39. Exposure
EXPOSURE
SANG-HOON — S?O PAULO
The medical team cleaned and bandaged the cut—ten centimeters along my forearm, deep enough to need stitches but not deep enough to hit anything important. The EMT said I’d been lucky. Another centimeter to the left and she would have severed a tendon.
I sat on an equipment crate in a backstage corridor, holding an ice pack to the swelling, while Liam debriefed me.
“Her name is Kristina Mueller,” he said, showing me her ID. “German national, entered Brazil three days ago on a tourist visa. She had credentials for the catering company. Real credentials, which means someone inside the company helped position her.”
“Sara Yoon.”
“Almost certainly. Mueller’s not talking yet, but we found encrypted messages on her phone. We’re working on breaking them, but I’d bet money they link back to Sara Yoon’s network.”
“What was she going to do? Stab Jin in the corridor between songs?”
“Looks like it. Quick strike, blend back into crew chaos, disappear before anyone realized what happened.” Liam’s face bore traces of his exhaustion. “You stopped her. If you hadn’t noticed her, if you hadn’t moved when you did—”
“But I did.” I looked down at my bandaged arm. “Is the show canceled?”
“No. Jin insisted on finishing. He’s on stage now, has been for the last twenty minutes.” Liam pulled out his tablet, showed me the live feed from the wings. Jin performing, smiling for the crowd, giving them everything they’d paid for.
Only someone who knew him well would see the fear underneath.
“He shouldn’t be out there,” I said. “Not after this. He should be in the green room, processing, letting himself be scared.”
“He’s doing his job. Same as you did yours.”
He stood, offered me a hand. “Can you walk? Medical team wants to check you again before we fly out tomorrow.”
I let him pull me up. My arm throbbed, the adrenaline starting to wear off and leave exhaustion in its wake.
“Is Jin safe now? Is it over?”
“Kristina Mueller was one asset. I’m sure Sara Yoon has others.” Liam’s voice was careful. “We caught one threat. That doesn’t mean there aren’t more.”
“So we keep going. Keep pretending everything’s fine while someone’s trying to kill him.”
“That’s the job.”
I followed him down the corridor toward the green room, thinking about Jin on stage, giving forty-three thousand people the performance of his life while terror ate him alive from the inside.
Thinking about Sara Yoon, somewhere out there, watching her plan fall apart and calculating her next move.
One more show. Seoul. The homecoming concert.
And then maybe—finally—this would be over.
Jin was in his private dressing room when I returned. He pulled me inside, locked the door, and just held me for a long moment without speaking.
“You’re an idiot,” he finally said against my shoulder.
“I know.”
“You could have been killed.”
“But I wasn’t.”
“You grabbed for a knife, Sang-hoon. With your bare hands. Who does that?”
“Someone who loves you.” I pulled back to look at him. “Someone who’d rather take a knife than watch you get hurt.”
His eyes were red, like he’d been crying or trying not to. “I can’t lose you. I just found you. I can’t.”
“You’re not going to lose me.” I touched his face gently, careful of my bandaged arm. “I’m here. I’m fine. And we’re going to get through this.”
I sat on one of the makeup chairs and pulled him down to the chair beside me.
“We’ve been hiding for five years, from each other and from everyone else.
Then we’ve finally come together, and we’re still letting fear make every decision.
I’m tired, Jin. Tired of pretending you’re just my assignment.
Tired of watching you from a distance. Tired of acting like loving you is something shameful. ”
“It’s not. It’s something wonderful.”
“I agree. But I don’t want Starhouse deciding our future. Or the fans. Or fear.”
He searched my face. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that after Seoul, after Sara Yoon is caught and this tour is over, we decide.
You and me. Maybe we stay quiet. Maybe we tell the world.
Maybe we walk away from everything and start over somewhere nobody knows our names.
I don’t know yet.” I squeezed his fingers.
“But whatever happens next has to be our choice, not one we make because we’re terrified of what someone else will do. ”
His eyes filled. “Starhouse will never make it that easy.”
“Probably not.” I smiled sadly. “But they don’t get to decide whether we love each other. They only get to decide whether they still want to employ us afterward.”
“Sang-hoon...”
“I almost lost you tonight. If this German woman had been faster, if I’d been slower, if one thing had gone differently... you’d be dead, and I’d have spent the rest of my life letting other people decide how we lived. I can’t do that anymore.”
Jin was crying now, silent tears running down his face. “I’m so scared.”
“I know. Me too.” I pulled him against my shoulder. “So let’s not decide tonight. Let’s just promise each other one thing. When this is over, the decision is ours. No one else’s.”
He nodded against my chest. “Ours.”
“Ours.”
We stayed like that for a long time, holding each other while the group and the rest of the crew prepared to return to the hotel.
My phone buzzed. Text from Sun-hee-noona: The fan posts are spreading. You’re trending in three countries. We need to talk tomorrow about how to handle this.
I showed it to Jin.
Outside, somewhere in S?o Paulo or Seoul or wherever she was hiding, Sara Yoon was planning her next move. The fans were building theories online. Starhouse was probably panicking about what could happen.
But in this dressing room, for this moment, it was just us.
Then another notification lit my phone.