Page 119 of Hamartia
Where Jae has that mirrored space he uses to dance in, Kai has a dining room. A huge, round dark-wood table set for the seven of us at the center of it, there are black and white art prints hanging on the walls and another with vinyls, books, and modern-looking knick–knacks. It’s curated. Stylish in a different way from how Jae’s is. There’s a turntable on the vinyl wall—this is where the quiet foreign jazz is coming from—that is wired into speakers in the four corners of the room.
Jae goes around pouring everyone’s wine, pouring ours last, before taking his seat next to me on my left. Ada to my right. Kai and Xan bring the dishes through, setting them on the center of the table which has its own spinning mechanism. Then there are glasses of soju in front of us and we’re toasting to the coming new year. The seating arrangement puts Xan directly across from me and he alternates between glaring and ignoring me for the first half hour. His cold, impassive gaze landing on Jaehyun a few times too.
The dinner is in staggered English, with Jae explaining anything he thinks I might have missed in between. The food is, begrudgingly, the best I’ve had since I got here. Including the American Christmas Dinner Jae paid a private chef to cook for us, and I don’t mind telling Kai that. He looks genuinely pleased by the compliment.
Jae is helping clear the plates and Ada is asking me about our next tour and when we might be in Korea when my phone vibrates in my pocket. I slip it out to check. It’s Camille. I stare at it a moment, a weird slither of unease moving over me, before shoving it back in my pocket.
Ada is chatting to Su-jin now and so I take the opportunity to go for a piss. Xan and Jae are side by side in the kitchen, loading the dishes into a dishwasher. Jae’s body language is defensive and tight, his head turned away from Xan. While Xan’s empty coolness I’ve been staring at for hours, is gone. He’s gesturing quietly, passionately even, at the side of Jae’s head. I want to go over, insert myself between them, but then Jae turns his head and says something—too low for me to hear from here over the music—and Xan stiffens. His face softens and a new look comes over it. Chastened. He looks at Jae a long time before turning his head back to the task at hand. I don’t quite understand the dynamic, but Jae doesn’t look threatened by his bandmate.
I watch them a moment more just to make sure before slipping out of the living area and down the hall. Since the apartment is the mirror of Jae’s, I know which door is the bathroom. I piss quickly and wash my hands. When I pull open the bathroom door, Kai is standing in the hallway, hands in his pockets as he gazes at a large wood-framed canvas on the wall opposite. He turns his attention on me leisurely. It’s not that I find him attractive, but he is, objectively good-looking: model appearance coupled with a sharp, detached edge that borders on dangerous. A quiet dominant air that adds to the aura.
I hold his stare and wait for him to say something. When he doesn’t, I move out of the doorway and back toward the others.
Then I hear him say, “If you hurt him, I will make you regret it.”
I turn back slowly. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
I smile a little. “I’d have pitched jealousy a few levels beneath you, man.”
He does a weird thing with his face. “It is not jealousy, he’s my brother.”
“A brother you used to fuck.”
He hides his surprise well. Meaning he thought I didn’t know. Meaning he thought Jae wouldn’t have told me. We’re not speaking loudly, but I still don’t want any of this to travel, and so I take two steps towards him.
“Yeah, he told me,” I say. “Does that bother you? That he trusts me that much?”
I see his jaw clench so hard it changes the shape of his face.
“You think you know me, don’t you? A lot of people do.” I keep my voice easy, light even. “That’s why you’re standing out here threatening me—because you think you know how I’ll respond. You want me to what, hit you? Embarrass him? Listen, I get it. If I was in your position I’d be pissed too, man.”
“My position?”
“You had him and you lost him and maybe you can’t fucking deal with it.”
I see a glimmer of real violence in his eyes then. It doesn’t give me anything like the kind of satisfaction I hoped for.
“You do not have the faintest idea of what mypositionis,” he says. “You do not know me.”
I hold my hands up. “That’s true, I don’t. But he wants me to; that’s why I’m here. So what do you say we just pretend we get along for his sake. Sound good?”
He opens his mouth to speak but his eyes flick over my shoulder. The way his body reacts tells me exactly who’s standing behind me.
Jae is watching us, both worry and suspicion on face. “We have decided to go to Dal’s. Ada is meeting some friends there.” He looks at me for agreement. “It is a club.”
I give him a bright smile, one I turn on Kai next. “Yeah, okay. Whatever you want, I’m in.”
Kai forces a smile onto his face too; it changes his whole demeanor.
“Yes, of course. Let’s go to Dal’s.”
Jae doesn’t do drugs. In any form. But neither was he disapproving as Su-jin offered me a line of perfectly cut white powder on a wooden board that Kai brought through from his kitchen. I’d looked at him before accepting—he’d given me a soft shrug of his shoulders with a half nod and upturned hand that said ‘your decision’—and so I bent my head to partake. With the soju and wine already sloshing around in my veins, it settles nicely into a sparkly warm buzz under my skin. Neither Kai, Ada, Jae or Li take anything, which makes me wonder if it’s something about drug testing at their company, but then Xan does a line and I think it’s probably just personal taste.
Two Ubers arrive a short time after and we bundle in and are whisked through the wintry Seoul night. Ada, Jae, and I had taken the first one and so we arrive a few minutes before the others at a narrow street in what Jae tells me is Gangnam-gu. We wait around in the cold for a few minutes but I don’t feel it, blood warm from the alcohol and narcotics, but mainly from how beautiful Jae looks right now. He’s wearing a face mask and a thick woolen hat and so I risk it and pull him into me, nuzzling my face into his neck. His eyes are warm and fond, sparkling as he slips his hands about my waist and gazes up at me. Starbursts go off in my chest as his cheeks curve up into a smile.
“Fuck, I love you,” I tell him.
