Simon admonished him to calm down. His words fell short of their mark. “He'd rather have you,” Ezra yelled. “I wish I'd figured that out before I came here. I wish I'd never tried!”
Rendered speechless, Namgyu reached out to him, poised to move in the direction of the attack when just about any other person would’ve flinched away from it. Kei intervened, predicting correctly that he'd just keep trying.
“That’s enough,” said Eunjae. “Fight me all you want, but leave everyone else out of it. They haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Yeah, of course not. They can’t do anything wrong and neither can you. You’re perfect, and millions of people love you, and I owe you for a million things I never even asked for. I get to go to a school that I hate so much. I have lots of friends because Mum tells everybody I’m related to you. People forget my name but they never forget yours. It’s all because of you, you, you.”
A school he hated. Friends who didn’t feel like friends. How could Eunjae even begin to fix this? How much sooner could he have fixed it if they’d only talked more? “Ezra, I’m sorry—”
But there was more. “Your dream came true just like that. Someone flew you to another country just to make you famous. You’re so special that our nanny went crazy and tried to kidnap you—”
“Ezra!”
He felt terrible and he sounded terrible, the fury burning so brightly in his voice that everyone recoiled from it. “Who told you that?” Eunjae demanded of his brother. In hindsight, he’d already known the answer.
Ezra bolted out the door and into the night. Eunjae lurched after him, apologizing to Namgyu as he went. But then his father told him to wait.
“What?”
“Let him go. I’ll talk to him when he comes back.”
“You’ll talk to him? You expect me to believe that?”
“I will. He never runs far. He's a little bit like your mum,” Simon added, with a rueful smile, “and a little bit like me. I never run far, either.”
The light of a street lamp sliced through the blinds, carving sickly yellow lines into the opposite wall. Eunjae turned the knob, wrenched the door open. He’d heard Ezra’s last sentence,the one that came out in a sob as he fled the room:I should've known that you don't need me.
“I’m going. This is my fault.”
Simon winced. “It isn’t your fault.” Four words with an impact of four tons, uttered many years too late. Eunjae left anyway, pelting past his father, rushing out before Namgyu and Kei could hold him back.
The property was small, just two buildings and an office, a courtyard and the parking lot. There weren’t many places to hide, not unless Ezra strayed past the bounds of the hotel and into downtown Monroe. It didn’t take long to find him, but Eunjae stopped short of calling his name.
He kept to the shadows, beyond his brother’s line of sight. Who was he, to fix this? What did he know?
Kei dashed down the steps, catching up easily. “We should go, hyung. You’ll only make it worse if you chase after him like this.”
“Give Ezra some time,” Namgyu concurred. “You can try again when you’re not upset.”
An image flashed in his mind: his brother’s jacket draped on that chair, forgotten. Eunjae found that he couldn't speak without his voice breaking. “It's cold,” he said. “He’ll be cold out here.”
“He was pretty mad. Probably won't even feel it. Trust me, I'm mad at you idiots every minute of every day. You could drop me into a blizzard and I'd feel nothing.”
“Aww, Keiichi. You're not mad at us every minute. That's just too crazy. Don't try to be all tough right now. If you feel bad, just feel bad.”
Kei opened his mouth, then closed it again. Finally he said, “You're right, Gyu. I do feel bad. I feel awful.”
It was Namgyu who led him away, meeting no resistance. But the bright fragrance of everything green and growing,confined to pots and yet flourishing— it was too much, suddenly. Eunjae stumbled, thinking of Ezra somewhere near and all alone.
Surrounded by friends, yet all alone.
Growing and growing, all alone.
22
Maxwaswaitingonthe patio when they got back, huddled under the string lights with Uyu. Bundled up in his grubby hoodie, he'd wrapped himself and the dog in an additional layer of blankets filched from the Langley House linen closet. Fuzzy socks and scuffed blue slides completed the ensemble.
“Don't go in,” he warned. “Eric showed up an hour ago.”
