I shake my head, tearing my gaze away. I look down. Never again do I want to talk about Rafayel. Never again do I want to say his name.
“Jaslene, tell me what he did,” he says, his voice a stern hurricane of emotion.
His voice coaxes me to meet his eyes again. That’s when I look up at him again, pathetic tears teetering the edges of my eyes again.
“He has a girlfriend,” I choke out, and verbalising it makes me feel even worse, “I should’ve listened to you, listened to everyone. God I’m so stupid. I forced myself to believe in this, this is all my fault. He was never anything, and I made him out to be - ugh, I’m so embarrassed-”
I expect him to laugh in my face, to say I told you so. I would deserve it. I deserve for him to call me a fool. He doesn’t, though. Instead, he curses under his breath looking past me, at the bookstore doors.
“I swear, I’m gonna fuck him up,” he murmurs, his voice low. Threatening. I hold his arm, tightening my grip around him, silently telling him not to intervene. To not make matters worse. His gaze settles on me again, softening.
“He doesn’t deserve you,” he murmurs. I hiccup, and I want to beat myself for crying this hard.
Why am I crying so hard? Who is Rafayel, anyway?
He’s no one.
Another tear escapes my eyes. Marlon brushes it gently.
“I’m pathetic,” I manage, my throat making me sound so weak and I pry my eyes from him. I don’t want him seeing this side of me anymore.
“You’re not pathetic,” Marlon says sternly, “The only one who is, is the idiot standing in the bookstore who thought he had a right to play with a girls’ heart.”
With his finger, he lifts my chin. Somehow, the brown of his eyes manage to snake its way inside of me, calming the raging storm.
“He’s just lost the best thing that could’ve ever happened to him,” he whispers, “If there is a fool between the two of you, he is the biggest fool of them all.”
The ability to speak lodges at my throat.
I just fold myself into Marlon’s arms, letting the warmth of his body engulf me. An unsteadythump thump thumpin his chest thrums against my ears.
With Marlon, everything will be okay.
Who would’ve thought that I’d be visiting a kpop store with Marlon Salvador, of all people, after a heartbreak?
The seven faces of the BTS members stare back at me from the large poster plastered on the store window.
“Come on Garcia,” he says softly, placing a hand atop my hair and ruffling it slightly.
I jerk away from him, though the effect the small action has on me is instant, and soon there’s a smile creeping up on me.
Together we step through the entrance of my favourite kpop store in Sydney. Marlon insisted on taking me straight here, to take me further and further away from that damned bookstore after I finally sobered up. He doesn’t mention our little spat yesterday.
All he wanted was to remind me of the men that were actually worth crying over. It turns out, Marlon believes it would be worth crying over kpop celebrities instead.
Crossing the threshold, the mood here is instantly uplifting. It’s loud, bright, and vibrant, with a speaker blasting the latest kpop releases and most popular tracks. The comfort this place gives me is drastically different from that which I gain from bookstores, and it’s exactly what I need right now to forget about what just happened.
When I’m surrounded by albums and merch, I’m able to spiral into the grandeur, energy and delusion that the industry feeds us.
The latest track from the group Stray Kids plays throughout the store. It’s rapid beats pounds through my body, uplifting my energy immediately. I bop my head up and down as I weave through the first aisle, a smile comes easily to my lips.
“I can’t believe I’m here with you,” I say.
Marlon is glancing around, his gaze bouncing around the place. Shelves full of kpop albums line the walls, and in the middle are displays of photocards and little tidbits of merchandise.
To an outsider, this must feel like entering a whole new world. Suddenly, I’m conscious of how he’d perceive this. He meets my eyes, and must see the worry in them, because his lips stretch into a wide grin.
“Hey, this is really cool,” Marlon assures me.
