CHAPTER FOURTEEN
JASE
“ M R. KITSON!”
I don’t know why I’m startled enough at the decibel level to almost drop my cup of coffee. I’ve been expecting a visit from them since I got back to work this morning, hoping I can remain nonchalant and impassive as they undoubtedly go full fangirl with their concert review. “Hello, Harper and company.”
“And company? That feels rude,” Savannah says, hopping up on the counter where I normally sit.
’Sav. Alita. Always a pleasure to see you as well.” I look at Harper, who is practically vibrating where she’s standing. “I’m waiting…”
“OHMYGODITWASTHEBESTNIGHTOFMYLIFE!” she blurts, thrusting her phone toward my face, where I can kind of catch a blurry shot of Lux smiling.
“Wow! You must have had great seats!” I smile at the identical dreamy expressions they all adopt as they nod in unison. “So, tell me everything.”
The three of them start talking at once, and I can only catch snippets of any of the sentences, mainly just the members’ names.
“Halt. Stop. Whoa.” I put my hand up to shush them. “I want to hear it all, but I’m gonna need you to pace yourselves. I cannot listen as fast as you all can talk over each other.”
“We were on the floor! They were RIGHT. THERE. Like, they could see us. Lux was totally smiling at me in the picture.” Harper gazes at her phone again and I can tell that we’ve lost her for the time being.
Alita grabs Savannah’s arm, like she needs the support to tell me, “We almost almost got sweat on by Lalo.”
“We were so close ,” Savannah laments. “The row in front of us was so lucky.”
“Uh, I’m sorry? I guess? I don’t really know how to respond to that,” I say, wrinkling my nose a little, as though I don’t see the appeal of a member of RYSING sweating on me.
“‘Sorry’ is the right answer. If I can’t wear his hands as a necklace, at least he can sweat on me,” Alita states very casually, as my jaw drops.
Savannah swats at her. “Not in front of Mr. K!”
She crosses her arms, all sass. “I’m just being honest.”
“There is such a thing as too much honesty. And some stuff you probably really shouldn’t share with a teacher,” I inform them. “That’s one of them.”
“Fine.”
“Thank you.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s not true, though,” Alita mumbles under her breath, then turns her attention to Harper. “Hey. Come back.” She looks at me and rolls her eyes. “She’s been doing this since the concert.”
“OH! OH! OH!” Savannah shouts out of nowhere. “We totally saw someone that looked like you at the show, Mr. K!”
Aw, shit. How would that have even been possible? I thought I was pretty well hidden, but maybe they saw me outside before I went into the green room?
I raise an eyebrow, attempting to suggest that’s crazy. “I’ve been told I look like a dad these days, so I’m sure you saw several guys there who resembled me.”
Harper seems to blink back to the present and quickly flips through a few more photos, too quickly for me to see much. “Slow down! You’re supposed to be telling me about these.”
“Mine aren’t that good. I was just glad I caught a couple of Lux. There was a girl in front of us, though; we found her online. She got so many good shots, but they’re mainly of Nikko.”
I perk up immediately at the mention of his name and try to hide my reaction by ducking behind my mug of coffee.
Harper pulls up the girl’s account on social media and starts scrolling. “He was flirting with her so hard the whole time. One of her captions made it sound like she got to hook up with him after the show or something. It wouldn’t surprise me if she did.”
I take a sip at exactly the wrong time, choking at the idea of Nikko meeting up with some girl after one of the concerts. “Went down the wrong way,” I sputter, hoping that’s a reasonable enough explanation.
Savannah frowns at me. “Are you okay? Your face is all red.”
I give her a thumbs up, trying to cough enough to calm down. “Yep. All good.”
Harper hands her phone to me, so I can look at the extensive gallery of pictures from someone with the username of mrsniknikchoi . Despite the incredibly cringey and misguided handle, the photos are pretty phenomenal. But it’s easy for me to see that the photos are of Nikko the idol. That’s not my Nikko. The vaguely flirty look in his eyes isn’t the same, and his smile is all wrong.
