Somewhere Only We Know(73)

“Hong Kong,” she answered, quick and precise.

“Speaking of Hong Kong,” James said while glancing at the audience. A wink and nod in his expression. “There were some rumors online that you had an adventure there.”

I made a choking sound. No way. Were they allowed to bring this up? K-pop stars were so fiercely protected. Even mentioning scandal was complete sacrilege.

But everything she’d done on the show had been sacrilegious.

Lucky’s features stilled. She went blank in this way that I’d seen on her social media—that familiar placid expression that insinuated a secret buried deep inside of her. Unreachable. I’d never felt so far away from her.

A few uncomfortable seconds passed, and you could see James glance at someone off camera, to see if he should shift directions. Then it was like a switch turned on in Lucky. A spark lit in her eyes as she twisted her lips into a grimace. “What have you heard?” Her voice was so conspiratorial, so full of mischief, that everyone burst out laughing.

His face turning red, James stammered, “Well, only that, well … you might have had a romantic kind of day.”

God, really, James Perriweather? I kept my eyes on Lucky, every nerve attuned to what she was going to say in response.

She leaned back on the sofa, pulled her leg up onto the couch. Like an ajumma about to trim some bean sprouts on her deck. It was so graceful and so Korean and so comfortable. “I had a good day,” she said with a big smile.

People whooped for a second, and then there was silence. You could almost feel everyone in the audience, everyone watching the show, lean forward. Including me. To await whatever she was going to offer next.

Not that my entire life was hanging on this one moment or anything.

With her arm draped around her knee, Lucky looked directly into the camera. “I took a day off after a long tour. And it was…” Her voice trailed off, her gaze shifting down toward the floor. “It was transcendent.”

The word shot from the screen directly into my body, filling me with an intense heat—like the sun breaking from the clouds.

Her eyes moved back up to the camera, and she sat up, running a hand through her hair. I could almost feel the strands between my own fingers. After a beat that felt like a hundred thousand years …

She smiled, a soft one full of secrets. “I spent the day with a photographer. He’s going to release a very, very exclusive photo story on me. Look for it. By Jack Lim.”

I fell back into the sofa. She hadn’t given up on me, either.





ONE YEAR LATER





CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE


CATHERINE


“Fern! My God!”

The Pomeranian stared at me, her chin held up defiantly as she hopped around on her tiny, stupid feet.

She had peed on my silver Birkenstocks. For the third time that month.

“I’m going to have you stuffed and perched jauntily on a fedora!” I screeched.

“Catherine!” my mom yelled from my bedroom doorway. “Don’t talk to your little sister that way.”

I sputtered, holding up the defiled sandal. “Sister?! She’s not my sister, you weirdo!”

Fern hopped into my mom’s arms and my mom crooned into her fur. “Don’t worry, you’re a better daughter than her.” I had to laugh and my mom looked up at me with twinkling eyes. “Clean your room. There are no hotel maids here.” She padded down the hallway with the dog smugly nestled in her arms. There was only one princess in this house and it wasn’t me.

It had only taken a few days for my family to get used to having me back home. No coddling, no fussing. I had to do chores, follow curfew, and have dinner with my family every night. My actual human sister, Vivian, immediately borrowed my clothes.

I loved it.

The October day was warm, not that unusual for the Valley. I cracked open a window and stared out into the cul-de-sac. Neighbors were unloading their groceries from their compact SUVs. A few kids were riding bikes. The day was coming to an end and the sky was a pale blue edged with pink.

It was familiar and foreign, and I relished every second I was home.

When the infamous Later Tonight Show episode was recorded that afternoon a year ago, Joseph had almost burst a forehead vein from the shock. I had braced myself for the screaming and yelling, but was met with confusion instead.

“Was that what your rebellious day was about? You want to change your image?” Joseph had asked.

Ji-Yeon was frazzled, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the greenroom. “We could have planned it so much better.”

I stared at them in shock. “What? You mean, I’m not fired?”

They both looked at each other before Joseph answered. “I don’t know. The management label isn’t going to like this. You might lose everything.”

I took a deep breath. “What did you guys think of the performance, though?”

A few seconds passed and my heart stopped beating.

“I loved it,” Ji-Yeon said with a smile.

Hope flared through my chest. “You did?”

Joseph cleared his throat. “We have to see how the public reacts. But it was good. Very good, Lucky.”

Those words unleashed a flood of tears. It was relief, it was exhaustion—it was everything that I had been holding back.