Page 94 of Hamartia

“You do not know him!” I snap. “You know nothing of him but some stupid drunken comment he made once. Almost three years ago. Which he has apologized for. Which he is ashamed of. Hating him purely for this, without giving him a chance to prove what he is not, is not who you are. He is good and kind and when he looks at me…I know how he feels. He doesn’t hide from me.”

Where I hide from the world, Raphael wears his feelings proudly for all to see. He’d already told his mother about us, about me, like I was important and he was not ashamed.

“And he makes me smile and laugh. He makes me happy, Hyung, and you will not speak about him like you know who he is when you do not.” I hadn’t been aware that I was crying but I can feel the wetness leak down my face and I scrub at it, frustrated.

“I’m sorry,” he says, soft, tormented. “You’re right. I do not know him.” He lets out a loud breath. “But I…would like to know him. If he’s…if you care for him.”

“I do. I care for him, Hyung. And I’m scared because…well, you know.”

Because I don’t want to care for someone again. I don’t want to feel that alone again when they don’t care for me the way I need them to.

“I will be back in Seoul on 27th,” he says reaching out to grip my hand. “Perhaps we could meet, or I could prepare dinner? For all of us?”

I try to imagine that. It sounds awful and ill-advised—for so many reasons—but I can see how desperately he wants to try and it’s that which makes me nod. Ji-hoon nods too. I stand.

“I will let you work. Sorry.”

“No, I am sorry,” he says again. “Let me know what I should make for dinner?”

I nod again and head for the door. “See you on Wednesday.”

I’m almost at the door when he calls out. His voice is not loud, but it is firm. Resolute.

“Jaehyun-ah. I am sorry if what happened between us has ever made you feel…unimportant or has caused you to feel…” He looks broken and my chest floods with guilt. “I never ever wanted to hurt you. I love you…I just…”

“I know…” I whisper. It was me who wanted things he could not give me. Things he told me he could not give me.

“You don’t see yourself the way I see you, the way the world sees you.” His voice has a new weight in it, a heavy solid thing. The next words he says with a slightly resigned tone, but they still take my breath away. “The way your American looks at you too.”

The article about Raphael’s engagement breaks on the morning of the 22nd. It’s forwarded to me by Seungmin. A link to an American news site without any text attached.

My blood turns cold because initially when I see his name in the URL, I think it’s something about us. But then the page loads and I see the headline:

Raphael Scott and Camille Le Garde Split.

A source tells ENT, “Raphael and Camille have split up. The source reports that this was a mutual decision. ”They both have a lot of love and respect for each other, but it was time for them to move on,” the source continued. “Unfortunately they are in different places in their lives.” The couple were due to marry in the south of France this summer but decided that ultimately the relationship wasn’t working. We have reached out to both Raphael and Camille’s spokespeople for comment.

There are pictures of them together in the article. Some candids of them laughing together as they walk down the street holding hands, a couple of them kissing in a coffee shop, and a few of them at public events looking perfect together. Camille Le Garde is beautiful and elegant in a way that is somehow distinctly French. I stare at her smile and try to imagine how she might look tearful and sad, and a sharp stab of guilt pierces my gut. I know it is not possible I am entirely to blame for the end of their relationship, but I played some part, some supporting role in its demise. Raphael looks happy too, by her side. But I suppose he wasn’t. People who aren’t happy are very good at pretending that they are. I know this.

I switch to Twitter to search for any reaction to the story, scrolling through some of the comments under the articles the news accounts have posted there. It is big news. Most comments appear to be critical of Camille, calling her fake and a bad actress, and accusing her of things I have no clue how they would know, such as cheating on him with a co-star and being critical of his lifestyle.

Then there are the fans of Raphael, flooding the comments about how talented he is, how hot he is, and who they want to see him with now. His bandmate Cleo is mentioned a lot, some even saying that they hope he has left Camille because he is in love with her instead. I click on a few pictures of him and Cleo together and agree that they do look handsome together. They look close on stage and in photoshoots, often smiling at each other and laughing. She’s opposite to Camille physically; dark haired and olive-skinned with striking green eyes and a seductive-looking smile.

Amongst a thread of speculation, there is a comment about his father and I remember Raphael speaking about him in New York. It seems incredible to me then that I have not done this yet. Looked up his famous father. I’d realized immediately that the impassive tone in Raphael’s voice when he spoke of him wasn’t a lack of feeling, but the opposite. It was a sustained and practiced way of hiding pain. I’d recognized it immediately because it’s as familiar to me as breathing.

When the page loads in front of me and the wealth of articles written about Raphael’s father, Finn Sullivan, pop up, I am even more convinced. How could his father possibly be unimportant to him? He was important to so many people. He was the lead singer of a rock band, just like Raphael is. He was considered a great artist with a far reaching influence who died tragically. A tour bus crash had killed four members of his band, including their manager and driver. Raphael’s father’s body was incinerated inside the vehicle—there are pictures of the crash too, these I do not click on.

I pull up a YouTube video of a performance of Rapture of Malice. A headline stage at a British music festival and I’m stunned at the sight of Raphael’s mirror image screaming into the microphone. Finn Sullivan’s hair is a few shades darker than Raphael’s, but his angled shoulders and lean limbs move in almost the exact same way, his voice a similar mix of tenor and alto, that youthful whine that can turn so easily to musical screech.I didn’t know him, Raphael had said. And yet…there is so much of him in his father it’s astounding.

Naver takes me to a biographical page about Finn Sullivan and I spend the next two hours reading about Raphael’s father. The one who abandoned him and his mother right after he was born. The one who chose fame over family. Who chose stardom over his wife and child.

By some kismet of the universe, my phone rings. It’s him. His father’s face is gone, replaced by his own as I click on answer. The video screen opens and he’s in his car, in the driver’s seat. Sunglasses and a ballcap on. Messy blonde hair poking out from under it.

“So we’re doing gifts, right?” he asks, like I have dropped into the middle of a conversation we’d already been having.

“Gifts?” I blink.

“Yeah, for Christmas. Like that’s a thing you do? In Korea?”