Eunjae gave him an emphatic denial on that count, but Jungwoo said, coldly, “This isn’t about us. This is all on Ari. We could support him in every way, be strong when he’s weak and pick up the slack when he needs a break, but the willpower has to come from him. And right now, he’s decided that he can’t take it anymore. Right now, he’s making a mistake.”
As he made this declaration, Jungwoo took out his phone. He chose a name from his contacts and began composing a message. Eunjae's heart sank as he realized what was happening.
“I can't let you do this. As your brother, as your best friend, I have to stop you before it’s too late.”
“No. Please, Jungwoo.”
But he sent the message anyway. Now the company knew exactly where to find them. Made cruel by grief, Jungwoo echoed Jiyeon's words from earlier.
“Time to go home.”
27
Eunjaeranthroughthekitchen and burst through the back door, out into the parking lot behind Wanna Waffle. Jiyeon's car was there, the hood silvered in moonlight, but the Hans’ Camaro remained as well. They had all waited for him.
The family stood in the empty space between their vehicles, parents on one side and the Han siblings on the other. Jiyeon and her brother had adopted similar postures: backs straight, arms crossed.
“What can we do?” fretted Mrs. Han, her voice carrying on the breeze.
“I'll tell you what we can do,” Denny began, but Jiyeon cut him off before he could really get any wind in his sails.
She said, “Nothing. We can't do anything, okay? If it's time for him to go, then that's it.”
“How can you be so negative like this? Right away, your answer is no.”
“Dad, he's got another life. We all knew that from the beginning.” And she sounded so resolute, but still so sad, that Eunjae felt as if he'd reached out and hurt her with his own hands. Perhaps, in a way, he had. By using their world as an escape route from his own, maybe he had brought them more trouble than he ever meant to cause. Meanwhile, they'd given him nothing but care. A sense of belonging he'd only ever found with Miss Vivi and his brothers.
He walked up to where they'd gathered. His shoes scuffed the pavement and Denny was on him in a flash, glowering even harder than usual. Mr. and Mrs. Han hurried to bring Eunjae into the fold, both peppering him with questions in Korean, competing with Denny for his attention. Only Jiyeon maintained her distance. It was as if she already knew the ending. He would leave. Their time was up.
And this hurt, but in a different way. It was foolish to fight the current, perhaps, and Eunjae had certainly subscribed to that belief before. But this didn't have to be the end. He could still find a solution. He could still work on this, figure out an alternative.
“I’ll come back,” he told them, all of them, but especially her. Jiyeon seemed to pick up on that — on his need to change her mind, in particular — because suddenly she couldn't look straight at him anymore, and Eunjae realized she was blinking back tears.
“Of course,” said Mr. Han, gruff and unsmiling, clapping a heavy hand on Eunjae's shoulder. “Of course you'll come back. You're a good boy, a smart one.”
Mrs. Han sniffled. She reached up, up, to pat Eunjae on the cheek. “We’re not part of the amnesia, okay? You remember us. You remember us always.”
“I will.”
“Don't cry! Oh, no. No, no. Now I'm crying.”
“You,” thundered Denny, pointing at Eunjae, “still work here. So you'd better come back. And that's all I'm saying!” Then he retreated so quickly that one might think he was running away.
Eunjae dropped into a bow. A tear splashed onto the asphalt. “I'll come back,” he said again. It was as if all other words had evaporated from his vocabulary. When he looked up, Jiyeon was there in front of him, the others packing into the Camaro with a slamming of doors and a brief blare of noise from the ignition.
She wrapped her arms around him. It was so easy to do the same, so strangely habitual to hold her close despite the fact that this was an action Eunjae had never taken before in his life. This startled him. He’d been awake, wide awake, since the moment he spotted that orange door — or so he’d thought, until now.
I wish we had more time.
“Promise me you’ll still go, tomorrow. I can’t come with you, but you should still go.”
“Okay.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “I’ll go. I promise.”
Maybe they hadn't repeated Jungwoo's explanation to her yet. Maybe his secrets were still his to keep.
“Do you know who I am yet?”Please say no. Please pretend.
A new set of headlights cut through the dark. Jiyeon held on for just a moment longer.
