Page 51 of When Worlds Collide (Between Worlds #2)

February

I propped the phone against the vase full of daffodils on the kitchen counter as I sat on the stool, so I could see Becka properly.

“Okay, so, what? Are you and Ben officially dating now?”

She seemed to consider the question before answering.

“I don’t know about ‘officially’,” she said, taking a sip from her mug.

“But yeah… we’ve gone out a few times.” She smiled shyly, and while I loved to see the blooming happiness I saw in my best friend, I couldn’t completely suppress the inkling of concern.

This was the same Ben who just up and left one day, abandoning his girlfriend with barely a ‘goodbye’.

Literally just moved his shit out, and left while she’d been at work.

Thankfully, Becka was financially secure enough to have been able to afford the rent and bills on her own.

So, yeah, I was not a fan and I honestly did not love this rekindling. But, I’d said my piece on this to Becka, she was a big girl, and she could make her own decisions without me butting in.

But, evidently my eyebrows could not keep their opinions to themselves.

“I see that expression, babes.” Becka pointed one well-manicured nail at the screen, and I rolled my eyes. “Spit it out.”

I held my hands up in surrender.

“I’ve said what I’ve said, you know how I feel.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay.” She puffed out a breath, running an anxious hand through her hair, and just from that I knew she was not oblivious to my – valid – concerns. “I just think a relationship that lasted that many years deserves a second chance, you know?”

If she was asking for my permission, she was looking in the wrong place, because I thought this was a mistake. I thought that anyone who could just ghost the person they supposedly ‘loved’, and had ‘loved’ for years didn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt.

Ben had made a reappearance back in December, and since then, he’d made a real effort to make it up to Becka, which I did have to give him points for, but that was as generous as I was willing to be.

The story he’d given her was that when he’d lost his job, he had felt useless, and when Becka had tried to hype him up, all he’d heard was her dismissing his feelings, which I could – begrudgingly – understand.

What I found hard to swallow was the way he just left. No note, no messages, just packed up and left. She’d had to reach out to his parents just to confirm he was still alive.

I didn’t think I’d ever be able to give him a pass for that.

I didn’t say any of that, though.

“Becka, you know your own mind, you’ll figure it out.”

“Pfft. Like I’ve got the best track record for that.” She bit the inside of her cheek and I winced in sympathy. Relationship drama was not something I envied.

Wanting to lighten the mood, I said, “Woojin will be devastated to learn he’s lost your heart.”

Becka laughed, and it was like a light had turned on inside her again. Seeing Becka upset when I wasn’t there with her made me feel like a garbage friend, even when it was completely out of my control.

“You tell that beautiful man to call me next time he’s in the US, and I’ll make time for him.” Her cheeks turned a pretty pink that I admired. When I blushed, I just went splotchy.

“You know, they’re touring soon,” I said conversationally, “and that means we’ll be in the US in a few months.”

There were a few beats of silence as I watched her eyebrows furrow first in confusion, and then deepen into confusion and then-

“'We'? Bish, are you going on TOUR?" She shouted so loudly my phone speaker crackled.

I laughed, holding a finger to my lips, trying to shush her. Jihoon was still sleeping and she was screeching like a bloody banshee.

“Yes! It’ll be a working visit, I’m basically a roadie, but yup. And keep this to yourself, but we’re going to be in LA and Oakland, so you can take your pick!”

I swiftly muted my phone, watching as Becka – silently – started screaming, her whole face screwed up, and I held a hand over my own mouth to muffle my laughter.

Eventually, she calmed down enough to where I could safely unmute her.

“Babes, you are living the dream!” She crowed, breathlessly, and I grinned, her excitement so contagious.

“When? I’ll need to book the time off so we can catch up properly.”

I told her the approximate dates for LA, which were going to be announced at the end of February.

“Hopefully this corona thing will have blown over, by then.” She made a face that I took to be somewhere between disdain and genuine worry.

“Jihoon reckons it’s just a seasonal flu,” I bit my thumbnail, “but I dunno… the media coverage is concerning.”

Becka nodded. “It’s nuts over here. You know what that one network is like – they’re blaming it all on China and saying it’s a fear tactic, but everyone else says we should be taking it seriously.”

