Page 21 of When Worlds Collide (Between Worlds #2)

T he next morning, we moved out of the Hyatt to Hyungsoo’s place in Hannam-dong. Before the trip to the shopping centre, and Misun’s store, packing would have taken me all of ten minutes, presuming I’d tossed all of my belongings all over the suite.

Now that I had a full wardrobe of clothes, shoes, and a bunch of other stuff, it took considerably longer.

Blessedly, I’d left most of the new outfits in their various garment bags hanging up in the walk-in dressing room.

We’d had to call down to the front desk to get them to send up a luggage trolley so I could hang them up.

Along with all my new stuff, the one thing I didn’t have, was any new luggage bags so I’d had to stuff a whole bunch into Jihoon’s.

It seemed like I was borrowing everyone’s bags these days. I had no idea when I’d get to return Becka’s to her, a fact I was reminded of as I loaded it on the trolley.

Just as I’d been about to pack away the bag I’d gotten from the K-Pop store, Jihoon reached for it.

“Wait, you need to do one thing first.” Confused, I watched him dig through the bag until he pulled out the little plushie of a soft, grey seal. Truthfully, I’d been so distracted that I’d completely forgotten about it.

“This,” Jihoon said, holding the little seal plush up, “is Sealy.”

“Your ‘son’,” I smiled, remembering what he’d said in the store.

“Yes, according to the story,” his lips quirked. “My Viblet was almost an owl because of my name, but the company put a poll out that netizens could vote on, and they chose a seal.”

“Your name?” I asked slowly, feeling that familiar pinch of inadequacy that I often felt when it came to the language I wasn’t putting nearly enough effort into learning.

“My name means wisdom,” he waved the information away as though it were unimportant.

“But Vibers decided Minjae was better suited to the wise owl than me.” He huffed, as if he found the idea comical. “And they decided I was more like a seal.”

“Why?”

He looked at me, his eyes conveying a warmth I wasn’t sure the question merited.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?” A blush bloomed across my cheeks from the quiet pleasure the look in his eyes made me feel.

“It’s just… it’s weird to explain something that everyone seems to know.” He ducked his head. “I like it.” He pressed a quick kiss to my cheek. “There are… lots of videos online. Edits people have done of me, uh, clapping.” I watched as a slight pink tint brushed across his cheekbones.

“Clapping?” I watched him fiddle with the little red and green scarf wound around Sealy’s neck.

Jihoon sighed. “Apparently, I clap when I laugh.”

I bit back a smile. I knew what he was talking about now – I’d seen some of the edits he was referring to. Now that he mentioned it, he did clap a lot when he laughed. It was freaking adorable.

“So, your plush is a seal because you clap like one.”

“You’re laughing at me.”

“Yes, but only a little bit.” I brushed my hand against his cheek, utterly charmed by the pink hue. He turned his head to place a kiss on my palm before turning around to focus on his task – clipping Sealy onto my Dino rucksack.

“Now you’ll always have me with you.”

‘Moving into’ the Hannam-dong apartment was really just a case of putting our clothes into the wardrobe, and our cosmetics into the bathroom, where his sat side-by-side with mine – a his-and-hers collection of similar products.

Feeling dorky, I’d covertly taken a snap of this little array of skincare and sent it to Becka after I uploaded it to my social media. She’d understand how cute it was.

We’d opted to use the slightly smaller, but less personalised spare bedroom. We’d both agreed it would be weird to shack up in someone else’s room.

Other than that, there really was no ‘moving in’ to be done.

The apartment was beautifully furnished, although sparse in that way that expensive apartments often look, all brushed chrome and shiny floors.

It wasn’t to my taste, but I could appreciate it and hell, who was I to criticise, when my idea of decorating with Becka had been a bamboo bath mat and a lamp shaped like a mushroom for my box-sized bedroom.

Once we’d unpacked, we’d walked down to the store at the end of the road to stock up on groceries.

I’d tried to insist Jihoon didn’t come; it seemed like too much of a taunt to fate to have him come shopping, because what if someone recognised him and followed him back here?

It was far more likely to occur here, than it had been in LA.

