Chapter Sixteen – Dual POV
Joon-Ho left the university building in long strides, each one carrying him further away from the firestorm Amara had lit in his chest.
Her words clung to him like chains.
“Then maybe you shouldn’t stop.”
“You’re too much of a coward to admit how you feel.”
He pressed his palms against his face, exhaling through his teeth. If only she knew. If only she understood.
It wasn’t cowardice that kept him silent—it was his family.
He had spent his whole life in their shadow, learning to walk like them, talk like them, hide like them. The Jo family name was power in Korea, built on old money, politics, and influence that could crush lives with a single whisper. But at university, no one knew. He’d kept it that way. He wanted to live without the suffocating weight of their expectations.
But Amara…
Amara was the kind of girl his family would never allow. Not because of who she was, but because she didn’t fit into the perfect image they demanded of him. A mixed girl from Cameroon, bold, vibrant, untamed—she was everything the Jo household would see as a threat.
He had lived through their judgment before. He had seen what happened to people who didn’t “fit” their rules. He refused to watch them turn their poison on her.
That was why he looked away in the halls. That was why he walked past her like she was a stranger. Not because he didn’t care—but because he cared too much.
And yet, when Daniel’s name slipped past her lips, when she mentioned his laugh, his smile—something inside Joon-Ho cracked. The thought of another man standing where he wanted to stand, of another man holding her, protecting her, loving her—it was unbearable.
He hated Daniel for noticing her. Hated himself for pushing her toward him.
Joon-Ho leaned against a lamppost outside, closing his eyes against the chaos inside his head. He could still see Amara’s face, her anger, her hurt.
If he had been any weaker, he would have kissed her right there in the corridor, consequences be damned.
But he wasn’t just any boy. He was Jo Min-Joon’s son. He was the heir. And heirs didn’t get to choose their hearts.
That was the curse of being born into his family.
And so, once again, he chose silence.
Once again, he ran.
But for the first time, he wasn’t sure he could keep running.
The sound of his footsteps faded down the hallway, but the echo stayed lodged in Amara’s chest.
She stood frozen for a moment, her hands trembling at her sides. Her anger should have burned out by now, but instead it only deepened, twisting into something heavier. Something rawer.
Her throat tightened. She hated that even after everything he’d said—or rather, everything he refused to say—her heart still ached for him.
Why did he have to look at her that way? Why did he let her see the storm in his eyes, only to turn his back again?
Amara pressed her palm to her chest, as if she could calm the furious rhythm of her heartbeat. It was useless. Every nerve in her body still remembered the way he stepped closer, the way his voice roughened when he confessed that Daniel bothered him. For a heartbeat, she thought he was finally going to admit everything, finally give her something real to hold onto.
But instead, he left. Again.
A bitter laugh slipped from her lips as she leaned against the wall. “Coward,” she whispered to herself. Yet the word hurt more than it healed.
Her thoughts spiraled as she walked slowly back toward her dorm. She hated that she couldn’t make sense of him—this boy who seemed carved out of mystery, who melted her walls with a single glance, yet built his own walls so high she couldn’t climb them.
And Daniel…
Her stomach twisted when she thought of Daniel. He’d been nothing but kind to her since the trip began, and now she knew he’d noticed her—really noticed her. A part of her should’ve felt flattered, maybe even excited. But instead, all she could think about was Joon-Ho.
Always Joon-Ho.
She kicked at a pebble on the sidewalk, her jaw clenched. “Why do you keep doing this to me?” she muttered under her breath.
When she reached her dorm, her roommate was already sprawled on the bed, chatting away on her phone. Amara slipped inside quietly, sinking down onto her mattress. She stared at the ceiling, trying to untangle the storm inside her.
She was angry at him. Furious, even.
But beneath the anger was something worse: longing.
Because no matter how hard she tried, her heart kept whispering the one thing her pride refused to admit—
She wanted him to choose her.
