Chapter Text
By eight o'clock, Bunny Arabica Café was crowded enough that customers had started circling occupied tables like vultures waiting for an opportunity. The cafés location near the university guaranteed a steady stream of students throughout the day and the rain pouring outside only made things worse. People who would normally grab their coffee and leave had instead settled in for the long haul, spreading notebooks, laptops, chargers, and half-finished assignments across every available surface.
Jamie moved through the morning rush with the practiced efficiency of someone who had spent years doing the exact same thing. Orders appeared on the screen above the counter, drinks were prepared, names were called and customers came and went in a constant cycle that rarely changed. There was something comforting about the predictability of it all. The espresso machine would always hiss at the wrong moment, students would always wait until they reached the register to decide what they wanted, and Mr. Jian would always arrive carrying breakfast and pretending he hadn't been late.
Some things simply refused to change and Jamie preferred it that way.
Life outside the café had become complicated enough.
His mother's health had been steadily declining for months and although she insisted she was managing just fine, the growing stack of medical bills on their kitchen table suggested otherwise. Every time Jamie thought they were finally catching up, another expense appeared. Another appointment, prescription and reminder that worrying about money had become as routine as breathing.
He tried not to think about it during work and most days he succeeded however today, was proving more difficult.
While preparing a caramel latte, Jamie found himself mentally calculating how many additional shifts he could realistically pick up before exhaustion became a problem. The numbers weren't encouraging. He was still staring at an imaginary budget in his head when his phone vibrated inside his pocket.
The first notification was easy enough to ignore, the second was considerably less polite and by the fourth message, Jamie no longer needed to check who was contacting him. There was only one person in his life capable of treating text messages like a national emergency.
Sure enough, Mina's name greeted him the moment he unlocked his phone.
The first message informed him that soundcheck had been moved forward, the second reminded him not to be late, the third accused him of planning to be late anyway and the fourth contained a remarkably creative threat involving public humiliation and a microphone stand. A smile appeared before he could stop it.
Music always had that effect on him.
It didn't matter how stressful the day had been or how many responsibilities were waiting for him at home. The moment he thought about performing, something inside him felt lighter. The excitement never really disappeared, no matter how many times he stepped onto a stage. If anything, it had only grown stronger over the years. That should have worried him.
His mother certainly thought it should. As far as she was concerned, music wasn't a dream worth pursuing. It was the reason her life had fallen apart. Every conversation about Jamie's father eventually found its way back to the same place.
Music and Ambition. The decision to chase one life while abandoning another. His mother rarely spoke about the details anymore, but she didn't need to. Jamie had spent enough years watching her expression harden whenever certain songs played on the radio to understand exactly how she felt.
The irony was almost funny because the thing she hated most was the thing that made him happiest. Unfortunately, the smile lingered long enough for someone else to notice. Jamie didn't need to look up to know who it was.
Chen had an almost supernatural ability to detect changes in his mood. Whether it was because they had worked together for years or because Chen simply paid more attention than most people, Jamie wasn't entirely sure. What he did know was that every time he thought he had hidden something successfully, Chen somehow managed to notice it anyway.
By the time Jamie slipped his phone back into his pocket, Chen was already making his way toward the coffee bar carrying a tray of clean cups.
"You only make that face when someone texts you."
Jamie reached for another cup.
"What face?"
"The one that says you'd rather be somewhere else."
Jamie laughed.
"That's a little dramatic."
"It's also true."
Chen set the tray down and leaned against the counter with the confidence of someone whose father owned the building. At ninetee, he looked almost exactly the same as he had when Jamie first met him years ago. The same easy smile, the same habit of talking to everyone as though they'd been friends forever. Customers loved him. Mr. Jian claimed it was because he was charming.
Jamie suspected it was because Chen never seemed to run out of patience.
"Let me guess," Chen continued. "Your mysterious second job."
"It's not mysterious."
"Then explain it."
"No."
"See? Mysterious."
The conversation ended only because a customer approached the register. Chen accepted defeat with surprising grace and returned to work, although Jamie knew from experience that the subject wasn't gone. It had simply been postponed until a more convenient time. The truth was that Chen had been trying to figure out Jamie's second job for years.
As far as Bunny Arabica Café knew, Jamie occasionally worked events on evenings and weekends. The explanation was vague enough to satisfy most people and boring enough to discourage follow-up questions. Chen, unfortunately, had never been satisfied by vague answers.
That was one of the reasons Jamie never gave him better ones because the less people knew, the easier things remained.
Outside, the rain continued falling steadily against the windows. Water streamed down the glass in uneven trails, blurring the view of the street beyond. The weather changed the atmosphere inside the café in subtle ways. As for Jamie, he liked rainy afternoons because he thinks that it gives people permission to stop rushing for a little while.
By one o'clock, the lunch rush had finally begun to fade. Empty tables started reappearing throughout the café and for the first time all day, there wasn't a line stretching toward the entrance. Jamie used the opportunity to organize supplies behind the counter while Chen attempted to convince a customer that pineapple absolutely belonged on pizza.
The argument was surprisingly passionate.
Mr. Jian, who had arrived nearly an hour late and somehow avoided criticism entirely, sided with the customer. Chen considered this a personal betrayal while Jamie was trying very hard not to laugh when the bell above the entrance chimed.
The sound barely registered at first as the customers had been entering and leaving all afternoon. The young man who stepped inside, however, immediately attracted attention. Part of it was the pink hair, combined with his fair skin and sharp features.
Several students glanced up from their laptops when he entered. One of them nearly dropped her phone while the newcomer didn't seem to notice. After stepping inside, he paused near the entrance and looked around the café as though searching for someone. His gaze moved methodically across the room before settling on Jamie and the tension in his expression eased. Jamie looked away first and returned his attention to the shelf he had been organizing. There was no reason to assume the stranger had anything to do with him. People searched for friends in coffee shops all the time. For all he knew, someone sitting near the back had invited him there.
A few moments later, curiosity got the better of him.
When he looked up again, the stranger was walking directly toward the counter.
Up close, he appeared younger than Jamie had initially assumed. Nineteen, maybe twenty. Despite the attention he attracted simply by entering the room, there was nothing particularly arrogant about him. If anything, he looked nervous. His hands remained tucked inside the pockets of his jacket and there was a slight hesitation in his movements that suggested he was reconsidering every step.
By the time he reached the counter, he looked like someone who had spent hours rehearsing a conversation only to forget it the moment it mattered. He waited patiently while the young man attempted to gather his thoughts. While restocking cups behind the counter, Chen glanced toward the window and immediately spotted the pink-haired stranger sitting at the same table he had occupied for most of the afternoon. The sight alone seemed enough to spark his curiosity. Jamie recognized the look on his friend's face instantly. It was the same expression Chen always wore whenever he thought he had discovered something interesting.
