“I think that's enough,” Jiyeon concluded, ten minutes later. “Ryan, smoothie or boba?”
Noting his teenage co-worker’s covetous glances at the boba, Eunjae went for the smoothie. Jiyeon handed it to him, then insisted that he take the waffle too.
“By the way,” said Jeannie, slurping away at her tea, “did you cut Ryan’s hair? Cause it looks good. Like,reallygood.”
“That's concerning. I was supposed to make him look more wholesome. Denny's orders.”
“Wholesome,” hooted Jeannie, taking another loud slurp through her straw. “We'd get a hundred million views if you put him in a post. This haircut is too powerful. Sorry, but you failed for sure.”
“Darn. I knew my greatest failure had to happen sometime.” Jiyeon looked up from the Instagram story she was posting, smiling at Eunjae. Her earrings were pink enamel roses. Eunjae smiled back at her, but the rose motif reminded him of Jungwoo, and thinking of Jungwoo naturally led to thinking about the rest of his brothers. This dissonance between the two worlds he occupied left a temporary ringing in his ears.
Misdirecting Emerald Entertainment into searching for him in the wrong places could only ever earn him a temporary reprieve. What Eunjae needed was a solution to the bigger problem. That solution was unattainable without a better understanding of the contract that bound him — and the whole group — to their agency.
When had he first requested the copy of his contract? Sometime after that second global tour, maybe. The tour itself had been difficult enough, all the months of near-nonstop travel and the film crew following them around for the entire North American leg. Or did he request the contract after last year’s gauntlet of holiday show performances?
Eunjae had been so tired for so long. He could think of any number of catalysts. But it was discomfiting to remember that he’d never asked for a copy until things felt unbearable. He’d signed the thing twice without really reading it. This was embarrassing to admit, even just to himself.
Regardless, Eunjae had his contract and the time to go over its terms, if not much expertise in that regard. The pages sat untouched in his inbox for months while Apollo got through the grueling promo period forNever Too Lateand then Jaehwan’s enlistment. It had continued to sit there as Eunjae went straight into recording for the unit project with Jungwoo and Max. But he'd opened the file yesterday, at last, and was still working through it. The font was tiny, the formal language broken up into long, convoluted sentences. It didn’t help that the whole thing had been written in very formal Korean. Eunjae could read and write well enough, but legalese was a struggle in any language.
Eunjae delivered the tray to the kitchen, where he munched on the waffle and thought about his options. Then he looked for Denny, finding him by the door with Jiyeon as she prepared to leave for work.
“Do any of your resources offer legal advice?”
Denny looked at Eunjae as though he’d sprouted a third eye in the middle of his forehead. “Now you’re lawyering up? For what? You can't possibly have committed any crimes. You're you!”
“He's… him?”
“You know what I mean, noona!”
Jiyeon removed her sunglasses for the express purpose of glaring at her brother. “Woosung-ah. Not so long ago you were shouting about Ryan being an international crime lord. Now you're shouting the opposite.”
“Our HR department wouldn't hire a convicted felon,” scoffed Denny, “because our HR department is me.”
“There aren't any crimes involved,” Eunjae quickly cut in. “I just have some questions about, uh, this thing I was reading online. I thought you might be able to recommend a lawyer who could answer them.”
“For fun? Or a murder trial?”
“No murders involved. I swear.”
“That’s what the murderers always say.”
But Jiyeon brought out her phone. “Hmm. Arthur is a lawyer.” She paged through her contacts list while Denny spiraled into a fresh round of derision.
“You’re suggestingArthur Hongfor this?”
Eunjae’s thoughts snagged on the name. Arthur Hong. Where had he heard this name before?
“He finally passed the bar exam, didn’t he? So yeah, he’s a lawyer.”
“Anestatelawyer, Yeonnie.”
“Still a lawyer. And if he doesn’t know the answer, he’ll ask Arthur Senior. I’ll text him, okay?”
Eunjae nodded. “Okay. I can pay. Will you tell him that? I don’t want him to think he has to help me for free.”
“I doubt he’ll accept money, but it’s nice to know the Han Corporation pays you enough to afford legal fees. The management loves some free labor.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” bristled Denny. But Jiyeon was already out the door, laughing.
