The beat of my heart thumping echoed through my ears. Around me, the noisy cafe was abuzz with activity but I couldn’t hear a single thing. I not only had tunnel hearing, I had tunnel vision too - all I could see was Jin Woon sitting across, patiently waiting for my reaction to his heartfelt speech.  If I just wanted to, I could reach over and touch him, tell him everything. From the first instance I realised that the musician was permanently etched in my mind.

I was afraid. For the first time in my life, everything was exposed. I wasn’t just some student struggling to make ends meet to support herself through school; I was engaged to the scion of one of the most influential families and already had my future set in stone. I was spoken for, yet Jin Woon had taken a chance, the chance I had been hesitant to venture into.

Jin Woon didn’t want anything from me, all he wanted was to know which way my heart leaned. But what good could come out of the truth? Was it possible to make it even harder to leave Seoul and this boy that I desperately was trying to erase from my conscious?

I didn’t want to hurt, any more than I was hurting now.

And I couldn’t bear to hurt Jin Woon.

Looking down, my hands were clenched together so tightly that the knuckles had turned white. You do like him, a whiny inner voice protested, and nothing will change that fact. No matter how much you deny it.

“I do.” I whispered.

There was the sound of a chair being pushed back. Jin Woon must have heard me, for he tapped my shoulder. “Amber, let’s go somewhere else.”

“Where?” My hands had begun shaking.

It was very odd - I felt the same as if a million bandaids had been ripped off my body - my secrets were no longer in the closet.

The tall boy helped me up. “Somewhere where we can be in private.”

His presence enveloped me and was comforting. My little hazy cloud that surrounded me didn’t leave though and as we walked, to an unknown place, everything around me was still a blur. Except the boy who was now holding on to my arm tightly - in the haze, Jin Woon stood out as clear as a cloudless sky.

Kris would be furious if he found out. Taking another look at Jin Woon, who strode confidently forward to god knows where, I squashed the nagging thought. Kris is not in Korea. Although I made sure to keep my face hidden under my baseball cap, all the way.

To Jin Woon’s home.

I had only been to his sparsely-furnished apartment once and somehow, the wave of familiarity overwhelmed me. Since the party, where Kris had a breakdown, I had been operating on empty. So focused I was on making sure that my best friend’s world remained intact despite everything that my own aching soul was ignored. Being torn from the home that I had built in a foreign place, the friends who had stood by me - Seoul was as much home as Beijing was to me now.

Jin Woon and I had not spoken to each other since departing from the cafe. Now as I stood in the middle of his empty living room, wondering what to do with myself. I was at such a loss. My priorities and obligations were where they should be except when Jin Woon swooped me into his arms, the self-questioning began. This