"What?" Jamie asked without looking up from the shelf he was organizing. Chen didn't answer immediately. Instead, he looked toward the window again before turning back to Jamie with a grin that suggested he was already forming conclusions.
"I'm just saying," he began, "if someone spent three hours staring in my direction, I'd probably want to know why."
Jamie resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
"He isn't staring at me."
"Sure."
"He isn't."
Chen's grin widened. Jamie returned his attention to the shelf in front of him, hoping the conversation would die naturally. Experience should have taught him better by now as Chen rarely abandoned a topic once it captured his attention.
"I'm serious," Chen continued. "The guy walked in, looked around for ten seconds, found you and then decided to spend his entire afternoon here. That's not normal customer behavior."
"Maybe he's waiting for someone."
"For four hours?"
Jamie hated that he didn't have a good answer.
The possibility had crossed his mind several times throughout the day, but the longer the stranger stayed, the less convincing it became. Whatever reason had brought him into the coffee shop, it clearly hadn't been coffee. His drink had been sitting untouched for most of the afternoon and every time Jamie happened to glance toward the window, he found him looking as though he was nervous. The entire situation was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore, not because the young man was behaving strangely but because there seemed to be a purpose behind everything he did.
The question was why.
Before Chen could ask him, a customer approached the register and demanded his attention. Jamie silently thanked whoever had invented coffee emergencies and used the distraction to escape the conversation.
Unfortunately, being busy didn't stop him from thinking.
When Jamie's shift finally ended, he felt an unexpected sense of relief. Not because he wanted to leave work but because rehearsal was next. The thought alone improved his mood as he headed into the employee room and opened his locker. Inside sat the black duffel bag he carried everywhere, worn enough to show years of use. He reached for it automatically, smiling when he felt the familiar weight of his dance shoes inside. The bag represented a part of his life that belonged entirely to him, untouched by expectations, responsibilities or difficult conversations.
His phone vibrated while he was changing out of his apron. Another message from Mina appeared on the screen, continuing her long-standing tradition of treating every rehearsal as though it were a military operation. Jamie laughed while reading through her increasingly dramatic warnings about punctuality before sending a quick reply and slipping the phone back into his pocket. A few minutes later, he pushed open the back door of Bunny Arabica and stepped into the alley behind the café. He adjusted the strap of his duffel bag and started toward the street, already thinking about the evening ahead of him.
He had only made it a short distance before hearing someone call his name.
The voice stopped him immediately.
When Jamie turned around, he found the pink-haired young man standing near the entrance to the alley. Seeing him there should have been surprising, yet somehow it wasn't. After spending an entire afternoon waiting inside the café, it made sense that he hadn't left without saying whatever he came to say. Up close, he looked even more nervous than before. His hands remained buried in his jacket pockets and there was a tightness in his expression that suggested he had been rehearsing this conversation for hours. For a moment neither of them spoke. He seemed to be searching for the right words, only to lose them every time he got close.
Eventually, he let out a small laugh and shook his head.
"I had a whole speech prepared," he admitted. "Unfortunately, it disappeared the second you turned around."
Jamie couldn't help smiling.
"That doesn't sound very promising."
"It isn't."
Despite the joke, the nervousness never quite left the young man's face. If anything, it seemed to deepen as the silence settled between them again. When he finally looked up, there was something different in his expression. The uncertainty was still there but now it was accompanied by a seriousness that immediately caught Jamie's attention. Whatever Juno had spent the entire afternoon trying to say, it was obviously important enough to keep him sitting in a coffee shop for hours and waiting outside afterward. He rubbed the back of his neck and glanced toward the street before looking back at Jamie. The nervousness that had followed him all afternoon seemed even more obvious now that they were standing face-to-face without the counter between them. For a moment, he looked like he was considering turning around and leaving.
"I'm aware this is probably going to sound strange," he said with an awkward laugh. "I've been trying to figure out how to explain it for hours and somehow every version sounds worse than the last."
Jamie studied him carefully. The entire situation had been confusing from the moment he walked into the café but at least now there was finally a chance of getting answers.
"You're not doing a great job of making this less concerning."
"Yeah, I know."
He smiled briefly before the expression faded. Whatever he wanted to say clearly wasn't easy for him. He looked down at the pavement for a few seconds, gathering his thoughts, before speaking again.
"My mother doesn't know I'm here," he admitted. "Actually, she specifically told me not to come."
That wasn't remotely what Jamie had been expecting.
"Why?"
He hesitated.
"Because she thought it would make things complicated."
The answer raised more questions than it answered. Judging by the look on Juno's face, he knew that too.
"You're going to have to be more specific than that."
"I know." He exhaled slowly and ran a hand through his hair. "The problem is that I don't really know where to start."
Jamie waited for a while, and neither of them spoke.
Eventually, the young man looked up.
"My father told me about you a few months ago."
The statement caught Jamie off guard.The words carried a familiarity that felt foreign to him. When most people mentioned fathers, it was casual. Ordinary. For Jamie, the subject had always been different.
"My father?" he repeated.
He nodded.
The uncomfortable feeling that had been lingering in the back of Jamie's mind all afternoon returned immediately. It wasn't enough to form a conclusion yet but it was enough to make him pay closer attention.
"When my father got sick, he started talking about a lot of things he'd spent years avoiding," Juno continued. "There were people he regretted losing contact with and things he wished he'd handled differently. At first I thought it was just because he was sick. I figured he was looking back on his life and thinking about mistakes."
Jamie felt his stomach tighten slightly and the young man noticed but continued anyway.
"Then one day he told me he had another son."
For a moment, Jamie simply stared at him. The words were easy enough to understand individually. Together, however, they refused to make sense. The young man's expression made it clear that he knew exactly how unbelievable this sounded.
"He told me about you," he said quietly. "At first I didn't believe him either. Honestly, I thought he was confused. But he kept talking about you. He knew your name. He knew where you worked. He knew things that would have been impossible to know if you didn't exist."
Jamie looked away. A thousand thoughts collided inside his head at once, none of them fully formed. His father had always existed as an absence, a person-shaped hole in his life that nobody wanted to discuss. The idea that someone else knew him, had grown up with him, had spoken to him recently enough to call him "Dad" without hesitation, felt impossible.
Yet Juno was standing right in front of him and he looked terrified.
"My name is Juno Park," he said after a moment. "And if everything my father told me is true, then we're brothers."
For several seconds, Jamie simply stared at him, convinced he had either misheard something or misunderstood the conversation entirely. The words themselves were simple enough, but they refused to fit anywhere inside the version of his life he had carried around for years. His father had always existed as an absence rather than a person, a chapter that ended before he was old enough to remember it properly. There had never been another family in that story, never been another son and certainly never been a pink-haired stranger standing in an alley introducing himself as a brother.
