“I can’t believe I didn’t know you had a brother,” I tell Julius.
He makes the same face he’s been making all afternoon— a kind of pained grimace, like there’s something sharp stuck to the sole of his leather shoes. “Yeah, well, most people don’t.” With one hand, he pulls open the glass door to the bookstore and follows me inside. “We don’t share the same family name, and he graduated six years ago. So.”
“Right,” I say, lowering my voice.
It’s very quiet inside the store; you can hear the blaze of the fireplace, the sound of rustling paper, the soft thud of a book being placed back onto a shelf. The displays at the front are lined with the most recent bestsellers— a mix of politicians’ mem-oirs, brick- sized fantasy novels, and self- help books that contain expletives in the title— and handwritten notes from the staff, gushing over their favorite picks for the season. The cream-colored walls are decorated with recommendations too, as well as posters advertising a debut author’s launch tomorrow.
At the back of the bookstore, past the Mystery and Thrillers section, the aisles open up to a mini café. The aroma of fresh-ground coffee seeps through the air, layered over the distinct, smoky book scent I’m used to smelling in our school library.
There are only two tables available, and an elderly woman has already taken the one closest to the window, a plate of half- eaten raspberry cheesecake set down before her.
I sling my schoolbag over the chair by the other table, then tug out my phone and laptop to take notes for the interview. Then I cross my legs. And uncross them again.
“What?” Julius asks as he sits down across from me.
I stare back at him. “I literally didn’t say anything.”
“I know you want to say something though,” he presses.
“You’ve been all weird and fidgety since lunch. Just get it out already.”
My lips purse. The truth is that I am a little, kind of, just somewhat extremely curious— or maybe bewildered is the better word for it. I’ve always conceived of Julius as a singular, self- sufficient entity, a lone force. I wouldn’t expect him to be a brother to someone else, the same way I wouldn’t expect the mahogany table to have a sibling. Because that cracks open the door to thousands of other bizarre possibilities: of Julius as a young child, of Julius as a boy who goes on summer vacations and has movie nights and family dinners, who wrestles his brother for the remote control or sulks in his room after a fight or goes on a hunt around the house for his favorite shirt. It makes him feel too real, too human.
But that’s not the only thing strange about this discovery.
“Why . . . are your surnames different?” I ask, then wonder if this is a sensitive topic. Maybe their parents are divorced. Maybe he comes from an incredibly complicated background, where his mom isn’t really his mom or his dad is his brother’s dad but not actually his dad or something. That would explain why he’s been moody ever since his brother agreed to do the interview with us after school.
“My mother didn’t think it was fair for us to both take my father’s last name,” he says with a shrug. “So when I was born, she gave me hers.”
“I kind of love that, actually.”
He gives me a long, almost defensive look. “Are you being sarcastic?”
“No,” I say, annoyed. “Not all of us are incapable of expressing sincerely positive sentiments, Julius.”
“It can be hard to tell, with your usual tone.”
“What’s wrong with my tone?”
He raises his brows. “Most of the time when you’re talking to people— teachers, especially— you sound like you’re in an adver-tisement for organic fruit juice. It’s overly cheery.”
“You’re accusing me of being too happy?” I forget to lower my voice this time, and the elderly woman shoots me a glare over the top of her historical romance novel. I mouth an apology and continue in a fierce whisper, “That’s ridiculous. There’s no such thing.”
“Acting too happy,” he corrects, his gaze piercing. “When I don’t really think you are.”
My chest burns, like the words have squeezed their way inside and peeled the flesh from my heart. But I can’t let it show. “You don’t know me that well,” I mutter.
I expect a sharp retort, a kick to follow the punch, but he sits back. Clears his throat. “Sorry,” he says, looking uncomfortable. “I . . . That was unnecessary. I’m just—” A sigh drags out between his teeth. “Not particularly looking forward to this.”
And that makes two things I didn’t know Julius had before: an older brother, and the ability to apologize. The bitter emotion clenched inside me loosens slightly. “The interview, you mean?”
I ask. “Why? He’s your own brother.”
“I know.”
“And he sounds really accomplished. Like, really,” I say, opening up my phone to my research notes.
James Luo is so accomplished that he has his own Wikipedia page. It goes through all his major milestones and achievements so far, including how he’d graduated from Woodvale as valedictorian at the age of sixteen and received a full scholarship to study at Harvard, where he wrote his literary debut within a month “on a whim” and sold it for seven figures before he’d even turned twenty. Or how he’d won some kind of huge international debating tournament three years in a row but then made the unprecedented move of quitting last minute, because he didn’t find it “intellectually stimulating in a way that was meaningful” anymore.
