“Long gone. Never to be seen again.” Still smiling, Jiyeon said, “I had this doll, you know, where you could cut her hair and it would grow back. It was just extensions that stuck on with Velcro, but I think that’s partly where my fixation came from.
“Besides, I always wanted whatever Janie had. If she was doing it, I had to do it, too. She’s four years older than I am. It seemed so grown up, to go to a salon. I wanted to know what it was like to have an appointment, I thought that was really special. Not for the dentist or the doctor, but a fun appointment.”
“That’s a pretty reasonable goal.”
“Right? And when I got there, it was even better than I imagined. Everyone was talking and laughing. It seemed to me like people came in as their normal selves, but when they left they were brand new again. They had hope for something better around the bend. All because of a haircut.”
Jiyeon sighed. The smile faltered, and her gaze slipped a little further away. “I wanted to do that: help people feel brand new. I wanted to make my own magical place in the world that felt something like that salon we went to as kids. It didn’t have to be fancy, and it didn’t even have to be very big. If it had one chair and one mirror and a spot where people could sit and wait, that’d be fine. It’s the feeling that matters, right? That’s the magic.”
“It is,” Eunjae answered softly. “That’s the magic.”
From Ari’s episode of the docuseries
Sunshine 24/7: Apollo on Tour
The producers have assembled a variety of artifacts relating to the members’ lives before and after they began their journey to stardom: photos, videos, objects of significance. These were sourced from family, friends, and the agency’s archives. Through the cameras, we are offered a chance to observe as Ari comments on what the producers have brought him.
First comes a set of photographs. Here is Ari as a baby, wailing furiously in a bassinet trimmed with blue ribbon. Then he appears with his father, Simon Song, on a tarmac that shimmers with heat haze. A vintage plane is parked in the background. Ari, four years old, wears an oversized pilot’s cap and smiles shyly at the camera. “So your dad flies for Qantas,” we hear the producer say, off-screen. Ari glances up at them and nods.
This segment was filmed late into the night, after Apollo’s tour stop in Miami. Signs of his exhaustion are everywhere if you care to look: the slump in his posture, the occasional stifled yawn that couldn't be left on the cutting room floor. But perhaps because it is so late, and perhaps because Ari is so tired, he is actually more forthcoming than usual in this interview.
“Dad was away for most of the week,” he recounts in Korean, staring down at the photograph in his hands. Viewers are given a closer view of the image as it fills the screen. “Mum would usually be gone, too. She had performances back then, and rehearsals, so she only commuted home from Sydney every other weekend.”
Here, the picture transitions to footage of Ari’s mother, American-born model and actress Leila Goldsmith-Song. Willowy and blonde, she walks runways as cameras flash. Some years later, she appears in a stage production of Shakespeare'sOthello, adopting a somber expression as she stands before a painted backdrop of medieval Venice. While Leila is partially obscured by the actress playing Desdemona, this shot provides a clear look at her features. Mother and son are nearly mirror images of each other, except when Ari smiles. There is a warmth to Ari’s smile that is absent from Leila’s.
“I had a guardian,” says Ari. He hesitates over the word choice here, briefly murmuring to his manager in consultation. He communicates the rest in English. “Sorry, wasn't sure how to say that in Korean. I had a nanny who took care of me because my parents were so busy. She loved music. We used to sing together all the time.”
A video clip plays, grainy and dimly lit: Ari’s birthday. Eight candles have been arranged on a chocolate sheet cake, dispersed among plastic Disney figurines. Young Ari watches with bated breath as the woman beside him prepares to light the candles with a match. Before she can strike it, Ari can be seen whispering something in her ear. She nods in reply, one hand resting briefly on his thin shoulder.
This woman is not his mother, and indeed we can see Leila’s graceful figure off to the right, her back turned to the camera, laughing with a party guest. It’s safe to assume that the woman who helps Ari blow out the candles is the aforementioned nanny. Since she is looking at Ari for the entirety of the clip, we only see her face in profile. She has dark hair threaded with strands of silver, pulled into a bun and secured with a large tortoiseshell hair clip. The name ‘Vivian Romero’ appears on the screen.
“I can't even tell you how much she did for me, everything she gave me,” Ari tells the producer. A faint tremor can be detected in his tone. “She had three kids and had to leave them behind while she worked overseas. The whole time she lived with my family, she never got to fly back and visit them. I always felt like all the love she couldn’t give her kids in person, she gave to me instead.”
In the next clip, we've jumped forward to the aftermath of the birthday party. The video camera sits on the dining table, recording while Ari takes a wrapped package from Vivian’s weathered, sun-browned hands. It looks to be about the same size and shape as a paperback book. His elation fairly leaps across the years, reaching us through our screens somehow.
Disembodied, Vivian’s warm, sonorous voice sings the last lines of the birthday song. The camera refocuses on the adult Ari as he encounters this remnant of the past. At the sound of that voice, a spark of joy transforms his entire demeanor, as if he's caught up to a familiar figure in a crowd of strangers, but then the spark fades just as quickly.
Happy birthday, dear Eunjae, happy birthday to you.
Ari bows his head. He covers his face with one trembling hand. We hear him utter a muffled, “Sorry.” The manager, identified on the screen as ‘Nami Seo,’ comes forward to check on him. “I’m okay,” Ari tells her. “I’m fine.”
“What happened with Vivian, Ari?” the producer prompts him.
“She left. It was a few months before I flew to Sydney for my audition.”
“Where did she go?”
“I don’t know. After my parents fired her, I never saw Miss Vivi again.”
In the background, Ari’s manager opens her mouth as if to say something, but she never actually speaks. The producer continues this line of questioning. “Why was she fired? Do you know?”
Ari takes the tablet used to show him the clips from his past and flips it face down on the table in front of him. Dully, he replies, “Because I ran away.”
25
Thenextday,Eunjaefound himself promoted from dishwasher to general kitchen drudge. His duties expanded to include wiping tables, rolling utensils into napkins, and refilling glass bottles of maple syrup from a gargantuan jug.
Wanna Waffle was packed that morning. It helped to have so much to do and not enough time to brood on the contract, its myriad clauses and the scope of its penalties. Eunjae embraced his rota of menial tasks, finding satisfaction in completing them. Since they were shorthanded until Evan arrived from the aquarium, Denny even risked deploying him to bus tables. That was how Eunjae ended up with his apron pocket stuffed full of crumpled $20.00 bills — an overly generous tip from the family at Table 7.
