45. Epilogue
Jiyeon waits with her brother in a plain black van. Compared to the motley assortment parked in this beachside lot, their vehicle is like a hole in the universe, a patch of night sliced out of the sky and outfitted with wheels. Its windows are lightless voids. Through the tinted glass, she watches an endless succession of waves come rolling to shore.
She’s taken the middle row. Her legs are tucked beneath her, a paper cup cradled in one hand. Hot chocolate has been acquired from a cart over by the pier, along with churros that she and Denny have long since devoured. “Do I want to know where you got this thing?” Jiyeon asks him now, drumming her fingers on the center console.
From the driver’s seat, Denny gives a noncommittal grunt in response. “Pulled a few strings.”
“Only a few strings, because mysterious black vans are a dime a dozen, I guess.”
“Hey, I only needed two. Believe me, it was a lot easier than convincing Mom that all ten Ryans were not, in fact, gonna fit in our apartment.” He pauses. “Eleven Ryans. Whatever. Too many brothers.”
“Seven brothers in LA,” amends Jiyeon. “One brother in Seoul, and just one Ryan.” Eunjae. It takes effort to call him by any other name, now.
“And that one Ryan will be more than enough trouble for you all by himself,” Denny shoots back. He glares at her in the rearview mirror. “I just can’t believe you did that, Yeonnie. This is a mess.”
She sighs. “I had to do it. If we switched places, if it had been your call, you would’ve done the same thing.”
“First of all, I wouldn”t have adopted a random pop star on a random Wednesday night!”
“So you wish we”d never met him?”
“No!” Denny drags a hand down his face. “You should’ve just stuck with the shop account. That plan was fine.”
“A couple thousand followers wasn’t enough. That video needed to be seen by as many people as possible.”
They’ve been over this already, but he has yet to be convinced that her logic was sound. As usual with Denny, the righteous indignation might just burn eternal.
“What if you”re wrong? What if it doesn”t die down?”
“It will. Right now everyone wants to know why the livestream was posted from my account, but soon enough they”ll stop asking. I just have to wait it out. Disappear again.”
“That won”t work a second time!”
But it might. All she has to do is stay resolutely out of the picture. The world wants Apollo, not Emma Han, for all the intrigue she”s stirred up. The resurrection of her dead social media platform is only fascinating because it’s linked to the boys.
“Plus,” Denny continues, warming up to a full blown monologue, “it”s not just about you anymore. Even if you never touch Instagram again, you”ve gotten yourself caught up in all this nonsense. Apollo’s so famous that it”s stupid. Their fans are freaking manic, okay? I’ve done the research and I need you to understand how bad this could get. It”s potentially very, very, very, very bad. Ten times worse than how it was before. Especially if you keep doing stuff like coming back into the madhouse after I tried to send you out of it.”
Jiyeon has no regrets about turning back instead of heading home. She hadn’t dared to come close enough for a view of the stage, but she could hear Eunjae’s voice when he spoke to the crowd, and she’d known from his voice that he’d won.
Denny shifts in his seat, arms crossed, staring straight ahead. “I never want to see you go through that again. I thought you were done with it.”
“I am,” Jiyeon insists. “This doesn”t mean I”m going back to that life. It was just… something I had to do. I had to help, Den.”
His shoulders go slack, the tension giving way to empathy. “Yeah, Yeonnie. I know.”
“It”s already been reported that my family owns a restaurant in the same shopping center where the event was held,” she reminds him. “No one wants to believe this was just a coincidence, but they”ll have to accept it eventually.”
“Why accept it when they could just keep digging?”
Jiyeon sets her drink down in the cup holder. There is movement up ahead, figures progressing from the resort in the distance and down the deserted beach at a leisurely pace. Voices drift on the sea breeze, punctuated by laughter and raucous cheering.
“They can dig if they want to, then,” she says. “There won”t be anything for them to find.”
“You only need to be caught with Ryan one time —”
“Caught doing what? We can”t be caught if we stay away from each other from now on.”
“You”re gonna stay away from him.”
“Yeah.”
“And he’s gonna stay away from you.”
“Uh-huh.”
Denny”s laughter thunders through the van’s interior like the first rumbles of an impending rockslide. He checks his watch, then pulls the key out of the ignition. “That,” he declares, swiveling around to face her, “is complete horsefeathers.”
“Horsefeathers?”
“You know what I mean!”
“I really don”t!”
Shaking with mirth, Denny says, “Oh, man. Jesus, noona. Good luck.” Then he tosses her the keys, still chuckling darkly, and climbs out of the van. “Drive it back to the pier when you”re done. I”ll meet you there. Ryan Kim can walk back to the hotel with his eight million brothers.”
Directives issued, Denny departs from the scene. Jiyeon blinks and her brother has disappeared among the dunes. Not even a full five minutes later, Eunjae takes his place.
They move quickly. He goes for the final row, easing himself into the shadows while Jiyeon slides the door shut in his wake. The parking lot remains as it was, this end of the beach still devoid of the usual evening crowd. She feels certain no one has seen. Even so, the pair of them sit in silence for a while, half expecting to be chased out of the vehicle at any second.
Nothing happens. No cameras flash and no wild-eyed Apollo fans come crawling out of the clumps of swaying seagrass to challenge Jiyeon to a duel. She exhales the breath she”s been holding and says, “Well. That was more stressful than I thought it would be.”
“I think we”re good. None of my brothers followed me here.”
“That”s your number one concern?”
He laughs a little. “Yes.” But the amusement is short-lived. “I still wish you hadn”t posted for us.”
“But it”s a good thing I did. It worked.”
