22. Chapter 22
If Denny Han ever needed a new job, he”d do well to consider hiring himself out to do wake up calls. The man was an alarm clock you couldn”t snooze. Eunjae had woken at 4:32am to find him standing over the bed, a walking mountain somehow gifted with powers of stealth. It shocked all the sleepiness out of him. They were at Wanna Waffle by 5am sharp, firing up the irons and pulling down all the dining room chairs.
Now it was midmorning and Eunjae occupied a seat behind the counter, a quarter of the way through his mandatory reading assignment: an old hardback copy of Molly Merriweather and the Clockwork Knight. Inside the front cover was a fading Bookmobile sticker and the name ‘Emma Jiyeon Han’ scrawled in shaky cursive. Denny had inscribed his own name underneath hers at a later date. His cursive was clearer, more precise. Neither could agree on rightful ownership of the book and Eunjae had stepped in to mediate.
He made swift progress through the first Molly Merriweather book as the morning ticked slowly away and Jeannie shuffled around the empty dining room with a broom. She possessed a bottomless supply of soda candy and even plunked a handful beside the register for Eunjae. By force of habit, he chose a flavor that none of his younger brothers would squabble over.
“Oppa-yah,” Jeannie drawled shortly thereafter, removing one earbud and pointing the broom handle at Eunjae. “Has anyone ever told you that you look like Ari from Apollo?”
Denny exploded out of the kitchen. “Who are you out here calling oppa?”
“Ryan,” said Jeannie. She popped another candy in her mouth. “He looks just like —”
“He looks just like not anyone”s oppa!”
“Denny-boss, you’re getting old. Like, you used to babysit me. So it makes sense that your eyes are getting bad and you can’t see that this new guy is totally an oppa. His oppa energy is intense.”
“Insubordination,” scolded Denny. “And you! Ryan! How can you just sit there while some girl calls you oppa? You didn”t even react. You”re either as empty-eyed as I said you were, or you”re a coldblooded serial killer, which I also said you were.”
Of course Eunjae hadn”t reacted. Sunshines were forever addressing him in this manner. Although the honorific was meant to be used by girls when talking to an older brother, ‘oppa’ had evolved into something more flirtatious and affectionate in certain contexts. After nine years, it just bounced right off him. Being accused of resembling Ari from Apollo had been much more concerning at the time.
He lowered the book. “Um, I didn”t notice. I was reading. Like you told me to.”
Denny”s wrath subsided as quickly as it had flared. “You”re damn right you were reading. Do it fast ‘cause there”s still four books left in the series and we’re watching the movies, too.”
He stormed back into the kitchen just as Jiyeon came out, balancing a tray. Eunjae jumped up to hold the door open for her and she thanked him through the pair of plastic-wrapped boba straws she was carrying in her teeth.
“You don”t have to read the whole series in one day,” she said, shaking her head. “No need to watch all the movies, either. He”s just really excited.”
“I don”t mind,” said Eunjae, truthfully.
Jiyeon set the tray down on a table near the big window. It held a waffle with a pristine scoop of ice cream on top. She dusted the whole thing with powdered sugar and then adorned the plate with strawberries sliced into little hearts.
“How about it, Miss Vho? You feel like being a waffle model today, right?”
In answer to this question, Jeannie whirled around and tugged Eunjae forward. “Use him! He looks just like Ar—”
“Ryan’s too shy for modeling work,” Jiyeon said easily, arranging and then rearranging a pale pink smoothie and a boba tea around the waffle with a practiced eye. She thumped the waffle straws on the tabletop so that their sharp ends pierced through the plastic wrap in one go. “Do you think the tea should be on the left or the right? I say left.”
“Left. You know I”ll drop this tray, Sis.”
“You won”t. Come on, help me. Denny only ever posts pictures of the same waffle on the shop’s Instagram over and over again. He thinks taking it from a new angle makes it different. We’re overdue for some video.”
“I’m too young to be trusted with this. Ask Denny-boss, he’ll tell you.”
“I’ll braid your hair tomorrow.”
These were the magic words. Jeannie jumped into the task with sky-high motivation. Eunjae looked on from the sidelines, wary of getting in the way. Jiyeon had appropriated her brother’s phone for the project and went about it with her usual certainty, filming the components of several videos in a batch. It struck Eunjae that he had yet to see her fumble or hesitate, no matter the task or circumstance. Whatever it was, she just did it.