Juno seemed to notice the disbelief on his face and let out a nervous laugh. “Honestly, that's pretty close to how I reacted when I found out. I thought my father was confused at first. Then I thought he was lying. After that, I spent weeks trying to prove he was wrong because it seemed easier than accepting the possibility that he was telling the truth.”
Jamie ran a hand through his hair and looked away for a moment. The damp pavement beneath his feet suddenly seemed much easier to focus on than the conversation happening in front of him.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“Nineteen.”
The answer came immediately.
Jamie did the math without meaning to. The realization settled heavily in his chest. While he and his mother had spent years rebuilding their lives after being abandoned, his father had apparently gone on to build another family somewhere else. The thought wasn't surprising so much as it was unsettling. It transformed something distant and abstract into something real. Juno seemed to understand exactly where his thoughts had gone.
“I know,” he said quietly. “I've had months to process it. You’ve had about five minutes.”
Despite everything, the comment almost made Jamie laugh.
“Why are you here?” he asked instead. “If you've known about me for months, why show up now?”
Juno's expression shifted slightly. The nervousness remained but something heavier appeared beneath it and he lowered his gaze briefly before answering.
“My father is dying.”
The words were spoken so calmly that it took a moment for their meaning to fully register.
Jamie didn't respond immediately. He wasn't sure how to. The man in question had never really existed in his daily life. He was a shadow attached to old arguments and unfinished stories, someone whose choices had shaped Jamie's childhood without ever being present for it. Logically, the news shouldn't have affected him.
“The doctors found it too late,” Juno continued. “At first everyone thought he would recover but things got worse. A few months ago he started talking about people he'd lost and things he regretted. Your name kept coming up.”
Jamie looked away again.
“My father wants to meet you,” Juno said carefully. “Not because he thinks everything can be fixed. I don't think he's naïve enough to believe that. He just... wants the chance to see you.”
Jamie let out a slow breath. The request should have made him angry but the problem was that anger wasn't the only thing he felt. Confusion sat beside it, curiosity sat beside that and somewhere underneath everything else was a question he hated admitting even to himself. Why now? Why spend twenty years away and suddenly decide that family mattered? As if reading his mind, Juno shifted uncomfortably.
“There's actually another reason I'm here,” he admitted.
Jamie immediately looked back at him. The hesitation in Juno's voice made something tighten in his stomach.
“What reason?”
Juno was quiet for a moment, clearly choosing his words with care.
“My father doesn't just want to meet you,” he said. “He wants you to come with me.”
The statement hung in the air between them and Jamie frowned.
“Come with you where?”
Juno hesitated.
“Home,” he said eventually. “To Seoul. To the family you don't know exists.”
Jamie stared at him for a long moment, trying to decide whether this conversation had officially crossed into insanity. Discovering that he had a half-brother was one thing. Learning that his absent father owned one of the largest entertainment companies in the country was another. Being told that the same company was interested in him was something else entirely.
“What does Foxstar have to do with me?” he asked.
Juno let out a slow breath. He looked as though he had been dreading this part of the conversation from the beginning.
“A lot more than you'd probably like,” he admitted. “My father found out about your performances a few months ago. At first, I don't think anyone paid much attention to it. They assumed you were just doing local gigs for extra money. Then people started watching the videos.”
Jamie immediately frowned.
“What videos?”
“The ones people uploaded.”
His stomach dropped. Of course people had uploaded videos. He knew that. It wasn't exactly unusual. Performances were recorded all the time. The difference was that he had never thought much about them afterward. Once a show ended, he moved on to the next one. The idea that strangers or worse, executives at Foxstar Entertainment had been watching those videos without his knowledge made him deeply uncomfortable.
“My father showed them to me,” Juno continued. “Actually, that's how I found out about you in the first place.”
“You've seen my performances?”
“Most of them.”
“Most of them?”
Juno looked slightly embarrassed.
“Okay. All of them.”
For a moment, Jamie genuinely didn't know how to respond while Juno, apparently interpreting his silence as encouragement, continued talking.
“I got curious after my father told me about you. At first I was just trying to figure out who you were. Then I started watching more videos, and honestly, I understood pretty quickly why he was interested.”
Jamie looked away as compliments had never been something he handled particularly well. Especially not from someone he had met less than an hour ago.
“Interested how?”
Juno shifted his weight slightly before answering.
“The same way everyone else was.”
That answer immediately made Jamie suspicious.
“Everyone else?”
“The training department. Performance coaches. Some of the executives.”
“You're serious.”
“I am.”
“You expect me to believe that people at Foxstar were sitting around watching videos of me performing in tiny venues?”
“Not tiny venues,” Juno corrected automatically before realizing that probably wasn't the important part. “And yes.”
The certainty in his voice was impossible to ignore which made Jamie rubbed a hand across his face. This conversation felt less real with every passing minute because until today, Foxstar Entertainment had existed in the same category as celebrities and luxury penthouses. It was something distant, something that belonged to a completely different world. The idea that his name had somehow reached people inside that world was difficult to comprehend.
“Why?”
The question escaped before he could stop it and Juno seemed surprised.
“Why what?”
“Why would they care?”
For the first time since arriving at the alley, Juno looked genuinely confused.
“Because you're good.”
The answer was so simple that Jamie almost laughed.
“That doesn't mean anything.”
“Actually, it means quite a lot.”
“No, it doesn't.”
Juno studied him for a moment before shaking his head.
“You really don't know, do you?”
“Know what?”
“How talented you are.”
The statement immediately made him uncomfortable. He had spent years avoiding conversations like this. The moment people started talking about talent, expectations usually followed. Expectations led to disappointment more often than not.
“I perform at local events,” he said. “Let's not act like I'm some hidden superstar.”
“I'm not.”
Juno's expression had become serious.
“I'm acting like someone who trains at Foxstar every day and knows what the standards look like.”
That was the first time Jamie had heard him mention himself.
“You're a trainee?”
Juno nodded.
“I've been training there for almost two years.”
The revelation somehow made everything feel even stranger. Jamie looked at him more carefully. Now that he thought about it, it made sense. The polished appearance, the confidence hidden beneath the nervousness, the way he carried himself. None of it felt accidental.
“You're training to debut?”
“Hopefully.”
The smile that accompanied the answer looked genuine. It was probably the first completely natural expression Jamie had seen from him all afternoon.
“My father pushed me into it originally,” Juno admitted. “I hated the idea at first. Then I ended up liking it.”
Jamie found himself oddly relieved to hear that. At least one person in this story seemed to have a healthy relationship with music.
“And now you're here trying to recruit me?”
Juno laughed.
