Chapter 11: The Last Time
The victory party was a gilded cage. Champagne flutes caught the light like shards of ice. The dense, perfumed air thrummed with congratulations, the weight of the Album of the Year trophy a cold anchor in Min-ho’s hand. He smiled until his jaw ached, accepted hugs from executives whose eyes were already calculating their next move. Across the crowded rooftop lounge, Maria held court. She laughed at something a famous producer said, her head thrown back, the elegant line of her throat exposed. She hadn’t looked at him once since they’d stepped offstage.
Ji-hoon was a silent, watchful shadow at Min-ho’s elbow. “Keep it light. Thank them. Move on.” The instructions were a low, constant drone.
Yose materialized, a slight frown on his face. “The trending topics are splitting. Half are about the historic win. The other half… it’s all still about the performance. The duet. They’re making GIFs. Of the… look.”
Min-ho didn’t need to ask which look. He could still feel its burn. “It was a performance,” he said, his voice hollow even to his own ears.
“Yeah,” Yose said, not believing him. “Sure.”
The party was coming to an end. The energy was sliding from euphoric to exhausted, the crowd thinning. Min-ho finally extricated himself from a circle of bloggers, seeking a moment of quiet near a potted fern. The cool night air off the Han River did nothing to clear the static in his head.
He felt her before he saw her. A shift in the atmosphere, a familiar warmth at his periphery.
Maria stood beside him, staring out at the cityscape, her profile flawless and unreadable. She didn’t turn. Her voice was so low it was almost swallowed by the distant traffic hum. “I’m leaving soon. Estela has me on a red-eye to Paris for the fashion week consultations.”
He just nodded, a tight jerk of his chin.
She continued, her words precise and hurried. “I’ll go to your penthouse after this. We need to talk.”
She finally glanced at him. Her eyes were huge, dark pools in the ambient light. No smile. No pretense. Just a stark, unbearable truth. He gave a single, curt nod.
She melted back into the crowd without another word.
He left twenty minutes later, pleading a migraine. The drive home was a blur of streaking neon. His mind was a riot of everything they needed to say—the apologies, the logistics, the painful, pragmatic unravelling of whatever this was. He fumbled with the penthouse lock, the heavy door swinging open into the profound silence of his sanctuary.
She was already there.
Standing in the center of the vast living room, still in her elegant gown, the deep blue fabric pooling around her heels. She was a statue from the awards stage, transplanted into his world. She’d let herself in with the code he’d given her months ago, a secret he’d never dared change.
They stared at each other across the cool expanse of polished concrete. The city glittered behind her, a silent witness through the floor-to-ceiling glass.
No words came. The speech he’d rehearsed in the car evaporated, turned to ash on his tongue. Every reason, every warning, every ounce of careful strategy was obliterated by the sheer, visceral fact of her presence here, now, still dressed for a world that wanted to own them.
A sharp, desperate sound escaped him—half sigh, half sob. He saw the same frantic tension break in her shoulders.
They moved at the same instant.
It wasn’t a walk; it was a collision course. He crossed the room in five long strides, she in four, and then there was no space left. His hands framed her face, hers fisted in the lapels of his jacket, and their mouths crashed together.
The kiss was nothing like their staged, careful moments. It was savage. A claiming and a surrender. Her lips were soft but fierce, her tongue sweeping into his mouth with a hunger that mirrored his own. She tasted of champagne and salt and something irrevocably hers. He groaned, pulling her body flush against his, feeling the intricate beading of her gown dig into his chest, the lush, giving warmth of her beneath it. Her fingers raked through his hair, tugging, anchoring him to this moment, to her.
There were no words. Only the ragged syncopation of their breathing, the small, desperate noises she made in the back of her throat. Longing was too gentle a word. This was a drowning man sucking air.
He walked her backwards, never breaking the kiss, his hands sliding down to grip her hips. They navigated the familiar hallway by touch, a tangled, stumbling procession of shared breath and clinging fabric. He shouldered the bedroom door open.
The soft glow of the pre-dawn city washed over his bed, the sheets a smooth expanse of dark silk. He turned her, his mouth leaving hers to trail fire down her jaw, her neck. His fingers found the hidden zipper at the back of her gown. The sound of it giving way was louder than a scream.
The dress slumped to the floor. She stepped out of it, kicking it aside, standing before him in only a pair of delicate lace panties, her skin glowing in the low light. Her curves were a landscape he knew by heart now, the dip of her waist, the swell of her hips and breasts. She was breathtakingly, defiantly real.
