6. Chapter 6
“If this is another wacko from the Internet, I’m calling a full Code Blue, no holds barred, special forces and SWAT team —”
“Denny, stop.” Jiyeon shoved past her brother, moonlight turning the tiny flowers in her hair into silver stars. To Eunjae, she said, “It’s the mystery man. Did you forget something, Ryan Kim? I can double check with Jeannie. She might have found it before she left.”
“Mystery man? You’re talking to some new man already, Han Jiyeon?”
The siblings exchanged looks as their father stomped onto the scene, Mrs. Han following close behind. He made an abrupt switch from Korean to English. “You broke up with Arthur Junior one month ago, now it’s a new man?”
“Does Arthur Junior know our parents are obsessed with him?” muttered Denny.
“And who is Ryan Kim? I’ve never met a boy named Ryan Kim. Is he from church?”
Eunjae’s gaze darted back and forth between the various family members before landing, finally, on Jiyeon’s apologetic smile. He smiled back. At least, he tried. Truth be told, he felt much too queasy to manage it very well. The mask prevented anyone from seeing this pathetic attempt, which was a small mercy. He dropped into the lowest bow he could execute without tipping over and commenced an apology of his own. A deluxe apology, Max would call it.
Max would be the authority on that subject, what with all the apologies Eunjae had helped him draft over the years. His younger brother really needed to quit running his mouth so freely on public broadcasts.
Eunjae had never generated enough of a scandal to warrant such an elegant apology on his own behalf. In fact, he’d failed to drum up any scandals whatsoever. He practiced composing apologies nonetheless. His eldest brothers, Jaehwan and Kazu, had given many a speech about how they were bound to disappoint their legions of fans at some point down the line. Maybe they’d be seen chatting too long with the members of a girl group backstage at a music show. Maybe they’d cause an uproar over an Instagram post. Or maybe there would be dating rumors dutifully reported by the tabloid press, true or false. It was best to master the art of saying sorry. Eunjae saw the sense in that.
His apology that evening was apparently so epic in nature and composition that it left all four members of the Han family speechless. Eunjae remained as he was, bent at the waist with the bucket hat fallen to the ground at his feet. “I apologize for my inadequacy,” he reiterated in Korean, in case they missed it the first time. And then he translated it back to English, just for good measure.
Jiyeon recovered first. “It’s okay,” she said faintly. “You got lost and you don’t have your phone. Nothing to be sorry about.” This last sentence shook her out of the stupor. She took a few steps forward, pausing to collect the bucket hat and hold it out to Eunjae. “I’m here. Whatever you need, I’ll help you.”
Fans loved to extol the virtues of Eunjae’s smile. They liked to say that it was the kindest, the warmest, the most reassuring smile they’d ever seen. And why wouldn’t they? This girl had never smiled at them. They didn’t know any better.
Eunjae stopped staring, accepted the hat, and jammed it back onto his head. “Sorry. Thank you. I’m just… I’m really grateful. I think I’ve missed my flight, but if I could just call our —” He stumbled, coming close to saying manager. That wasn’t going to work if Nami had gotten on the plane with the others, so he should think of something else. “If I could just call someone, that would be a good place to start.”
“Of course. Here you go.” Jiyeon dipped a hand into her bag and produced a phone. She unlocked the screen before passing it to Eunjae. “You know the number, right?”
Eunjae did not, in fact, know the number. It wasn’t that he hadn’t bothered to memorize any of his brothers’ numbers, since he did know one of these by heart: Jaehwan’s number, because he was leader, and because he made the whole group memorize that string of digits ages ago. Then they’d been bombarded with pop quizzes for weeks afterward. If Eunjae knew anything, it was Jaehwan’s phone number.
This was the sort of emergency that Jaehwan had been preparing them for, by searing those digits into their brains, but it would be no use to call him now. Apollo’s leader was completing mandatory military service, having enlisted back in April. Jaehwan would want to help Eunjae — and probably also flay him alive — but there would be very little he could do about it.
Besides, Eunjae didn’t want to bother him with this. There had to be a solution that didn’t involve alarming Jaehwan while he had so much else to be worried about. And didn’t he deserve a two-year break from parenting eight other group members?
While the cogs were turning furiously in Eunjae’s head, Jiyeon had been waiting for him to admit that he didn’t know which numbers to dial. She said, “It’s not a big deal if you don’t remember. The only numbers I’ve got memorized are mine and my sister’s.”
Denny emitted a squawk of pure indignation.
“Woosung-ah, I’m joking.”
“Ha! Ha, ha, ha!”
Eunjae hung his head and returned her phone. “I’m so sorry,” he said again. “I hate to waste your time like this.”
Jiyeon’s brother marched up and resumed acting as a living barricade. “Listen up, my guy. I know your name isn’t really Ryan Kim.”
“Why do you have zero sense of humor, Denny?”
“Why do you have inside jokes with complete strangers, noona?” Denny volleyed back, scowling at Eunjae all the while. Noona. So Jiyeon was Denny”s older sister. “What’s your real name? We’ll help you out ‘cause we’re upstanding citizens, pillars of the community and etcetera, but you owe us that much.”
And he did, of course. He did owe them that much, if not more. But Eunjae absolutely could not give these people his real name. If anything would break the spell and seal his fate, it was his name. Obviously no one in the family was an Apollo fan; this was the only reason he’d lasted so long without getting caught. Still, it would take just one Google search to obliterate his hopes of remaining undetected until he sorted this out.
Eunjae vacillated on how to respond. He knew he should rattle off a fake name, but not a single believable option came to mind. The best he could come up with in the moment was, “Um.”
Jiyeon peered at him from behind the looming figure of her brother, brow furrowed. Was it concern or suspicion that Eunjae saw in her eyes? She tried to push past Denny again, but he halted her progress with an outstretched arm. “Seriously, man. Who are you?”
“He doesn’t know!”
Their father’s declaration resounded in the parking lot. Over by the karaoke bar, a group of teenagers heard him and turned their heads toward the sound, then vanished into the building, giggling.
Mr. Han nudged both of his children aside and came to stand in front of Eunjae, prompting him to master an urge to bolt. It was like facing down a giant. Two giants, what with Denny being there too. The pair of them had been sheared off the same mountainous crag.
“He doesn’t remember his name,” repeated Mr. Han, sounding oddly triumphant. “It all makes sense to me, now.”