“Recruiting makes it sound a lot more official than it is.”
“Isn't it?”
“Not really. Officially, I'm here because my father wanted me to find you.”
The reminder immediately brought them back to the actual reason for the conversation. The brief lightness disappeared and Juno looked down for a moment before continuing.
“Juno.”
He looked up.
“What?”
“There's another reason you're here.” Several seconds passed before Juno finally sighed.
“Yeah,” he admitted. “There is.”
The nervousness from earlier returned in full force. He looked away briefly before forcing himself to continue.
“Your mother needs treatment, doesn't she?”
The question hit so suddenly that Jamie forgot how to breathe for a second. Like every muscle in his body tensed.
“How do you know that?”
Juno looked genuinely apologetic.
“Because my father knows.”
Jamie felt his stomach drop. For the first time since the conversation started, fear outweighed confusion. Jamie stared at him for a long moment, struggling to decide which part of the conversation bothered him most. The offer itself was tempting enough to make him uncomfortable, but it was the circumstances surrounding it that left a bitter taste in his mouth. Foxstar wasn't simply offering help out of kindness. Whether they intended it that way or not, they had found him at a moment when refusing was far more difficult than accepting. If his mother had been healthy, he could have walked away without a second thought.
"If I understand this correctly, your father disappears for twenty years, suddenly decides he wants to meet me, finds out my mother is sick and then offers to pay for her treatment if I come to Seoul and become a trainee."
Juno winced slightly.
"When you put it that way, it sounds awful."
"It is awful."
"I know."
The immediate agreement caught Jamie off guard. Juno didn't argue. He didn't try to defend his father or convince Jamie that the situation was somehow reasonable. If anything, he looked just as uncomfortable as Jamie felt. For a while, neither of them spoke. Jamie looked toward the street and watched a car pass at the end of the block, trying to organize thoughts that refused to stay organized. He wanted to reject the entire thing on principle. He wanted to tell Juno to go back to Seoul and take his father's offer with him. The problem was that every time he imagined doing that, he saw the stack of medical bills sitting on the kitchen table at home.
His mother changed everything. No matter how angry he felt, no matter how much resentment he carried toward a man he had never truly known, none of it changed the reality waiting for him. The treatments still cost money. The appointments still existed. His mother would still insist she was fine while quietly worrying about things she thought he didn't notice. Juno seemed to understand exactly where his thoughts had gone.
"You don't have to decide tonight," he said.
That sounded nice in theory, but a decision like this wasn't something he could casually think about for a few days and then forget. It wasn't even a single decision. It was dozens of decisions tangled together. If he agreed, he would be meeting the father who abandoned him, leaving behind the only life he had ever known, moving to Seoul, entering an industry he had only ever observed from a distance, and accepting help from people he had no reason to trust.
"What exactly happens if I say yes?" he asked.
Juno looked relieved by the question, not because Jamie was agreeing but because he was willing to consider the possibility.
"You'd move to Seoul and join Foxstar as a trainee. You'd go through evaluations and training like everyone else. The company would cover your mother's treatment, and you'd finally get the chance to meet our father."
The explanation sounded absurdly simple considering how much it would change. Jamie shook his head.
"You make it sound easy."
"It isn't."
At least Juno had enough sense not to pretend otherwise.
"Training is exhausting. Everyone at Foxstar is talented. Most of them have been preparing for years. The schedules are terrible, the evaluations are worse, and every trainee is competing for the same opportunity."
"You've been there for two years, right?"
Juno nodded.
"Almost."
"And you stayed?"
A faint smile appeared on his face.
"Some days I question that decision."
The honesty made Jamie laugh despite himself and the reaction seemed to surprise both of them. "My father pushed me into training originally," Juno admitted. "I hated it at first. Then I got used to it. Eventually I realized I actually liked performing."
Jamie understood that feeling better than he wanted to admit. Music had a way of getting under a person's skin. Once it became important, walking away from it felt almost impossible. His phone suddenly vibrated inside his pocket and when he checked the screen, Mina's name immediately appeared.
Three missed calls and Several unread messages. Jamie didn't need to open them to know exactly what they contained while Juno glanced at the phone.
"Someone waiting for you?"
"Rehearsal."
Juno noticed the change in his expression almost immediately.
"You really love performing, don't you?"
The question caught him off guard. Most people asked whether he enjoyed singing or dancing. Very few people asked the question that directly. After a moment, Jamie smiled.
"Yeah."
It was the simplest answer he had given all evening. Juno looked oddly pleased by it.
"I figured."
"Because of the videos?"
"Because of the way you look when you talk about it."
Jamie didn't know how to respond to that and the observation felt far too accurate.
"I should go."
Juno nodded.
"I know."
Neither of them seemed entirely sure how to end the conversation. There wasn't exactly a guidebook for discovering a half-brother and a dying father in the span of an afternoon. After a brief hesitation, Juno reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper.
"My number is on this," he said as he handed it over. "The address where I'm staying is there too. You don't have to call immediately. Honestly, you don't have to call at all if you don't want to."
Jamie accepted the paper and slipped it into his pocket as the gesture felt strangely final which Juno noticed. A small smile appeared on his face.
"If you decide you never want to see me again, I'll understand."
The comment should have made things easier. Instead, it made Jamie feel unexpectedly guilty. After everything that had happened, one thing was becoming increasingly clear. Whatever mistakes their father had made, Juno hadn't made them. Jamie looked at him for a moment before shaking his head.
"I'll think about it."
Relief appeared on Juno's face so quickly that it was impossible to miss.
────୨ৎ────
The walk to rehearsal felt much shorter than usual, though Jamie suspected that had more to do with his thoughts than the actual distance. Most evenings, he used the trip to unwind after work. By the time he reached the studio, he had usually managed to leave Bunny Arabica behind for the night. Today was different. No matter how hard he tried, his mind kept circling back to the conversation in the alley. Every few minutes, he found himself replaying Juno's words and wondering whether the entire thing had actually happened. The more he thought about it, the more absurd it seemed. Any one of those things would have been enough to dominate his thoughts for days. Receiving all of them at once felt almost impossible to process.
By the time he arrived at the studio, his phone contained several new messages from Mina, all of which became progressively more dramatic the longer he took to respond. Jamie didn't need to read them to know their contents and years of friendship had made her habits painfully predictable. Before he could make it more than a few steps down the hallway, the door to the main practice room opened and Mina emerged. She stopped the moment she saw him and immediately crossed her arms.
"There you are."
Jamie sighed.
"Nice to see you too."
Mina ignored that completely.
"You ignored my messages."
"I was working."
"You ignored my calls."
"I was still working."
"You ignored my voice note."
"That one was intentional."
