“S
omething’s off with Yihwan hyung,” Minchan quietly declared to Steven after the leader told them to “take ten.”
“Thank God I’m not the only one who noticed. I was beginning to question my sanity when he kept switching arrangements during the Firefly Dreams and Something There mashup!”
They both glanced at Yihwan, now crouched by the edge of the main stage, speaking to a sound engineer. Tonight was the last night of technical rehearsals at the Jamsil Indoor Stadium that would officially kick off their Leap of Faith tour.
It wasn’t the best time to doubt your band leader’s ability to keep himself together in time for the concert.
“And didn’t we change the intro to the Sophomore Year medley?” Steven asked, picking up the music sheets lying by his feet to double check. They had indeed agreed to change the intro to the medley, something Yihwan seemed to have forgotten during rehearsal, throwing both members off.
When the ten minutes were up, Yihwan picked up his guitar again and slung the strap over his shoulders. “Japanese medley this time,” he said, nodding at Steven. “Seasons, then Maybe Not Today, and then Stage Fright.”
“You mean Seasons, and then Terrified, right?” Steven waved an annotated music sheet to remind him.
“Oh. Right...” Yihwan flashed the magnae a timid sideways glance. “What Steven said.”
* * *
Fi was seated in the front row of the concert stadium, brows knitted together in concern. Even if Steven and Minchan didn’t react to what could have been an indiscernible error, Fi was familiar enough with their repertoire to know Yihwan messed up on that medley.
Sighing, she sat back in her chair and watched the band as she mulled over another phone conversation she’d overheard inside the dressing room earlier. She didn’t need to hear the voice on the other line to know who it was. His tone and body language gave him away.
For a moment, she toyed with the idea of calling that person to give her a piece of her mind.
“Stop. Stop, stop—” she heard Yihwan say over the microphone, and she stopped to look up at the stage warily, like she had been caught red-handed.
“I’m sorry, my bad,” Yihwan said and motioned for Minchan to reconvene with Steven at the back.
With everyone’s backs turned, Fi snuck a chance to tinker with Yihwan’s phone, which he left in her care. A ten-second debate about personal privacy ran in her head before she finally went “Screw it,” grabbed the phone, and looked through the band leader’s contacts. By the time Yihwan called for a set repeat, Fi had already saved Han Haera’s number on her phone.
It sat in her contact list for weeks.
* * *
Fi wasn’t surprised Yihwan began to turn to the bottle. He started small—a few shots each day at the dorm or whichever hotel they were staying in—and eventually ended up inviting Steven, Minchan, and their staff for drinks night after every concert night.
She had seen this before, and back then she wished she’d never have to see it happen again.
Oh well, she thought. You can’t always get what you want.
Because, of course, she wanted time alone with Yihwan like this: sitting side by side on the floor, backs against the side of the bed; his head on her shoulder, her hand on his cheek, musing about love and how it changed the people it touched.
A lovely image, but looks can be deceiving.
They were in Bangkok for Leap of Faith’s third leg. Fi and Yihwan were alone in the band’s hotel room after she decided to haul his wasted ass out of their after party. No one dared say anything to the band leader’s face, but Fi saw the way Steven and Minchan had exchanged worried glances during Yihwan’s nth toast tonight. His drinking had officially gotten out of control, all thanks, perhaps, to that single phone call he received from Han Haera the day before the tour kickoff.
“Are you sober now?”
“Little bit.”
Fi raised two fingers in front of his face. Only the dimmed bedside lamps and the light down the hall leading to the bathroom illuminated the sprawling luxury suite, but she supposed this was a good test of sobriety anyhow. “How many?”
“Two pretty ones.”
“Then my job here is done,” she said as she made a move to stand up to put away the bowl of warm water by her feet, as well as the wet towel she used to wipe his face and neck earlier. He grabbed hold of her arm, a silent plea for her to stay.
She lifted her free hand to gently pat his cheek, her gaze on him pensive. His skin wasn’t as flushed as it was when they unceremoniously left the party earlier, and that lessened her worries, if only a little. “You should sleep, Yihwan. We’re not getting on a plane until later in the afternoon but—”
“Why do you think she left me, Fi?”
“Yihwan-ah.”
“No... tell me. You saw us together, Haera and I. You must have seen something.”
She had seen them, true. But Fi never looked for signs, for cracks beneath the delicate crystal that was Yihwan’s precious love affair. All she saw was the love she could never have.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
Tears began to make Yihwan’s eyes sparkle even more, and Fi mustered up all the courage she had to keep herself from looking away. They say that a heart breaking creates no sound, and Fi had always counted on that whenever faced with situations such as this.
“I was doing fine, right?” he asked, quick to wipe tears away with the back of his hand. “We worked like hell day in and day out in Japan—and I forgot all about her. I was okay! Even when she announced that she was dating that…that hotshot—”
“Jung Hwichan.”
“Whatever.”
He let go of her arm so he can bury his face in his palms and breathe, his posture reminding Fi of his reaction the day Han Haera’s announcement made the news. In front of his band members, he’d acted cool, shrugging in response to the Are-you-okays. But she caught him sitting alone in the corridor of their rehearsal studio in Japan, head buried in his palms, humming something random she thought he might have heard on the radio.
As it turned out, the tune was something Yihwan came up with until it grew verses, a refrain, a chorus, a bridge. His heartbreak over Haera finding someone new bled through Maybe Not Today, the most popular track off EG Project’s first Japanese album.
“Everything will be fine, you’ll see” was all she can offer as consolation at the moment. It was all she could offer herself through three years of silently loving him, after all.
He scoffed, as though insulted by how much Fi has downplayed the situation. “If you were in my shoes, I doubt you’d be able to say the same thing.”
Something inside her froze, then burned like wildfire, angry heat rushing to her cheeks. She felt compelled to slap him, but held herself back. If Jo Yihwan’s face showed up swollen in airport pictures later, it wouldn’t be because his enraged road manager decided to smack him around for an ill-timed comment.
“You’re lucky...” Fi said, her hands balled fists against the carpet. “At the very least, Haera loved you back. It was brief, but I imagine it’s a million times better than pining for someone who’s always looking the other way.”
The look on Yihwan’s face turned curious. “That... happened to you?”
Now it was her turn to scoff. And perhaps it was because she still had a bit of liquid courage left in her system that she allowed the words to escape her. “See? You were so busy looking at her, you wouldn’t even spare a glance for me.”
Staring at his face, Fi could almost see the words she uttered slowly sinking into Yihwan’s psyche. She saw it in the flicker in his eyes, the slackening of his jaw.
He looked at her now as if he was seeing her for the first time. Unable to hold his gaze, Fi looked away. But the moment tears started drawing paths down her cheeks, Yihwan took her in his arms and whispered apologies that melded with her quiet sobs.
Silence blanketed the room for a long while. As Fi let herself be held by Yihwan, the wheels in her head worked overtime. What now? What do I say next? She never imagined telling Yihwan of her feelings like this. Heck, she never had any plans of confessing them at all. For a moment, she wished she could turn back time so she could leave the room with her shattered heart still hidden from view.
She decided it was time to really leave, but he refused to let her go so easily. Closing her eyes for a second, she felt the pad of his thumb against her cheekbone, wiping away a tear. When she took in her next breath, his fingers were in her hair, and her vision of him blurred as he leaned in for a kiss.
Fi took a deep breath. This is it.
And then, it wasn’t.