“Ari won’t make us split everything five ways like Zuzu.”
“I don’t see what’s wrong with trying to save money. Take a hot second to count how many mouths I have to feed.”
“Shut up, hyung! You sleep on a bunch of gold bars!”
“It’s so unfair, you have sooooo much money —”
Eunjae watched his brothers sign off one by one until only Kazu was left. “Don’t go yet,” his brother said, wrangling his inky, shoulder length hair into a low ponytail which, of course, looked both effortless and elegant at the same time. Bedhead, but luxe.
“Did you get to see your family? I know you mentioned they’d be in Paris the same week.”
“Hell no. I’m here with Doyoung, remember? You know how he is. Of course the one manager we all hate is the one who will never quit. He wouldn’t let me leave the hotel except for Vuitton events the whole time I was here. Yoon’s orders, he’d say. That guy’s so far up Yoon’s ass that he hasn’t seen the sun in about three years.” Kazu went rummaging around in his luggage for a shirt. “And if you’re wondering, my aunt has threatened to buy out his contract with Emerald so she can fire him herself.”
“I was wondering,” admitted Eunjae, which made Kazu chuckle. “I’m sorry, Zu. We hardly ever get to be with family and I ruined that for you.”
“Don’t worry about that. I talk to them every day. Worry about this instead: Yoon’s getting pretty pissed that they haven’t found you. I heard Doyoung on the phone earlier when he thought I was asleep.”
“Ah.”
“You got the email I sent?”
“Yeah.” Eunjae sighed. “Your contract says the same thing mine does.”
Kazu nodded at this. “I figured as much. We’re all under the same terms.”
“There’s this one part that really bothers me, but maybe I’m reading it wrong. And surely Jungwoo’s would be different. All the music he’s written… and what about the rap lyrics? Nicky writes his own and so does Max, as of last year. I need to talk to the founders. This just doesn’t make sense.”
Checking that Doyoung wasn’t lurking behind him, Kazu said, “Ari, don't trust them to play fair. Don’t expect them to listen to us. Not Yoon, not the founders, not anybody. This is their game, not ours. I know you want to settle this without a fight, but that might not be possible. It’s just not the same anymore, at Emerald. In the beginning, when it was me and Hwannie here and most of you hadn’t even been recruited yet, I’d never have thought it could be like this.”
“They care about us, don’t they? They used to. I thought they did.”
Kazu shook his head, at a loss. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
Transcript from the K-pop news podcastOmma Gosh!Season 4, Episode 37 (September 2022)
Jooney Chun (Host)- I was thinking about something yesterday.
Freddie Dang (Co-host/Producer)- Oh no.
Jooney- Why is that the reaction? Why are you making that face?
Freddie- ‘Cause you say this whenever you're about to get super philosophical about something and I haven't had any coffee yet.
Maisie Chun (Co-host; Jooney’s Mom)- No coffee yet, Frederica? How come?
Freddie- (heavy sigh) Okay, so I went to Starbucks on 5th and Lantana this morning, right, but when I got there the line was all the way to Saturn. So I left. Went to CVS. You know the lipstick that unnie was talking about yesterday? Yeah, I got that instead of a coffee.
Maisie- That lipstick is very nice, yes, but you have no coffee ‘cause you give up? You're a quitter? Boo-hoo. You know who else is a quitter, it's Jooney. In 2nd Grade everybody in class had a hula hoop, glitter hula hoop, light up hula hoop, whatever. So Jooney’s papa, he gets him a hula hoop. Nice hula hoop! Expensive, so many colors! Like rainbow but if it threw up, pah, all over the place.
Freddie- Oh, wow. This imagery.
Jooney- Tie dye. It's called tie dye.
Maisie- (ignoring Jooney) Yes, the image! Make image of Jooney in your head. He tried to hula in the hoop like two, three times. Then he said, I give up! This is stupid! Hula hoop went in the garage, never come out again. Quitter!
Freddie- I've learned my lesson. I'll stand in line next time.
Jooney- Anyway! Anyway I was thinking about something, folks! And I wanted to bring it up on the show because of last week’s news that 12:12’s Jinyeol is leaving the group.