The response earned him a look of pure betrayal. At twenty-four, Mina possessed an impressive ability to transform minor inconveniences into personal attacks. She was one of the most talented choreographers Jamie had ever worked with, but she also seemed physically incapable of remaining calm whenever rehearsals were involved.
"You were almost late."
"I wasn't late."
"You were close."
"That's still not late."
Mina stared at him for a moment before deciding the argument wasn't worth continuing. With a dramatic roll of her eyes, she stepped aside and pointed toward the practice room.
"Get inside before I change my mind."
Jamie smiled and obeyed.
The room was already crowded and several dancers were stretching near the mirrors while others sat on the floor scrolling through their phones or drinking water. Conversations drifted throughout the room, overlapping with the music playing quietly through the speakers. A few people greeted Jamie when he entered, and he returned their greetings automatically while making his way toward an empty section of floor.
This place always felt different from the rest of his life. At Bunny Arabica, he was a barista. At home, he was a son trying to keep things together. Here, none of those things mattered. Nobody cared about his financial problems. Nobody cared about his family situation. Nobody expected him to be anything except someone who loved performing and that simplicity was one of the reasons he kept coming back.
While he was unpacking his bag, a familiar voice spoke from nearby.
"You look distracted."
Jamie glanced over and immediately found Kai sitting against the wall with a water bottle in one hand.
"Can everyone stop saying that today?"
Kai laughed.
"That sounds like a no."
Jamie dropped his bag onto the floor and sat beside it.
"Nothing happened."
The response only made Kai look more amused.
"I've known you too long to believe that."
Unfortunately, that was probably true because before Jamie could think of a convincing lie, Mina clapped her hands loudly enough to silence the room. Several dancers rushed to finish their water before practice officially began. Mina waited until she had everyone's attention before launching into instructions then the rehearsal started a few minutes later. As always, the moment the music began, everything else faded into the background. The worries that had followed Jamie throughout the day gradually loosened their grip on him. The conversation with Juno, the offer from Foxstar, the existence of a father he hadn't seen in years, all of it became distant for a little while. Performing had always affected him that way. Once he was moving, once the music surrounded him, the rest of the world seemed less important.
Hours passed without him noticing.
By the time rehearsal ended, sweat clung to the back of his neck and his muscles ached pleasantly from exertion. Around him, people began gathering their belongings and discussing plans for the rest of the evening. Some were heading out for food. Others were rushing home. Mina remained near the front of the room reviewing practice footage and muttering complaints about timing under her breath. Jamie was packing his things when his phone vibrated.
The unfamiliar number on the screen immediately proved otherwise. He stared at it for a moment before opening the notification.
The message was surprisingly simple.
Sorry for dropping all of that on you today. Get home safely.
Jamie read it twice. There were no additional explanations but just a single message. He slipped the phone back into his pocket and finished gathering his things before heading outside. The walk home felt longer than usual. Jamie normally spent the trip listening to music or reviewing choreography in his head but tonight his thoughts refused to stay focused on anything for more than a few moments. Every attempt to distract himself eventually led back to the same conversation. No matter how many times he replayed it, the situation remained impossible to fully process. That morning he had been serving coffee at Bunny Arabica and worrying about bills. By evening, he had discovered that he had a half-brother, learned that the father who abandoned him was dying, and been offered an opportunity that threatened to change the course of his entire life. The more he thought about it, the more unreal it felt.
By the time he reached his apartment building, a dull ache had settled behind his eyes. When he finally unlocked the apartment door and stepped inside, the first thing he noticed was how quiet everything was. The silence immediately made him glance toward the hallway and a moment later he called out for his mother. Her voice answered from the bedroom almost immediately, easing a tension he hadn't realized he was carrying.
He found her sitting upright in bed with reading glasses balanced on her nose and several papers spread across the blanket in front of her. The moment she noticed him looking, she gathered the papers together and stacked them neatly beside her. The movement was casual enough that someone else might not have thought twice about it, but Jamie recognized it for what it was. For a little while, the evening felt normal. His mother talked about a television drama she had been watching, complained about characters making terrible decisions and occasionally asked questions about his day. Jamie listened and answered where he could, it would have been easy to pretend that nothing had changed if not for the cough that interrupted her halfway through a sentence. The sound immediately pulled his attention toward her. She noticed the concern on his face and offered the same reassuring smile she always used whenever her health came up. Jamie didn't argue when she insisted she was fine because neither of them needed another version of a discussion they had already had countless times before.
While she continued talking, his gaze drifted toward the stack of papers resting beside her. He didn't need to examine them closely to know what they were. Medical bills had become a permanent part of their lives. There always seemed to be another payment waiting somewhere. Seeing them there brought Juno's words back with uncomfortable clarity and Jamie found himself unable to push the offer out of his mind. His mother remained completely unaware of the battle taking place inside his head as she continued talking about ordinary things, laughing at scenes from her drama and asking whether the café had been busy. Listening to her should have made the decision easier but somehow it had the opposite effect. Every smile, every cough and every attempt she made to pretend everything was fine only reminded him why the offer had affected him so deeply in the first place.
Eventually, she glanced at the clock and announced that it was getting late. Jamie agreed and stood from the chair beside her bed. After wishing her goodnight, he left the room and quietly closed the door behind him. The apartment felt even quieter afterward. He reheated the dinner waiting in the kitchen, ate without paying much attention to the taste and cleaned everything afterward simply because the routine gave his hands something to do. Throughout the entire process, his thoughts continued circling the same questions. What if Juno had been telling the truth about everything? What if this really was the opportunity he claimed it was? What if refusing meant losing the only realistic chance he had to help his mother?
Those questions followed him into his bedroom. They remained with him while he changed clothes, brushed his teeth, and prepared for bed. Even after turning off the lights and settling beneath the blankets, his mind refused to slow down. At some point, his attention drifted toward the folded piece of paper resting on the bedside table. Juno's phone number was written there alongside an address in Seoul, both of them representing a future Jamie had never imagined for himself. He looked at the paper for a long time before finally turning away, but even after closing his eyes, the image remained fixed in his mind. Long after midnight, while the rest of the apartment slept, Jamie remained awake wondering whether a single decision really had the power to change everything.
When sleep finally came, it offered very little relief. Jamie drifted in and out of shallow dreams for most of the night, never staying asleep long enough to feel properly rested. Every time he woke, his thoughts returned to the same place. The conversation in the alley replayed itself over and over again, each detail somehow becoming more complicated the longer he thought about it. By the time his alarm rang the next morning, it felt as though he had spent the entire night arguing with himself instead of sleeping.
