Eunjaeboltedoutofthe chair. He rushed outside, gesturing to Jiyeon that he needed to take the call.
“Jungwoo, I’m here. The signal’s pretty bad.”
There was a sharp intake of breath, and then a few disjointed sentences before Eunjae managed to find a spot where the connection was better. “— happened? Where did you go? I thought you were right behind us!”
“I was,” said Eunjae, “but then I stopped because I saw this door like the one in my book. I've told you about it before. I'm sorry.”
“Never mind that. Never mind any of it. I’m the one who’s sorry.” Here, Jungwoo’s voice wavered, although perhaps not from any weakness in the cell signal. “I should’ve seen it. It’s like everyone knew you were miserable except me. I never even pictured you doing something this drastic, not in my whole life.”
Jungwoo was interrupted by a jarring thud and then the rustle of someone scooping the phone off the ground. Muffled at first, but getting louder and clearer by the second, another person joined the conversation. Eunjae knew right away that it was Max, the most cantankerous of his three younger brothers.
“You’re the shittiest friend. I don’t get why they sent you the number and not me. At least I noticed Ari was about to crack.” Bringing his mouth to the receiver, Max said, “Hyung, you couldn’t take me with you when you ran away? What the hell, man?”
Eunjae winced, partly because being addressed as an older brother was somewhat jarring after going a full day and night without hearing it. “I’m sorry, Max. Can you give the phone back for a minute, though? I need to talk to Jungwoo a little longer.”
“No way. We all got chewed out for this, okay? CEO Yoon put everybody on lockdown. No leaving the dorms, no leaving hotel rooms, no social media, nada. And why are you always apologizing?”
During Apollo’s trainee days, before they made their debut as a group, Mr. Yoon had been an occasional specter in the corridors of Emerald Entertainment’s massive complex in Seoul. The agency’s founders, Choi Haewon and Sun Soyeon, played a more active part in day-to-day operations back then. They used to drop into the practice rooms regularly, conferring with producers while artists were recording and even catering lunches or dinners for everyone at least once a month.
Now, Eunjae struggled to recall the last time he’d seen the founders in person. Yoon seemed to handle everything. And once he took over, things had changed. Their schedules became more hectic. Nights stretched longer even as sleep became a commodity none of them could ever seem to get their hands on. The number of social media posts and livestreams went up incrementally until it felt like every hour of every day had been earmarked for the creation of content to be fed to their fans. But Apollo’s star burned brighter and brighter, so it was all supposed to be worth it.
On the phone, Max continued to rant. “Everything sucks right now because of you,” he clinched. “So if I wanna make you feel bad, I will.”
“I'm sorry,” Eunjae said again. He allowed himself to be pulverized by the belated remorse, certain that he deserved it.
“Don't worry about Max,” said Jungwoo, having reclaimed the phone for the moment. “He just hasn't bounced back yet. Jaehwan-hyung sent a ten-page text to the group chat and then he copy-pasted that same text to everybody's number individually.”
Max wrestled the phone away again. “Quit saying sorry! I don’t care that you’re sorry! Hyung, the individual texts werepersonalized. We got the standard text, plus special Jaehwan death threats tailored just for us.”
This made Eunjae wince again. Jaehwan had such a flair for incendiary text messages.
“He said I have to write song lyrics with Jungwoo for six straight hours ‘cause I didn’t tell anyone you seemed sad. Do you know how fucking depressing that is? He only writes breakup songs now!Though our love has shattered, I won’t forget the view.He wrote that the other night! I saw it in his journal!”
Jungwoo could be heard protesting in the background. Max only talked louder to drown him out. “I can't believe the army is teaching him how to fire guns and drive tanks. We're all dead. You'd better be more than sorry. Sorry isn't enough!”
“Max, I’m serious. Let go of the phone and let me talk to him.”
“I’m talking to him! Go away!” Max exhaled a shuddering breath. “You'd better be happy,” he all but shouted into the phone. “You'd better be fucking happy and you’d better not come back!”
Eunjae leaned against the wall, listening to Max’s furious sobs.I am happy,he wanted to shout in reply.I've been happier in the past twelve hours than I have been for the past twelve months.But how could he tell them that?
He was sorry, and yet he wasn't.
“You there? Ari?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “I'm still here.”
Jungwoo said, in a rush, “Look, just tell me where you are. I’ll come get you tonight and then this can all be fixed. We’ll meet with the bigwigs. You can ask to go on hiatus after the unit promos, or if you’re really not up to it, we could shorten promo to one week instead of three. You’re tired, that’s all. We can work it out with them, okay? Just come back, Ari. Come home.”
Eunjae froze. “Tonight? What do you mean?” How could they get to him so quickly?
“We didn’t leave,” said Jungwoo. “When we realized you were missing, Nami-noona said she’d turn back and look for you. I stayed too. They’re sending two more people out, last we heard.”
“Nami-noona tried to make me get on the plane,” added Max, still sniffling a little, “but I ran for it. It was hilarious. Too bad you went rogue and missed that part.”
“You guys didn’t need to stay. I should be the company’s problem, not yours. I didn’t mean for that to happen, hyung.”
It got so quiet that he almost thought the connection failed. But then Jungwoo responded, clearly stung. “I wasn’t leaving without you. I could never do that.”
