My Summer in Seoul

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty

And I thought we were busy before...

Grace

I thought things were busy before the comeback.

Ha! Laughable.

After my run-in with Lucas, he'd been avoiding me like the plague and every time Rae gave me attention, Lucas just got meaner. Everyone picked up on it, nobody did anything about it.

Sookie oftentimes would be waiting at night with tea.

Kai soon joined him.

Then Jay.

And somehow, we became Grace and the Three Musketeers at midnight, complaining about all the things, bonding over K-dramas I at first refused to watch only to cave and end up bawling in front of them.

Jay teased that we needed stock in tissues.

He still checked his phone like he didn't know how to respond to the flirty things Dae-Jung said to him, ones that admittedly Dae-Jung ran by me to make sure they were okay. I knew it was only a matter of time before Jay gave in.

I hoped for it.

They deserved to be happy. I loved that he was at least attempting a strong friendship. Hey baby steps. He just needed to know that it was okay to love someone even if you're afraid of what people might say or think. There's freedom in love.

Sookie's English was getting better, though I blamed myself for teaching him way too much slang and cursing—I mean more than before, sigh.

Kai came down on me hard the day Sookie screamed "Fuck," then gave me a high- five afterward and said, "Well done, you can stay."

I had exactly one month left.

Hadn't washed my hair in two days.

And felt like I was going crazy when we got the news that in under a month the guys had hit seventy million views on their first comeback video.

The label rented out a restaurant and told us to get dressed up. I didn't even have to drive, which was nice; they hired someone else so I could celebrate and have drinks with everyone. Though I promised myself no continuous shots of soju.

It was a French restaurant called La Planque. I was so excited to be able to just relax for the first time in weeks that I was already yawning when I crawled into the back of the van.

Solia had let me borrow one of her dresses, which meant it was at least two sizes too small, making it more like a red body con dress with a plunging neckline, but hey it worked. I just had to tug it down when I crawled into the van so I didn't flash poor Sookie, who had grown weirdly protective of me over the last few weeks.

In fact, between him and Kai, it was like I had a constant security guard with me whenever Lucas came around.

Lucas, to his merit, wasn't mean to me anymore. He just pretended I didn't exist.

I wanted to say it was fine.

But it hurt. Deep.

Because I'd thought we had something.

I had felt it.

I hadn't ever felt that way with anyone, that weird connection that was there no matter how many times I wanted to sever it. I always knew where he was.

At night I'd sit outside the piano room and listen to his pain, and every night I'd pray he would share it with me.

Only to have him walk past me as if I was invisible.