"Was that- Woah. Dude, you look so sad. What happened?"

"Two weeks after the wedding, she stopped coming around. She stopped talking to me, meeting with me, just . . . cut contact all together. She left me like that for a month, but I didn't stop texting her, leaving her voicemails. I know she was listening to them, too, because her inbox was never full. It felt so wrong not to have her there anymore."

"Couldn't you just go hang out with other friends?"

"What other friends? I had Mark and Youngjae, maybe you and Yugyeom if I got really desperate. I have a close circle, but I never realized how small and distant it really was until she came in."

"What about Hyolyn? You went to the Police Academy with her and you're friends with her."

"I lost contact with her for a while. It was after Carly that I sought her out. She had recently transferred to LA with three friends of hers."

"Bora, Dasom and Soyou."

"Exactly. I also picked up Amber and her friend group later too."

"So, what happened to her? She just up and vanish?"

"Pretty much."

A mothering month and she didn't have the ing decency to even text him back. She couldn't even just send a thoughtless emoji or something, just to tell him that she was still alive. He really wanted to punch something, but that wouldn't help. He also wanted to throw his laptop out the window, but that wouldn't help him either. It certainly wouldn't get the review Carly had written about Jaws off the screen or out from behind his eyes. Instead, he sat in the darkness of his living room, phone in one hand and laptop showing his Netflix top ten recommendations, all of which were because of what stupid shows and movies they had sat on his very couch and watched. 

Jaebum honestly didn't know what to do. 

He might be able to talk to Youngjae or Mark and get some advice (after they got over taking the piss out of him for it) but there was also the chance they would just mock him and it would never end. He could ask the newly partnered Yugyeom and Kunpimook, but he didn't want to lose their respect doing something as stupid as worrying and pining over some woman he should never have let this close in the first place. Hell, he still had Junior and JYP logged into his phone from the wedding. He would probably get the best advice from them, being the ones who seemed to have such a good, long-standing relationship with her. 

He closed the laptop, setting it gently on the coffee table, turning his phone off and setting it down beside it. He shuffled to the bathroom, washed, and took the second towel hanging on the back of the door. The baby blue one had been claimed by her the last time she was here and it felt like taboo to touch it now. He dried himself, leaving the towel over the back of his desk chair, and pulled on a set of new sleeping clothes. The ones he shared with her were in a pile next to the garbage. 

He got into bed, laying on his back. He closed his eyes, wondering again if she was alright, before falling asleep in the blackness.

Jaebum woke up to fingers carding through his hair. His clock read three am. This was either some delerious fever dream or his burgular was very nice. 

It was Carly sitting there, perched on the edge of his bed, fingers working out the knots in his hair. She was in a three-piece matching navy skirted suit, those same heels glinting mutely in the darkness. Her platinum hair was pulled back behind her shoulders, but some leaked out to grace her shoulder. 

"Carly?"

"Hi." Her smile was soft and guilty. "I'm sorry to have to do this to you, JB. I'm sorry I made you worry so much, but I'm okay and I'm going to be okay."

He blinked, still groggy and only half-listening, his body trying to will him back to sleep. "Huh?"

Her gaze felt heavy, laden with meaning he couldn't fathom. She wasn't smiling anymore. "I'm leaving, Jaebum. And I'm not coming."

"Uh . . . okay."

"I have a flight in an hour." She pursed her lips and through his hair again. Was she about to cry? He couldn't decide. "I only really have one person worth saying goodbye to, so that's what I'm here to do. I'm flying out and I'm never returning to the States."

There was gravity in her statements and he was muddling through them, trying to grasp onto them. 

"So, in honour of how wonderful you've been and how much I'm going to miss you, I've got something for you. One last secret to tell you how much I care about you." She bent down and tenderly pressed a raspberry-scented kiss to his lips. Her eyes fluttered open again when she pulled back. "My name is Jackson Wang."

Not knowing what else to do, he nodded. "Jackson."

Her smile was heartbreaking. She sat back, his hair again. "Go back to sleep, Jaebummie."

His body overpowered his mind now that she'd given it permission and he closed his eyes, melting back into his pillows. 

"Goodbye."

And the stopped. 

"Dude, I am so sorry."

Jaebum continued to stroll, hands in his pockets. He had missed Seoul more than he thought he did. "Nothing to be sorry about, Bambam."

"No, I . . ." The younger man swallowed thickly. "I didn't mean to bring up bad memories."

"They're not bad memories. I enjoyed my time with her." he finally let himself admit it. "I miss her."

"Carly Lee was an alias, then. Her real name was . . . ?"

"Jackson Wang. Birth name, Wang Kayee. She was born in Hong Kong to an Olympic gymnast mother and a business executive father. She took fencing since the first time she saw it and learned martial arts in her early twenties. Somewhere along the lines, she got mixed up in borderline criminal activity, which lead her to the States."

" . . .Where did she go after she left?"

"Carly Lee was on a flight to Milan, Italy. She stayed there for eight months, likely doing more jobs and passing on IDs, before Jackson Wang booked a flight back to Hong Kong. Her mother was really ill at the time, so she probably went back there to look after her for a while. Carly, Jackson nor Kayee booked anymore flights for the next two years that I monitored it, so she's probably in Hong Kong somewhere still. Maybe we'll even see her in the next summer Olympics."

