After four years of hell, Katie Wu is finally safe. Too bad her heart hasn’t gotten the memo.
When pop singer Katie Wu returns to Seoul after escaping an abusive relationship, her longtime friends, rapper Jung Do-won and singer Kitahara Akihiro, are stunned by just how much she’s changed.
Her scars run deep, but even Katie is surprised by how often her trauma resurfaces, threatening her attempts to make music and find love again. At least this time, she isn’t suffering alone in secret. Akihiro's determined to prove to Katie that he's nothing like her ex while his bandmate Do-won buries his emotions, focusing on his music instead.
How will Katie overcome her dark memories and create a brighter future?
Take a peek behind the glamor of the K-pop industry, and join Katie as she fights to rebuild her life in the witty and steamy Illusive, part of the Her Multiverse series.
Park Jae-sung was seeing things.
The rapper could have sworn he just saw Katie Wu exiting one of the conference rooms and heading down one of the SB Entertainment carpeted hallways. Jae-sung would know Katie’s body anywhere — petite and lean but soft and curvy in all the right places. He had spent his twenties with her, worshiping her naked form. Sometimes, he still dreamed of her.
But that couldn’t be. As far as Jae-sung knew, Katie was based out of Los Angeles now and wasn’t slated to return to Seoul ever again. She had let her contract at SB Entertainment lapse a few years ago, choosing not to re-sign when her term had ended.
Jae-sung had been secretly relieved when he’d heard the news a year after she’d vanished. Even then, hearing her name had still stung. If he was honest with himself, it still did.
His body moved without his own volition, and before he knew it, Jae-sung was chasing after the ghost of Katie, eager to prove his eyes wrong.
Virginia Duan is an Asian American author who writes stories full of rage and grief with biting humor and glimpses of grace. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Virginia lives with her husband and five children. (Yes, five.) She spends most of her days plotting her next book or article, shuttling her children about, participating in more group chats than humanly possible, and daydreaming about BTS a totally normal amount. (Photo credit: Susanna Stroberg)