Page 64 of Hamartia

“Yes. I am, Jaehyun-ah. I don’t get it, him. After what you told me…how he made you feel.”

His eyes harden, glassy with anger. I should never have told him what Raphael and his bandmates had said that day. I look down.

“He…he’s not good enough for you. He’s not fit to touch you… ”

“He is sorry,” I say.

“What?”

“About what he said that day. He has apologized.” I look back at the cabinet. “I pretended. I told him that I didn’t remember. I’m not sure if he believed me. But I believe him. That he is sorry. He sounded sorry.”

I see Ji-hoon swallow, still angry, cheeks tight and hard. He’s furious actually, but it’s not with me. It’s with Raphael.

“Why did you pretend you didn’t remember?” he asks, still frowning. “Why didn’t you tell him how he made you feel?”

“I don’t know.”

It’s the honest answer. I don’t know why. Except that we were in the car after I’d almost broken his nose and he looked embarrassed about it and I hated seeing him like that. I don’t think Ji-hoon would understand that reasoning, however. I’m not sureIunderstand it.

“He insulted you. He insulted your friends,” Ji-hoon says.

I feel exceptionally small then. Foolish and small. “I know.”

I hate this. Ji-hoon, disappointed in me.

“I’m sorry I upset you.”

He sighs. “Fuck. I’m not upset, Jaehyun-ah. I could never be upset with you; I’ve never been upset with you.” He looks utterly sincere and it makes me want to cry. “I just don’t want to see you upset. Hurt. By someone like him.”

“I don’t…think he meant to say those things. You know what these kinds of men are like. They don’t like what they do not understand. But the man I know now, he’s different, softer. Sweeter. He says what he wants and what he feels. Except when he’s unsure. And sometimes he’s so unsure. Like a child.”

“You need a man, not a child, Jaehyun.”

“Now you are so well versed on what I need?”

Especially as Ji-hoon has always been silent about the things I seem to want and need from men. About the things I needed and wanted from him once.

He stares at me a long time. “I have always known, Jaehyun. It was that I could never give them to you.”

I feel guilty about that, about the sadness in his tone. It has always felt like there is a secret part of Kai, some sad tortured part that he hides from the world, something that would finally explain why he could never give me the things I’d once asked him for, begged him for.

“You like him,” Kai says after a moment. It’s not a question.

“Yes. I do. He makes me feel…” I don’t know what he makes me feel. Not sad. Not a disappointment. Almost,almost,enough. “Special. The way you do.”

He looks very serious when he says: “If he hurts you, I will ruin him.”

Oh, he is going to hurt me, Hyung. It is only a matter of time before he hurts me. He may already have.It’s what I almost tell him. But I don’t see what good it can do.

Instead, I reach out to cup his cheek which is soft and warm. I love him. His protective nature. His solidity and dependability. His existence so integral to my own in a way. He’s always been there. Comforting me in whatever way I need whenever I need it. When I needed discipline, he was there. When I needed a large pair of arms, he was there. When I needed a warm, tender, body to make me feel something other than bone-deep exhaustion and self-doubt, he was there for that too. I climbed into his bed time and time again and he gave me what I needed. Except that final part of himself. He is love and stoic loyalty; there is no man on earth as loyal as Kim Ji-hoon.

“Thank you, Hyung,” I whisper.

Just then the assistant nudges into our private moment to ask if there is anything in the lightbox of trinkets that I want. I choose a few rings and a couple of sets of earrings and tell her to bag up my purchases.

Kai spots the grey overcoat I pulled off the rack when I first came in and his eyes light up.

“This absolutely isn’t your color,” he tells me, clutching the fabric to his chest covetously.