The most recent update was about his sophomore novel, Blue Crescent Blade. It doesn’t even come out for another three months, but it’s already received countless glowing reviews, an exclusive profile in O, The Oprah Magazine, and is being hailed as a tour de force, an utter triumph, and a reckoning— with what, I’m not sure . Some big celebrity called it one of their two favorite books ever, the other being the Bible.
“Look.” I pull up another article, featuring a glossy, professional black- and- white photo of James in a plain turtleneck.
He’s staring out the window with a pensive expression on his face, and the resemblance to Julius is striking. They have the same sculpted lips, the same thick black hair and fine angles.
But James is broader jawed, and he’s wearing these square frame glasses that emphasize the hollows in his cheekbones. “It says here his book is the breakout book of the decade.”
“Who says that?” Julius asks without glancing at the article.
I scan through the page, but even though a dozen other celebrities are name- dropped, the quote isn’t attributed to anyone. “It, um, just does.”
“One can only assume it’s universally true, then.” He says it in a brisk, offhand manner, but his tone is sour.
Then he catches sight of someone over my shoulder, and his grimace twists deeper, as if the sharp thing in his shoe has transformed into a lethal scorpion.
“Hello.”
I spin around to find James Luo striding up to us, his palms spread out, his mouth stretched into a wide grin. He looks exactly like he does in his author photo, with his slicked- back dark hair and square glasses; he’s even wearing what appears to be the same turtleneck. But he’s taller than I expected. When Julius stands up, a few inches of distance remain between them.
“I can’t believe you didn’t ask me about the interview right away,” James is saying as he thumps Julius on the back so hard you’d think Julius was choking. “You know how happy I always am to help you out with your cute school projects, even when my schedule is packed.”
Julius’s expression darkens. “It’s not really a school project.
The principal signed us up for this.”
“You’re right.” James nods sagely, his eyes sweeping the room.
I swear they light up when they land on a pyramid of his books placed right in the middle of the shelves. “School projects are very important.”
Julius scowls but doesn’t say anything.
“And you.” James suddenly turns his attention to me. “You must be Sadie Wen. You’re practically a household name.”
I conceal my surprise. I’d thought he was grossly exaggerating when he told me on the phone that his little brother talks about me all the time. But then I notice the crimson color creeping up Julius’s neck, and the only logical explanation for it is that whatever he’s said is either terrible, or wonderful. “What has he said about me?”
Julius looks horrified. James, however, looks delighted.
“Oh, you know. When you beat him in that biology test last month he wouldn’t shut up about it for days—”
“Stop,” Julius mutters out of the side of his mouth. He refuses to meet my gaze.
But James continues with good cheer, “And he’s always going on about how intimidatingly smart you are. How hard he has to work to keep up with you.”
Intimidatingly smart. I hold on to those words, examine them up close. I’ve never thought of myself as intimidating or scary, yet it feels like the greatest compliment. A confirmation of my wildest hopes. Julius Gong takes me seriously. He isn’t just competing because he thinks it’d be embarrassing to lose. He’s afraid of losing to me.
“You know,” James says, “he got really sick last summer, but he wouldn’t even rest. He brought all his textbooks back to his bed because he could barely stand and insisted that, like, if he didn’t study hard every single day you’d pull ahead—”
“Wait.” My gaze swivels to Julius. “You were sick?”
That doesn’t make sense— I remember last summer. On the very first day, he’d sent me an incredibly difficult equation from some kind of advanced university paper as a challenge. I’d solved it just to spite him, and dug through all the papers available online to find something even trickier, and sent that back. We’d then fallen into the habit of exchanging questions every morning. We never said anything else. Just the screenshot, and the answer. One blow traded for another. He would respond back each time without fail, and we’d kept it up all the way until school started again.
How could he have been ill?
“It wasn’t that serious,” Julius says, running a hand through his hair. “And even with a fever, my brain still works better than the average person’s.”
“That’s not how you acted.” James raises his brows at me. I’ve seen Julius make that exact expression so many times it’s like looking at a mirror image of him. “When he wasn’t studying, he was sulking . Kept asking our mother to make him his favorite soup, luo song tang—”
“I thought you said you only had twenty minutes to do the interview?” Julius interrupts loudly. He sits back down and pulls out the Moleskine notebook he always uses to take notes.
“Shouldn’t we be getting started?”
“Ah, of course.” James beams, and I find myself thinking, Their smiles are different. James smiles like he has an infinite number of them, like it costs him nothing. But Julius’s smiles are sharp, sudden, sometimes ledged with mockery or laced with poison. His real smiles are so rare that each one feels like a miracle, like you’ve won something. “What do you want to know?”
