The art was the first thing that always got to her. Every five-star hotel, from Seoul to Los Angeles, seemed to be supplied from the same warehouse of beige despair. This one was a particularly offensive triptych of faded, blurry dandelions. It was supposed to be soothing. It was an insult to dandelions.
Hana adjusted the corner of the room service menu on the console table, nudging it until its edge was perfectly parallel with the table’s edge. A right angle. Good. That was better.
The suite was a disaster zone, the expensive kind. Half-eaten plates of filet mignon and truffle fries congealed on a cart. Discarded stage clothes, still faintly damp and smelling of sweat and pyrotechnics, lay in glittering heaps on the floor. A trophy, heavy and gold, was being used as a doorstop. It was the chaos of profound exhaustion, not celebration.
She finished setting up her portable table, the scent of clean linen and the sharp tang of her own liniment oil cutting through the stale air of the room. A text had woken her at dawn. *Penthouse. JK. Urgent.* Urgent usually meant a pulled muscle or a locked joint. It never meant anything good.
The door to the master bedroom opened. Jeon Jungkook emerged, moving with the stiff, deliberate care of a man twice his age. He wore a simple black t-shirt and grey sweats, but the fabric couldn't hide the tension cording his neck and shoulders. His eyes, usually so bright, were shadowed and dull.
"Hana-ssi," he mumbled, his voice rough with sleep. "Thanks for coming."
"Of course, Jungkook-ssi. On the table, please. Face down."
He obeyed without a word, collapsing onto the table with a groan that was pure, unadulterated ache. Hana draped a fresh towel over his lower back and began her work, her thumbs finding the knots of iron banding his shoulder blades. He was a latticework of tension. This was more than post-concert soreness. This was stress, coiled and stored in the muscle.
"A good show?" she asked, keeping her voice low and even. It was her standard opening.
He made a noise of assent. "The usual."
"Anything specific happen? A fall? A bad landing?"
"No. Just… long."
She worked in silence for a few minutes, her fingers mapping the damage. Dancers' bodies were her territory, and Jungkook's was a familiar landscape. She knew the valleys of his spine, the hard ridges of his traps, the deceptive softness of his waist. But this new tension was a foreign element, sharp and brittle. It felt emotional.
"The whole team seems tired today," she probed gently, trying a different angle.
Jungkook’s muscles bunched under her hands. "Everyone's on edge."
"Why?"
A beat of silence. He shifted his head on the face cradle. "You know how it is after a final show. Everyone just wants to go home." He was deflecting. It was a polite, professional wall, and she knew better than to try and scale it. He wasn't going to tell her. Fine.
She finished his shoulders and moved to his lower back, easing the tightness there. When she was done, she wiped the excess oil from his skin with a warm towel. "Alright. Sit up slowly."
He pushed himself up, rolling his shoulders. The relief on his face was immediate, but the shadows in his eyes remained. "You're a miracle worker."
"Just doing my job. Drink at least three litres of water today. And try to stretch."
"Yeah, yeah." He stood and walked, not back to the bedroom, but towards the panoramic window overlooking the city, his back to her. He was dismissing her.
Hana began to pack her things, folding her linens with crisp, practiced movements. She hated leaving a mess. She bent to pick up a stray velvet cushion that had been knocked from the sofa to the floor beside her table. As she plumped it, her fingers brushed against something hard and small tucked deep in the gap between the sofa's frame and its main cushion.
Curiosity got the better of her. She reached into the crevice. Her fingers closed around a small, cool metal object. She pulled it out.
It was a locket. Not the sort of sleek, branded jewelry they wore, but something old. It was small and silver, oval-shaped, tarnished at the edges. A delicate, scrolling pattern of what looked like forget-me-nots was etched onto its surface. There was no chain. It felt intensely private, like a page torn from a diary.
She heard the soft click of the other bedroom door opening.
Instinct, sharp and sudden, took over. She didn't call out, didn't ask Jungkook. She closed her fist around the locket and, in one smooth motion, slipped it into the front pocket of her own black trousers. It was a foolish, unprofessional act, and her heart hammered against her ribs. She took an action. She was no longer just the physio.
Park Jimin stood in the doorway.
If Jungkook looked exhausted, Jimin looked… erased. His face was pale and drawn, his eyes holding a kind of hollowed-out stillness. He was wearing an oversized cashmere robe that swallowed him, his small hands clutching the lapels. He looked at Hana, then his gaze swept the room, a flicker of something unreadable in his expression as his eyes passed over the sofa where she stood. His focus lingered for a bare second on the exact spot where the cushion had been.
"Hana-ssi," he said. His voice was a bare thread of sound. "Thank you for coming."
"Jimin-ssi. Are you alright? Do you need…"
"I'm fine." The words were clipped, sharp enough to cut. It was a dismissal more absolute than Jungkook turning his back. He didn't look at her again, his attention fixed on some middle distance between the window and the ugly art on the wall. He was withholding everything.
"I'll see myself out, then," Hana said, her voice sounding unnaturally loud in the tense quiet.
Neither of them answered.
She gathered the last of her things, her hands not quite steady. The weight of the small, silver oval in her pocket was absurd, a cold, heavy secret against her thigh. She walked out of the suite, the click of the closing door sounding final. The hotel hallway, with its repeating pattern of insipid carpet, felt like it stretched on for a mile. She was just the physio. Her job was to fix muscles, not to pick up the pieces of things she wasn't supposed to know were broken.
The locket felt colder now.