8. Chapter 8
What if he did stay? What then? This was an impossible notion, and yet Eunjae couldn’t dislodge it from his heart once it found purchase there.
If he stayed, if he didn’t run to the airport now and get himself on the next plane to Seoul, his agency would eventually launch a manhunt in the streets of Jiyeon’s neighborhood. Someone, or several someones, would travel to the United States and haul him back to reality. He’d worry his brothers half to death. The news outlets would have a field day. And the fans? He didn’t even want to imagine that part of the equation.
Eunjae would cause so many problems for so many people, by staying here. So why did he want to do it?
Because I”m tired. Because all I ever want to do is run, lately. Because I don’t even know why I’m doing it anymore.
Because I don’t want to be that person anymore.
But was that accurate, really? Eunjae did want to be the person who made music for a living. Most of all, he did want to be the person with eight brothers, always joking and fighting by turns. He’d done so much of his growing up with the other members of Apollo. How could he even think of leaving them? They’d promised to keep going for as long as they could. They’d sworn to stay together.
For a moment, as he thought of his brothers, Eunjae almost managed to tell her no. But then he caught sight of the orange door again, and he remembered another promise he’d made a long, long time ago. A promise to himself.
“If the magic ever calls me, I’ll listen,” he used to whisper, buried under the covers with The Brass Key under his pillow, or reading it by flashlight in his closet. From Friday evening until late on Sunday afternoon, Eunjae learned to make himself scarce in the huge, echoing house in Brisbane. As his mother threw dinner parties for her work friends, the actors and understudies and people from her modeling days, he would pretend that every door upstairs was the way to another world.
If he found the right one, Eunjae could escape before it came time to be appraised by the guests. Unfortunately, he never did. “Sit here,” his mother would croon when he came down, “and sing that song again. The one you were singing with Vivian yesterday.” She’d straighten his collar or frown at a smudge on his cheek. “We never knew he was so talented. We can’t let it go to waste.”
He would sing because it was what she wanted, but it never felt the way it did when he sang with Miss Vivi. Then, it was like joy transmuted into sound. Then, it was like truly being himself, everything that he was, hiding nothing.
While his mother’s friends listened to him singing, Eunjae ran from one door to another in his head. As they took his face into their cold, dry hands and peered at the shape of his eyes, the lilt of his mouth, Eunjae would hope for the magic to find him. He’d let their words wash over him like water. Feed him less, try this diet, keep the boy out of the sun. Have him learn an instrument. Have him learn to dance. He needs voice lessons. He needs to stop being so shy.
We’ll make something of him yet. Just wait and see.
That’s what the magic was, Eunjae decided long ago: a place where you were already something, and whatever you were, that was enough.
Back then, Eunjae had often worried that he wouldn’t recognize the magic when it finally appeared; that it would call his name and he would be too timid to answer. Worse, he would find the door limned in light and never have the nerve to cross over. Well, now the magic might be happening. Now, when he had nothing much left to give and everything to lose. Would he be a coward? Would he let himself down for the thousandth time?
A chorus of sirens blared in the distance. Disjointed bursts of music filtered down from the high rise across the street. Eunjae locked eyes with Jiyeon in the half-dark, feeling as if he’d spent a lifetime contemplating her question.
“I want to stay,” he told her. “Not for long — nothing like that. If it’s okay, that is. I understand if it’s not.”
“Of course it’s okay.” Without letting another second slip by, she turned around to interrupt the family squabble. “Alright, quit fighting and listen to me.”