“Fuck,” he breathed, the word ragged with worship.
Her hands went to his belt, her movements swift and sure. She undid the buckle, the button, the zip, pushing his trousers and briefs down in one fierce shove. Her small, cool hand wrapped around his hard length, and he jerked, a bolt of pure lightning shooting up his spine. “Maria—”
She silenced him with another kiss, pushing him back towards the bed. He sat on the edge, and she followed, straddling his lap, her bare skin hot against his. The feeling of her, so wet and ready through the thin lace, grinding against him, was maddening. He ripped the fragile fabric aside, a sharp tear echoing in the quiet room.
He didn’t wait. He couldn’t. There was no gentle preamble, no slow build. The desperation was a live wire between them. He gripped her hips, guided himself to her entrance, and in one deep, relentless thrust, buried himself inside her.
She cried out, a sharp, beautiful sound, her head falling back. She was so fucking tight, so hot, sheathing him completely. He held there, trembling, buried to the hilt, feeling her inner muscles clench around him in shock and delight.
“Look at me,” he gritted out.
Her eyes found his, dark and wide with unshed tears. He saw it all there—the glory of the performance, the terror of the fallout, the impossible, ruinous love, and the heartbreaking knowledge that this was an ending.
He began to move.
It was a hard, driving rhythm, each snap of his hips a punctuation to everything they couldn’t say. She met him thrust for thrust, her nails biting into his shoulders, her breasts swaying with the force of their joining. The slick, filthy sound of their bodies slapping together filled the room, a raw, honest music far removed from any stage.
“Min-ho,” she chanted, a broken prayer against his lips. “Min-ho, god, yes, just like that.”
He switched their positions, laying her back on the silk, hooking her legs over his arms. This angle was deeper, devastating. He drove into her, watching her face contort with pleasure, watching her beautiful body arch and receive him. The bedframe knocked a steady, urgent rhythm against the wall.
“You feel… you feel so fucking good,” he snarled, losing himself in the visceral truth of it. “I can’t— I’m never gonna get enough of this cunt. Never.”
Her answer was a ragged sob as she came, her inner walls milking him in violent, fluttering waves. The sight of her unraveling, the feel of her climax, tore his own control to shreds. He followed her over the edge with a guttural shout, pumping his release deep inside her, his whole body seizing as if electrocuted.
He collapsed atop her, spent, their sweat-slicked skin merging. Their hearts hammered against each other, a frantic, fading drumroll. He was still inside her, softening, trapped in the exquisite, heartbreaking ruin of it.
Slowly, he rolled to the side, pulling her with him, keeping her close. The first grey hints of dawn bled into the skyline. They lay tangled in the wreckage of the sheets, of their clothes, of their carefully managed lives.
Her fingers traced idle patterns on his chest. He stared at the ceiling, the silence now a heavy, suffocating thing. The need to talk—to define, to plan, to end—hovered between them, but the words still wouldn’t come. Speaking would make it real. Speaking would mean this had been a goodbye.
So they said nothing. They just held on, as the city outside began to wake, and the last of the night clung to them, a fading, desperate dream.
They just held on, as the city outside began to wake, and the last of the night clung to them, a fading, desperate dream.
Dawn eventually hardened into a flat, grey morning. They were both awake, had been for hours, limbs entangled under the ruined silk. The silence was a thick paste in the air, smothering everything until it became unbearable.
“I’m scared,” Maria finally whispered, her voice raspy from disuse. Her head was on his chest, listening to the steady, false rhythm of his heart. “Not for me. For what this will do to you.”
Min-ho stared at the ceiling. His hand stroked her bare shoulder, an automatic, soothing motion. “My fans… they’re very possessive,” he said, the statement hollow and well-worn.
She pushed herself up on one elbow to look at him. Her hair was a wild cascade of dark red and pink against the pillow. “If you had a public relationship, it would shake you. But if it’s also with a foreigner, a Latina, fat, who makes music without fear of what people will say?” She shook her head, a sad, knowing smile touching her lips. “It will destroy you. It will destroy everything you’ve built for years.”
He felt his heart tighten, a sudden, vicious cramp behind his ribs. He had no argument. He’d seen the analytics, sat through the strategy meetings. She was cataloguing her own perceived liabilities with a brutal, unflinching honesty that left him breathless.
“I’m going to Paris,” she said, the words quick and final. “The meetings are real. But I’ll leave the door open for you.” She traced the line of his jaw with her gaze. “I won’t look for you. But if you look for me, I’ll be there.”