Her shoulders slumped, and I felt a pinch of sadness for her as I remembered that her nan had died from a ‘seasonal’ flu while we were in London together. She hadn’t known until it had been too late.

“They’re taking it quite seriously over here,” I commented.

“The company has installed hand sanitizer stations on every floor, and in the lobby.” I didn’t bother pointing out that basically everyone now wore face masks in the streets, and around the building.

They had been pretty prevalent before, but now it seemed everyone wore them.

Even I had started wearing them to and from the building.

Becka nodded before her face quirked with a smile. “Celine brought in a box of surgical masks the other day.”

“Really?” Surprising, I never pegged Celine for an alarmist.

“Yeah,” she snorted, “the audacious bish tried charging us for them. They’re fucking disposable.”

“Oh my god, she did not!” I covered my mouth as I laughed.

“She fucking did,” Becka joined in, both of us lost in the one thing that made this looming situation funny.

The laughter eventually trailed off though, and the conversation veered towards the one thing we’d both agreed only to bring up every other day.

“So,” Becka started, her smile more forced than before. “How is it all?”

I sighed, jabbing the straw into my cup harder than was necessary. “Mostly it’s blown over.”

By ‘blown over’ I meant that ENT had profusely refused to allow any questions about Jihoon’s ‘US scandal’.

Of the talk show and radio show GVibes had recently attended, neither had been allowed to go anywhere near the topic, although both had asked in advance.

That was the benefit to Korean entertainment productions – they seemed way more polite than their US counterparts, who would have just sprung the subject on him.

The footage was still circulating the internet pretty prolifically, but that was to be expected.

“The upside is,” I continued, “they’ve been able to utilise all the publicity for promotion for their upcoming releases.” I flashed Becka a wry grin. “They should be paying me royalties.”

A few days later, I followed Hana down to the dance rooms, followed by the pounding footsteps of many more people heading in the same direction.

She’d insisted we drop what we had been doing – literally drop it, because we’d been moving set pieces across the storage cave – because she wanted to make sure we got a space.

“A space for what?” I frowned, but followed her lead.

“You’ll see.” Hana winked at me over her shoulder as we hustled, politely pushing people out of the way in our haste.

The ‘what’ became clearer half an hour later.

Hana and I sighed simultaneously as we leaned against the wall in the dance studio. Near everyone was crammed into this hot, sweaty room so our reactions went completely unnoticed.

Every month, the musical performers put on a brief, snapshot performance for the whole building, as a sort of revue.

It was only ever of one song, or one dance, and the idea, apparently, was to showcase to the whole building what we were all involved in creating, even the worker ants like us – the junior assistants. The ‘asses’, Hana privately called us.

I’d missed the performance last month, because Hana and I had been out of the building setting up at a venue. I hadn’t minded at the time, but now I totally understood why Hana had been pissed.

We’d already watched three of the trainee groups perform, and then Sol8, and now it was GVibes’ turn.

I’d seen them live at the Jingle Bell Ball in December, which had verged on life-changing, but this… crammed into a room with dozens of other people, stage lighting illuminating only the centre circle, music pounding through speakers, the bass vibrating under my feet…

Watching Jihoon move through the steps wasn’t like watching him dance at all. In fact, as their upcoming release was a high-tempo, sexy song, watching him dance was… kind of like the things he’d done to me last night.

It was so dark here at the back of the room that I didn’t bother to hide the expression that I knew was now playing across my face. If it was weird to be suddenly turned on in a room full of people… well, I was weird, because watching those body rolls made me feel some very inappropriate things.

“Fucking hell. Whoever that chick in the video was, is one lucky woman.” Hana muttered to me. And while the reminder of the leaked footage sent an unpleasant shudder through me, I was also oddly smug. The conflicting feelings were not easy to process.

The song ended and the group took their final positions, chests heaving with the exertion from the energetic moves.

I watched as Jihoon’s eyes darted around the room.

I did nothing to identify myself, of course, and I was too far back for him to see easily in the dark.

But it gave me a thrill to know he was looking for me.

Even after all this time, he still made me feel like I was the only person in the room.