My mind immediately goes back to all the times I saw that smile, up close and personal, felt it against my lips. I swear that I’ve thought of nothing but him since I left his room four days ago. We’ve talked and texted, but it’s not the same now.
It’s not enough.
Harper clearing her throat and making grabby hands in my direction gets me to tear my eyes away from the screen and give her phone back. “Yeah, she got good shots,” I agree, hoping my cheeks and ears aren’t as pink as I think they might be.
The girls continue to recall their favorite moments—screeching with laughter at Ryo and Tang’s onstage water fight and Chita being the one who caught the fall-out later, slipping and busting his ass, then swooning over winks on the big screen and kisses blown to audience members—before again proclaiming it the best night of their lives. I remember everything they’re talking about, and I can’t say anything, can’t join the conversation.
Because as far as anyone can know, I wasn’t there. I have no connection to RYSING beyond being a casual fan of their music that I was introduced to by some of my students. It feels like a preview of what the rest of my life could look like, as long as Nikko is a part of it. There will always be a separation, always be things I can’t talk about.
As much as I’m enjoying listening to them recount what seems like every second of the concert, I’m honestly kind of relieved when the bell rings and they have to go to class. The rest of the students who had been lounging around scatter as well, and I retreat to my office when I see Brenda strolling in, late, without a care in the world.
Dropping down into my ugly, old chair, I set my coffee down with a sigh. It feels like it’s been a long day already and it’s only 8 a.m. I pick my phone up to move it aside and see that I have three new messages waiting for me, all from Nikko. A picture of his room service breakfast, a selfie of him fresh out of the shower in a hotel room, and two words: Miss you.
I hate this.
??
“Noel. That dog is not a threat to you,” I try to explain for the hundredth time as she barks ferociously at a corgi in a commercial.
She growls again as the company logo flashes, but the dog is gone, so she settles back down next to me on the couch as the video we were watching resumes. I keep thinking I really need to just pay to upgrade and get the ad-free version—it would be so worth it. I’m not even entirely sure how we got to this particular compilation of RYSING reacting to themselves, but I don’t skip it because Nikko is there, right in the center, adorably covering his face every time the focus is on him.
I will take any kind of content that lets me see him right now. I need it—something, anything—to sustain me, because the days are passing, and I’m missing him in a way that I didn’t realize was possible.
It’s been almost a week since we’ve been able to talk. Their schedules are so crazy that a few text messages a day are all I’m getting. I know he’s got a job to do. I know I am only a small part of his life. But he’s become the main character of my story. And this is the part where I pine.
Nikko is on my mind literally from the moment my eyes open until they close again. I have never been this kind of enamored with someone before, and I’m finding that it’s kind of terrible. Maybe it wouldn’t be if I could be with him, if I could kiss him every time I wanted to. If I could reach out and touch him, feel him beside me. On top of me.
I can’t help the shiver that runs through me at the memory of his body pressed against mine. I’ve jerked off a ridiculous amount thinking about the sounds he made and how eager he was, imagining what could have happened next if we’d just had more time. It’s not just that, though, not being able to physically feel him and the way he wants me, but also the closeness. The intimacy of being able to hold him. Of just knowing he’s there , and he’s real, and almost, maybe, could have been mine .
Noel sighs like she’s exasperated when she gets jostled as I try to settle back down, and it makes me chuckle a little. “Same, tiny dog, same.”
Two videos later—a behind-the-scenes of a shoot for a fashion magazine the group did last year and a segment from a very chaotic Korean variety show—I get a text with a picture of Nikko taking a comically large bite out of a very messy burger. “Eating well,” the message says. I’m glad to know that he is getting a break and having a good meal, but fuck, I wish he could call. I still save the picture in my newly acquired, password-protected photo vault, hoarding everything I get like a desperate, digital dragon.
