It made a change to spend an evening without listening to Yuta lecturing her. The man was so relieved that Rose had come back unharmed but for a small cut on her lip – nothing at all considering what might have happened to her – that he'd let her go to take a bath when she'd asked and to rest in her room. This time, as far as he was concerned, it hadn't been anyone's fault but the men who'd approached her with ill intentions, and Yuta was satisfied that Tae-won had frightened them enough that they wouldn't see them again. It was strange for him to think that he'd be grateful to Tae-won for anything, but there was no denying the fact that Rose would have been in a great deal of trouble had he not found her when he had, and Yuta was resolved to treat the man with a smidgen of respect when he saw him again at work.
Rose, of course, knew the truth.
She knew that Tae-won had deceived her on the rooftop and placed her in danger.
She knew that he'd only cared about proving himself to his peers.
She knew that he'd only followed her out of duty.
She knew that he'd hugged her.
Hitomi chattered about Jung-wook, the man she'd spent the entire night with in the bar until Yuta had ordered the car back there and told her that it was time to go home. She hadn't borne witness to Tae-won's valiant rescue of Rose in the street, otherwise that would have been the only thing on her mind, and Rose was grateful to avoid the conversation for a few hours when she was still so confused by it all. The man, she'd said, was trying to support his family and still lived with his parents but wanted to make sure that his younger siblings could get into university without too many debts, and thus the man became something of a hero in Hitomi's estimation. Anyone who'd sacrifice their own promising future in education for the sake of his brothers and sisters couldn't possibly be bad, and Rose couldn't help but think Hitomi was going to fall hard and fast for this young man.
Her eyes fixed on a point on the wall, Rose sat in silence while Hitomi chattered over the whirring hairdryer, brushing and drying Rose's hair for her so that it wouldn't end up kinked after a night of restless sleep.
'We're going to try to sneak in a few dates,' Hitomi said as she shut off the machine. The girl leaned over the edge of the bed and groped for the straightening irons in the nearby suitcase. 'After he's finished with work and things, so you can be alone with Yuta, if you want.'
'Wait,' Rose said, ready to rejoin the conversation, 'I thought we were going to do some tourist things together. Didn't you want to try out some restaurants and go shopping?'
'I do,' Hitomi agreed, 'but I want to see him, too. We can do both! And, I don't mind going to places twice. You can think of me as scouting out the best locations, so we can go to them later.'
Rose wanted to argue that it wouldn't be the same and that she was hoping Hitomi could distract her confused heart from her feelings about the three men she found now in her life, but when she looked into her friend's imploring eyes, she couldn't bring herself to do it. Hitomi was always by her side when she was angry about her parents throwing their wealth around, her boyfriends being terrible people, or when she simply hated being herself. It always seemed to be about her; her lovers, her family, her life, and never about Hitomi. For once, she was going to swallow down her objections and give her friend a chance to live for herself and experience her own whirlwind romance. And, if it all ended in disaster, she would be ready and available to pick up the pieces and to be the supportive sister-like friend Hitomi had always been for her.
'Will you tell me every filthy detail?' Rose asked.
'Duh. Obviously. Who else am I meant to tell?'
'Yuta?'
'Ew, no,' she said. 'That'd be like telling my dad. Oh my God, can you imagine if I told my dad?'
'I think Rob would cry if you told him all the things you get up to,' Rose laughed.
'I don't know what you mean,' she replied with the most innocent of smiles. 'I'm a perfect angel.'
'You're a perfect flirt.'
'At least we both agree that I'm perfect,' Hitomi said.
Rose couldn't tell Hitomi about Tae-won. Instead, she'd waited for her friend to fall asleep in the middle of talking about Jung-wook and how she couldn't help staring at his dimples when he smiled, and then slipped out of their shared bed. Gathering up a robe they'd thrown over a chair, she shuffled through the living room in the dark and dropped down onto the sofa. It wasn't comfortable; it was the sort of seat designed for fashion rather than function, with thin, hard cushions and a rigid low back. Too stubborn to leave her new roost and return to the bedroom, Rose turned on the television and muted the sound before she could disturb anyone, rolled onto her side, and pulled the robe over herself like a blanket. Glassy-eyed, she stared at the screen and watched the entertainment broadcast in silence. There was no question of her understanding it with or without the sound; Rose didn't know any Korean.
A familiar face flashed up in the background as the two anchors spoke animatedly about the man on screen. Tae-won, it seemed, was as famous as he'd professed. The woman fanned her face with her hand and smiled broadly as they discussed him. A string of headlines scrolled in a distracting fashion along a ribbon on the bottom of the screen, and Rose tried to ignore them even if they were on a garish yellow banner which screamed for attention. A few shots appeared from his drama shows, including some from those he'd taken part in as a child when he'd just been starting his career. Rose couldn't help those seemed familiar and wondered if they were favourites of her mother or series that her father or Akane had taken part in during joint Korean and Japanese productions. As the man on screen aged, Tae-won's various characters shouted furiously, wept, and embraced girls much in the way he'd hugged her in the street when she'd cried. The similarity between the gestures was so startling that she couldn't help but wonder if she'd accidentally stepped into one of his shows and the two men who'd approached her were just extras hired by Tae-won to make him look like a hero when he swept in at just the right moment to save her.
No.
If it had been a television show, he'd have been there to stop the man from hitting her and would have caught his arm mid-swing. The throb of her cheek and sting of her lip told her that the events of the night had been very real, and she dreaded to think what might have happened had he not found her when he did. To catch up, he must have been running all over Myeongdong since the moment she'd left him. There was no way he could have predicted the route she'd take to get away from him, because even she hadn't known where she was running off to at the time.
Just as Rose got the idea to forgive Tae-won for his past mistakes so that they could act like professionals going forwards – perhaps even friends – a second picture appeared on the screen. A flawless headshot of Jin-hee was shunted into frame and squashed up against Tae-won's. A digital heart outline was drawn around them in a glittery flourish and the man laughed and smiled in an approving manner. Beneath this horrid image was a Silver Lilies logo, and it was clear they were talking about the fashion shoot as his latest project. They had little care for whoever the third model might be or the brand's theme, it seemed, because they were too busy speculating about the blossoming relationship between the two stars.
Rose wanted to laugh.
Jin-hee might have thought she had a shot with Tae-won, but from the way he'd clawed her fingers off him outside the bar, it was clear that he didn't reciprocate her feelings. Rose was satisfied that the presenters didn't know what they were talking about and, as she felt her eyes droop under the comforting glow of the television screen, she had to wonder why it was she even cared whether Jin-hee and Tae-won got together.
It wasn't like it was any of her business.