Page 14 of Hamartia

“Then you must be relieved at how cool you are being now?”

He flicks his eyes across to me and there’s a fucking glimmer in them. Playful. Almost…flirtatious? Which is obviously wishful thinking on my part.

Either way, I have to swallow the grin that wants to break over my face. I feel suspended here with him, like the world outside the car doesn’t exist. Or like I’m going to wake up in my bed drenched in sweat and come with just the memory of him burning behind my eyes. The throbbing of my nose tells me this isn’t a dream though.

Suddenly the car’s pulling into the drop off point of the UCLA Medical Centre.

“Ronald Reagan Centre,” the driver tells us over his shoulder.

God, I don’t want to get out.

“Listen, thanks for the lift, beats an Uber.”

“It is no problem,” Jaehyun says genuinely. “The company said they would drop your car at your home, yes?” I’d dropped my keys with Amari’s PA, who promised to have someone drive it home.

I nod. “They did. I’ll grab an Uber back once they fix me up.”

He nods, hesitating slightly. Then he’s lifting his phone out of his pocket again and typing something in. “Would you mind me sending to you a message? To check that you’re okay?” He looks at my nose, then corrects himself. “To check that your nose is okay?”

He wants my number.

“Um, sure. Yeah, I mean I don’t mind. Hit me up.” My voice sounds all trembly and uncertain.Get a fucking grip, Rapha.

“You’re on Instagram or Twitter?” Jae asks me, scooting closer and holding his phone up between us. “Show me?”

I deflate a little that he doesn’t, in fact, want my phone number, but it’s something, right?

With some work I manage to find myself on his Korean Language set-up Instagram.

“And you manage it yourself?” he checks.

“Yeah, just me,” I nod.

“I’ve sent you a message now, so you can find me,” he says, and I want to laugh at that.

So I can find him? I check his account more than I check my own.

“I won’t follow you now because people notice these things. And sometimes it can cause problems,” he says, smiling sadly before slipping his phone into his back pocket.

I suppose I sort of know what he means but I guess I also don’t. Would people care if he followed me? I nod anyway.

He looks up at me and smiles. “It was nice meeting you, Raphael,” he says, then adds. “Again.”

“Yeah, if we could just pretend this was the first time, that would be fucking great, man.”

He smiles wider, then gestures to my nose. “We can forget this time too, if you want?”

I laugh. “No way. This time, I want to remember.” I realize too late how that might have sounded but find it hard right then to give a fuck. When I try to gauge Jaehyun’s reaction to it, I can’t. He’s completely chill, nothing but a soft smile lifting the side of his mouth.

“Take care, Raphael,” he says, as I push open the door.

“You, too. Thanks again for the lift.”And for breaking my nose.

He gives me a little dip of his head and then I close the door. I stare after the black defender until it turns out of the hospital lot and disappears.

It’s not broken—which honestly feels like a miracle because I was certain I heard something crack back there—just ‘traumatized’ according to the radiologist, Scott, with a body like The Rock and a smile like Jack Nicholson. After talking my ear off about our first album for almost forty minutes, he supplies me with some meds (the good shit) and some good vibes and sends me on my way.

I call an Uber from the front door and it arrives within five minutes. But at this time the traffic is like Dante’s seventh circle of Hell and I’m trapped in the back of the car just staring at my DMs and waiting (pathetically) for his message to come in. Then I figure he might be on a plane—why didn’t I think to ask him how long he was in town for? —and so, I hover over the little paper plane icon on his IG thinking it wouldn’t look too pathetic for me to messagehim. I mean, he was clearly concerned about what damage he thinks he might have done to my face. He asked for my socials. Asked if he could message me. So why hasn’t he then?