For several seconds after waking, he lay still and stared at the ceiling. The room was quiet, and for one brief moment he almost managed to forget everything that had happened the previous day. Then reality caught up with him. The folded piece of paper sitting on his bedside table. The weight of it all settled over him immediately. With a sigh, he reached for his phone and checked his notifications. Most of them were unimportant. One was from Mina reminding everyone about an upcoming rehearsal schedule change. Another was from Chen. The message consisted of a photograph of a badly burned pastry accompanied by a single sentence informing Jamie that his replacement had attempted to help in the kitchen and had instead committed what Chen described as a crime against baking. Despite everything, Jamie found himself smiling. It was such a normal message that it felt strangely comforting. He sent a quick reply before getting out of bed.
When he entered the kitchen, he found his mother standing at the stove preparing breakfast. Jamie immediately frowned.
"Mom."
She glanced over her shoulder and smiled.
"Good morning."
"Why are you cooking?"
"Because people usually eat breakfast in the morning."
"You know exactly what I mean." The smile that followed told him she absolutely did.
"I'm feeling better today."
Jamie resisted the urge to point out that she said that almost every day. Instead, he moved into the kitchen and began helping her without being asked. Years of habit made the routine automatic. He gathered plates from the cupboard, set them on the table, and organized utensils while his mother continued pretending she was perfectly capable of handling everything herself.
For a little while, they existed inside the comfortable normalcy they had built together over the years. His mother hummed quietly while cooking. Sunlight filtered through the curtains above the sink. The old clock on the wall ticked steadily in the background. Everything felt familiar and it should have made him feel better.
Instead, it made the decision waiting for him feel even heavier. If he accepted the offer, he would be leaving all of this behind. The realization sat heavily in his chest that hiis mother eventually noticed his silence.
"You seem distracted."
"I'm fine."
The answer came automatically. His mother raised an eyebrow in a way that made it painfully obvious she didn't believe him and fortunately, she didn't push. Instead, she sat across from him and changed the subject entirely. The conversation drifted toward ordinary things after that. She complained about a television drama she had been watching, spent several minutes criticizing the decisions of fictional characters, and then asked about work. Jamie answered where he could and even managed to laugh a few times. On the surface, everything seemed normal.
The problem was that the folded piece of paper resting inside his wallet never left his thoughts and no matter what they talked about, he remained aware of it..
By the time breakfast ended, he still had no idea what he was going to do. After helping clean the kitchen, he grabbed his bag, said goodbye to his mother, and headed for work. The morning air was cool as he stepped outside, and the city was already beginning to fill with people rushing toward jobs, schools, and appointments. Jamie walked the familiar route to Bunny Arabica Café almost entirely on autopilot. The streets, the buildings, and even the traffic lights felt comforting in their predictability.
Eventually, the café came into view.
The sight of the familiar sign above the entrance immediately eased some of the tension he had been carrying since yesterday. Bunny Arabica had always represented stability. The work wasn't glamorous, and it certainly wasn't exciting, but it was dependable. For the first time since Juno appeared, Jamie found himself grateful for how ordinary his job was. Unfortunately, the moment he stepped through the door, he realized that sense of peace wasn't going to last very long.
Jamie looked away and focused on the coffee machine instead of answering immediately. Chen noticed the hesitation but didn't interrupt. For once, he seemed willing to wait.
After a moment, he said, "There's more, isn't there?"
Jamie let out a quiet breath.
"Yeah."
Chen remained silent, giving him room to continue.
"My father owns Foxstar Entertainment."
The words sounded ridiculous even as he said them. For a second, Chen looked as though he was waiting for the punchline. When none came, the amusement gradually disappeared from his face.
"You're serious."
"Unfortunately."
Chen stared at him for several moments before leaning back against the counter.
"The Foxstar Entertainment?"
Jamie nodded.
"The one with the idols, actors and half the celebrities in the country?"
"That one."
Chen shook his head slowly.
"Okay. I wasn't expecting that."
"Neither was I."
The conversation paused briefly while a customer approached the register to ask for a refill. Once the situation was handled and the customer returned to their table, Chen looked back at Jamie.
"I feel like we're still not at the important part."
Jamie laughed.
"You're right."
Chen folded his arms.
"Go on."
Jamie glanced toward the front windows before speaking again.
"Foxstar wants me to go to Seoul."
The statement immediately caught Chen's attention.
"For what?"
Jamie hesitated for only a second.
"They want me to become a trainee."
This time Chen didn't say anything right away. He simply looked at Jamie, trying to determine whether he was joking. When it became clear that he wasn't, he rubbed a hand across his face.
"That's insane."
"Yeah."
"The company wants you specifically?"
"Apparently."
Chen looked genuinely overwhelmed by the information. For a few moments, he just stood there processing it Then he asked the one question Jamie had been trying to avoid asking himself.
"Do you want to go?"
Jamie opened his mouth to answer and then stopped. The question should have been simple but instead, it felt impossible.
The truth was that he loved performing. He loved singing. He loved dancing. If someone had offered him a chance like this under different circumstances, he probably would have accepted before they finished speaking. The problem was that nothing about this situation was simple. Every opportunity came attached to his father. Every possibility led back to a family he had never known. Every road eventually circled back to his mother.
"I don't know," he admitted.
Chen watched him carefully.
"That's not really true, is it?"
Jamie frowned.
"What does that mean?"
"It means you know exactly how you feel about performing."
The response irritated him because there was truth in it. Chen continued before he could argue.
"The part you're struggling with isn't the trainee position."
Jamie remained silent.
"It's everything else."
That observation hit uncomfortably close to the truth. Music had never been the problem. The problem was accepting help from a man who had abandoned him. The problem was leaving home. The problem was the possibility of walking away from the life he had spent years building.
Most of all, the problem was his mother. Chen seemed to reach the same conclusion as his expression softened slightly.
"This is about her, isn't it?"
Jamie looked down at the counter.
"Everything is."
The answer came so naturally that it surprised even him.
For years, nearly every major decision in his life had revolved around the same thing. Could they afford it? Was it practical? Would it make things easier for his mother? At some point, those questions had become second nature.
Neither of them spoke for a while and eventually, the front door opened and another wave of customers entered.
Chen looked toward the register and sighed.
"Unfortunately, people continue needing coffee."
Jamie smiled despite himself.
"They should really stop doing that."
"I agree."
Chen pushed himself away from the counter and headed toward the register, leaving Jamie alone with his thoughts.
The conversation should have made him feel better. Instead, it made everything feel more real. Until now, the offer had existed mostly inside his head. As the afternoon continued, Jamie threw himself back into work, but the questions remained in the back of his mind. Every time the front door opened, part of him found himself looking up automatically. Juno never appeared, yet the possibility lingered anyway, and by the end of the day Jamie realized that the hardest part wasn't deciding whether he trusted his father. The hardest part was deciding whether he could afford not to take the offer.
