Page 8 of Fallen Starboy

Chapter

Five

ARISTA

“She speaks Korean because of Minseo and I, and English because she’s been learning with Yang-Jin.”

I sat at the table with Jun across from me, his eyes anywhere but on me.

Currently, he was watching our—no, his daughter—in the backyard with their head of security, Pujin.

A stout man with a stubborn personality, he was immediately apologetic to Jun when he thought he’d messed up by allowing Yejin free rein of the house without consulting him first.

Yejin. Her name was Kim Yejin.

“Don’t think I’m telling you because I want you to care or something.

Obviously, you’re incapable of that, or you wouldn’t have abandoned her.

” His hands balled into fists on the top of the table as he spoke, his words harsh and intended to cut deep.

“Just stay away from her as much as possible, and nobody gets hurt.”

Except for me. But I deserved every ounce of that pain.

“Right,” I agreed, hating that I couldn’t just open my mouth and tell him the truth.

It’s not like he’d even believe me. I made damn sure to give him as little information as possible in my own favor.

I didn’t want him trying to follow me or hunt me down.

If the label thought I hadn’t made a clean cut, both my life, and theirs, would have been in danger.

The label tried to kill me once before. Running for my life, and leaving hers in his hands, felt like the safest option at the time. He had the kind of money that could ensure no harm came to her. I didn’t.

Getting close to her, to him, to them both, would do nothing good for any of us.

I didn’t harbor any delusions that Jun would ever forgive me.

“She gets attached to people easily, and I don’t want her getting attached to someone else who will only leave her in the end.”

Drip, drip, drip. The metaphorical sound of my blood hitting the floor as I bled out emotionally from his bladed words.

“I understand,” I said slowly, focusing only on keeping my breathing even and under control. “You’ll probably want to interview daycares and nannies first, then, so that you will have someone reliable and trustworthy to watch her when you have to work away from her.”

“Mmm,” he muttered, staring off into space, clearly lost in his thoughts. “Do you know anyone?”

“Yeah, let me just pull out my reference sheet of all the childcare I’ve hired in the last seven years,” I snapped, hating the bitterness that had built up in me when I wasn’t looking. “No, Jun, I don’t.”

Jun’s eyes shot up and locked on mine, shock filling their depths as neither of us spoke.

Clearly this job would be harder than I thought.

“But I know where to start.”

Two hours later, Jun was arranging interviews with as-needed childcare professionals, Yejin sitting patiently at the table while he bounced between his cellphone and washing fruit he planned to slice for a snack for her.

I watched from the balcony of the second floor as I poured through a list of assistants the company had hired as temps for other clients.

As long as I got him someone who could get him through this transition period, I didn’t need to find a permanent person.

He could keep the temp, or find someone else.

I just had to fill the gaps, so I didn’t have to do it anymore.

“Now, listen, Yejin. I want you to practice your English as much as you can while we’re here, okay? You’ll need to use it in school.”

“Okay, daddy,” she said smoothly in response, switching easily between her two primary languages. Hell, it’d taken me years to pick up a second language as an almost adult, and here she was at seven, a veritable prodigy already.

Of course she was. Look at the people she grew up around.

I couldn’t stifle the tears that threatened to fall the second she walked in from the outside and fell all over Jun, seeking his approval, eager to tell him about all the cool things she liked about their new house.

He’d pulled her into his lap and immediately indulged her, listening intently like the good dad he was.

A stray tear fell on the screen of my tablet as I sighed and blinked the rest of them back, refusing to let myself imagine what it would have been like had I stayed, had we just left and embarked as parents on our own, together.

There was no point imagining something that I couldn’t undo.

Time travel wasn’t real, and dreams didn’t fill the gas tank.

She’s not yours anymore, I told myself, but see, when you’ve never seen the thing you’re giving up, it’s infinitely easier to walk away from it.

When you don’t know what someone sounds like, what kind of person they are, what they’ll look like and how they smile, you can’t know what you’re going to miss.

But here I was, confronted with her in reality.

I could see her smile, hear her perfect little laugh, and bask in the joy of her childhood.

She had red hair, just like me, but it was a tad darker in spots, almost like when she turned her head a certain way, parts of her father bled out and showed their face.

