Chapter 24 #3
“Tae, chill, it’s fine. It’s just… not been a big deal. Y’know, in the scheme of things.”
Now it was Tae’s turn to fall silent, the slight crackle on the line taking on the feeling of a pair of narrowing eyes.
“Kaiya Thompson, it is a big deal,” he insisted. “Your life matters, too. Don’t make it smaller just because his is big.”
“Wow,” I chuckled, nervous. “That was almost wise, Min Taeyang.”
“I’m serious, mate. I’ve seen so many people in our line of work lose important people in their lives just because they didn’t know how to fit in anymore.
I… I’ve lost people along the way. You are a priority.
You should talk to him about your course.
Trust me, he’ll want to know. Sometimes it’s hard to see past the bullshit, you know?
There’s always something, some new routine, a show to do, company politics, or sometimes we’re just so bloody tired all the time that it gets really easy to forget about the rest of the world.
Believe me, you’d be doing him a favour by making him focus on you. Which he should be doing anyway.”
His tone changed to a more playful one so fast that I blinked, trying to catch up. “You know what? Your boyfriend sounds rubbish. Forget everything I just said. Get a new one.”
I burst out laughing.
“Is that your professional opinion, Min Taeyang?”
“Absolutely, Kaiya Thompson.”
There was a moment of silence that followed, like dust settling in the gaps of our conversation, floating comfortably down in the stillness.
“But seriously,” he insisted, switching tracks. “That’s amazing. Kudos, Pom. So, this is it for you, huh? Being a journo?”
I resisted the urge to bite my thumbnail again, trying to think of the right way to articulate my response.
“I think it could be,” I said, slowly. “Writing about music, it makes me feel like how I always thought making music was going to make me feel.”
Tae was silent for a moment, and I’d have thought the line dropped, except I could still hear his soft breaths.
“Ky, I’m happy for you. Really. That’s brilliant.”
I flushed again, his words making the tips of my ears warm.
“Thank you.”
“I’ve gotta go, but… this was nice. Thank you for… I dunno, being a normal person.” He laughed, a little awkward.
“I’ve been accused of a lot of things, but ‘normal’ has rarely been one of them,” I quipped.
“Yeah, well. You heard it here first. Speak soon?”
“I mean, if you want.”
“Speak soon, then.”
The line clicked and he was gone. In the proceeding silence, I realised that I’d just talked to Tae about what was going on for far longer than I had with Jihoon in months.
The smile that had rested warmly on my face turned cold and fell away, like leaves falling off a tree at the turn of the season.
November 3rd
Two days had passed since the photos of Lee Hyejin and Min Taeyang had been splashed all over the internet, and speculations about their supposed relationship were still rife.
Outright flame-wars had ignited between all three fandoms, not helped by the near silence across the board. Only Tae’s management team had put out a statement, categorically denying a relationship, and reiterating that the meal had been an event where several others were present.
It frustrated me that Jihoon, or his team, were ignoring this opportunity to deny the rumours, and I tried to run the angles in my head – what possible motivation could there be to staying quiet and keeping that door open?
In the end, I couldn’t stand it any longer. I was tired of waiting for him to call me, so at just after ten in the morning, as I watched Mum and Dad walk down the driveway to meet their walking group, I picked up my phone and called him.
The phone rang for so long that I was just about to hang up, when the line connected.
“Jagiya,” he breathed, as though he’d been holding his breath waiting for my call.
Even though I was a little cross at him, warmth still spread through my body at the sound of his voice. The way he always called me jagiya, as though it was as much a part of my identity to him, as my full name.
“Joon,” I said in relief. “Are you okay? I’ve been worried…”
I sat down on the edge of my bed, sitting on my hand to fight the urge to bite my nails.
“I’m sorry I have not called,” he sighed. “Everything is a mess. I am so tired.”
My heart squeezed at the exhaustion I heard in his voice, but at the same time my eyebrows pinched in confusion because something about this whole situation felt…
off. To quote Becka, this was not Jihoon’s first rodeo.
This wasn’t even the first scandal this year.
All in all, this hardly qualified as one.
Once again, I had tortured myself by thinking I knew better, and silently questioned why his team didn’t simply issue a response. I didn’t say that now, though. I clenched my jaw and swallowed the words.
