Eunjae nodded at Nick, who nodded sagely back.
“Ari-hyung,” Jesse wailed again, “you’re over there with agirlthough? Like, you abandoned us forromance?”
Namgyu’s smile wobbled. Nick watched Eunjae’s face on the screen and so did Jungwoo. Kazu just snorted.
“Oh, well. If that’s the special announcement then I’m going back to sleep. Good luck, Romeo.”
“Wait,” said Eunjae to all six of them. “I need your help.”
“How are we supposed to help you, hyung? We’re all in jail.”
“Kazu’s not in jail.”
“Kazu’s not in this jail,” said Kei, darkly, “but he’s still in jail.”
“I bet jail is worse when you can see the Eiffel Tower from your window. And he had to go with Doyoung.”
This cued a collective groan about their least favorite manager. But then Jesse cried out, “What do you even need us for? You have agirlnow.”
“Jesse, whine about that one more time and I'm not buying you anything you wanted from Paris.”
“What? But I'm out of the really good cold cream!”
“Who still uses cold cream?”
“My granny! I love her!”
“Why can’t you moisturize like a normal person?”
“I have unique skin care needs! You wouldn’t understand!”
Eunjae telegraphed some desperate hand signals to Jungwoo, who obligingly used his host privileges to mute everyone. Able to hear himself think at last, Eunjae said, “The founders — does anyone know how to reach them?”
The screen became a checkerboard of frowning faces and furrowed brows. Nick replied, “I doubt anyone knows how to find them except Mr. Yoon. Remember when we were filming for Netflix? We didn’t even see the founders then.”
“Don’t they have offices on one of the top floors at Emerald?”
Kei clicked a button that somehow filled his backdrop with giant letters spelling the word NO. “That’s just a rumor. I mean, who’s even been up there? Unless…” He switched to Japanese. “Grandpa, what about you? You’ve been alive for like a hundred years. Share your knowledge.”
“First of all, shut up,” Kazu shot back, also in Japanese, “and second of all, no. Whenever the big bosses wanted to see us back then, they just came to wherever we were. Nowadays they send all their orders through Yoon.”
Eunjae blew out a frustrated breath. “Surely they have company email addresses at least. How can there be no way to contact them?”
“But why do you even want to contact them?” asked Jungwoo. The steadiness of his gaze felt like a drill piercing Eunjae’s skull. “You just needed to get away for a while. That’s not something they’d bother to tell Haewon and Soyeon.”
“There’s nothing wrong with needing a break, Ari. You’re not the first and you won’t be the last. They can’t really be too mad at you.” Namgyu tugged on a loose thread unraveling from the cuff of his sweater. “I think we’re allowed to take breaks sometimes…?”
“It’s the running-away-and-hiding part that they’re mad about. And what I’m mad about is that Ari-hyung is out there living an actual rom-com while I’m stuck here, wasting away —”
“Jesse, I swear —”
Eunjae hastened to end the call before any death threats could be delivered. “Okay, okay. Don’t fight.” He propped the phone against his half empty water bottle and bowed at the screen. “And I’m sorry for causing so much trouble for everyone, I really am.”
Jungwoo waved his apology away. He offered Eunjae a wan smile. “Stay safe and get some rest, Ari. You can just buy us dinner when this is over.”
“Yeah! Oh my gosh, dinner! Real dinner!”
“I’m so tired of eating everything out of a bowl!”