She lifted her head higher, her golden-toned skin gilded by the feeble light. She touched his cheek, her fingertips cool and unbearably gentle. “I love you.”
Min-ho closed his eyes against the wave of pain. He felt the hot slide of a single tear escape, tracking a path through his temple and into his hair. He held the words back, crushed them behind his teeth. If he said them, he would never let her go. He would burn it all down for her, right now, and they both knew it.
He heard the soft sigh of her breath, then the shift of weight leaving the bed.
He kept his eyes shut. He listened to the quiet sounds of her dressing—the whisper of fabric, the click of a clasp, the soft tread of her feet across the floor. The apartment door opened with a faint, pressurized sigh.
Then it closed.
The definitive click of the latch echoed in the vast, silent space louder than any slammed door.
Hours later, Min-ho stood in the sterile company conference room. The scent of expensive coffee and lemon-scented cleaner couldn’t mask the tension. Senior executives, men in impeccably tailored suits who usually communicated through assistants, had come down personally. The historic success of Eclipse demanded recognition, but their faces were carved from stone.
The Director, a man with cold, discerning eyes, didn’t bother with congratulations. He placed his palms flat on the gleaming table. “The performance was a spectacle. The speculation is a containment failure.” His gaze swung to Ji-hoon. “Why didn’t you stop him? Who else knew?”
Ji-hoon stepped forward instantly, his posture rigid. “I failed as leader. I take full—”
“No.” Min-ho’s voice cut through, flat and tired. All heads turned to him. “He did everything possible to prevent it. I snuck around. The deception was mine.”
A heavy quiet fell. Then Yose took a small step forward. “I knew.”
Jae moved to stand beside him. “I knew, too.”
Min-ho frowned, confusion breaking through his numbness. “I never told you anything about her.”
“You didn’t need to confess,” Yose said, his analytical tone softened. “The data was obvious. Your behavioral shifts, your location patterns… it wasn’t hard to model.”
“You orbited,” Jae added, shrugging. “Whenever she was in the room, it was like your gravity changed. We didn’t need details.”
The Director’s face flushed with quiet rage. The implied betrayal of group unity was worse than the scandal itself. “This ends. Now. You will not see her, you will not communicate. A statement will be prepared about professional respect and misunderstood artistic intensity.”
“That order isn’t necessary,” Min-ho said, his voice eerily calm. He felt disembodied, watching the scene from somewhere near the ceiling. “The relationship is already over. She’s leaving the country today.”
The Director studied him, the anger cooling into something like satisfaction. “Good. It took years of effort, hours, and pain to have the career you have.” He leaned forward slightly. “It would be a shame to ruin what you built with so much struggle.”
Min-ho just nodded. The movement was mechanical.
The meeting dissolved. The executives filed out, their murmurs already shifting to tour revenue and brand renewal projections. When the door shut, leaving only the four of them, the room felt suddenly larger and colder.
Ji-hoon approached first, his stern mask finally cracking into plain worry. “Min-ho-yah. Are you okay?”
“Yes,” Min-ho answered, turning to gather a nonexistent folder. “Everything’s fine. Don’t worry. Nothing will destroy D.A.R.K.”
“That’s not what I’m asking!” Ji-hoon’s voice sharpened with annoyed frustration. “I want to know if you are okay. You. Min-ho.”
Min-ho stopped. He looked at his leader, then at Yose and Jae, their faces filled with a concern he knew he didn’t deserve. He had dragged this risk into their home. The only acceptable penance was to become seamless again, to be nothing but the asset.
A perfect, hollow calm settled over him. “That doesn’t matter anymore,” he said, his tone leaving no room for argument. He walked to the door. “Only BET’s success matters.”
He left them standing there, the ghost of his words hanging in the sterile, recycled air. His footsteps down the corridor were even and measured, each one a deliberate step away from the man who had cried in the dawn, and a step into the long, quiet vacuum of the idol he now had to be.
His footsteps down the corridor were even and measured, each one a deliberate step away from the man who had cried in the dawn, and a step into the long, quiet vacuum of the idol he now had to be. The mechanism worked perfectly. He followed the schedules printed in crisp font. He smiled where the red light blinked. His body hit the choreography marks with inhuman precision. When interviewers, with careful smiles, asked about the “incredible chemistry” of the Eclipse performances, he gave a practiced, wistful shrug. “It was a moment in time,” he’d say, voice smooth as polished stone. “A beautiful collaboration we all treasure.” He became a monument to professionalism, and the silence he carried inside him was immense.
