Page 93 of Hamartia

We don’t talk any more about Ji-hoon as we eat our soup, but Ji-u’s comment does leave some lingering thoughts in his direction after we part.

I take the lift to the studio floor and knock on his door. It’s Xan who opens it, pulling it wide to let me inside. I expect some further words of condemnation, but he says nothing. In fact, his eyes are softer than they were downstairs, a note of apology in them now even if it doesn’t find its way to his lips.

I glance at Ji-hoon

If they were working before the meeting, they aren’t now. Now, they’re sharing a bottle of what looks to be his favorite Japanese whisky—the same one I now prefer—as American rap music plays low on the speaker system. Kai is in his high-backed desk chair in front of the computer, Xan’s indent on the well-used leather sofa. Xan walks over and picks up his hoodie and pulls it over his head. Then lifts his glass and downs the contents.

“I’ll let you talk,” he says, with a long look in Kai’s direction. As he passes he gives me a look that’s definitely a warning.

I roll my eyes.

“See you, Hyung,” I say loudly as the heavy door sighs closed behind him.

Ji-hoon reaches across to pour himself another glass. Without asking, he swivels around to lift another glass from the unit behind him and pours me a measure too.

“You spoke with Jong-hyun?” he asks, gently, concerned. “He was waiting outside for you like an expectant father.”

I sit on the dented space of the leather sofa and lift the tumbler. “I did. He says he is worried aboutyou.”

I take a sip, watching Ji-hoon’s shoulders tense and then release. His eyes are partly glazed with whisky and exhaustion, his mouth bitten red. The circles beneath his eyes look more pronounced in the low light.

“That is because he knows nothing about your American.” His voice and eyes are serious. “It’s you he should be worried about. Not me.”

“Are you worried about me, Hyung? Is that what this is? That is what you and Xan were talking about? How worried you both are for me.” It’s a sarcastic, biting comment shaped to draw a reaction. And it does, just not the one I want or expect.

He sighs softly. “I always worry about you, Jaehyun-ah.”

“We have spoken about this many times, it is not your place to worry about me.”

He wants to argue this point. I see the words form on his tongue.

What he says is: “How can I not? When you do things like this? Telling the company? Inviting him to Seoul? What are you doing?”

“Living my life,” I snap.

“He is going to hurt you.”

The way you did, is unsaid. Instead, I say, “Then I will be hurt. Again. Then I will recover, again.”

That familiar guilty look comes over his face. I don’t think he even knows he looks at me like that.

“You deserve better than to be hurt over and over. To have your heart broken over and over.”

“We get better the more we practice at something, Ji-hoon. You were the one who taught me that.”

“Jae, I…” He stops, hesitates, looks down, back up. “If this is because of me…to prove something to me…to force this thing between us—”

The laughter when it rises up is almost hysterical. “Aishh, not everything is about you, Ji-hoon.”

I drink the contents of the glass in three burning gulps while glaring at him. As he glares back at me.

“I suppose you are angry because you shall no longer have a bed to crawl into when you are lonely? Because you cannot bring yourself to let anyone past all of this?” I wave a hand over him, indicatingthis. “I have been a warm bed for you for too long, and it is over.”

“You know that is not what you are,” he growls, angrily.

He’s angry because he cannot face the truth of it. It has always been the same. He has always been the same. An immovable stubborn thing. The qualities that make him strong and dependable are the same that make him bull-headed and unyielding.

“You are more than that, better than that, better than him.”