In Korea, he was wildly famous, whereas in LA, celebrities were so commonplace that it was actually kind of a faux pas to even acknowledge them outside of expected settings, like studios, or concert venues, unless you were paparazzi.

Just last week there had been multiple shots in Dispatch of a crowd of fans chasing a member of a K-pop group down the street, here in Seoul.

“And when you’ve learned to read Hangul,” Jihoon said, dismissing my concerns with a wave of his hand, “you can go shopping alone. Although, why would you want to, when you’ve got the best guide with you?” He slapped his chest, caveman style, as he grinned a lazy grin at me.

He’d been right, of course. The moment we’d walked through the automatic doors into the well-lit store, I’d realised how badly I would have been out of my depth.

All down the various aisles were products, and containers I could only guess at.

Even the fresh produce aisle was a betrayal; so many vegetables I had no name for, and not all of them Jihoon knew the English word for, so they remained a mystery.

I did better in the fruit section, but almost tripped over myself when I saw the prices.

All of the fruit was triple the cost it would have been in either LA or the UK.

I pointed this out to Jihoon, but he just shrugged and said it was normal. I guess everywhere had its quirks. London had congestion charges, and Seoul had fruit that would bankrupt you.

Despite the outrageous cost of fruit, it didn’t stop him from dumping apples, berries, and pears into our cart.

As I watched Jihoon pick out the kinds of food he liked to eat, I felt ashamed to realise I didn’t even know what he liked. I wouldn’t have known his favourite meal if I’d had to cook it. I didn’t even know what he didn’t like. I hated mushrooms with a passion – did he know that about me?

We’d spent so long playing catch up on our own feelings whilst separated by oceans and hours, that we’d never stopped to learn the basics about each other.

I resolved to change that.

I’d been anxious that Jihoon wearing a face mask into the store would draw attention, but if anything, he was just part of the crowd.

More people than not had a surgical mask covering their mouths and noses.

I should probably have been used to it, but it was still somewhat jarring to me.

It made me think everyone around me was sick, and I automatically tried to keep my distance, even though I’d been told it was common in Korea.

People wore them to protect themselves from pollution, or if they had a cold and were trying to be considerate.

I guessed I’d get used to it – eventually.

It struck me as funny about the pollution because when I’d lived in London, there were days when my fingernails would be so grimy, and blowing my nose? Grim.

Suddenly, people wearing face masks in a city seemed like a smart idea.

By the time we made it back to the apartment, we were both so hungry that there was no hesitation to the suggestion of opening a couple packs of the ramyeon we’d picked up.

Mine was a little hotter than I was expecting, and Jihoon had laughed at me when I’d started to turn red after eating too quickly.

“Korean ramyeon is spicier than western noodles,” he explained, handing me a cold bottle of water from the fridge.

Afterwards, we sat and talked about life before our big moves, which for me was before I moved to London to attend University, and for Jihoon, it was before he moved to New York to live with his aunt and uncle.

Two very different experiences, and at very different life stages.

I’d been eighteen, he’d been just eleven.

But they were watershed moments for each of us for different reasons, and surprisingly, some similar ones.

We’d both learned different brands of independence once we’d moved out of our parent’s homes, and I again marvelled at how he’d been so determined at a young age.

Not only had he moved countries and learned a new language, but persuaded his aunt and uncle to bring him secretly back to Korea to audition for ENT to be a performer at the same age where I’d not even been allowed out to the local town on my own.

I told him what growing up in a small, northern village had been like for me.

It was hard to explain to someone who had only ever lived in cities.

He was amazed when I described the mountainous terrain just a few minutes down the road from my parents’ house.

I might have exaggerated a little bit when I described it, but to me, as a kid, the hills and crags really had been mountains to explore.

“You must have had some adventures; every kid has adventures,” I commented lightly, frowning as I focused on the tiny nail polish brush in my hand, swiping it gently across my toe nail.

“Bugger,” I muttered, once again flooding my cuticle.

Jihoon tutted, before he pulled my foot into his lap. We were sitting cross-legged on the floor, the volume on the TV down to a low hum as we talked.

He swiped a tissue across the excess nail polish, tidying it up before he held out his hand. I looked at him in confusion.

“Give me the bottle,” he commanded.