My Summer in Seoul

“I think I did,” he whispered.

“What?” I frowned.

“Nothing.” His smile wasn’t forced. If anything, it was sad. “Sleep well, Grace.”

“You too, Rae.”

I had woken up wanting to murder. And now I was going to bed with a smile on my face, all because Rae was kind.

And you know, I didn’t accidentally kill anyone.

It was a win.

A total win.

Chapter Ten

And I thought it was going so well… so wrong

Grace

I woke up to chaos.

The schedule had changed.

Lucas had a sore throat.

Rae was attempting to calm Sookie down after the choreography was changed last minute on one of their next releases that wasn’t even coming out yet. Suddenly, all the happy moments we’d had the day before fell flat on their asses.

My mom called again, asking if I was okay.

Followed by my dad asking the same.

But I couldn’t even attempt to call them back until later that afternoon when we were all back at the apartment for voice lessons.

Lucas was in another mood, throwing things around the apartment and subjecting everyone to his angry glaring because another article was published about him somehow being a flirt in middle school, which apparently meant he was a manwhore now and just kissing random strangers.

The air was extremely tense.

I had exactly ten minutes if I wanted time to chat with my parents and wasn’t sure I could handle the anxiety.

I decided the only way to help was to do something nice and make tea for everyone. Tea calmed people down, right?

Everyone seemed to have their own shit going down, so I went into the kitchen, quickly made tea then was careful to set it all up on a tray that I could put on the table for them to come choose from.

Proud of myself, I went into the dining room and set the tray down. “Hey Rae,” I called him over. “I know everyone’s kind of stressed, so I made tea. Hope that’s okay? Nobody has a tea allergy, right?”

His smile was so sad I wanted to hug him. “No.” His face fell. “Nobody’s allergic to tea. It’s just that nobody likes it.”

“What!” I reached for the tray.

He put his hand over mine. “I was kidding.”

“This is me laughing,” I deadpanned.

At least he smiled at that. Then he spoke in rapid Korean. He must have said something like, “Hey guys, tea!” Because everyone came over and grabbed a cup.

Kai took a sip, and as if surprised, gave me a thumbs-up, sauntering off, man bun and all. Ugh, it wasn’t even fair to be that good-looking in real life. Where had they found these guys? Mars?

I’d learned in my short week and a half that I needed to have a thick skin, so I forced a smile toward each guy and an easy one in Sookie’s direction as he winked at me.

God, that kid was amazing.

Jay approached next; he lifted the cup then quickly set it back down, his eyes sad like he was remembering something like I’d done something to make him go from happy to forlorn.

“Does he not like—”

“Jay,” Rae interrupted. “Get some air.”

Jay nodded, and then he was gone, out of the apartment, into the elevator.

I tugged on Rae’s shirt. “Is that a good idea?”

“He won’t jump.”

“How do you know?”

“Because…” Rae cursed under his breath. “Trust me on this; he just has a lot on his mind lately.”

“The Showcase?” I asked.

Rae didn’t make eye contact. “Yeah, the Showcase, of course.”

Lucas interrupted what I might have hoped would be a normal conversation about how I could help Jay. He lifted the cup, sniffed it, made a face, and put it back down. Of course he did.

I was surprised he even touched it.

Rae said something in Korean again, his tone scolding.

Lucas sighed, then looked over at me and took one giant sip, only to keep it in his mouth as he made his way into the kitchen and then spat it into the sink like it was going to kill him.

My jaw dropped as he slowly dumped the contents down the drain then wiped his mouth the back of his hand as though disgusted with it.

I lunged toward him. Rae grabbed my arm and tugged me back. “Don’t. He’s having a hard time.”

“That doesn’t mean he gets to be like that!” I jerked away from Rae’s grasp and charged toward Lucas, who seemed to want confrontation.

I smacked him against the chest, realizing in hindsight the minute I did it that I would probably be fired for touching him. “What’s your problem?”

He leaned down, so close I could almost taste his mouth, then slid his hand into my front pocket and pulled out my phone, showing me the screen.

With shaking fingers, I typed in my passcode.

He quickly found the app and spoke into it.

It translated to. “Because you don’t belong here. Because you’re not one of us. Go back to the States. We don’t need you.” The app paused then added the last lethal part. “I don’t need you.”