“Let me guess,” said Jiyeon. “He’s saying you rejected a heartfelt gesture from Apollo and their agency.”
“Affirmative. I also abandoned them in Monroe, prioritizing personal interests over professional duties.”
While the siblings discussed kicking Eric into next week, Eunjae took charge of Uyu. Petúnia? Milky Way? He wondered if they’d ever settle on a name, or where she’d stay when this was done. So many unknowns remained.
He spotted Ezra down on the far end of the sidewalk, under the shop’s striped awning. Surprisingly, Simon had chosen to come along. He had a bit of paper in his hand, torn from a notepad and marked up on both sides. “I looked through my emails. This is everything I had.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Ezra, peering over Eunjae's shoulder. “Jiyeon asked if Dad knew where to find Miss Vivi.”
Of course she'd beaten him to it. The second he mentioned searching for Vivian, Jiyeon and Denny hit the ground running. He owed them both so much.
Under a letterhead for the Monroe Garden Inn, Simon had scrawled an email address. But there were also names, some phone numbers, and physical addresses spanning both Australia and the Philippines. None of these were current by any means; his last communication with Vivian had been around eight years ago.
“I wrote to her,” Simon said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, unused to such a prolonged conversation with his eldest son. “Wanted to say sorry. The way things ended… it wasn't right. I knew that.”
Eunjae couldn't stop the words from falling out. “But you didn't do anything about it. Who cares if you knew it was wrong? You let it happen anyway. What was the point of saying sorry?”
He could've gone on and on, raging at his father so many years too late.Too late, too late, too late.It echoed in his head, a painful refrain. Simon nodded at every accusation. He took the assault without trying to defend himself in any way.
It wasn't enough. How could it be? And yet, to continue railing about the past seemed just as ineffectual as this apology, delivered a decade after the fact. The rage disintegrated, a fire without enough fuel to burn.
Weren't they the same? Simon didn't have any fight in him, but neither did Eunjae. Not for the longest time. And he still shied away from confrontations, unlike Ezra.
“When will you say sorry to Eunjae?” he asked their father, always so direct with his questions, determined to drill straight down to an answer. “And me. She was my nanny, too. Just for a little while, but still.”
Simon nodded again. “I'm trying.”
“To say sorry?”
“Yes.”
“Try harder,” Ezra said. “I'll help you. No, we can both help you, because Eunjae's really good at apologizing. Jiyeon says it's like, his superpower.” He took the dog, scratching her behind the ears. “Weird superpower. Better than nothing, I guess.”
Eunjae folded the paper again, sliding it into the back pocket of his jeans. “Ari, they’re here,” Jungwoo called to him from the doorway. It was time to start. Jiyeon had scheduled an interview with a podcast, hoping to counter Prism’s lies with the truth. They’d record right here at the restaurant.
“Saw you with your dad. You okay?”
Eunjae thought about it. “I am,” he said, after a beat. “I'm okay.”
His brothers had already met the newest arrivals. These visitors had wasted no time getting their equipment into a booth by the window. Eunjae counted two of them. Easiest to spot was the guy by the register, chatting with Max, clad in a wrinkled gray t-shirt. Next to the tallest member of Apollo, this stranger was even taller. He towered over his companion, a young woman in the same shirt, but without the wrinkles. Her face turned a deeper shade of pink with every word Max said.
“Eunjae,” said Jiyeon, waving him over. The visitors both turned their heads at the sound of her voice. Or perhaps it was his name that drew their attention; he thought they might havewhispered ‘Eunjae?’ at each other as he went by. That made sense. While his full name was known to the public, it was the stage name that got the most use. They’d expected her to call him Ari, like his brothers did.
She slid over to make room. “This is Maisie Chun,” said Jiyeon, indicating the older woman seated across from them. Clad in a magenta tracksuit, she had a cloud of curly, iron gray hair and glasses attached to a silver chain. “She's one of the podcast hosts. That's her son over there, Jooney, and their producer, Freddie. The show’s calledOmma Gosh!and they cover K-pop headlines. It’s named after her.”
She'd connected with this podcast as Emma, when they invited her to be a guest during their coverage of Seoul Fashion Week.Omma Gosh!had grown since then, reaching thousands more listeners, and was especially popular among K-pop fans in this part of California.
“Their episodes tend to be more like casual conversations, no script. I'll sit here, but you guys can jump in whenever you want. Oh, did you guys change your passwords?”
“Yeah. Did that last night.” They wanted no repeats of last summer, when Emerald locked them out of their own accounts. Prism had a record of each member’s credentials, as Apollo’s public relations firm, and they expected Eric to use those if cornered. He’d just call it a necessary tool for image management.
Eunjae drew the mistaken conclusion that Maisie didn't have much to say. She’d kept quiet on her side of the booth, behind the microphones and Freddie’s laptop. But as soon as recording began, she hit Apollo with a sharp and unwavering stare, keen as the edge of Mrs. Han’s favorite kitchen knife. The bombardment was swift and merciless.
“So, Miss Emma,” said Maisie, gaze fixed on Eunjae. “When is the wedding?”
Jiyeon took a moment to process, unprepared for that question. She replied, “Which wedding, Auntie?”
“Any. It can be the wedding of anybody in Apollo, eh? I'm not picky. How about that one? He's the baby, yes? Not too young to get married, though.” She crooked a finger at Jesse, snooping from the next booth over. He gave a terrified yip and vanished from view.
