Page 118 of K-Pop Double Life

I watched them and thought: they aren’t afraid.

They’d all been fine during sound check, and as we ran through the ballad sequence, when the stage lights had gone blue and all five of us had moved through the formations by instinct, the harmony arriving between us the way it always arrived, without discussion. They’d looked focused, easy, the way they looked before any big show.

The first time my parents had seen me perform, I was in a trainee showcase in a black shirt the stylists had told me made me look older. I’d been so afraid that I’d sung the whole song to a spot on the back wall rather than the faces in the audience. Afterward, my mother had said I’d looked beautiful. My father said I’d looked like I was going to pass out.

He’d been right, but it hadn’t mattered. Because I’d stepped onto that stage and done the thing I’d trained for, and afterward the world was still there.

That night my parents would be somewhere in section AA, two seats that I’d arranged because I had wanted them to see the final show of the tour. Because I’d been proud.

The thought turned cold in my chest.

Don’t. I pressed it down. That kind of thinking wasn’t something I could afford to carry onto this stage in a few hours, and starting now was the wrong time to practice it.

A hand fell on my shoulder.

“Thinking too much again?”

Haneul stepped up beside me. He was still in rehearsal clothes, hair still damp from the run-through, and he had the calm, unhurried look he got when he’d decided something deserved his full attention.

“Probably.”

He followed my gaze out over the empty seats. We stood there for a moment, just looking.

“Tonight’s going to be amazing,” he said.

I laughed softly. “That’s not what I’m worried about.”

He sobered. “Joon-hi.”

“If something happens⁠—”

“Don’t.”

“Haneul.”

He sighed.

I looked at him — seven years of him, the leader who’d once cried at our first music show win and spent ten minutes afterward insisting he hadn’t, who knew every one of my vocal habits and most of my fears and had kept both to himself. “Take care of the group.”

“Nothing is going to happen.”

“But if it does.”

For a moment neither of us spoke.

Then he reached out and gripped the back of my neck — the gesture he’d been using since we were trainees, so familiar I could feel it coming before his hand arrived.

“We’ve been together since we were teenagers,” he said quietly. “If you think I’m letting anything happen to you now, you’re an idiot.”

After rehearsal, the green room hummed with nervous energy as stylists, managers, and crew moved through their final preparations. Aidan gave one last security briefing, none of it reassuring.

No sign of Grace Han or Sara Yoon. I pulled Aidan aside. “I keep thinking about this time I saw Grace keep checking her phone during the London walkthrough,” I said quietly. “I remember wondering who she was waiting to hear from. Should I have told you about that then?”

Aidan shook his head. “You had no reason to suspect her. For all you knew she was waiting for a boyfriend to call her.”

I felt better, especially as he and Liam said there was no indication of how either woman planned to get through the layers of security surrounding the stadium.

“One more thing,” Aidan said. “Your parents are here. Front section, seat AA-15 and AA-16. I’ve got two officers positioned nearby, just in case.”