I want to know if Julius was afraid of the dark when he was younger. If he ever believed in ghosts or Santa or the Loch Ness monster. I want to know where he studies, whether it’s by the light of the living room window or alone in his bedroom, if he keeps the door wide open or closed. I want to know what he would dress up as for Halloween, what song he picks out at karaoke. How early he rises, how late he sleeps. What dishes their mother cooks for the Spring Festival, what he talks about on long car rides. I want to collect these pieces of information like ammunition. Part of me wants to embarrass him, and part of me is simply, overwhelmingly curious.
But we’re here to interview James about his career, not his brother, so I restrain myself and ask him instead about where he draws his inspiration, how much time he devotes to writing each day, what the drafting process is like.
“For me, you see, the words are like sparrows,” he says, rubbing his eyes. I blink hard, but I’m not imagining it. His glasses are, apparently, frames only; his fingers pass right through them.
“I could spend the whole day chasing them, but they’d only startle and fly away from me. It’s more important to stay still, and let the sparrows come on their own.”
“Mm,” I say, hastily tearing my gaze away from his fake glasses to write down his response. “That’s very interesting.”
“Now, obviously, there are days when you do have to coax the sparrows down with a bit of birdseed,” he continues. “Certain types of birdseed work better than others. And sometimes you think you need the premium brand, but it’s in fact the organic brands, or not even a particular brand at all— only the berries you pluck in the wild— that are the most effective.”
“Um. Sorry.” I pause. “I’m sort of getting lost with this analogy. What . . . are the birdseeds meant to be?”
“Nothing,” he says.
“Oh, okay—”
“And everything,” he goes on. “I will leave that to your interpretation. Interpretation is crucial, you see. It’s what this is all about.”
Julius either rolls his eyes or finds a very interesting spot in the ceiling to stare at. He hasn’t spoken much this whole interview.
“So are you working as a full- time author now?” I ask, moving down the list to the next question I’ve prepared.
“Oh, no.” James throws his head back and laughs so loud the elderly woman glares over at our table again. “No, no, no.
God, no. I couldn’t do that— for one, it would be such a waste of my Harvard Law degree. I mean, anyone would kill just to get into Harvard, you know? I’d be a fool to throw all that aside.
And my professors would be crushed too, seeing as I’m the most promising student they’ve taught in centuries. Their words, obviously, not mine.”
“Your professors must be very healthy,” I say.
A soft, half- muffled sound draws my attention to Julius. He’s pressed a hand to the lower half of his face, his shoulders shaking, then stilling just for a second before he loses it again, shaking his head too, as if he’s annoyed he finds it so funny in the first place. At least he’s stopped looking like the tortured subject of a Renaissance painting.
“Hm?” James just looks confused.
“Seeing as they’ve been teaching for centuries and all.”
He falters, then recovers. “Well, they’re so experienced it certainly feels like they’ve been teaching that long. Harvard is all about the history, you know.”
I note quietly that this is the twenty- fifth time he’s brought up the word Harvard in the past ten minutes. If Harvard were a ghost, he would have successfully summoned it back to life by now. “So you’re not writing full- time. That must be hard to balance, then.”
“Well, it’s worth the financial stability.” He folds his hands together. “The book money is really just a fun little bonus, but I’m definitely not going to rely on it for retirement or anything like that.”
In the back of my mind, the words from the article appear in screaming, bold black text: sold for seven figures. That’s his idea of a fun bonus? The absurd statement also seems to have an instant sobering effect on Julius, who definitely rolls his eyes this time.
“It’s really more of a side hustle for me,” James says. “The old saying is true: Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Now I’ve separated my eggs into the law basket, and the author basket, and the investment basket, and also my debating coach basket . . .”
Even though I’m talking to him, I’m watching Julius. He appears to be muttering something to himself— either kill me, or
cashmere, which seems less likely.
“Yeah, sure,” I say, distracted. “I hear that you’ve done a lot of debating.”
“Absolutely. It really sets you up for success in so many fields, even if you don’t end up becoming a professional champion debater like myself. That’s why I always encourage Julius to get more involved in debating.” He gives Julius a light shove.
“Right, Ju-zi?”
I almost choke on my own saliva.
Ju-zi throws me a warning look, then frowns at his brother. “I thought we’d retired that nickname already. It makes no sense.
Why would I be called a tangerine in Chinese?”
“Why? Because it’s so adorable.” James grins. “And I really mean it, about the debating thing. You don’t have to feel bad just because I’m naturally good at it. If anything, you should be encouraged by the fact that we share the same genes. It’s impossible for you to be terrible, even if you aren’t quite as good—”
Julius stands up. “I’m going to get us some drinks. You want any?” He directs the question at me, which is truly a sign of how much he does not wish to be around his brother. That, and the fact that he would so eagerly volunteer himself for any sort of task without a gold star or extra credit or compliment attached to it.