The rest of the afternoon passed more quietly than Jamie expected. Chen didn't bring up Seoul again, which Jamie appreciated more than he was willing to admit. The conversation had already occupied enough space in his head without being discussed for another three hours. Instead, they fell back into their usual routine. Customers came and went, drinks were made, tables were cleaned. Jamie found himself paying more attention to the café than usual. He noticed the scratches on the wooden tables, the faded menu board hanging behind the register, and the quiet conversations drifting through the room. None of it was remarkable. In fact, that was exactly the point. It was ordinary. Familiar. Safe. For years, he had built his life around places and people he understood. Bunny Arabica wasn't glamorous, but it was dependable. Every day looked more or less the same as the one before it, and until recently, Jamie had never considered that a problem.
Now he couldn't stop comparing it to the future Juno had placed in front of him and the comparison felt unfair. On one side was everything he had ever known. On the other was a city he had never lived in, a father he didn't know and an opportunity that sounded too good to be real. The more he thought about it, the less certain he became. Every argument for leaving seemed to come with an equally convincing reason to stay.
His phone vibrated sometime after four o'clock. Jamie glanced down and immediately recognized Mina's name. The first message asked whether he was still alive. The second demanded an answer. A third appeared before he could finish reading the first two.
Despite himself, he smiled. Some things never changed. He sent a quick reply assuring her that he was alive and still at work. Her response arrived almost immediately, reminding him about rehearsal the following day and warning him not to disappear. Jamie shook his head and slipped the phone back into his pocket. The exchange lasted less than a minute, but it grounded him in a way he hadn't expected. Mina didn't know anything about Foxstar. She didn't know about Juno, Seoul, or the impossible decision waiting for him. As far as she was concerned, Jamie was still the same person he'd been the week before.
Part of him envied that simplicity.
He still hadn't figured out how to tell his mother and the thought alone was enough to make him uneasy. No matter what decision he eventually made, she deserved to know the truth. The problem was that there didn't seem to be a reasonable way to begin that conversation. Every version played out badly in his head. He was still thinking about it when the front door opened.
The sound barely registered at first. People entered and left the café constantly. Jamie continued wiping down the counter without looking up immediately. Then he noticed Chen looking toward the entrance. Curious, he followed his gaze and there he saw Juno stood just inside the doorway. His pink hair made him impossible to miss.
He hadn't expected to see him again so soon. The last time they'd spoken, Juno had made it sound as though he intended to give him space. Seeing him back at Bunny Arabica less than a day later immediately filled Jamie with a sense of unease he couldn't explain.
But something was different this time, Juno wasn't smiling. The nervousness that had defined most of their previous conversation was gone, replaced by a seriousness that immediately put Jamie on edge. As soon as their eyes met, Juno started walking toward the counter. The closer he got, the more obvious it became that something was wrong and even Chen seemed to notice.
By the time Juno stopped in front of him, Jamie had already set the cloth aside.
"What happened?" he asked.
The question left his mouth before he could stop it. Juno glanced briefly around the café before looking back at him.
"I need to talk to you."
Whatever had brought Juno back to Bunny Arabica, it clearly hadn't been planned, and judging by the look on his face, it wasn't something that could wait. Jamie studied him for a moment before glancing toward the customers scattered around the café. There weren't many people left inside, but there were enough that whatever conversation Juno wanted to have clearly wasn't something he intended to discuss in front of strangers.
Chen seemed to reach the same conclusion.
"I can cover the counter," he said.
Jamie looked at him. "You don't even know what's happening."
"I know it probably isn't about coffee."
That was difficult to argue with.
After a brief hesitation, Jamie untied his apron and hung it beneath the counter. Chen nodded as though the situation made perfect sense, though the curiosity written across his face suggested otherwise. A few moments later, Jamie followed Juno outside and they walked for a short distance without speaking. Juno kept his hands shoved into his jacket pockets while Jamie tried to figure out why seeing him again so soon filled him with such a strong sense of unease. Whatever had brought him back to Bunny Arabica, it clearly wasn't something minor. Eventually, they stopped near a quieter section of the sidewalk away from the busiest part of the street. Jamie looked at him and immediately noticed how tired he seemed. The nervousness from yesterday was still there, but now it was buried beneath something heavier.
"What happened?" Jamie asked.
Juno didn't hesitate.
"My father collapsed this morning."
For a moment, Jamie simply stared at him. The words felt strangely unreal. He knew the man was sick. Juno had made that clear from the beginning. Even so, hearing that his condition had worsened still came as a shock.
"Is he okay?"
The question slipped out before he could stop it and Juno looked slightly surprised to hear it.
"He's stable for now."
"What does that have to do with me?"
Juno exhaled slowly.
"He was asking for you."
Yesterday, the man had felt distant. Abstract. A stranger connected to him only through old photographs and unfinished stories. Now he was lying in a hospital somewhere asking for a son he hadn't seen in twenty years. The reality of it felt uncomfortable in a way Jamie couldn't fully explain.
"He doesn't know me."
"I think that's exactly the problem. My father wants to see you," Juno said eventually. "I don't think he expects forgiveness, and I don't think he expects everything to magically be okay. Honestly, I think he's just running out of time and realizing how many things he left unfinished."
Jamie stared at the pavement.For most of his life, there had been nothing. No phone call, letter and noo attempts to reconnect. Now suddenly there was urgency and now suddenly there wasn't enough time. The unfairness of it sat heavily in his chest.
"What exactly is he expecting?" Jamie asked.
Juno shook his head.
"Honestly, I don't think he knows."
The answer sounded painfully sincere. If Juno had tried to defend his father, the conversation would have been easier. Instead, he looked like someone trapped between two situations he couldn't fix.
"The doctors aren't sure how much time he has left," he continued. "Nobody expected things to get worse this quickly. The last few weeks have been rough, and after what happened this morning, everyone is preparing for the possibility that things might get worse again."
Jamie remained silent.
"He talks about you a lot.".
"More than anyone else, actually."
Jamie didn't know what to do with that information. For years, he had imagined his father as someone who simply didn't care. The idea that the man spent his days talking about him felt almost as difficult to believe as everything else.
"He regrets what happened," Juno said quietly.
Jamie looked away. Everyone kept returning to that word, Regret. The problem was that regret didn't change anything. It didn't erase twenty years. It didn't erase what his mother had gone through. It didn't erase the life Jamie had lived without him. The silence stretched between them for several moments before Juno spoke again.
"There's another reason I came."
"What is it?"
For the first time since they left the café, Juno looked genuinely uncertain. He glanced toward the street before forcing himself to continue.
"My father wants to acknowledge you publicly."
The words took several seconds to register and when they finally did, Jamie stared at him.
"What are you talking about?"
"The company knows about you. The family knows about you. My father doesn't want to keep pretending you don't exist."