“I think that”s enough,” Jiyeon concluded, ten minutes later. “Ryan, smoothie or boba?”
Noting his teenage co-worker’s covetous glances at the boba, Eunjae went for the smoothie. Jiyeon handed it to him, then insisted that he take the waffle too.
“By the way,” said Jeannie, slurping away at her tea, “did you cut Ryan’s hair? Cause it looks good. Like, really good.”
“That”s concerning. I was supposed to make him look more wholesome. Denny”s orders.”
“Wholesome,” hooted Jeannie, taking another loud slurp through her straw. “We”d get a hundred million views if you put him in a post. This haircut is too powerful. Sorry, but you failed for sure.”
“Darn. I knew my greatest failure had to happen sometime.” Jiyeon looked up from the Instagram story she was posting, smiling at Eunjae. Her earrings were pink enamel roses. Eunjae smiled back at her, but the rose motif reminded him of Jungwoo, and thinking of Jungwoo naturally led to thinking about the rest of his brothers. This dissonance between the two worlds he occupied left a temporary ringing in his ears.
Misdirecting Emerald Entertainment into searching for him in the wrong places could only ever earn him a temporary reprieve. What Eunjae needed was a solution to the bigger problem. That solution was unattainable without a better understanding of the contract that bound him — and the whole group — to their agency.
When had he first requested the copy of his contract? Sometime after that second global tour, maybe. The tour itself had been difficult enough, all the months of near-nonstop travel and the film crew following them around for the entire North American leg. Or did he request the contract after last year’s gauntlet of holiday show performances?
Eunjae had been so tired for so long. He could think of any number of catalysts. But it was discomfiting to remember that he’d never asked for a copy until things felt unbearable. He’d signed the thing twice without really reading it. This was embarrassing to admit, even just to himself.
Regardless, Eunjae had his contract and the time to go over its terms, if not much expertise in that regard. The pages sat untouched in his inbox for months while Apollo got through the grueling promo period for Never Too Late and then Jaehwan’s enlistment. It had continued to sit there as Eunjae went straight into recording for the unit project with Jungwoo and Max. But he”d opened the file yesterday, at last, and was still working through it. The font was tiny, the formal language broken up into long, convoluted sentences. It didn’t help that the whole thing had been written in very formal Korean. Eunjae could read and write well enough, but legalese was a struggle in any language.
Eunjae delivered the tray to the kitchen, where he munched on the waffle and thought about his options. Then he looked for Denny, finding him by the door with Jiyeon as she prepared to leave for work.
“Do any of your resources offer legal advice?”
Denny looked at Eunjae as though he’d sprouted a third eye in the middle of his forehead. “Now you’re lawyering up? For what? You can”t possibly have committed any crimes. You”re you!”
“He”s… him?”
“You know what I mean, noona!”
Jiyeon removed her sunglasses for the express purpose of glaring at her brother. “Woosung-ah. Not so long ago you were shouting about Ryan being an international crime lord. Now you”re shouting the opposite.”
“Our HR department wouldn”t hire a convicted felon,” scoffed Denny, “because our HR department is me.”
“There aren”t any crimes involved,” Eunjae quickly cut in. “I just have some questions about, uh, this thing I was reading online. I thought you might be able to recommend a lawyer who could answer them.”
“For fun? Or a murder trial?”
“No murders involved. I swear.”
“That’s what the murderers always say.”
But Jiyeon brought out her phone. “Hmm. Arthur is a lawyer.” She paged through her contacts list while Denny spiraled into a fresh round of derision.
“You’re suggesting Arthur Hong for this?”
Eunjae’s thoughts snagged on the name. Arthur Hong. Where had he heard this name before?
“He finally passed the bar exam, didn’t he? So yeah, he’s a lawyer.”
“An estate lawyer, Yeonnie.”
“Still a lawyer. And if he doesn’t know the answer, he’ll ask Arthur Senior. I’ll text him, okay?”
Eunjae nodded. “Okay. I can pay. Will you tell him that? I don’t want him to think he has to help me for free.”
“I doubt he’ll accept money, but it’s nice to know the Han Corporation pays you enough to afford legal fees. The management loves some free labor.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” bristled Denny. But Jiyeon was already out the door, laughing.