Page 3 of Fallen Starboy

Chapter

Two

JUN

“You guys go on ahead. I’m just going to get Yejin settled in with Pujin and I’ll join you.”

Yang-Jin and Minseo stared at me like I’d grown another head sometime during our long ass flight from Seoul to wherever the hell we were now.

Some fucking end-of-the-line city in a country I never wanted to set foot in for the long term, forced here thanks to a stupid slip-up on a public outing and the inconsiderate scum of a K-netizen who decided my private life needed to be their front page payout.

In this case, the damage wasn’t just to me, but to my daughter.

We had to upend her whole life when the label claimed plausible deniability and pretended ignorance of the fact that I had been raising my daughter out of wedlock, alone and in secret, when they damn well knew from the moment she’d been conceived.

They had asses to cover. I couldn’t be mad at them. At least my bandmates had escaped the fallout in one piece.

And then there were these two goons, who’d decided to escort me to the new label as a last little fuck you to the old company.

They’d never agreed with me leaving the band, and they made that very clear, but they couldn’t afford to abandon SeoulSOUL, and I wouldn’t let them do that for me.

It was time I stood on my own two feet. I had a daughter to raise.

Pujin, my security guard, had been the only one on my personal payroll, and he’d been more than happy to accompany us to keep her safe while we set up a life here in?—

“What the fuck is this place called again?”

Minseo stared at me and rolled his eyes.

“It’s called Nocturna Beach, I believe.” He glanced around at the variety of night-crawling patrons coming and going around us, his lip twitching slightly as a scantily-clad woman waggled her brows at him and skated by quickly, joining another woman in the same garb by the door.

“Distasteful. If this is how everyone in this country acts, I vote you find a new one.”

“Ah, come on, don’t be such a stiff, Minnie,” I teased, eyes on the man holding my sleeping daughter over his shoulder. “Yang-Jin seems to be enjoying the view.”

Sure enough, the quiet Yang-Jin was eyeing the crowd with avid interest, his gaze missing nothing as he cataloged and absorbed everything around him for later analysis.

He wasn’t staring at the gorgeous girls giving him doe eyes or the men who sized him up as immediate competition.

No, he was searching for any and all exits and hiding spots.

His lips turned down as another girl brushed too close, giggling with her girlfriends.

They turned as they passed us, clearly eyeing up our asses.

I shot one a wink and blew another a kiss, playing into my international playboy image.

Pujin brought our keycards over and offered one to me with a smile. “I can take Miss Yejin up to her room, sir. The receptionist says your party is waiting in conference room B already.”

We might not be late, but they were early, and keeping them waiting would only look worse on our part.

Yejin hadn’t flown frequently before, so it was no shock to me she’d fallen asleep on the car ride from the airport to here, and I doubted she’d wake up before we all rejoined her in the room. “If she wakes up before we’re back, just order some pizza on my card. We can fend for ourselves.”

Pujin nodded and disappeared around the corner, heading for the fancy elevators that required a special keycard even to call down.

The company, kNight Records, had paid for the very best money could buy, and I couldn’t say it wasn’t a little relieving to know random fans couldn’t just wander up to the floor we were staying on now.

I might not be as widely known as other idols abroad, but STARBOYZ had fans on every continent.

It was only a matter of time before the company back home announced my departure, and those fans came looking for me here.

“Come on, Jun,” Yang-Jin deadpanned, his eyes glued to mine as I swiveled around with a heavy heart. “Time will wait for no man. And neither will money.”

“Your English proverbs are getting better,” I teased, slapping him on the back as we neared the conference room.

I could hear two men arguing and an occasional female voice that joined in with noncommittal noises of agreement or denial whenever prodded.

“Hell, before the end of the year, you might not even know you weren’t born speaking it. ”

My jokes were met with his classic stoic attitude as a big hand landed on my shoulder and two annoyed eyeballs peered into the back of my skull.

“Don’t try anything stupid tonight, please, Jun.”

The company had put us up in dorms when we first debuted in Korea, and the living arrangements were cramped and left no privacy for anyone. Hell, you couldn’t jerk one out without your neighboring bunkie knowing how many pumps it took you to blow a load.

I wanted a spacious, roomy home for Yejin this time around. Staying at Yang-Jin’s sister’s house was a good alternative, but it was never our home.