“Looks delicious!” I reply, and I mean both him and the sandwich. I know it’s a pretty lame response, but I just feel kind of mopey about everything, and that’s all I’ve got. I do lean over, though, getting close enough to snap a selfie with Noel and send that to him.
Immediately, I see “my faves!” and several heart eye emojis appear on the screen, and somehow that just makes things worse.
??
“Got time for a call soon?” I hit send on the message to Kija and drop my phone on the counter, making a half-hearted attempt to mentally talk myself out of grabbing the bottle of soju I have in the fridge. I don’t even particularly like soju, but I’d seen it at the store earlier and couldn’t resist the Korean connection.
I get a ping back much quicker than I expected and see that he’s said to give him a few to get back to his hotel room and he’ll call. I have no idea where in the world he is right now, since our conversations have been as few and far between as mine and Nikko’s.
Passing on the soju in favor of green juice I guilt-bought, I toss Noel a chewy treat and drop down into a chair at the kitchen table to wait for Kija. Of course, I end up scrolling through the shots of me and Nikko on my phone—an automatic habit at this point. I stop on one of the selfies we took and, for some reason, send it zipping off to Kija. He might as well know where my head is and what he’s getting into before he talks to me.
A moment later, his name is lighting up my screen. “Hey.”
Kija snorts. “You send me a picture straight out of a romantic comedy and start the conversation with ‘ hey ’?”
“It’s a valid greeting,” I argue, having some regrets about sharing the photo.
“Hmm.” He just hums, his way of both acknowledging and dismissing my comment at the same time.
“So, where are you?” I ask. I know he’ll start asking questions soon enough, and I want to catch up on his life first.
There’s a noise that sounds like a suitcase unzipping. “Madrid, at the moment. But I feel like I’ve been everywhere the past few weeks.”
“All work?” I take a sip of the juice and wrinkle my nose. It has to be healthy, it tastes like grass.
“Yes,” he sighs, like he’s tired. “Work and drama. I have spent all day every day surrounded by five teenage girls for the last two weeks, and they’re somehow less problematic than this actress I went on one less-than-great date with. She’s the drama. Not the girls in the group. Not even the company.”
I laugh, because his life always sounds like something out of the plot of a soap opera. “Would I know this actress?”
“Kwon Chaeji?”
“Damn, Kija!” I absolutely recognize that name from one of those Most Beautiful People lists that gets released every year. “Why was the date bad?” I am suddenly very excited about the prospect of gossip to distract me from my own wallowing.
“Because she’s psycho,” he says bluntly. “She was planning the rest of our life together before we’d even finished the main course of the meal. I got out of there as fast as I could, and by the time I was home I had an inbox full of pictures of her in various states of undress telling me since we skipped dessert, I should come over and eat her instead.”
Thankful that I did not just take another sip of my juice, I crack up laughing. “Your love life is wild. Never a dull moment there..”
“Says the guy who is in love with an idol.”
I can’t tell from his tone if he’s joking or not, but it makes my breath catch uncomfortably. “What now?”
“Jase. Come on.” I know what he’s doing immediately. He’s about to try to slow walk me to some kind of epiphany. “You are not subtle. You sent me that picture. You showed it to me because you want me to tell you how good you two look together, and you’re dying to talk about him.”
This is precisely why he is my best friend. He knows me better than anyone, can see through me like I’m a window, and is never afraid to tell me exactly what he thinks. He’s completely correct in everything he’s saying, but that does not mean I have to like it.
“I’m not in love with him,” I protest, but it’s weak. And probably a lie.
He hums again. “So you’re being completely chill? Just business as usual then.”
“Yes.” That’s definitely not the truth. “Okay, no. I used hairspray for deodorant and put pomade on my toothbrush because I’m so distracted. I superglued my finger to a display case at work and I thought Brenda was going to have heart failure from wheezing so hard laughing at me,” I confess.
