5. Chapter 5
The hotel should’ve been just a block or two away. Eunjae recalled a short walk to the restaurant where they’d eaten dinner, and the equally short walk between the restaurant and Wanna Waffle. But had it been short? Or had he actually been following a much more meandering path all along, entranced by the scenery and giddy with freedom?
Because the fact of the matter was this: Eunjae couldn’t find the hotel. And he couldn’t use his phone to navigate, because his phone was nowhere to be found. It must be in his duffel bag, or lying forgotten on the bed in his hotel room. He wasn’t sure when his one link to the others had snapped, but without his phone, Eunjae realized that he was about ten different kinds of helpless.
They must be losing their minds at the airport. Maybe they were already on the plane. Eunjae wasn’t wearing a watch and the last glance at the clock had been when Waffle Wednesday came to an end at… what time was that?
In his mind, the specter of Jaehwan paced back and forth, lecturing about the follies of relying too much on a smartphone to function on a daily basis. At least Eunjae wasn’t short on funds. He had the card this evening, since the other two were hopeless at keeping track of such things, and it was still tucked securely in his wallet.
He’d backtracked to the waffle place mainly because it was easy to retrace his steps back to that orange door. Oddly enough, he knew the way. Eunjae hadn’t been recognized while he was there. That made Wanna Waffle the safest harbor for now. He could borrow a phone there, maybe.
He paid better attention this time around. The shopping center was comprised of two buildings positioned at a right angle to each other, forming two sides of a rough square. A sign facing the busy boulevard read The Village at Lemon Grove. Wanna Waffle’s side of the parking lot had emptied out, but the karaoke bar on the opposite end was pretty packed. None of the other establishments had such a unique entrance.
The larger windows were dark, shades drawn all the way down, but through the stained glass was a dim glow that told Eunjae he wasn’t too late. He knocked. A minute slipped by, and then two. Another knock couldn’t hurt. Eunjae raised his fist again, then dropped it when someone approached from the other side. Someone wearing red.
“I have no idea why I came here,” Eunjae heard through the door. Jiyeon had her back turned to him again, but the tense line of her shoulders was visible through the glass panels.
“Because it’s my birthday!”
“I offered to take you out for dinner. That’s what we should’ve done.”
“You guys are fighting about the stupidest thing in the history of all stupid things. Buying me dinner at the Cheesecake Factory was not gonna make it better.”
“The Cheesecake Factory? Denny.”
“I love that place. Don’t start.”
“Nothing in there even makes sense except for the cheesecake,” argued Jiyeon. “The five hundred menu items, the decor —”
“The decor,” Denny argued back, “is Venetian.”
“What? How is it Venetian, like what even counts as a Venetian aesthetic?” Jiyeon threw her hands up almost before she’d finished the sentence. “Actually, no. I’m not sticking around any longer. I’m sorry your birthday turned out like this. I love you, but this was a mess and I regret it. I’ll try again in another month, I guess. Maybe they’ll be over it by then.”
She stepped backward into the door, pushing it open without turning around. Eunjae was forced to lurch away, off the stoop and onto the sidewalk. Denny’s face appeared over Jiyeon’s shoulder. His eyes went wide, almost as wide as a signature waffle.
In an instant, he’d shunted his sister behind him and blocked the doorway, seemingly growing another three inches taller as he glared at Eunjae.
“Can I help you?”