“Daddy, who’s the nice lady you were talking to earlier?” Yejin kicked her feet back and forth as she waited patiently, processing everything around her with a quickness I envied.

I heard the metal clang of the knife hitting the inside of the sink, and my eyes found him standing stock-still in the kitchen, his back to his daughter, hands still poised to slice into the apple he’d just washed. For a long time, I held my breath, wondering what he’d say to her.

Would he tell her the truth? Or would he keep up the lie, for her sake?

Did I even want her to know about me?

Most of the voice in my head was in agreement with Jun: she shouldn’t know. But a small part of me yearned to know my daughter, to be her mother, even though I didn’t deserve it.

“Ahem,” I cleared my throat pointedly, peering down from the railing as Jun turned around. “I have some potential assistants lined up to interview with you tomorrow, if you’re available.”

His eyes were stony and indifferent as he shrugged and picked the knife back up. “Just pick one. You know what I like.”

I did, indeed.

“Of course. I’ll get right on it.”

I slipped away before he could say anything in return, already skimming the prospective list to narrow it down. Jun had specific tastes, and I wanted things to be as smooth as possible for him. The easier the transition, the easier it would be to slip away.

When I’d gone through the list several times, I still had three names on the list that were prospective candidates based on their performance, strengths, experience, and age.

Dylan, Connor, Merchand, and Vincent. All fine, upstanding . . . men.

Next up was the stylist. Each client got to pick their own, and it was an easy choice. Jun preferred female stylists because, in his opinion, male stylists tried to push him into looks that didn’t suit his style. Women were more easily bullied into giving him his way.

So of course I picked out a pretty dominant, stubborn male stylist who’d just recently stopped working with another client of ours because of irreconcilable differences.

The differences being that he didn’t like anyone questioning his choices in design.

Why was I intentionally causing Jun problems?

Maybe a part of me was still hurting from his cruel, cold words.

Maybe a part of me wanted to hurt him back.

I went through the list over the course of the day, narrowing down candidates for each position until I’d lined up all his interviews for the next few days.

He’d be squeezing some of them between meetings with the label and signed appearances and sound checks, but that wasn’t my problem.

The busier he was, the less time I’d have to spend with him.

The less chance of him and I running into each other.

The less chance there was to catch those stubborn feelings that never had fully faded.

I must’ve passed out at my desk, because when I came to, it was to the sound of insistent knocking at my door, soft but with intent.

Shaking the grogginess from my head, I rose from the chair, hands resting on the back of the wooden door as I opened it a crack to find not Jun, not his daughter, but Pujin, his head of security.

“I’m sorry, miss, I didn’t mean to disturb,” he said slowly, bowing at the waist. “But Mr. Kim said I needed to ask you about getting a spare key for myself for the premises and such.”

“Mmm, yes, right,” I mumbled, swiping tiredly at my eyes. “Have a seat at the desk and I’ll grab the paperwork the company sent over for you to sign, as well.”

“Killing two birds with one stone,” he muttered, his huge frame taking up a fair bit of my desk chair. Hell, if the man were any bigger, he’d need a second chair to hold him. And he was all muscle, too. A tank.

A good choice for head of security. He’d be a hell of a deterrent to crazed fans, paparazzi, and overeager media and press.

“So, Pujin, was it?” I asked as I loaded up the contract he’d already discussed with the company’s lawyers on my tablet. “How long have you been with Mr. Kim?”

“He hired me on when Yejin was one,” the burly man answered, his eyes skimming the screen I handed him. “I’ve been responsible for their safety ever since then, though my priority has always been Miss Kim.”

“Mmm. Good. Then he trusts you immensely.”

“I suppose so.” His eyes lifted from the screen momentarily. “Forgive me for speaking out if I shouldn’t, but I sense you and Mr. Kim are familiar with each other.”

I wasn’t sure how to take that. “I interned with his debut band when he signed with SeoulSOUL eight or nine years ago.” The safest answer, and one that didn’t give anything away. “I had no idea the company here was interested in him, though, so his joining our label was a shock to me.”

Pujin handed me the tablet, then smiled softly, as if he knew more than he was letting on. “You’ve come a long way from that internship, I see.”