Somberly, Eunjae says, “Denny told me you aren’t working for Olivia anymore.”
“Our Woosung,” sighs Jiyeon. “He always was a tattletale.”
“Just worried about you. I know how that is.”
She shrugs. “It’s almost funny. Olivia was thrilled with me for the first time in a long, long time. So many people suddenly wanted a haircut. I had to leave before she started displaying me in the window like a zoo animal.”
She doesn”t want to talk about her past: the follower count and celebrity clients, the sponsorship deals, the interminable, tortured calculus of views and likes, saves and shares. The emotions retain their potency, but the memories themselves are blurred, no longer rendered in crisp technicolor. It”s as if those days were lived by another person, a separate entity dwelling blithely in a parallel universe.
It was a nightmare, but she could make it look so pretty. Even better, she had a knack for making it look like it was true.
The last thing she posted as Emma was a video of the sea on a night much colder than this one. In the caption, she”d tried to explain why she was leaving. She”d promised that she was fine, she was safe, but she was never coming back. This, at long last, was supposed to be the truth.
Eunjae doesn”t push her for the details. Maybe he”s already scrolled through the posts in her profile, now a virtual monument to who she used to be. If she closes her eyes, Jiyeon can see that grid of photos and videos, impeccably styled, curated with such care. Here is Emma Han twisting her hair into seemingly effortless milkmaid braids. Here is Emma Han peddling $50 shampoo she doesn”t even like, for a sponsorship deal that puts money into her savings account. The dream, the dream. What wouldn”t she do, for the dream?
Eunjae leans forward. He tugs on her sleeve. “Thank you.”
She turns around to face him, very much against her better judgment. But Eunjae is here with her, now. She hasn”t seen him since that night when there was suddenly no choice but to confront the truth. How many more times will they be able to talk like this? And then she thinks, it would always have to be like this. Meeting in secret, dodging millions of watchful eyes.
Jiyeon rests her head in the crook of one arm, the leather upholstery grown warm against her skin. She looks up at Eunjae in the dark. “We shouldn”t meet up again,” she tells him. The words are also for herself.
“I know.”
“This has to be the last time.”
He’s quiet for a while. “Do you want it to be the last time?”
Jiyeon closes her eyes. “No.”
“So we have the same problem.” And his relief is so palpable that she almost can”t bear to try again, but she does. This is not a choice to make lightly. They can”t go running headlong into it.
“I saw the video where you said you don”t want to date in secret. And I understand, okay? After everything I”ve seen and read, I just… I know that things were already hard for you, before. Trying to make this work could make it so much worse.”
His head snaps up. “Me? Never mind about me.” Eunjae rakes a hand through his hair, easily the most agitated she”s ever seen him. “Things were hard for you, too. You got out. You started over. I feel like I”ve already ruined that for you.”
“You didn”t ruin anything,” she protests, stunned that he could even come to this conclusion.
“You”ve had to quit your job. The shop’s been closed for two days because the fans won”t stop coming. Reporters keep trying to follow you guys home.”
“It won”t be that way forever. We”re so boring that they”ll lose interest soon. When you go home —” But Jiyeon can”t bring herself to finish the sentence.
“This feels like home, to me,” Eunjae says. “Maybe that sounds crazy. It”s true, though. And it”s like… what have I done?”
Jiyeon decides that she just can”t stand it anymore. She scoots close enough to poke him in the arm. “Here”s what you”ve done. Are you listening? You pretended to have amnesia. You got yourself a new job. You washed a lot of dishes. You sat for hours and watched a Korean drama with terrible writing, never complaining, just because my parents love it.”
The flicker of a smile flashes across his face. Jiyeon keeps going.
“You read the entire Molly Merriweather series in two days. You saw that Denny had secretly always wanted a brother and that”s what you gave him. I told you about maybe opening some small place of my own one day, so you spent your lunch break finding me one. Other people might have looked for a busy cross street or the cheapest rent. You decided to filter by sunset views and nearby florists. Really, you”re something else.”
This is not what she”s supposed to be doing. She was supposed to let him go and say goodbye. But how can she?
“You”ve done so much, Eunjae. It was magic. We”re out of time now and I wish…”
“I wish we had more of it,” he finishes for her.
Headlights flash around a bend, speeding towards the boardwalk, the live band, the Ferris wheel. Eunjae angles himself in her direction, and although he comes no closer, she feels as though he has.
“Yeon-ah,” he says softly, reaching for her. “Let”s just run away.”
Jiyeon ends up laughing in spite of it all. “Oh, sure. Something we’re both good at.” But she slips her hand into his, and everything is so clear, everything makes perfect sense.
The breeze picks up outside the van, whistling through the seagrass, tossing the echoes of his brothers’ voices like skipped rocks across the waves. Eunjae’s gaze never wavers. “When I think about what I’d be putting you through, I know I shouldn”t ask you to give me a chance. I know it, but I still want a chance.”
“Just the one?” she asks, suddenly feeling a little lightheaded. More and more lately, his presence is like a change in altitude. Denny can never find out about this.
“I’ll get it right the first time.”
“And when they catch us? Because you know they will.”
“We’ll deny it.”
“Sounds so simple,” she murmurs.
“That”s just how it goes. Deny for years, then turn around and announce your wedding is in three days. Everybody does it.” Eunjae pauses, then adds in a hurry, “Not that we need to talk about weddings right now.”
But Jiyeon just blinks at him. “You”d be willing to keep this secret… for years?”
“So long as it”s you. For however long you”ll have me.”
And how exactly was she ever supposed to argue with that?
When Jiyeon lets go of Eunjae’s hand, it”s only so she can climb over the seat and into his arms instead.