Jihoon sighed again, but it seemed to get lost halfway and dissolved into a jaw cracking yawn. I wondered when he’d last gotten a good night’s sleep. It seemed that there was always someone who wanted a part of him, and more often than not, he was contractually obliged to give it.
People often seemed to think that the famous were the freest of us all, but it seemed to be the total opposite.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I offered.
He made a grumbling noise and fell silent for so long that I took it to mean he didn’t.
It was a strange connection to make, but it made me think of Tae, and what he’d said about talking to Jihoon about my articles and my journalism course. How it might help him to have something else to focus on for a while.
Just as I opened my mouth to change the topic, he said:
“I’m so tired of getting dragged into dating rumours. I wasn’t even there!”
On second thoughts, maybe he did want to vent for a while.
“I didn’t even know about the dinner because I was not there, but I got so many messages from people who believe I was being cheated on by someone I barely ever talk to.
If it had been anyone else but Min Taeyang, no one would care.
” His voice was getting progressively louder, faster, his accent becoming more pronounced, that had I not been so familiar with it, I might have struggled to keep up.
“Everyone works so hard to put my name next to his. They are convinced we are rivals in all things.”
I kept the thought to myself that he wasn’t exactly helping this theory with how he acted towards Taeyang.
“I am sick of my name being linked to his. The press compare our performances, now they compare our love lives and say we are fighting over the same woman. He scoffed, and I couldn’t tell if it was from the idea of them competing in a love triangle, or the idea that there would even be a competition between them.
I bit my tongue, but my forehead was beginning to ache from the depth of my frown.
“I don’t want to see his name next to mine anymore, he’s an asshole.”
“Hey now, don’t you think you’re being a bit unfair?” I didn’t even mean to say it, it just slipped out.
“You think he’s not an asshole?”
I took a breath, trying to remind myself that Joon was just stressed.
“I think he didn’t ask for this either and I think you’re being unfair.”
“Ky, you don’t know what he’s like! This is exactly the sort of scandal he gets involved in. There’s a reason he has a bad reputation.”
I’d obviously pressed on a sore point, and I was swiftly losing control of the conversation. This was not how I wanted it to go. How did we end up talking about Tae?
I tried to keep a reasonable tone when I said, “Joon, I don’t think that’s fair-”
“You keep saying that word,” he interrupted, ploughing over my words and treading them underneath.
“You don’t know him, you don’t know what this is like for me.”
I bit back a sigh. This was all going wrong.
“I’m just saying, it’s easier to blame a person than the real problem, which is the tabloids. He didn’t ask for this anymore than you or Hyejin. The tabloids are to blame, not Min Taeyang.”
“Why are you defending him?”
“I’m not!” My fist clenched under my thigh, and I drew it out, shaking it to try and relieve some of the tension coursing through me.
“I’m just suggesting that maybe he isn’t the bad guy everyone has made him out to be and blaming him for something he has no control over doesn’t change or fix anything. ”
Jihoon scoffed and it was an ugly sound.
“You don’t know him.”
“Then tell me,” I implored, “because right now it just sounds like you’re furious he wakes up breathing every day.”
“I’m not!” He bit out, and I heard him take a deep, shaking breath.
“I am not, but I am so sick of having my name tied to his. Every article, every time I get photographed, there is always some comparison to him. It’s like I can not exist without him.
” He grumbled something in Korean, and the only word I managed to pull from the stream was ‘breath’ and ‘dark’.
“I’m tired, Kaiya,” he said raggedly, like the words were being pulled up from inside him. “You don’t understand what that is like.”
“I do-or, I’m trying,” I replied, “I’ve watched how you handle this for months.”
“No,” he said firmly, “you watch. You do not know. You have no idea how it feels when millions of strangers decide who you are, what kind of person you have to be.”
I recoiled. “You think I don’t know what that’s like?”
Hadn’t I been called a whore by so many for daring to kiss my boyfriend behind closed doors? Hadn’t I been called a gold-digger? Hadn’t I been called a million things by a million people who’d come to their own conclusions about who I was, based on who I’d chosen to love?
How did we get here? I’d only wanted to tell him about what was going on with me, but right then, I felt minimised.
Even worse was the pain I felt coming off him in waves, because that was how he experienced pain. It radiated off him. He lashed out and hurt everyone around, but he couldn’t see it.