Invisible Jaehwan waved his arms wildly.Misdirection, misdirection, misdirection!“Is it Emma,” asked Eunjae, “or Jiyeon? Both?”
“You can read that? I wish I could. My brother did the apron order and I had to trust that this actually spelled out my name.” She smiled at him. “It’s both, I suppose. Depends on who I’m talking to or where I am. But here at the shop, it’s just Jiyeon.”
Eunjae nodded. He understood what it was like to have two names.
“Let’s see,” Jiyeon said, then. “You look like your name might be… Ryan.”
“Ryan? Really?” He had to laugh. “Why?”
“I can’t explain. You just have the aura of a Ryan. Super nice Ryan Kim who’s in town for his sister’s wedding and plays tennis on Sundays.”
“Tennis.”
“Yeah. Doubles, with your cousin. He’s a sore loser but you love him anyway. And you live in… San Bernardino. That’s a little over an hour from here.” Jiyeon squinted at him in an exaggerated manner. “You wear glasses while reading. You’ll read anything, but only one book at a time. Your mom still buys you an ice cream cake for every birthday. And after this, you’ll stay up way too late with your sister even though you’re both supposed to be up early for a big family breakfast.”
“Why are we staying up so late?”
“Talking. She’s getting married in a few days. She’ll be feeling nostalgic. Trust me, my sister was the same way.” Here, Jiyeon glanced over Eunjae’s shoulder, waving at a customer on their way out. “You know what else, Ryan Kim? She’ll want to look at all the old photo albums. It’ll be fun. You haven’t seen those in forever.”
Eunjae leaned back in his chair, considering. “But will I cry at the wedding?”
“A little. What kind of monster doesn’t cry at noona’s wedding?”
“You’re right.”
“About which part?”
“All of it. You know everything about me. There’s nothing more to tell.”
Jiyeon flashed him another dimpled smile. She seemed about to say something else, but then another person in an orange apron lumbered out of the kitchen. An older man, squarely into his late sixties but built like some of the bodyguards Eunjae had met and worked with on countless occasions. He had the bearing of a warlord in full armor and the smudge of batter on his stubbled cheek did nothing to detract from that impression. With a grin, this formidable personage reached over to bang on a gong that sat near the register.
“All done! No more Waffle Wednesday! Thank you!”
3
Eunjaesethisforkdown on the plate, wondering if this announcement meant the place was closing for the night. He didn’t have a chance to ask Jiyeon, though. As if summoned by the gong, a younger, similarly built fellow popped his head through the swinging kitchen doors. He’d looped the orange apron around his neck like a towel. “Dad, what the heck,” he bawled out. “You do this every night!”
Across from Eunjae, Jiyeon snorted.
“What? It’s done! How else are they supposed to know?”
“Because they can tell time?”
Jiyeon rose from her chair. “My brother,” she whispered to Eunjae. Louder, she said, “Okay, Denny. Let it go. We’ve still got customers.”
“They can’t hear me. It’s fine.” Denny entered the room like a tectonic disturbance. Barrel-chested, wearing jeans that may or may not have been ironed, he displaced the very atmosphere with his presence. Scowling, he pointed at the gong. “That,” he hissed at his father, “is for display purposes only.”
“This is what you’re worried about? You think I’ll break the stupid gong?” The older man muttered something under his breath. Then he caught sight of Eunjae, who was transfixed by this tableau and still had a forgotten forkful of waffle in transit to his mouth.
“You!” the man exclaimed, beaming so widely that his whole face was transformed. “Where have I seen you before?”
This was a difficult question to answer, and not just because Eunjae couldn’t afford to be honest. Apollo was an international phenomenon. He and his brothers had starred in their own Netflix documentary, endorsed a staggering number of brands both individually and collectively, and had sold out two global arena tours in the past five years alone. There was at least one bus in Bangkok with their faces on it, plus three hotels in Tokyo with Apollo-themed luxury suites. For their last single with all nine members present, Apollo had performed on multiple American talk shows. Record-breaking, critically acclaimed, they were known as one of the most successful K-pop acts of the past decade.
Case in point, this man could’ve seen him anywhere. Maybe even some kid’s lunch box.
Thinking about all of this left Eunjae feeling so fatigued that he wanted to curl up on the spot and take a thousand-year nap. That kind of thing happened frequently in the world ofThe Brass Key. It ought to be socially acceptable in the real world, too.
Thankfully, Denny saved him from having to respond. “And don’t announce that Waffle Wednesday is over!” he scolded his father, carrying on as if he’d never been interrupted. “I told you, we start the Closing Countdown five minutes before special pricing ends. It goes up on the TV like those New Year’s Eve countdowns. I even showed you!”
