She snorted. “Sorry to bother you, but please marry me.”
“I apologize for inconveniencing you with my feelings,” Eunjae rattled off in Korean. “I know that I’m still lacking. Even so, I sincerely wish to spend the rest of my life with you. Please look with kindness on my hopes for the future.”
Laughing, Jiyeon almost spilled her drink. “What do we call this? A propology?”
“Hey, that’s pretty good.”
“Your random superpower.”
“Don’t forget the weird dates,” he said, taking the tiniest, most cautious sip from his cup of coffee. “My other specialty.”
“Well, I can’t complain.”
She watched him reach into a paper bag with the air of someone dipping their hand into a basket of writhing snakes. He withdrew that hand almost immediately as tumultuous bickering erupted outside his hotel room door. Jiyeon shook her head. More brothers, of course. Between them, they somehow had so many.
In typical Apollo fashion, the others let themselves in without knocking. “Ari, guess what? You left your key card in our room! It was in Nicky’s bag. Haha!”
On the screen, Eunjae mouthed a silent apology. She stifled a sigh and carried on with dinner. Something she’d learned during these months he’d been in Seoul: privacy came at a premium, and that was true whether Eunjae was in the same room or an entirely different country. This might never change.
“Hyung, did you see this shit in the Prism email?” Max caught sight of Jiyeon over his brother’s shoulder. “Oh, Emma-noona. Hey.”
She raised a curtain of noodles, miming a toast. “Florida Man. Hey.”
He gawked at her. Jesse jostled him aside. “I think my rating should be higher,” he fretted, plopping into Eunjae's lap. “Doesn’t this make me seem boring? Noona, tell me I’m not boring. Like, I’m at least more interesting than Keiichi.”
“It was a risk assessment. You want a low rating, not a high one. Idiot!”
“Oh my gosh, he’s still soooo mad that his number was higher than Nicky’s.”
Eunjae leaned sideways to avoid getting elbowed in the eye. “Everyone’s number was higher than Nicky’s."
“That’s how you know this is all bullshit."
Kei rolled his eyes at Max. “Whatever you say, Mr. 92%.”
“Aww, but is it true that we won’t see you until December?” Namgyu and his mop of lavender hair suddenly monopolized the screen, brows drawn, mouth turned down at the corners. “It’s just too awful. Ari should fight them about it. I never fight with anybody, but I’d help him. And we’d win! I just know we would. I’m good at winning.”
Jiyeon processed these words. She met Eunjae’s panicked gaze. “Until December…? Why would it be that long?”
“Hyung, you didn’t tell her yet?”
“Of course he didn’t. That’s just how he is. Remember when Ari didn’t tell us about that clause in our contract?”
“Shut the hell up, Keiichi.”
“Oh my gosh. Ohhh myyyy goooosshhhh, noona looks so mad now, she’s about to break up with us—”
“Hmm. Yeah, I guess I should've realized I'd be dating all of you.”
Jesse's wail shifted to a higher key, evolving from ‘police siren’ to ‘mournful banshee.’ Meanwhile, Eunjae grabbed the laptop and ran. He reappeared a moment later. Clamoring voices continued to leak through the hotel room walls.
Jiyeon set her chopsticks down. “Are you sitting in the bathtub?”
“Ah… yeah.” Eunjae yanked the shower curtain shut, as if it might provide an additional line of defense. He sagged against the cold porcelain in despair. The directive from both agencies came out in a torrent: they wanted zero contact between Emma Han and any member of Apollo until filming was done and the group signed with Zenith.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, hanging his head. “I thought we could talk about it when I got home. And I know this doesn’t make it any better, but keeping it from you… that’s not what I was trying to do. I just… I’m sorry. I messed up.”
She leaned back in her own chair, the meal forgotten, date night disintegrating perhaps beyond salvage. So the agencies wanted her gone, but Prism didn’t want her as a free agent. Too dangerous. They’d engineered a compromise.
