact on Starhouse would be worse than a botched performance in London.”
“I booked a flight from Amsterdam to Seoul tonight.”
She reached out and took my hand in both of hers. “Good luck, Sang-hoon. I will do my best to get you transferred to another group when we get back to Seoul.”
“Thank you, noona,” I said, and I went back to my room. I had already packed, and I could slip out of the hotel, head to the airport, and stew in a waiting room until my flight was announced.
But instead I waited. I knew that Jin wouldn’t let me sneak away, and that he’d come looking for me before the group had to leave for the airport. I was staring out the window when I heard a knock at the door. “Sang-hoon-ah, I know you’re in there.”
Jin’s voice. Rough, like he’d been crying or was trying not to.
I opened the door.
Jin saw the suitcase immediately. His face went white. “You’re leaving.”
“I have to.”
“No.” He stepped into the room, and I saw he was shaking. “No, you don’t. You’re choosing to.”
“Jin—”
“I felt it this morning. When you didn’t show up for breakfast, after those videos and texts.” His voice broke. “We just started this. We just got to be real with each other. And you’re going to throw that away because you’re scared?”
“I’m scared because someone wants you dead!
” The words burst out of me. “I’m scared because I watched you walk onto a stage in Paris where someone had left a death threat.
I’m scared because every night I lie awake wondering if tomorrow is the day something goes wrong and I’m not fast enough to stop it.
And what if someone uses our relationship to destroy your career, or Pryzm?
The best way to keep you safe is to not be here at all! ”
“That’s bullshit.” Jin’s hands were fists at his sides. “You’re not leaving to keep me safe. You’re leaving because you’re terrified something will happen and it’ll be your fault. You’re choosing guilt-free distance over the messy, complicated reality of actually being with me.”
“I don’t know how to do this,” I whispered. “Don’t know how to love you and watch you walk into danger and not lose my mind.”
“Then we figure it out together.” Jin crossed the space between us. “We don’t run away. We don’t make unilateral decisions. We face it together, or we don’t face it at all.”
“What if I can’t handle it? What if something happens and I freeze—”
“You ran onto a burning stage in Cannes. You don’t freeze.” He took my hands. “Please. Don’t leave me. Don’t make me face this alone.”
I looked at him. At the fear in his eyes, the desperate hope, the love he wasn’t bothering to hide anymore.
At the person I’d loved for so long, who’d finally loved me back, who was begging me not to destroy us both.
“I booked a flight,” I said. “Tonight. Seoul.”
“Cancel it.”
“Jin—”
“Joon-hi,” he corrected. “When it’s just us, I’m Joon-hi. And I’m asking you, as Joon-hi, not as Jin the idol. Please don’t leave me. Please don’t give up on us because you’re scared.”
I had the flight confirmation. My suitcase was packed. I had spent five years loving him from a distance and telling myself it was enough.
“I’m still terrified,” I said.
“Me too. But at least we’re terrified together.”
I pulled my hands free. Stepped back. Saw the hope die in Jin’s eyes.
“I can’t,” I whispered. “I’m sorry. But your career is on the line if Starhouse management knows about our relationship. I can’t carry that responsibility. We’ll meet in Seoul after the tour and see how we feel then.”
Jin collapsed inward, like I’d physically struck him.
“Then you never really loved me,” he said quietly. “Because love means staying. It means fighting together, facing the hard things together. Not running away when it gets complicated.”
“That’s not fair.”
“None of this is fair!” Tears were streaming down his face now. “It’s not fair that someone wants to kill me. It’s not fair that loving each other makes us vulnerable. It’s not fair that I only got such a short time with you before you decided I wasn’t worth the risk.”
“You are worth the risk.”
“Then prove it! Stay! Choose me over your fear!”
The room felt too small, the air too thin. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think past the panic squeezing my chest.
“I’m leaving,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
Jin looked at me for a long moment. Then he wiped his eyes and straightened his shoulders, and I watched him become Jin the idol again. Professional, composed, hiding everything that was breaking underneath.
“Then I won’t try to stop you,” he said, voice steady now. “But I need you to know something.”
“What?”
“When you change your mind—and you will, because this decision is going to eat you alive—don’t expect me to just take you back like nothing happened.
Don’t expect me to forgive you for choosing to leave when I begged you to stay.
” He moved toward the door. “I won’t spend the rest of my life waiting for someone who runs away when things get hard. ”
“Joon-hi—”
“Goodbye.” He opened the door, paused. “I hope leaving makes you feel safer. I hope it’s worth it.”
Then he was gone, and I was alone with my suitcase and my laptop showing a flight to Seoul and the worst decision of my life crystallizing around me like ice.
By that evening, I’d be gone. And Jin would be safer for it.
I closed my suitcase before I could change my mind.