Jamie felt something tighten in his chest.
"You mean tell people?"
Juno nodded.
"Eventually, yes."
Jamie laughed in disbelief because less than two days ago, nobody in his life knew this family existed. Now someone wanted to announce him to the public. The entire situation felt completely out of control.
"My father spent years hiding the fact that he had another son," Juno continued. "Most people around him didn't know about you. Some executives at Foxstar knew. A few family members knew. That's about it. After he got sick, he started changing his mind about a lot of things."
Jamie folded his arms.
"And now he wants to make an announcement."
"It's not happening tomorrow," Juno said quickly. "Nothing has been decided yet. I'm telling you because I don't want you hearing it from someone else later."
The explanation did little to improve Jamie's mood. Every answer seemed to create another problem. First there was a father. Then a brother. Then Foxstar. Then Seoul. Now apparently there was the possibility of becoming part of a public story he had never asked to be included in. The life he had spent years building suddenly seemed to be slipping further and further beyond his control, and no matter how hard he tried to find solid ground, another revelation always seemed to arrive first. For most of his life, Jamie had thought his biggest problems were practical ones. He understood them. He knew how to wake up every morning and deal with them one step at a time. What he didn't understand was how he was supposed to react when an entire family appeared out of nowhere and expected him to fit into a place that had never included him before.
"I don't even know these people," he said eventually.
Juno nodded.
"I know."
Jamie shook his head.
"No, I don't think you do. Yesterday I didn't know you existed. I didn't know Foxstar had anything to do with me. I didn't know my father was alive, let alone dying. Now you're talking about family meetings and public announcements like I'm supposed to know how to handle any of this."
The frustration that had been building inside him since yesterday finally slipped into his voice. It wasn't anger. If anything, it sounded closer to exhaustion.
Juno accepted it without argument.
"You don't have to know how to handle it right now."
The answer caught Jamie off guard and Juno looked toward the street before continuing.
"Honestly, nobody knows how to handle it. Not my father. Not me. Not anyone else."
"How did your mother react?"
Juno blinked.
"My mother?"
"She knows about me."
"She always knew."
Jamie frowned.
"What do you mean?"
Juno looked away briefly before answering.
"Not everything. At least not at first. But she knew enough."
The response settled heavily between them. Jamie wasn't entirely sure how he felt about that information. Somehow it made everything feel even more real. This wasn't a secret that had existed in isolation. Other people had known. Other people had lived with it.
"She wasn't happy when she found out I came here yesterday," Juno admitted.
"I can imagine."
A small smile appeared on his face.
"She thought it would make things harder."
Jamie let out a quiet laugh.
"Was she wrong?"
The smile disappeared and neither of them answered because neither of them knew. The truth was that things had become harder. Much harder. At the same time, Jamie couldn't ignore the possibility that they had also become necessary. If Juno had never walked into Bunny Arabica, he still wouldn't know any of this. His father would still be dying. Foxstar would still exist. The offer would still be there. He simply wouldn't know.
For years, Jamie had imagined that answers would make things easier but instead, every answer seemed to create three more questions. Eventually, Juno glanced back toward Bunny Arabica.
"You should probably get back."
Jamie followed his gaze. Through the front windows, he could see customers moving around inside the café. Chen was helping someone at the register, though even from this distance Jamie could tell he was paying more attention to the door than to the customer. Before he could respond, Juno reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope. The sight of it immediately caught Jamie's attention.
"What is that?"
Juno hesitated before holding it out.
"My father asked me to give this to you."
Jamie looked at the envelope but made no move to take it.
"What is it?"
"A letter."
The answer surprised him.
"A letter?"
Juno nodded.
"He wrote it a few weeks ago."
Jamie stared at the envelope. It looked ordinary enough. Plain white paper that is lightly creased around the edges from being carried around. There was nothing remarkable about it.
"I'll leave you alone this time."
Jamie glanced down at the envelope resting in his hand before looking back at him. By the time he looked up again, Juno was already stepping away.
"I'll call you in a few days," he said.
Jamie nodded.
This time, he didn't tell him not to and Juno seemed to notice. A faint smile appeared on his face before he turned and disappeared into the flow of people moving along the sidewalk. Jamie remained where he was for a while, staring at the envelope in his hand.
────୨ৎ────
The envelope rested quietly in his hand and eventually, he looked down at it. There was nothing remarkable about the envelope itself. No company logo, no expensive stationery and no sign that it had come from the founder of one of the largest entertainment companies in the country. It looked ordinary. For a moment, Jamie wondered whether that was fitting. After all, the man who wrote it wasn't a CEO right now. He wasn't the owner of Foxstar Entertainment. He wasn't a powerful businessman surrounded by executives and assistants. He was simply a father writing to a son he had abandoned.
The realization settled heavily in his chest. For twenty years, there had been nothing. No birthday cards. No phone calls. No visits. No explanations. Jamie had spent most of his life convincing himself that he didn't care. It had been easier that way. Easier to be angry than disappointed. Easier to act as though the absence didn't matter than admit how much it had shaped him. Yet now, standing beneath the glow of the city lights, he found himself staring at an envelope that contained twenty years of silence compressed into a few sheets of paper.
His fingers tightened around it.
He should have hated this. He should have thrown the envelope away and walked back into the café without a second thought. The man who wrote it had missed every important moment of his life. He hadn't been there when Jamie learned to ride a bike. He hadn't been there for school performances, graduations, illnesses, heartbreaks, or any of the ordinary moments that slowly became a person's life. Every memory Jamie had ever made existed without him.
And yet he couldn't bring himself to let go.
Because beneath the anger, beneath the resentment, and beneath every unanswered question that had followed him since childhood, there was still a part of him that wanted to know.
Why had he left?
Why had he never come back?
Why wait until now?
The questions had lived quietly inside him for years, buried beneath routines and responsibilities and the practical realities of everyday life. Jamie had ignored them because there had never been any point in asking. The answers didn't exist but now they did. Jamie looked up. Less than two days ago, his future had seemed predictable. He would continue working at Bunny Arabica Café. He would continue helping his mother however he could. He would continue performing whenever opportunities appeared and keep moving forward one day at a time. The path ahead hadn't been easy, but it had been familiar.
Now there was a brother waiting in Seoul. There was a father lying in a hospital bed asking for a chance he probably didn't deserve. There was an opportunity waiting behind the doors of Foxstar Entertainment. There was a decision capable of changing everything he thought he knew about his life.
For the first time in years, Jamie couldn't see where the road ahead led.
He slipped the envelope into his bag and pressed a hand against it for a brief moment. The paper remained unopened. The questions remained unanswered. The future remained uncertain. But for the first time in twenty years, the silence had finally been broken.
And whether he was ready for it or not, there was no going back.