“Okay. I’ll do it when I get to the shop.”
She was quiet for a while, driving to Wanna Waffle in the morning fog. Eunjae sat up in bed, reaching over to open the blinds and let the night fill his window. “Why did you help me?” he asked Jiyeon. It was something he’d been wondering for a while. “I was just a stranger standing outside your door.”
“What a thing to ask.” Jiyeon sighed. “You seemed so sad. And you looked like you were running away from something. I know how that is. I’ve done my share of running, too.”
“All I do is run,” he said, all the pain surging back in full force. “I’m not much good at anything else.”
“That’s not true,” she protested. “And you know what? Sometimes running is the only thing you can do. Sometimes you’re just not strong enough for anything else. They say you shouldn’t be a quitter, quitting is for cowards, losers, whatever. But it can be so much harder to quit something that’s hurting you. It’s easier to just… stay there, broken and sad, pretending you’re fine. Because that’s what you know best. And running could take you somewhere you’ve never been.
“Eunjae, forget what’s been said to you before. Running away isn’t the only thing you’re good at. Singing isn’t the only thing you’re good at. Whatever you’re going through right now, even if it’s hard, you’ll find a way. You’re thoughtful, you know? You pay attention, and you give your time so generously. You listen, really listen. Those are strengths, too.”
32
ThecallwithJiyeonended. Eunjae swung both legs out of bed, feet landing on wrinkled shirts and a pair of jeans half spilled out of his duffel bag. The hurt from the past few days continued to crash through him, a dull roar ever present in the back of his mind. Jungwoo’s betrayal, his brothers fighting, those lines in their contracts like prison bars — it all congealed into a weight that only grew heavier. He didn’t know how he could possibly bear it alone for much longer.
Maybe that was his mistake: trying to bear this alone.
The agency was counting on pain to keep him down. Eunjae couldn't let it happen. And they knew he would be feeling guilty, blaming himself for everything. He was willing to bet that none of them — the founders, CEO Yoon — expected him to get up right now. They were waiting for Eunjae to bury the truth he’d found about himself. After all, he’d diligently buried that truth for years with his own two hands. They were probably also betting he’d stay away from his brothers out of shame. Apollo would remain divided.
Divided, they would lose. Not just him, but all of them, together. Eunjae couldn’t let that happen. How many times had he been the one to broker peace between them? He could do it again.
He began clearing the detritus out of his room. As he cleaned, he thought back to various instances when they’d fought amongst themselves, as brothers are wont to do. It was impossible to live so closely with a group of eight other peers, to see each other night and day, without getting into fights on a pretty regular basis. They really were like siblings. And yet they were also friends, the best of friends.
Friendships outside the walls of their agency were a lot harder to forge and maintain once they started training. It only became more difficult as Apollo saw higher and higher levels of success. In a way, they’d had no choice but to turn to one another, to lean on one another through the years. But Eunjae remembered the day Haewon and Soyeon called him into that meeting room. He hadn’t been allowed to choose whether or not he would pursue this career, but when it came time to decide between a solo track or joining Apollo, hadn’t Eunjae chosen his brothers? And no matter what, he would continue to choose them.
They didn’t deserve to be trapped like this. Eunjae shouldn’t be locked into a position where his departure could unravel everything they’d achieved together, and the others shouldn’t be forced to go down with him. That clause in their contracts wasn’t fair or right.
As for Haewon’s assertion that the musketeer clause had saved Jewell from disbandment, enabling them to continue together as a group for a full decade… Eunjae wasn’t sold. The clause had been instrumental in convincing Soyeon to stay, sure. But how did Soyeon really feel about reversing her decision to leave? He wished he could ask her.
All for one, one for all.Brow furrowed, Eunjae excavated his laptop from a desk drawer. There was plenty of material about Jewell online. It wouldn’t be hard to learn more about them, and the years after Soyeon’s long hiatus. But first, he navigated to the digital copy of his contract.
He’d thought he was doing better, before. Finally standing his ground. Eunjae saw now that his initial decision to leave the group really was just another form of running away. The same could be said of his decision to stay. Neither of these was a real solution. For as long as that penalty clause remained in their contracts, no one in the group was safe. Eunjae had to fight this. But he would do it his own way, trusting himself to see it through.
Singing isn’t the only thing you’re good at.
Paragraph by paragraph, line by line, Eunjae surveyed the bounds of his cage. He went back to Arthur’s emails and notes saved to the app on his phone. He added more notes, nearly exceeding the word limit. From memory, he typed out things that were said during the confrontation in Yoon’s office, his brothers’ fears, hypothetical steps to take.
As he worked, it occurred to Eunjae that the prison bars could fulfill two purposes: to keep you in, but also to keep danger out. To offer protection at the cost of freedom. While many of the terms were written with the intent of safeguarding Emerald Entertainment’s interests, the contract included safeguards for artists too.
Not everything within those pages was a weapon to be wielded against them. Maybe he couldn’t persuade the agency to do away with the musketeer clause, and maybe he’d never succeed in appealing to the founders for empathy, but there could be another way to protect everyone. To make sure all of his brothers had the choice to stay or go, in the future.
“The key is in here somewhere,” he murmured to himself. “I just have to find it.”
So absorbed was Eunjae in scouring the contract that he fell asleep there, slumped over with one cheek pressed against the laptop keyboard. He woke in a haze to someone knocking urgently on his bedroom door.
33
“Ari?Hello?”
It was Nami knocking on the door, and she wasn’t alone. “Let us in,” ordered their other manager, Doyoung. “We don't have time to waste.”
Eunjae checked the alarm clock. Then he made note of the light cutting through the blinds, or rather, the absence of it. It was just shy of 5:00am, sunrise only the merest suggestion on the horizon. What did the managers want with him at this hour? He had nothing scheduled. Nothing that he knew about, anyway. He was supposed to be under disciplinary restrictions, all privileges revoked. No leaving the dorms without supervision, no social media, no interaction with the outside world unless Emerald Entertainment approved it first. They’d confiscated his other phone without knowing about the one on loan from Jiyeon.
“Sorry, I was still asleep,” Eunjae answered, letting them in. “Am I late for something, noona?”
Nami chewed on her bottom lip, trying to work out what to say. But Doyoung went straight to the freshly emptied duffel bag at the foot of Eunjae's bed. He held it up, muttered that it was too small, and set it down again. Alarm bells began to ring inside Eunjae's skull.
“What are you doing?” he demanded, breaking away from Nami. Doyoung dragged a rolling suitcase from the closet, the largest suitcase Eunjae owned. It hadn't been used since March, when he’d stayed in Busan with Jungwoo. Eunjae's following trips had required nothing more than an overnight bag.
