Page 14 of Fallen Starboy

Chapter

Ten

JUN

Arista was hot and cold. One minute she was limp in my arms, sweating like she’d run a thousand miles and damn near unconscious from the effort, and the next she was barking out orders, that little tablet from hell in her grasp as she made notes and phone calls and organized every aspect of my life effortlessly.

She was an efficient machine the likes of which I’d never had around me in my adult life, and it was comforting on a certain level to know that everything would be taken care of and that it would all fall into place without my hands on the wheel, but . . .

I could see the toll it took on her, being near us.

She couldn’t pretend our past never happened when we were in close quarters every day.

Hell, she was practically itching to get the fuck out of here.

I could see the pain-filled glances at Yejin every time she made a noise, and the frustration in her eyes whenever she had to interact with me.

Not that how I treated her helped the situation, but .

. . only Pujin got her calm, friendly demeanor.

Only my head of security got the girl she used to be.

Fucking pissed me off.

How could she sit there and hate me and her own fucking flesh and blood so damn much that it physically dug into her and drained her life force to just be around us? What right did she have to hate either of us like that?

She was the one who’d done us dirty, not the other way around.

And if anyone deserved to have their life disrupted, it was her, not us.

And disrupt it I would.

My first action as a pain in the ass was to cancel the interview block at the last minute, claiming I was too exhausted to deal with it.

She dutifully rescheduled for tomorrow, even as she growled at me under her breath, watching me stretch across the couch and pretend to nap in the middle of the day while Yejin retreated to her room to attend her online tutoring.

She, in return, stormed around the kitchen and loudly held court with her superiors as she checked in and did whatever it was she did for work when she wasn’t being forced to assist the man she hated and the daughter she abandoned.

I gave up on the faked nap about two hours in, pulling out my phone to check emails that had been piling up for days now.

I hadn’t opened a single one since I touched down here in Nocturna Beach.

Hell, I could have gone another week without answering most of them, but as soon as I opened the damn app, the first one nearly screamed at me and stopped my heart.

It was from my old label’s email—and judging by the header, they weren’t pleased.

IMMEDIATE ATTENTION NEEDED: HQ SeoulSOUL Contract.

As the fuck if. I didn’t plan to go back, not now, not ever.

Mr. Kim,

It’s come to our attention that the choice to discharge you from StarBOYZ may have been hasty and a bit premature.

We would like to discuss a renegotiation of your contract (which is still active in our systems) at the earliest opportunity.

We’ve included a return ticket to Seoul for you on the next flight out and eagerly await your cooperation in this matter.

SeoulSOUL Entertainment

I couldn’t believe the audacity in the few lines they’d included.

Never mind the fact that I didn’t plan to go back, their plane ticket was a waste of expenses they’d no doubt write off.

And the vaguely intimidating language they used was a familiar tactic, meant to bully and strongarm me into doing what they wanted.

Fuck them.

They broke it off clean and clear when the netizens in Korea broke the story of my ‘love child and secret baby’, and I signed papers bowing out gracefully from the group to save the rest of them from going down with the ship I was on. There was no renegotiation going on, not now, not ever.

Fuck SeoulSOUL. Fuck the manager who took advantage of us, fuck the media that dragged Yejin’s name like a rotten fish in a barrel of koi.

Fuck everyone who doubted my ability to make money and music and perform just because suddenly they were aware I had a kid.

And fuck all the fake ass fans who immediately insisted they’d never listen to anything I produced again because I was no longer some pure paragon of innocence.

At twenty fucking seven, I was supposed to have never loved, never lived, never done anything they were allowed to do.

Idols were held to the same standards as monks and nuns, expected to live a life of purity and chastity and innocence from anything that could even be considered fun, all because some fans thought it was unacceptable for us to shatter their delusions.

Last year, Minseo had to file a restraining order against a woman who had a shrine of him in her house, and had convinced half her circle of friends she was engaged to him.

They stopped him at a local cafe and accosted him for getting involved with another woman .

. . our intern, who was picking up coffee.

Before that, Yang-Jin was stalked and nearly poisoned by a fan who thought she was his soulmate, and who took offense to him saying in an interview that he preferred redheads and would like to settle down with a nice foreign girl someday.

She was nothing like his ideal type, which wasn’t anyone’s business to begin with, but the fucking psycho drugged him after managing to sneak into our dorms as a cleaner, and had we not come home when we had?—

Well, I didn’t like to think about that.

Fucking saesangs were crazy. Another band from a different label announced one member’s return after a year long hiatus, and the fans dug up insane rumors from his youth and dragged him over coals, even resorting to sending funeral wreaths to his workplace and sending threats and death wishes to any account on social media even remotely tied to them.