He deleted the encrypted app. He changed his penthouse passcode. The actions were surgical, final. His managers monitored his public communications with hawkish relief, finding nothing but promotional copy. In private, there was even less. He didn’t date. The thought was physically repellent. The memory of her—the taste of her skin, the sound of her laugh breaking into a sob, the specific weight of her body against his—was a sacred, ruined city inside him. Allowing anyone else across that border would be a desecration. So he lived in the pristine, empty country around it.
Two years passed.
Seasons cycled outside his floor-to-ceiling windows. D.A.R.K. released a full album, a sleek, chart-dominating piece of work that bore no trace of vulnerability. He danced until his muscles screamed, a welcome pain that briefly overshadowed the other, constant one. He learned of her life through the sterile filter of the internet. A clothing brand, IVY MODE, launched with a campaign shot in Buenos Aires, all bold colors and inclusive sizing. He stared at the images, at the confidence in her eyes, and felt a pride so sharp it cut.
He listened to every song. The first one, released six months after Paris, was a scorching anthem of independence. The next, a melancholy folk collaboration. He played them on low volume in the penthouse, the sound her only ghost he allowed. He never searched for hidden messages. He was afraid he’d find them.
The notification popped up on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. He was in his kitchen, staring at the drizzle blurring the Han River. Ivy - New Release: ‘Y SI…?’ His thumb hovered. He tapped it.
The song began not with music, but with a breath. Then her voice, intimate, closer than a whisper, as if leaning into a microphone pressed against her pillow. “Hola, tú. ¿Sabes que pienso en ti los martes?” Hello, you. You know I think of you on Tuesdays?
Min-ho froze. The rain pattered against the glass.
The melody unfolded, a simple, aching piano line. She sang of mundane, breathtaking things. A shared laundry day. Choosing tiles for a kitchen backsplash. The weight of a child on hip. The specific silence of a car ride through mountains, hands linked on the center console. She built a whole, breathing life, detail by shimmering detail—a life of mortgage payments and inside jokes and growing old, with someone who chose the same weathered couch every evening. “Y si… no les hubiéramos hecho caso?” And if… we hadn’t listened to them?
Her voice cracked, just once, on the word miedo. Fear.
The final verse descended into a quiet, sustained plea. The piano faded until it was just her breath and her truth. “Te esperaré, por si cambias de opinión. No es demasiado tarde para volver, para estar juntos. Si no, te veré en otra vida.”
The song ended. The silence in the penthouse was absolute, a vacuum sucking the air from his lungs.
His heart wasn’t beating. It was a fist of hot iron, tightening, squeezing, cracking his ribs from the inside out. He saw it all. The kitchen tiles. The car ride. The other life, glowing just out of reach, severed by his own hand. The monument of the last two years shattered into dust.
He walked, robotically, to the grand piano in his living room. He lifted the fallboard. He pressed a single key, the note resonating in the quiet. An hour later, his producer answered a call he’d never expected.
“I need to record a solo track,” Min-ho said, his voice stripped raw. “Tomorrow. No one at the company can know. Use the underground studio. Bill it to my personal account.”
“Hyung, what’s this about? Your solo isn’t scheduled for—”
“It’s not for the company. It’s for me.”
He wrote through the night. The words, dammed up for two years, spilled out in a torrent of Korean, ugly and honest and without a single metaphor to hide behind. He titled it “아픔,” Apeum. Pain.
He recorded it in a single, exhausted take two days later. His voice was ragged, fraying at the edges, nothing like BET’s controlled tenor. He didn’t sing. He confessed. He apologized to a woman he never named, for being a coward sculpted from fear and duty. He sang of the phantom weight of her in his empty arms, of how his greatest success was a tomb built around that single, perfect memory. “My mistakes will sit on my chest until I stop breathing,” he growled, the sound scraping from his throat. “And I will wear this regret like my own skin.”
His producer, pale, took off his headphones. “They will eviscerate you for this.”
“Let them,” Min-ho said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He felt cleaner than he had in years.
He uploaded the file to his personal SoundCloud at 4 a.m., setting it to go public at noon. He tagged no one. He wrote no description. The title, “아픔 (Pain),” was the only context. Then he texted Ji-hoon. Check my SoundCloud at noon. Then call the Director. I’ll be in the practice room.
He sat on the polished floor of the company’s main studio, back against the mirror, and waited for the world to catch fire. His phone, facedown beside him, began to vibrate. It didn’t stop.