“So what happened?” he inquires, gently, changing his tactics like he’s going to coax the truth out of me. “It was good. I can tell that.”
I’ve been waiting for the chance to talk about everything since it happened and now that I have the opportunity, I have no idea what to say. How do I even begin to describe what the hours I spent with Nikko meant to me? Or the way that I can’t seem to take a breath now without thinking about him?
“It was better than good,” I say. “Just being able to share space and breathe the same air. We talked for hours every night and it was just… everything I had hoped it would be, but more.”
“Just talking? That whole time?” he prods, because he absolutely does not believe it.
“There may have been some kissing,” I mumble. “And a bit of light physical contact.”
Kija laughs loudly. “Light physical contact? I don’t even know what that means.”
“He was in my lap, okay?” That seems like enough information for now.
“Naked?”
“No! Kija. You know I’m not that guy.” I’m almost offended. I mean, it’s not like I didn’t think about it, but still. Everything is new to Nikko and I want—wanted?— to make sure he has time to enjoy each thing as it happens.
“I think this is different, though, isn’t it? The guy you’ve been in the past might not be the same guy you are now, because this whole thing with him isn’t like anything you’ve had before,” Kija comments.
He’s right, of course. I have no idea what kind of guy I am in this situation. “Sitting there, with him in my lap,” I say, sighing, “it’s like I was being offered something I can’t really have.”
“I don’t know about that,” he starts. “I think it’s pretty obvious you can have him if you want him. Don’t you think you already have him? It certainly looks like you do.”
I think back to the rooftop, and Nikko telling me he’s with me. “It’s not the same, though. It’s not like that. If our situation was different, sure. We’d definitely try to be together. But he’s… him. And I’m me. And you are the only person that I can talk to about this, because I signed my soul over to Task Force and promised I’d never say a word about anything I have seen or heard.”
“Ah, the NDAs. I got a lot of shit for not having you sign those sooner,” he says, and I can practically hear him smiling, sounding like he couldn’t care less about the trouble he caused. “Would it be easy to have a relationship—a real, romantic relationship—with him? No, it wouldn’t. But there are a lot of idols who have long-term partners no one ever knows about. It can be done, if both people want to make it work.”
I know that I’d try if he wanted to. But I wouldn’t ask him to. That’s a decision Nikko would have to come to on his own. When I don’t say anything, Kija speaks again.
“You look good in this picture. You’re happy. Both of you. It’s all over your faces. Don’t give up too easily. That’s all I’m saying,” Kija tells me. “I care about both of you, and I’m happy to be the person you can talk to about anything. Just not too many details, okay? I still have to work with him.”
That makes me laugh. “Thanks, Kija.” I pause, feeling a little ornery. “He’s pretty bold. I was surprised. He’s the one who kissed me first…”
Kija cuts me off. “This, right here? This is exactly what I don’t want.”
“You literally just said I could talk to you about anything,” I remind him, getting up to pour the sludgy remains of my green beverage down the sink.
“And followed it up with an addendum of no details.”
“You’re the one that asked me if he was naked in my lap!”
“I regretted that immediately,” Kija grumbles. “Do you know how awkward this is for me? You’re my best friend, so it should be a no-limits conversation, but then he’s my client and friend, and I can’t be in a meeting with him thinking about where your mouths have been or who had their dick out.”
“I’m oddly flattered you’d be contemplating my dick situation,” I tease.
“You know what, I think I hear one of the managers calling me. I have to go.”
Scoffing, I call him out. “You’re a liar, Kim Kija.”
“That makes two of us,” he counters.
“What am I lying about?”
“ I’m not in love with him ,” he mocks, in a terrible imitation of my voice.
I can’t think about that at the moment. “You’re right, one of the managers is calling you. Goodbye, Kija.”
His smug laughter echoes through the phone as he hangs up on me.