Their group went dark for days, and the social media was scrubbed, but that stain never went away, and the fandom was still healing. No telling what kind of damage that did to the band as a whole. Or the guy who inevitably got dropped two days after the announcement of his redebut.

People were cruel. And the entertainment business didn’t care much about anything but their bottom line. I’d lived some of the horrors, and seen worse. And there were rumors even I couldn’t bring myself to believe.

I typed up a succinct response, then deleted it as fast as I’d written it, deciding to run it by the new label’s lawyers before I did anything that could backfire on me or Yejin.

I had to be responsible about this. I couldn’t afford to do something rash and regret it later. I had more to worry about than myself.

A faint knock on the wall caught my attention, and I shoved my phone between two cushions on the couch like a kid who’d been caught with something he’d had taken away.

Old habits died hard. And I still remembered the days when none of us were allowed to have our own social media. Phones were prohibited.

Arista’s brows lifted in amusement, and I wanted to wipe the smirk off her face as she strode over to me and pulled the phone back out, setting it calmly in my hands.

“You know, you’re not back there anymore.

You’re a big boy. I think you can handle a social media account or two without embarrassing yourself too badly. ”

I knew her words were meant to comfort, but something in them felt patronizing, scratched at the raw edges of my open wounds. “Do you always have to be such a bitch?” I snapped, tucking my phone into my jacket pocket. “I don’t remember you being this insufferable.”

Her low growl reminded me of the sound Yang-Jin used to make when he wanted to strangle me for something stupid I’d done.

“And I don’t remember you being such a dick, but here we are.

” She pulled that fucking tablet from her side and shoved it in my face, a calendar app open on the screen.

“Here’s your amended schedule, since you had to nap today instead of attending pre-scheduled interviews.

One of the interviewees canceled, citing the inability to work for someone so inconsistent and unreliable. That leaves two.”

“Good,” I mumbled as I sifted through the week’s itinerary.

“I can’t work with someone who can’t roll with the punches.

I’ve got a kid. Nothing ever runs as smoothly as you want it to.

Whoever works for me needs to understand and accept that.

” I cut my glance to her frown, a fresh round of resentment rising inside me.

“Not that you’d understand how that works.

You’ve never been tied down a day in your life by responsibility like that. ”

She stopped breathing, her eyes glazing over as she broke our stare first and turned away.

“You have an appointment today with the label to discuss your plans for releasing a new album, and tomorrow we meet with the studio scheduler to plan out your times there. You’ll get to pick a producer, and I’ve lined up the best three in our label to meet you there?—”

“I can produce my own music, Arista,” I said flatly, matching her dull, monotone inflection. “Or have you forgotten everything about me since you left?”

Her eyes brimmed with tears when she turned around to face me, and an unfamiliar feeling of shame washed over me at the realization that I’d broken something in her with my words.

The other part of me, the part that still hated her, rejoiced in my newfound power.

I could make her hurt, just like she’d done to me.

She deserved it. I shouldn’t feel bad about it.

She had it coming, that and more. So much more.

But I’d never been the kind of person to rejoice in hurting another.

“I remember a lot more than I care to, Jun,” she said simply, refusing to let those defiant tears fall.

I had to admire her spirit. She was giving as good as she got, but something still didn’t sit right with me about the whole thing.

I shook the itch down my spine off like it was nothing and pivoted topics.

“What’s good to eat around here? I’m starving, and I don’t feel like eating anything in the fridge. ”

“I ordered some burgers and wings from the local hole in the wall about twenty minutes ago. Should be here soon.”

“I hope you got?—”

“I ordered you half spicy buffalo, half the house bbq mix, and extra ranch, just like you like.” She eyed me carefully, like she was afraid I’d bite. “Or, like you used to like.”

I was dumbfounded. That she’d remember my comfort food after all these years, and not only know on an instinctual level that I was hungry, but also craving something familiar, and took it upon herself to?—

“Old habits die hard,” I said instead of all the things circling my brain right then, knowing that nothing that came out of my mouth would be good for either one of us. “Sounds good.”

“I ordered Yejin a burger and some chicken tenders; from what I’m told, all kids seem to like those.”

My head bobbed sagely, not even up to the task of making a snide remark about her lack of knowledge of her own daughter.

“She’s not a picky kid. She’ll try anything once, too.

” I blinked slowly, the words slipping out under my breath, perhaps a little louder than I intended. “She gets that from you.”

Arista must’ve heard the comment, because I suddenly found myself alone in the kitchen, nothing but the lingering scent of her perfume in the air to keep me company.

And then, there was one.