“Ah, you’re here,” a male voice said in English. “We’ve been expecting you.”

Minseo and Yang-Jin stopped dead in their tracks before me, and I ran into their strong, broad backs because I wasn’t paying attention. Whatever had them frozen in place, I wouldn’t find out from my vantage point back here.

So I slipped around them, holding out my hand for the gentleman in a suit to shake, as was the American custom.

“Hi there, I’m Kim Seo-Jun. These two here are Yang-Jin and Minseo. Don’t mind their silence; they’re harmless. I hope it’s no trouble that they’ve tagged along.”

The first man took my hand and shook it, moving sideways to allow the second man to shake it as well.

“I’m Fernando, talent agent and negotiator with kNight Records.

And this is Mr. Danvers, our legal representative.

We don’t have a permanent translator prepared for you yet, but in the interim, one of our girls from the foreign liaisons department has volunteered to stand in for as long as needed. ”

I finally spotted the woman in the room and cleared my throat as she stepped forward to introduce herself, hoping to score some brownie points with the pretty thing before we even started.

She wore a pair of long, elegant pants, half of a sharp pantsuit I’d seen some of SeoulSOUL’s female idols gushing over recently.

It was an expensive piece, hand stitched and designer, but instead of wearing the adjoining blazer, the woman wore a daring, low-cut white blouse, her cleavage on full display.

As visions of what she might look like out of those clothes raced around my head, my eyes lifted from her tits to her chin, and finally, to her eyes.

And my heart stopped.

Time stopped.

Hell, the whole world felt like it stopped rotating as I stared into the eyes of the woman whose very existence both haunted and enraged me in the same breath.

Seven years ago, she’d stolen my heart. She stole the rhythm of the beat inside it and made it her own. She stole the very air from my lungs and watched as I fought for air. And for her, I would have gladly suffocated a thousand times over just to have her next to me.

Until she walked away and changed everything.

For seven years, I’d hated and loved her. I never thought, of all the people, of all the cities and markets and agents in the world, that one day I’d come face to face with the woman who broke my heart and soul all those years ago.

And here she was, inches from me, her eyes swimming with recognition, sadness, and something else. Something I didn’t want to see in the depths of that traitorous gaze.

Manipulative. That’s all she is, Jun. She left you, you idiot. Don’t you dare give her another second of your time. Just shake her hand and pretend you don’t even know her.

Over the past seven years, I told myself that if I ever ran into her again, I’d tell her exactly how I felt and what I thought of her for leaving like she did, abandoning us like she had.

Disappearing without so much as a goodbye, leaving behind a part of herself as if it cost her nothing to abandon a child she’d carried for nine months without even giving her a name.

Yang-Jin jammed his finger into my spine, and it stunned me long enough to take her hand and pretend I wasn’t seething with all sorts of emotions I didn’t want to analyze right now. “Kim Seo-Jun.”

“Right.” Those long lashes I’d spent nights staring at fluttered as she stared at our shoes, hoping to avoid a confrontation. In Korea, it might be seen as a sign of respect for a higher-ranking acquaintance or elder. In her homeland, refusing to meet my gaze made her a coward.

Nothing more.

Minseo watched as Yang-Jin shoo-ed me aside and flashed her a smile that spoke volumes without a single word. “Yang-Jin, ma’am. Pleasure to meet you.”

What a joke. He was playing with her, and we all knew it. She’d worked alongside us for a year and a half in Korea before her abrupt departure. And here he was, pretending he’d never met her.

Minseo didn’t offer her his hand, just an angry stare that did nothing to hide his contempt for her. These poor men who worked alongside her probably thought we were mannerless assholes from the way we treated her, but if they cared, they weren’t showing it.

We all sat opposite the KR employees, putting a table between us and both our past and future.

Beneath the table, I could feel Yang-Jin’s leg bouncing, the same move that always happened when dealing with something that made him anxious.

Minseo’s hands steepled atop the table as he regarded the contract in front of him like he hadn’t read it six times through using a translation app and a dictionary to make sure he understood every word.

I wanted no surprises this time, and they were determined to ensure this new contract worked for me and the company I’d sign with.

I didn’t want a repeat of our old label.