Epilogue
Seven Months Later
First, he allowed Jungwoo to cut the bridge from the song that will soon be playing on the screen above his head. Fuck, why didn't he fight him on that?
Second, he shoved Keiichi into the ball pit and ran.
Now his brother will cry and squeal about infectious disease for hours.
He'll leave the party in a snit, self-diagnosing dengue fever, dysentery, cholera.
Admittedly, Max would push him again if the opportunity came up.
It was very satisfying. Sometimes he gets why Nicky is a certified psycho.
His third sin is ongoing. Max pushes it down before it can bob to the surface like a dead body.
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 the cool 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 then Eunjae in 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.
“You look mad, though.”
“Maybe because you're a punk. Maybe because this song doesn't have a bridge and that's why it's boring.” He sighs. “Maybe because I was supposed to stay here, but I didn't, and Ari had to do this alone.”
“Why are you always worried about him living alone? People live alone every day and they're fine. I don't get why my brother would be any worse off than them.”
Max rolls his eyes. “Of course you don't get it. You're a kid.”
“You're an adult who acts like a kid,” Ezra shoots back, “so you don't get it either. You're not an expert on how to be an adult. None of you act like any regular adults I've ever seen—”
“How would you see any regular adults? You lived at a goddamn boarding school. Adults were outnumbered there, like ten to one. You literally grew up in an expensive daycare situation. Don't even try to sell it like you're an expert on regular adults.”
“Didn't you grow up in an expensive daycare situation?” Ezra counters. But he stops arguing when Hazel insinuates herself between them, impossible to ignore.
Max’s girlfriend is a knockout with warm brown eyes and the face of an angel.
She has two ballroom dancing trophies, an affinity for bladed weapons, and a famously short fuse.
In her last movie, she punched an ice pick through somebody's skull like you'd pop a straw into a juice box. Then she shoved the guy overboard.
They see each other once a month, if that.
After Friday’s concert, she’ll be gone again, filming on location in Greece.
It’s a relief, because the heat of Hazel's attention seldom inspires the correct fight or flight response.
On a good day, Max fights the urge to reach out and scorch himself on the surface of the sun.
He flees before he can stare back and go hopelessly blind with want.
Today has not been one of those good days.
Oblivious, Hazel pinches Ezra’s cheeks. This is possible because he’s sitting down; built a lot like Ari, the kid probably matched her height at the age of seven. “Who is this,” she asks, “and why are we mad at him?”
“You know who he is, Z.”
“You're right. I remember everybody who makes us mad.”
And then you hire them, thinks Max, never done fuming about this even though ages have passed since Hazel recruited Eric/Trevor as her publicist. She prided herself on combining vengeance with a savvy career move.
So much better than Max's half-assed revenge plot from June 2023. But also, Trevor’s mom and Hazel’s dad were both born in the Philippines, which means they have a shared heritage.
“He wasn’t allowed to betray me,” she’d seethed.
“He broke the rules and now he has to pay.”
Trevor’s an even bigger psycho than Nicky. This hiring decision will surely bite them in the ass. Meanwhile, the guest of honor is due to arrive within minutes. “Better go down there,” Hazel tells Ezra. “She’ll want to see you.”
“He’s scared Vivian won't like him,” says Max.
“I never said that!”
Hazel's eyes flash. “Why the hell wouldn't she like you? Come on, get up.”
They walk him partway, then join Apollo by the lockers.
Jesse's with Mr. and Mrs. Han, locked and loaded, ready to take pictures.
Keiichi seems intent on drowning Namgyu in hand sanitizer.
It smells like lemon, mingling with the scent of expensive cologne.
Jungwoo's scribbling away in his dumb notebook.
Every experience can be mined for material.
Every emotion can be paired with a melody, whether he feels it himself or only knows it secondhand.
Nicky pulls Hazel into a tango, always trying new stunts in case it might make Max jealous. Why the hell would he be jealous? That's not his actual girlfriend.
Max needs to commit. He needs to fake his own death.
She comes back to him soon enough, spinning away from Nicky with a laugh.
Her hair is short again, but she didn't have time to renew the fading color before flying out here.
This will be remedied by next week. She'll be in character, tearing through Santorini as peerless assassin Gretchen Young.
Max will receive eighty selfies a day from hotel balconies and beachside sets: Hazel in shredded evening gowns, Hazel in blood-stained leather.
Hazel with a crossbow, winking, blowing him a kiss.
The photos are bound to appear on social media.
He'll hit the Like button on every post without fail, because it'll be an earful from Hazel if he doesn't, followed by a second earful from Trevor.
This is the narrative. This is the story they're telling.
It's the deal they made last summer, and he never forgets it.
Max’s girlfriend isn't really his girlfriend. He should quit making mistakes with her in limousines and convenience stores and empty birthday party rooms. They should both get better at remembering that this shit’s supposed to be temporary.
"Something's up with you, baby," she says now, peering into his face.
"Just tired. Being on tour is fucking exhausting.
" And he's still pissed about Jungwoo cutting the bridge from Everlasting, and it's annoying that Ezra tried to get out of coming to both concerts by using homework as an excuse, like what kind of teenager does that?
How many fifteen-year-olds would rather label a goddamn atom than go to their brother's concert? What a freak.
"It's fucked up," Hazel agrees. "Let's shove him into the ball pit."
Max can't help it. He starts laughing. Then there's a commotion by the doors, and Kazu’s already boo-hooing, an absolute sniveling wreck by the time Denny helps Vivian into the lobby. Most of Apollo is no better, but it’s Jiyeon who cries the most. She just holds the lady's hand, sobbing, until she notices Ezra hiding behind Jeannie. The kid’s picked the wildest time to be shy.
Ari doesn’t cry. He looked like this on Monday, when the plane began its descent over Los Angeles. They’d been away on tour for weeks and he was coming home at last.
He’s found Vivian again. She’s a person, not a place, but she still counts as home.
Max forgets his problems, watching them.
He recalls the lyrics of a song written with his brothers, the title track of an album that took them all these long months to put together, through a mess of contract negotiations and conflicting schedules.
There's a bridge, a gorgeous one, and not just because the lines are split between Namgyu and Ari.
It won't be this way forever, they sing. When it’s over, everything good is still right here.