They have the whole building to themselves. Denny knows a guy, because he always knows a guy, so theirs is the only party happening at Bounceland this afternoon. If not for certain key details, including the likelihood of contracting a medieval plague, this would qualify as heaven on earth. Delicious aromas of buttery popcorn and melted cheese cycle through the vents nonstop. They have bumper cars and video games and laser tag. The building’s made of wall-to-wall trampolines.
He gets why Kazu wanted to throw a party here. It's a place where you don't have to think. You just jump as high as you can, knowing that every surface is padded or elastic or made of foam. Something will be there to break your fall. But Max can't even have fun because, once again, he took a hard pass on self control. The memory burns a hole in his head the way cash burns a hole in Namgyu's pocket.
Overhead, the screen darkens. A ribbon unfurls in the center, forming the shape of a cursive letter L, then tying itself into an elegant bow. The L stands for Lumina. This is the group’s first full comeback since their December debut, long delayed and highly anticipated. Max has songwriting and production credits on three of the five tracks selected for the EP.
The same goes for Jungwoo. They've become an established duo, a fact that Max recites any time someone questions whether karma is real. He's certain that karma is what binds him to this brother, that their fates are intertwined because they're both assholes. They belong together. He can't deny it and this makes him sick.
But also, Max is living the dream. He can't deny that, either.
Lumina has four members. The group used to have a fifth. The abrupt departure threw schedules into chaos, and for a while, the girls went to ground. They were a body with an arm hacked off at the shoulder. They crept through the Emerald complex like ghosts. And the member they lost was a vocalist, arguably their best, but Lucie or Yerin could've nailed that bridge, too. For fuck’s sake, the bridge was a masterpiece. Max should be jailed for backing down.
“Why’s this song so boring?”
This comes from a teenager with golden brown hair and, in Max’s humble opinion, the personality of a rose bush that somebody set on fire. That shouldn't be a real personality. It should stay in the realm of edgy tattoos, like the one on Jungwoo's left bicep. Even Jungwoo keeps that covered most of the time and he's a goddamn loser. How is Ari related to this kid? Who forged Ezra’s documents at the hospital?
“You're boring,” Max shoots back, as Lumina’s music video plods through the dramatic intro. “Who does homework at a birthday party?”
Ezra stops scribbling. “Who has a birthday party at an indoor playground when he's this old?”
There's no malice in that retort. Max even detects the slightest hint of affection. That's why he resists the urge to hurl Ezra’s backpack into the moat filled with musty, spongy foam bricks. Any moron could tell you that those bricks are crawling with pathogens. Ari-hyung would be sad about his kid brother coming down with some bizarre virus from 1854, so Max refrains.
“I'm serious. Why do you have homework? It's the middle of summer.”
A baleful glare. “It's winter in Brisbane. I'm missing the first week of term.”
Right. Ezra withdrew from that school in Singapore. He spends most of his year in Australia, with their dad, and comes to stay with Ari during breaks. “Bad timing,” says Max. “How long are you here?”
“Just until Saturday.”
“You're going to both nights of the concert, then?”
“Might skip tomorrow,” Ezra replies, shrugging. “Friday’s the last stop on the tour, so that'll be the best one.”
This little shit. “Everyone else is doing two nights, but you're not? Get out.”
“I have homework!”
Not for long, he doesn’t. Max leafs through Ezra’s worksheets, then picks up the pencil and starts labeling the parts of an atom in his crabbed, spiky penmanship. It's nuts, how much he remembers. Chemistry was fine because it was full of interesting, oddly beautiful words: valence, molarity, resonance. He memorized the periodic table just for the names.
“They'll never believe I wrote that.”
“Not my problem,” says Max. The music video reaches its midpoint crescendo. Lumina dances on frozen tundra, their skin and hair dusted with snowflakes. “What’s going on with you? Why are you sulking over here?”
“I'm not sulking. I'm doing my stupid homework.”
And then he figures it out: Ezra’s nervous. Max flips to the next page, a worksheet covered in equations. He skips the hell out of that one. “So you're meeting her for the first time today,” he says. “Try not to fuck it up.”
Ezra lets him know exactly what he thinks of that advice. He's got a mouth on him, but he never descends to Max’s level of mouthiness. Must be related to Ari, after all.
Speaking of Ari, he's sharing a slice of ice cream cake with Jiyeon, still wearing that apron. It was a gift from her family. Max can see it from here, a flash of cheerful orange under thecool fluorescent lights. That's Ari’s favorite present this year, no contest. It would've been his favorite last year, too. That's when he was originally supposed to receive it. Mrs. Han approaches birthdays with utmost flexibility. The gift is a year late? No big deal. Late is better than never.
The apron looks just like the ones they wear at Wanna Waffle. Two names are embroidered under the logo:Ryan, in slanting cursive, and thenEunjaein Hangeul. When he first saw it, Max buckled under an overwhelming sense of loss. Suddenly, he was a body with an arm hacked off at the shoulder. He crept away from the others like a ghost.
In the life his brother has chosen, he is Ryan or Eunjae but never Ari. In the life they used to live, side by side, always together, the opposite was true. And Max can't help wondering if this means he never knew him, if he spent a decade believing he knew enough but was clueless that whole time. Something about it strikes him as really fucking unfair. He’d like to know Eunjae as well as he thought he knew Ari, but now they live an ocean apart.
Ezra flicks an arcade token at him. “What are you mad about now?”
“Nothing,” Max lies, flicking it back.
