My Summer in Seoul

In the deepest recess of my mind, I recognized this moment for what it was: pent-up adrenaline, lust, sex driving him.

And I was the only thing that made sense.

And yet, I couldn’t stop.

I didn’t pull away when he deepened the kiss, when his hands tugged at the button of my jeans, pulling them open and shoving them down past my ass, his palm sliding between my thighs.

I arched at his touch.

“Everything,” he said harshly as his hand moved, then his fingers, inching my underwear to the side, “can be a drug.”

“Wh-what?”

I bucked against his invasiveness, at his harsh words, and still, I stayed there as he kissed me, as his perfect, musician fingers worked me in that dark room.

A whimper passed my lips; he captured it with his.

I’d missed him.

I’d missed this.

A tear slid down my cheek as he roughly sent me over the edge. I sagged against his shoulder.

He shoved me back, pulled up my jeans, and sneered. “Thanks.”

“Wh-what?”

“I just wanted to prove a point.”

“What?” Panic seized my chest.

“Yeah.” He adjusted himself. “That I could say no to temptation, no to addiction, that I was okay and you weren’t. I’m not the problem. You are. And when you leave, everything will go back to normal.” His lips twisted into a cynical half-smile. “I think I’ll put a countdown in my phone.”

I don’t know how long I stayed there, in that room, feeling the aftershocks of his mouth, of his fingers.

His words.

I slid to the ground and hugged my knees.

And then someone tapped my shoulder.

I jerked back.

It was Sookie.

The makeup was off his face.

The tattoos visible on his hands as he slumped to the floor with me and handed me a flask.

“How do you even—“ I stopped myself. “Never mind. Nothing you do surprises me anymore.”

He shrugged.

And once I took a swig and handed it back…

He grabbed my hand and held it while I cried on his shoulder.

Part Three

The Heartbreak.

Chapter Thirty

And I thought we were busy before…

Grace

I thought things were busy before the comeback.

Ha! Laughable.

After my run-in with Lucas, he’d been avoiding me like the plague, and every time Rae gave me attention, Lucas just got meaner. Everyone picked up on it; nobody did anything about it.

Sookie oftentimes would be waiting at night with tea.

Kai soon joined him.

Then Jay.

And somehow, we became Grace and the Three Musketeers at midnight, complaining about all the things, bonding over K-dramas I at first refused to watch only to cave and end up bawling in front of them.

Jay teased that we needed stock in tissues.

He still checked his phone like he didn’t know how to respond to the flirty things Dae-Jung said to him, ones that admittedly Dae-Jung ran by me to make sure they were okay. I knew it was only a matter of time before Jay gave in.

I hoped for it.

They deserved to be happy. I loved that he was at least attempting a strong friendship. Hey, baby steps. He just needed to know that it was okay to love someone even if you’re afraid of what people might say or think. There’s freedom in love.

Sookie’s English was getting better, though I blamed myself for teaching him way too much slang and cursing—I mean more than before, sigh.

Kai came down on me hard the day Sookie screamed “Fuck,” then gave me a high five afterward and said, “Well done, you can stay.”

I had exactly one month left.

Hadn’t washed my hair in two days.

And felt like I was going crazy when we got the news that the guys had hit seventy million views on their first comeback video in under a month.

The label rented out a restaurant and told us to get dressed up. I didn’t even have to drive, which was nice; they hired someone else so I could celebrate and have drinks with everyone. Though I promised myself no continuous shots of soju.

It was a French restaurant called La Planque. I was so excited to be able to just relax for the first time in weeks that I was already yawning when I crawled into the back of the van.

Solia had let me borrow one of her dresses, which meant it was at least two sizes too small, making it more like a red body con dress with a plunging neckline, but hey, it worked. I just had to tug it down when I crawled into the van, so I didn’t flash poor Sookie, who had grown weirdly protective of me over the last few weeks.

In fact, between him and Kai, it was like I had a constant security guard with me whenever Lucas came around.

Lucas, to his merit, wasn’t mean to me anymore. He just pretended I didn’t exist.

I wanted to say it was fine.

But it hurt. Deep.

Because I’d thought we had something.

I had felt it.

I hadn’t ever felt that way with anyone, that weird connection that was there no matter how many times I wanted to sever it. I always knew where he was.