Page 21 of K-Pop Double Life

His body language softened, opened. “Joon-hi,” he repeated, testing the shape of it.

He kissed me then. Gentle and careful and full of all the things we couldn’t say out loud. When we broke apart, he rested his forehead against mine.

“You should sleep,” he said. “You look exhausted.”

“Stay with me?”

“I can’t. Not here, not in the day. Too risky.” He brushed his thumb across my lower lip. “But tonight, after the briefing and dinner, if you want.”

“Yes.” I didn’t even let him finish. “Yes, please.”

He smiled, soft and private and meant only for me. “Then I’ll see you at six. Try to rest.”

“I will.”

He turned toward the door, already settling back into the composed, professional version of himself that the rest of the world expected, when his phone buzzed.

I wouldn’t have thought anything of it except that he stopped moving. Not dramatically. Just a slight pause, his attention caught by whatever he was reading.

“What is it?”

“Nothing.” His answer came too quickly.

“Sang-hoon-ah.”

He hesitated, then came back to me and handed me the phone. The message on the screen was from Hana, one of the Starhouse makeup artists who had worked with AURORA before everything fell apart.

Have you seen what Min-woo is posting? He’s getting uglier.

Below her text were screenshots from social media.

At first I felt almost relieved. Bitter former employees posted angry things all the time. Starhouse had made enemies. Every entertainment company did. There were the usual accusations about exploitation, about trainee debt, about disposable talent and fake smiles and the machinery behind the fantasy.

Then I read Funny how some centers forget who helped build them.

I read it twice and showed it to Sang-hoon. “That could mean anything,” I said, though I wasn’t sure whether I was trying to convince Sang-hoon or myself.

He said nothing, and I went back to scrolling.

The next screenshot had already been deleted from the original account.

Some people get very close to power and mistake access for protection.

A strange chill moved through me, completely out of proportion to the words on the screen.

Min-woo had never managed Pryzm. His group had been AURORA, and my interactions with him had been limited to company events and the occasional year-end concert. I remembered him as charming, even funny. The kind of manager who knew everyone’s name and asked polite questions about your parents. But that had been before he was fired. Before public humiliation and whatever private resentments had come with it.

“Did Aidan see this?”

“I don’t know. But I’ll forward it to him now.” He took his phone back from me and began hitting keys.

“Do you think Min-woo hates me?”

Sang-hoon took a moment before answering, which was somehow worse than an immediate yes. “I think he blames Starhouse and Pryzm,” he said carefully. “And you’re the center.”

That should have reassured me. Instead, I heard what he hadn’t said. What if Min-woo meant me personally?

“What do you think we should do?”