Page 32 of When Worlds Collide (Between Worlds #2)

I t was around half-past midnight when my phone dinged. I peered at it blearily, and then snorted a laugh.

“Who’s making you laugh?” Jihoon leaned into me, his solid warmth crowding me in the very best kind of way. “I’m right here, and I know it wasn’t me.”

“Because you’re not funny.”

Bam. There was Woojin again with the drive-by savage.

I laughed, meeting Woojin’s eyes very briefly, not missing the subtle way he tilted his beer bottle at me.

“It’s just Becka,” I explained. “She’s stealing all my sheet masks now that I’m not there to stop her.”

“You should call her!” Seokmin said suddenly. He’d very much enjoyed some of my stories of the antics Becka and I had gotten up to over the years. I don’t know why – maybe it was a sense of protectiveness, but I’d been so keen that they like Becka, as much as I wanted them to like me.

The alcohol was definitely making me sentimental.

“I can’t call her,” I argued half-heartedly.

“Yes! Call Becka,” Sungmin piped up. “I want to see the girl who will steal Jin-hyung’s heart!”

Whoops. That was my bad. I’d made the grave mistake of telling everyone about the time Becka had jokingly told Jihoon to give Woojin her number, after begrudgingly admitting that he was her ‘favourite’.

The man in question was making a big show of pretending he couldn’t hear the maknae line pestering me to call her, but I knew I wasn’t imagining the way his ears turned red.

So, blaming the alcohol, but doing it for the plot, I pressed dial on Becka’s number, and waited, barely suppressing my giggles as I listened to the ring tone.

Lee and Ace shoved up beside me like a pair of over-excited bookends, much to Jihoon’s annoyance. He had to make do with leaning over my shoulder.

With three out of the five members of GVibes nudged up close to me, I kept the phone angled so only my face was visible.

“Babes!” The familiar greeting of my very best friend hugged that inner part of me that missed her desperately. It was probably that feeling of warmth that made my brain slow to compute the image on the screen.

That, or the gallons of beer and soju. But probably the warmth of kinship.

Once my brain reestablished communications with my optic nerves, I was suddenly able to comprehend the image on my screen; Becka, in a green face mask, hair wrapped in a towel, clearly reclining on her bed and having exactly the kind of lazy Sunday morning she deserved.

What she absolutely did not deserve was to be stitched up by her best mate, in the form of having that be the very first image of her that a handful of internationally crazy-famous idols see.

But, alas. Soju.

I was momentarily so taken aback by the view of Becka’s self-care, that I inadvertently pulled the screen back, which had the effect of not just displaying her in all her pampered glory to three idols, but also displaying those three idols to Becka.

Which is probably why she – quite understandably – screeched so loud my phone speaker crackled and dropped her phone.

I’m not sure what happened then, but the call dropped. Either she’d shattered her phone or managed to end the call from under a pillow.

The two youngest members exchanged looks with each other, while Jihoon just snorted.

“Whoops.” My voice came out in a whisper.

“What did you do to my wife?” Woojin demanded, causing me to burst into laughter so bone shaking, I accidentally leant into Seokmin, only to be grabbed by Jihoon, and re-directed onto him, which only made me laugh harder.

Becka called back twenty minutes later, having ditched the face mask and towel, now appearing perfectly coiffed and skin so glowy she looked like a skincare advert. Her shirt was fashionably crumpled, but I’d bet anything she still had sweats on underneath.

“Bit of warning next time, crumpet muncher,” she hissed as I picked up the call.

“My bad,” I muttered apologetically. “You look very nice, though.”

“I do now!” She craned her neck around, as though she was trying to look through my screen to see the other members.

“Are you still with the idols?” she asked with a tone of feigned nonchalance.

I grinned. “Would you like to say hello?”

In a rare moment for the tenacious Rebecca Hanson, she seemed apprehensive, before she squared her shoulders. “Sure, whatever.”

I snorted. “Yeah, okay. Seokmin,” I called, “come say hello.” I waved my hand to bring the maknae over, and when he saw I was holding the phone, he grinned and hurried over, plonking himself down so close to me, he almost knocked me over.

I pulled the phone further away to include Seokmin in the frame.

“Becka, this is Seokmin – Ace – GVibe’s maknae.”

Seokmin waved at the camera, and it was almost comical how quickly he fell into the posture and facial expressions more commonly seen on interviews, and performances.

There was still the underlying goofball, but it was tempered by the way he casually flicked his hair out of his face and the more demure grin he now adopted.

“Annyeonghaseyo, Becka-ssi,” he all-but-purred. I blinked at him in disbelief before shaking my head ruefully and turning back to the camera, to see Becka preening – but only slightly.

“Hi, Ace. Good to meet you.”

I held back my grin – somehow. I recognised that tone. She’d deny it to the hilt, but she’d had the same expression when the Grammy award winner Sherry Taylor had given her a promotional bundle of Mac products that she hadn’t wanted.

“Is that your friend?” Sungmin stage-whispered across the table to me, drawing the attention of Minjae and Woojin, who had been deep in conversation, causing both heads to swivel in my direction.

It was still very weird to be the sole focus of any of these people, let alone all of them, especially without the bolstering presence of Jihoon, who had momentarily gone back down to our apartment to get a jacket he’d apparently stolen from Woojin.

“Come say hello, Min-ah,” Seokmin gestured to Sungmin, who promptly came round the table to sit down with us. He nudged in next to Seokmin, who’d managed to finagle the phone out of my hand.

Sungmin had far more chill than Seokmin, and instead of preening like an exotic bird, waved cheerily at the screen, grinning as broadly as I’d ever seen him.

“Hello, Becka, we’ve heard good stories about you.”

“Oh, well... they’re probably not all true.” Becka couldn’t hide how flustered she was, but I admired her effort. I would have been deceased by this point, but then GVibes were my bias, not hers.

The look that passed between the two youngest members should have been a warning, but alas, Soju – and I was three shots of soju and one stuffed pancake past caring.

So, when they got to their feet in the kind of fluid movement only seen on ballet dancers and scissor lifts, I could only stare open-mouthed, because there was no way in hell I was getting up without the help of the table, or the sofa.

They walked back round to where Minjae and Woojin were sitting in front of the sofa – although so far, no one had actually sat on the sofa tonight – and plopped down nearly on top of their older members.

I’d seen more evidence of puppy piling in the past few hours than in the entire time I spent a summer volunteering for the RSPCA.

Woojin shoved Seokmin off him, while Minjae just rolled his eyes and shuffled over to make room for the two youngest.

I watched in part horror, part fascination as they proceeded to introduce a screen-bound Becka to Woojin and Minjae, the latter of whom was the very image of the cordial, diplomatic leader he was known to be, whereas Woojin politely waved, but otherwise didn’t offer up very much.

I did think, however, that I may have seen a brief flicker of interest cross his face, in the way he tilted his head, ever-so-slightly, flicking his eyes over the screen in a way that very much implied he was taking in the details of whatever it was he saw when he looked at Becka.

But I was not in any fit state to make any such assumptions.