“Jason!” She hands me an entertainment gossip magazine, but it’s in Korean, so all I can glean are pictures. “It says that Jason was the one who decided to break up,” she continues. “I just don’t understand why he would do that. Tae Hwa and Yoon Jae are his best friends.”
I almost tell her Jason and Yoon Jae are, in fact, not best friends, but I decide to keep that to myself. Her face reddens, her hands ball into fists, and I’m afraid of contradicting anything she says at this point—she might punch me.
“How could he?” she whispers.
I shrug. “Maybe he just decided it was time for them to part ways.”
She shakes her head. “No, that can’t be it. He knows the band is everything to Tae Hwa. Jason can move on from this, still have a career. He’s the front man, so there will always be options for him. But Tae Hwa? He’s just a bassist. Without the band, he has no career.”
I keep silent. She’s right. I’ve seen it with some of the bands my dad produced—they’d break up, but the singer would get a future gig with another group or go solo. Sometimes, bands break up just because the lead singer wants to go solo, but I can’t see Jason giving up his friendship with Tae Hwa for a new career direction, even if he didn’t like working with Yoon Jae. There has to be another explanation.
“We don’t know the whole story,” I say. “Why don’t you ask him?”
She scoffs, throwing a pencil across the room. “He doesn’t deserve the opportunity to explain.”
Slamming her school books closed and shoving her desk drawers shut, she mutters under her breath in rapid-fire Korean. I watch her throw on a jacket and wince when she yanks our dorm-room door closed behind her. Grabbing my room key and phone, I tail her.
As I expected, she heads to Jason and Tae Hwa’s dorm. She pounds her fist against the door until Jason pulls it open. Dark semicircles beneath his eyes and hair sticking up like he either just rolled out of bed or had a rough night, he pokes his head out to see her.
“Get out of my way,” she snaps. “I’m not here to see you.”
He glances at me, and I shrug. With a sigh, he lets us into the messy room. Clothes are strewn all over the floor, furniture is pulled away from the wall, and books are stacked in piles across the room. I peek into the bathroom and spot toothpaste, hair gel, and other toiletries all sitting out on the counter. Tae Hwa stands at his desk, throwing books and pictures into a suitcase.
Sophie helps Tae Hwa, but I hang back, standing beside Jason. He won’t look at either of them, just leans against the wall with his arms folded across his chest and eyes downcast.
“Sophie’s pissed at you,” I tell him.
“Noticed,” he mumbles.
“Why did you do it?”
But he doesn’t answer.
Sophie whirls around to face her brother, throwing angry Korean words at him. I have no idea what she’s saying, but judging by her tone, it can’t be pretty. Jason has the decency to at least look chagrined.
“Grace.” Sophie turns to me. “I’m sorry you had to see this.”
After a few more seconds of glaring at her brother, she takes Tae Hwa’s hand and they exit, leaving me alone with Jason. We stand there in awkward silence a few moments before he begins to toss clothes into Tae Hwa’s bag.
I bend down and help him pick some up, then fold them before placing them into the suitcase. Jason watches me with wary eyes, like he expects me to scream at him the way Sophie did.
“I’m not going to get mad at you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” I say. “If I had to guess, I’d say Sophie already said enough.”
He doesn’t respond.
With all the clothes packed, I move to the stacks of books. “I’ll be honest—I would like to know why you did it, too. But that’s none of my business. This is between the members of the band, not anyone else.”
He’s quiet a long while, then murmurs, “I just couldn’t do it anymore. I hated it. All of it.”
“What? Being in Eden?”
He scrubs his face with both hands. “You don’t understand. I never wanted to be a part of Eden. I wanted to make my kind of music. But then we signed the contract, and the producer made us change everything.” His voice sharpens. “Then they added Yoon Jae.”
“You really dislike him, don’t you?”
He scowls but doesn’t deny it.
“I just don’t understand why you dislike him so much.”
“He wasn’t supposed to be in our band!” he cries, then slumps against the wall with a long exhale. “It’s not fair. Tae Hwa and I worked hard for our debut, but he just waltzed in after one audition. I’d thought we could be friends, but we just—we just can’t. He ruined the band.”
I consider mentioning Jason’s distaste for his music but change my mind with a sigh, standing. “Look, just let Sophie take some time. She’ll get over it. I mean, you’re her brother. She can’t be mad at you forever.”
I make to leave, but Jason stops me with, “Grace?”
“Yeah?”
His face melts into a half smile. “Thanks.”
“For what?”
“For understanding. Or trying to, anyway.”
Even though you said you didn’t want to be a part of my life. It goes unsaid because he doesn’t have to say it. We both know he’s thinking it.
“I’m not letting you off the hook. I just don’t think it’s my business to judge you when I don’t know the circumstances. Maybe you are a jerk, I don’t know. But it’s not my place to tell you that. You need to figure it out yourself.”
And even though I want to tell him off, to yell at him about how he snubbed me and how introducing me to some famous guy doesn’t erase him ignoring me all Christmas break, I leave. I shut the door and try to think of the way Momma talks to me, like I purposefully screw up everything I touch. No one deserves a guilt trip, especially when they’re already hurting.
I know that from personal experience.