Page 74 of K-Pop Double Life

“We’re not making accusations,” Liam continued. “But these individuals have been in the right cities at the right times, have access to the necessary systems, and have expressed frustration about Pryzm’s success.”

“This is insane,” Min-kyu said. “Ji-won? Sang-min? They’re colleagues. They’re⁠—”

“They’re suspects,” Liam said flatly. “Which means until we clear them, we treat them as potential threats.”

And for the first time since Cannes, I understood why Aidan and Liam watched everyone so carefully.

Not just the crowds, but the people closest to me.

In two days, we’d be performing at Madison Square Garden, the kind of American milestone Starhouse had been talking about since our trainee days.

And someone wanted me dead badly enough to follow me there.

29

WHAT NORMAL LOOKS LIKE

SANG-HOON — NEW YORK

After the meeting was over, a pair of buses took us over to Madison Square Garden for the technical rehearsal. There wasn’t much for me to do as a stylist since they weren’t in costume, but I had to pay attention to where everything was, and the short time the group had to change between numbers.

It was as if I’d never left the tour. I stood backstage and watched Jin perform, and I couldn’t imagine why I’d ever wanted to leave.

Sun-hee-noona joined me. “Come sit with me,” she said. We found a table and two chairs where we could still see the performance. She opened her laptop.

“Look at this.” She showed me graphs of performance data. “This is Jin over the past six months. Stage presence scores, fan engagement, vocals quality, dance precision. See this spike? That started since Cannes. Since you two stopped pretending and started being real with each other.”

The data was clear. Jin had been performing better, not worse, since we’d gotten together.

“Now look at London.” She played footage I hadn’t realized was being recorded. Jin going through choreography mechanically, missing cues, his expression hollow. “He fell apart without you.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “Jin is such a professional. I’m surprised he let anything affect him so much.”

We heard the number on stage begin to build to its crescendo and we both turned to watch. Jin was flawless, better even than he’d been before. He hit every note perfectly, moved with a sinuous grace, and made everyone around him look better. He was truly the center.

“You need to understand the effect you have on him,” Sun-hee-noona said, when the number ended. “Whatever happens in the future, remember this.”

We made it back to the hotel in time for supper, which the group ate ravenously. I didn’t have as much appetite; I was still considering what Sun-hee-noona had said. It felt like such a responsibility, like I had the future of Pryzm on my shoulders.

Jin was sitting on the bed, and I was on a chair nearby. Both of us were fiddling with our phones, because it was clear that there was just too much in the air to even talk. Then Aidan and Liam arrived.

“We have an idea,” Aidan said.

“No, you have an idea,” Liam said. “I think it’s a mistake.”

“I asked some old friends who live in the city about a gay bar where Liam and I can take you where you’d be relatively safe. They recommended one in Tribeca that’s dark and noisy and busy on a Sunday night.”

“Tribeca?” I asked. “Is that in New Jersey?”

They both laughed. “No, it’s a neighborhood of Manhattan, not far from here. This bar caters to an older clientele who are unlikely to know anything about K-Pop. They also recommended a very discreet car service we can take there and back.”

“And what? You want me to perform there?” Jin asked.

Aidan shook his head. “I want you to be anonymous there. I bought you these T-shirts in the hotel store.” He held them up. One read, “I can’t even think straight” and the other “I’m a blue boy in a red state.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“It means no one will consider you a pair of foreign celebrities,” Liam said. “Aidan deliberately bought a size too large.”