Page 67 of Teach Me K-Pop

maybe you want me like I want you

I hear it in your voice

maybe that’s why every word

sounds so true, so sweet

maybe we’re meant to be

The lyrics still make me swoon. Maybe even more now than they did before, because it feels like they were written about us.

Twenty two minutes.

There’s a knock at the door.

?

NIKKO

My heart is racing as I stand outside Jase’s hotel room, waiting for the door to open.

I feel like I’m in some romantic comedy that Lux has talked me into watching that neither of us really understand but we’ll both end up crying over. He’ll cry because he’s swept up in the story, invested in the lives of these fictional people. I’ll cry because it doesn’t make any sense to me how these people can be so compelled to make these grand gestures for people they barely know, but I still somehow want them to get their happily ever after.

Even if it seems crazy, I know now that mine is here. With Jase. This is my bold move; this is me risking it all for love.

Love.

I see it now. Recognize it for what it is. I love him. As unlikely as everything about us may be, I can’t let it go. I can’t just wait and see what happens. There have been too many times I have let other people decide my fate and I can’t do that now. Not this time.

The door swings open, and Jase is there, looking surprised but hopeful, and my breath catches at the same time my heart stops and then trips over itself as it picks up at a pace that feels dangerous.

“Nikko.” He says my name like it’s something special. I’ve never liked the way it sounds as much as I do when I hear it from him.

“May I come in?” The words are barely out of my mouth when his hand is around my wrist, pulling me inside.

I reach for the lock and click it to engage, separating us from the rest of the world. Then we are standing there, staring at each other, like neither of us knows what to do next. I don’t know, not really, but I didn’t come this far to lose all my courage now.

The moment I got the text from Kija telling me he was here, I’d decided that this was it. If he could take the chance and come to me, I could take the next step and go to him.

“Nikko, I—”

“No.” I interrupt, even though I know it’s rude. I need him to hear me out. “Please listen to me.”

Jase nods, stepping back further into the room and sitting on the edge of the bed. He is too beautiful for the surroundings, and his eyes seem even brighter in the dull beige of the space. The small smile on his face makes me want to be brave.

“I miss you.” It’s the least of the things I feel about him, but it’s the truth, and it’s as good a place to start as any. “I do not like... this.” I wave my hand around in frustration, trying to encompass everything that I mean. “I am sorry for what I said and how I made you feel when you left. I want to talk to you. I want to see you. I do not know how we would work, but I want to try. I want you. I want us.” I suddenly wonder if that is too much. To say “us,” if that’s even what we are. Or were. Or could be.

Jase stands quickly and closes the distance between us, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me against him. I feel as though my whole body turns to something like jelly, going boneless as the tension and anxiety seeps out of me at his touch. “I miss you, too, Nikko,” he mumbles into my hair before dropping a kiss there. “So much.”

I didn’t know how badly I needed to hear that. I knew I wanted it—hoped for it—but at my core, Ineededit. I can’t stop now, though; there is more that has to be said. “I know that it is—that it will be—difficult. To keep this. And if it turns out that this cannot be more than it is right now, I will learn to be okay with that. But I want to keep you in my life. You are important to me. If all we can be is friends, I will take it. Of course, I will wish we could be more. But if we cannot...”

I pause for a breath that I don’t get to take because Jase’s lips are on mine, his fingers slipping along my throat and curling around the back of my neck to hold me where he wants me. It is the best answer I could’ve hoped for. When he pulls away, I gasp, shakily inhaling the air the kiss stole from my lungs.

“That’s not what I want,” he tells me. “If you need me to be your friend, I will. But I want... I want so much more than that, Nikko.” Releasing his hold on me, he moves back just enough to make eye contact. “I know your life is crazy. I know the idea of you and I together is kind of insane. I have absolutely no idea how or where I fit in. But I want to.”

He wants to.

That’s all I really take away from what he is saying. It’s the only part I care about.

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