But I think I’m starting to get it. The vicious look on his face when I’d beaten him in that class debate. Why he’s never mentioned his brother before. Why he’s so ruthlessly determined to be first all the time. Why he’s scowling now, the lines of his shoulder tight.
We place our orders. He’s still scowling when he returns later with a glass of warm water for me, black coffee for himself, and some sort of herbal infusion tea that I thought people only pretended to like in theory to convince everyone else they’re on a health kick. But James downs the drink in one go, and asks for a refill.
“Get it yourself,” Julius grumbles.
James merely looks over at him, expectant.
With a sigh, Julius pushes off his chair again. When he comes back, we’re just wrapping up James’s final response about his plans for the next year, which include a fully funded trip around Europe, a major film adaptation he’s both writing for and producing, and a lecture at some fancy lawyers’ convention.
“This has been great,” he says, beaming. It’s a wonder how he manages to smile so widely and speak at the same time. “Now, I’m going to go sign some stock while I’m here. It’ll probably take a while— I have thousands of copies to get through.” He gives James another loud thump on the back. “You kids have fun though.”
We do not have fun.
Mostly, we tidy up our notes and sit in silence until I break it first. “Well. We definitely have enough material for that four-page spread now . . . Actually, just his description of the five- star hotel he stayed at for his debut novel’s national tour is enough material for the spread.”
Julius nods along, but his eyes follow his brother as he shakes hands with an enthusiastic fan. They take a selfie together, James’s signature winning smile and the cover of his debut on display. The fan appears to be bawling.
“People always act like that around him,” Julius remarks under his breath. “Even our own parents.”
“Your parents . . . always ask your brother to autograph the collar of their shirt?” I ask as James whips out a gold Sharpie he apparently just keeps around in his front pocket.
Julius lets out a surprised scoff of laughter, proving my theory from earlier. His smiles really do feel like miracles. Especially when you’re on the receiving end of them.
Warmth spreads through me, but then I give myself a mental kick. Remind myself of who I’m talking to. Julius Gong. The boy who’s made my life unbearable for the past ten years. He wouldn’t even be here right now if he wasn’t forced to by the principal.
“I better go home,” I say.
His expression flickers. “So soon?”
I pause, caught off guard, and his demeanor changes in response. The smile is gone in a flash, the lines of his face carved into their usual cool, unimpressed mask.
“I mean, aren’t you going to transcribe the notes first?” he asks. “Surely you don’t intend to leave that work to me?”
This is the Julius Gong I know. The Julius Gong I can comfortably hate. I’m almost relieved. “I’ll transcribe them,” I tell him, only so we can wrap this up faster. “I’ll email the finalized version to you by midnight.”
“Okay. Good. You better.”
I begin to shove everything in my bag, but he adds, “I hear you’re throwing a party this weekend?”
My hands freeze over my notebook. “Is there a problem with that?”
“So you really are. Hosting a party.” He stretches the last word out like it’s something ridiculous, like I’m planning to house an elephant or organize a Christmas feast in late April. “Why?”
“Because I feel like it,” I say, defensive. I’m lying, of course, but I’m more offended by the implication that I can’t be the kind of person who’d throw a party for fun. That he thinks he has me all figured out. That I’m an open book to him, and he can read me easily, better than anybody else.
“You never do anything just because you feel like it, Sadie Wen,” he says, flattening his palms over the table. “You must have a multistep strategy. A long- term objective. Or else why are you inviting people like Rosie to your house?”
“Does it matter?” Irritation races through me like brush fire.
“It’s not like I’m inviting you.”
His black eyes glitter. I watch his throat move slightly before he replies, his voice cold, “I wouldn’t have come even if you did.”
“Okay,” I say flatly. I don’t tell him I had considered inviting him this afternoon; we’re inviting most of the year level anyway.
But now that thought— the very fact that I’d even entertained the idea— mortifies me. Why would I ever give Julius a reason to reject me? Rejection is the most humiliating form of defeat.
It’s losing the battle before it’s even begun. It’s lowering your weapon so they can spear you in the chest. “Then don’t.”
“I won’t,” he says, his jaw taut.
“You’ve said that already.”
“I want to make it clear.”
“Don’t worry, it’s very clear to me.”
We glare at each other, breathing hard as if from physical exertion, my nails digging into the metal spiral of my notebook.
Nobody else has ever had the power to fill me with such pure, blistering rage. To make me so angry I want to flip over a table, stamp my feet like a screaming toddler, burn holes into the carpet. Before I can do any real damage, I take my things and leave without even bothering to zip up my bag.
But my fingers itch the whole way home, and for the rest of day, as I close up the bakery and do my daily workout routine and finish my homework and brush my teeth, I can’t think about anything except him.
