Page 61 of When Worlds Collide (Between Worlds #2)

“Yes, Ky, just like you said that out loud, too.”

He wound an arm around my waist and pulled me into the apartment and closed the door behind us.

“Where did you go?” His tone was light, but his jaw was tense.

“To the bar, with Hana,” I grumbled, pulling out of his hold so I could kick my shoes off, not bothering to tidy them away.

“You could have called to tell me that.” I didn’t like his tone.

“Oh yeah, like you tell me everything?”

Why had I said that?

“What does that mean?”

Jihoon put his hands on his hips.

“Nothing, nothing.” I sighed, waving my hand, as though my hand through the air would clear the words away.

“You’re drunk.”

He was right, of course, but even through the haze of alcohol, I was capable of hearing the tone of disapproval.

“I’ve had a bad day. I wanted to go out.”

“We could have gone out, if you wanted to drink.”

“Pfft! Where? Back to the secret celeb club?”

“I thought you liked it there?”

He was clearly trying to be reasonable, so why was that pissing me off so much?

“It’s fine, never mind. Look, I just wanted to drink with my friend, you know, someone who knows I exist.”

I moved past Jihoon to get into the kitchen. Water. Water was a good idea.

“Is that what this is about?”

He followed me.

Oh, don’t follow me right now, baby.

I did not want to fight with Jihoon. But, I would.

“Isn’t that what this is always about?”

I fumbled for a glass but I… couldn’t… fucking…reach. Jihoon pressed up against me, leaning over me to pull a glass out of the cabinet, passing it down to me.

“Don’t be nice to me,” I grumbled, taking the glass from his hand so I could fill it up at the sink.

“Why?”

He leaned against the counter, watching me with an expression I couldn’t read past my inebriation.

“Because I’m mad, and sad.”

“You’re mad at me?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I just am, stop asking me.”

I ran the tap, filling the glass to the brim before chugging it all down.

“If my girlfriend is mad at me, I think I’m allowed to know why.”

Always so reasonable.

I slammed the glass down on the counter.

“Am I?”

“What? Mad? You sound like it.”

“Joon, Christ, just-”

I stopped, trying to take a breath, but for every deep inhale, my head just filled up with the fuzz of beer again. It was like constantly teetering on the brink of a cliff, unable to properly get my balance.

“Am I even your girlfriend?” The words fell out of me, not bothering to go past any normal filters.

“What? Ky-”

“Do I even count?” My voice was louder now, but I don’t know exactly why.

I watched as Jihoon pushed himself off the counter. He reached for me, but I dodged his hand, pulling back and watching at just the right moment to see the way his face fell along with his hand.

“Because it feels like I don’t.”

I couldn’t seem to stop myself. The cliff? I was over it, tumbling down it, breaking rocks loose as I fell, causing a landslide I had no more control over than an actual landslide.

“I’m a secret, Jihoon.”

And there it was.

“Do your parents even know about me? Did they know you were gonna bring a girl home for Seo-Sol-”

“Seollal?” he supplied, and fuck me if that wasn’t the worst thing he could have said, because –

“Yes, thanks for reminding me I also suck at your language,” I snarked.

“Maybe that’s why you’re not making any sense right now!” His volume had dialled up a notch, and some prickly part of me felt satisfaction at seeing his calm facade crumble.

“Maybe it’s because you’re not listening to me!”

He said something in Korean, it was so fast I didn’t have a hope of catching any of it, but it sounded like he was cursing.

“Did you really want me to come to Korea with you – or did you say it because you felt bad for me?

“For fuck’s sake, Kaiya.”

He blew out a breath, tugging his hands through his hair, recently lightened to a shade of blonde that should not have suited him as well as it did.

But at that moment, it had the unfortunate side effect of reminding me of Lee Hyejin, who was also currently blonde, and because apparently my mind was hyper fixated on all the shit guaranteed to piss me off, that reminded me of the photo of him and her, stepping out of the elevator.

Staring at each other. A picture that Hana had forwarded to me.

“Wouldn’t it be so much easier to sell this to the public, than some English girl who can’t even speak Korean properly?”

I fumbled with my phone, bringing up the image before turning the screen round and shoving it practically in his face.

I watched him take it in, first confusion, then… anger?

“Where the fuck did this photo come from?”

I hadn’t expected that reaction. But I didn’t want to rat Hana out, suddenly certain he would not forgive this. Taking photos of the assets within ENT was a fast-track pass to joblessness, and probably an industry black-list.

“Does it matter? It’s you and her, isn’t it?”

“You think I’m cheating on you?”

He took a step back, like the distance between us would somehow help.

Or, perhaps he just wanted to be further away from me.

And, even though I knew I was being a bitch, even though I knew I was being irrational…

I couldn’t seem to stop. I couldn’t put the lid back on the hateful bottle I’d opened.

I was too hurt, too angry, too useless right now, and weren’t these all things I had really felt, anyway?

“I don’t know, Joon, are you?”

My heart thumped so hard in my chest I wondered for one wild moment if my ribs could crack from the force of it.

“No. No, Kaiya, I’m not cheating on you. But it’s your choice to believe me or not.”

I’d expected him to shout, but somehow, his quiet words were worse. I turned away from him, put my hands on the sink and closed my eyes, because I didn’t think I could stand to look at him, and see the reflection of myself in his eyes.

“It doesn’t really matter,” I said softly, “because I still feel more like the mistress, than the wife.”

It felt like all the air in the room had been sucked out, and I couldn’t get enough oxygen in as I stood there, unable to cram all my thoughts back into the Pandora’s box I’d broken open. I wanted to take it back, but I didn’t have any bandages for this gun wound inside me.

I felt him leave. I felt the way the room seemed suddenly smaller, and yet bigger all at once. The soft snick of the front door closing only confirmed what I already knew.

A snarky part inside me whispered, ‘Do you feel better now?’

I didn’t know what to do with all this twisty darkness inside myself, so I did the only thing I could do.

I went to bed, and pretended that Jihoon was lying next to me, and that I hadn’t just kicked wide a door I wasn’t prepared to walk through.