Bambam frowned, rubbing his back. "What would you do if you seen her up there?"

Just the thought of it brought up a erse sense of pride. "I would be happy to see her . . . being amazing."

They continued walking, the low hum of people and shops filling the emptiness of their conversation. Jaebum could tell Bambam was struggling for a new topic, something that wouldn't dismiss the powerful feelings of the previous while not being as heavy. He was struggling hard. 

"Look, Kunpimook, you don't have to feel bad for me or try to make it any better. It is what it is."

"I just . . . I don't know what to do now."

"I think I've done enough narrating. How about you tell me something about Thailand? Yugyeom mentioned something about your mother owning a Korean culture store? Whatever that's supposed to mean."

Bambam looked dubious, but didn't say anything. He looked down at the sidewalk, trying to think of how to begin or what to begin with. 

Silver sparkles.

Jaebum stopped dead in his tracks and Bambam walked right into him. Before the younger man could even ask what the hell happened, Jaebum was off, walking single-mindedly into the small park-like area between two small businesses. His long stride left Bambam in the dust and he wove thorugh the concrete balustrades of the park with ease engrained into him since childhood. 

The man who had been passed the tablet put it in his jacket with a nod to the woman in the shoes that had caught Jaebum's attention. He left the park swiftly, without a backward glance, but the chestnut-haired woman didn't follow. She stayed, crossing her legs at the ankles and leant on her elbows, looking out over the rest of the park. There were some parents playing with their children, little ones on playdates together and some people sitting and talking on the scattered benches. 

"Where the hell are you going?" Bambam called out after him, but he didn't stop. He couldn't stop. He knew. He could tell.

He halted right behind the brunette woman, tapping the heel of her shoe with the top of his. She jumped and his arms s around her waist, his lips right next to her ear. 

"Caught you."

She choked off a gasp and twisted as much as she could. Even framed by brown hair instead of that striking platinum, Jackson was still a sight to behold, her big eyes widening even further when she finally got to look at him, falling open.

"Jaebum?"

"I caught you. After all this time, I got you."

"Oh my God, you can't just hug random women, Jae!" Bambam chastized, pulling him away.

To everyone's surprise, it was Jackson herself who reached out, grabbing his waist and pressing herself into his chest. "No." She blinked, like she hadn't intended to speak. Her voice was firmer the second time. "No. He caught me, fair and square."

"Okay, who the are you?"

"Jackson Wang."

Bambam had very wisely decided he was going to get his own hotel room. Jaebum was definitely grateful.

Jackson had followed him back to his hotel room in silence. When he closed the door behind him, locking it, he was finally alone with her again. She looked very different from what he imagined she'd be. Carly had been a flirtatious vixen, always playing but never serious. Jackson was still very mucht he same woman, but her big eyes and vague frown told him everything; the guilt, the sadness, the loneliness, the hope were all eating away at her insides and she didn't know which one to believe. 

"I had another secret." She blurted, suddenly. 

He nodded, not moving away from the door, but facing her more fully. She swallowed thickly and fought the instinct to fidget. 

"I had another secret." She repeated, softer, more controlled. "I love you."

He almost wanted to be mad, to throw six years of silence in her face and make her suffer for all the sleepess nights and lonely mornings. 

"It's not much consolation." She admitted, gripping the long sleeves of her black sweater. "I love you. From the moment you saved me right until now, I've loved you."

"I love you too." He murmured, his voice a low rumble. ", I love you so much."

"I didn't want to leave. I had to. I got called back. My business in the States was done and I couldn't stall anymore." Her eyes were beading with tears. "Then my mother got worse. I didn't want leave you and certainly not like that. Please."

His hands twitched at his sides. "I know."

She twisted her hands together. "So where are we now?"

"I finally caught you." He said again, finally moving into the room and stopping just in front of her. She had to look up at him and that made pride swell in his chest. "I did it."

"The only one." She chuckled weakly. "You chased me halfway around the world."

"And I got you." His hands settled on her hips, pulling her closer. "Do I get to keep you?"

She stared up at him. "Yes."

Jaebum woke up to knocks on his hotel room door. 

"Jaebum, I'm going to go exploring for a bit. So uh, text me, I guess." It was Bambam. He almost felt bad.

Warm skin slid against warm skin as Jackson burrowed her face into his neck, her hand cupping the joint of his neck and shoulder. He turned back to her, arm wrapped around her waist, and rubbed his nose into her hair. Her leg was thrown over his hips, his other hand on her thigh. On his side of the bed were those silver heels, right where they'd been dropped when Jaebum had stripped her of them as he kissed up her shin. 

His phone went off on the bedside table. 

Mark Tuan  You got with Silver Belle? Duuuuuuuude. We have to talk as soon as you can stop face.

"Stop thinking so loud." Jackson murmured against his collarbone. "I want to make up for all that lost cuddling time."

"Then stop talking." He replied, just as lowly. 

"You know I can't do that."

He did. But he just smiled into her hair, pulling her closer.