Page 3 of Hamartia

It’s amazing what the mind does. How it seeks to protect you from yourself. Because by the time I’d collapsed into my hotel bed five hours later, I’d all but convinced myself we hadn’t said anythingthatawful. Yeah, okay, we’d had a go at their music but who didn’t? Their fashion sense. Again, who didn’t? At their make-up. There was metro-sexual and there was…well, them. Like we’d never worn fucking make-up for a shoot. Like literally any person hadn’t worn makeup for every TV appearance. Like I hadn’t let Tom Ford put a set of fake eyelashes on me and streaks of green eyeliner for their Athleisure shoot last year.Fucking hypocrite.

But it was the suggestion of them all fucking each other, and the agreement that we’d take turns on the “pink haired one” because we were certain he “didn’t have a dick anyway” that had kept me up that night.

It was also what made me log into my Instagram account to check whether he had a personal account. I told myself I was going to apologize. He’d see my verified tick and know it was really me and then I’d explain that I wasn’t as much of a dick as he thought. As much of a homophobe as he thought. That I didn’t think like Crawford. Or Zeke or Mase. That I wasn’t like them.

He did have a personal Instagram. 20.1 million followers wasn’t exactly personal, but from what I could tell he ran it himself. Unlike his group one—57.8 million followers—which was PR’d to within an inch of its life and curated like an art exhibition.

I’d planned to send him a message, to apologize, but then I’d gotten distracted.

Lots of his posts were professional magazine shoots; Asian Vogue, Elle Korea, GQ, but some—most—were just him. Some were completely innocent. Face mask on as he sat in a café, or outside in a park. Headphones in as he took the train somewhere (he had 20 million Instagram followers and still took the fucking train?). Him standing in front of a painting in a gallery. But there were some others in there that could only be described as thirst-pics.

I mean, I wasn’t thirsty. I’m not into men. But they were definitely…unexpected. I certainly wasn’t expecting to see him lying on his stomach in his boxers sprawled across an unmade bed, sunlight streaming in through the window. Skin smooth and back a flawless plane that made my mouth water. Who the fuck took that? Some of him at the gym, soaked with sweat and his eyes half-closed as though he’d just had an orgasm.

His messages were open too. Did he seriously read these? Surely not. There was little point in messaging him in that case, my apology would just sit in his DMs unread and then I’d feel like even more of a tool being left on read.

Finally, I decided I’d apologize next time I saw them in person. It was the decent thing to do.

So, I scrolled. And scrolled. Zoomed, then scrolled some more.

Had his skin been that flawless? Had his waist been that small? His lips that full? His hair had been pink in Paris, but his photos told me it had been every color under the sun. Silver, turquoise, orange, yellow, and black.

Before I knew it, I’d lost an hour scrolling @ljh’s Instagram. I hadn’t planned on following him but when I heard Mase shouting from the adjoined room, I panicked and let my finger hover over the follow button for a moment before impulsively hitting it. I figured if he noticed, maybe the act itself would look like an apology. If not, there’d be no harm done. Or maybe I could like a few of his posts. Comment. Maybe if he replied then I could work up to an apology by DM.

Yeah, that was the plan.

Ican feel Kai’s eyes on me from where he’s sat across from me scrolling his phone. I’d felt them following me all the way from the hotel lobby to the car. I can always feel when that sharp focus of his is on me, exclusively.

He waits until we are seated on the plane—the private one YJK had chartered to get us home—before he speaks to me.

“What’s wrong?” He doesn’t look up from his phone.

Behind me Boohyin lets out one of his loud laughs. I shake my head and gaze out at the tarmac. It looks like an oil slick from where I’m sitting. Wet and black.

“Nothing.”

“Well, that’s a lie.”

Irritation flares up. It’s directed at Kai but he’s not the source. I’m not entirely sure I know what the source is. Part of it is homesickness, part of it is exhaustion. Another part of it is back in the city, laughing with his band members about everything that’s wrong with our band.

I didn’t understand everything. My English is good but they were speaking too fast. I caught the general idea though.

Do they seriously think I don’t have a dick?

When I sigh, Kai looks up from his phone, his eyes narrowed in study. His mouth is soft. Tinged with regret. He always looks at me like that when he thinks I’m sad. Like he alone is the cause of any and all sadness I suffer. It’s due partly to the size of his ego and partly to do with his capacity for self-blame. Self-loathing. It’s something we both have in common.

While Kai utilized that self-loathing into music, into production and writing for K: OS and anyone else who asked, I spent those hours in the rehearsal room. Pushing my body to its limit. Stretching it beyond its capabilities in the gym. Covering up my lack of talent with commitment and work ethic.

Because for me, anything less than perfect isn’t good enough.

Kai says I can work as hard as I want, I can bleed and sweat and cry every day if it makes me feel like I have done enough, but it won’t fix me inside. That needs something else entirely. A doctor most likely. I suppose he would know; he saw one for years. But I’m relatively certain that he still hates himself and so he isn’t exactly a walking advertisement for therapy.

Anyway, a few choice words—words I’ve heard and read before—from a stupid American rock band aren’t enough to break me. Not even close. It’s rooted in some fruitless pursuit of masculinity. And that kind of masculinity is the destruction of everything else. Kindness, empathy, femininity, romance. Men like them will never really understand the hypocrisy behind it.

It’s why I’m so bothered about it that is bothering me. It’s not like I like this band. Maybe I’d had some vague passing kind of crush on the lead singer after that video of him, the one where he wore a leather jacket, bare-chest, and warpaint. Maybe it was the look he’d given me. Like a little boy. Big wide eyes I was sure I could see the moon in. The way he’d made me feel like I’d been the one who’d insulted him.

“You did well,” Kai says then, yanking me back to the feel of the plane taxiing down the slick runway. “I know you were nervous, but you did great.”

He’s talking about the speech. The speech that had kept me awake with worry last night and the night before.