In front of the stage was a small area for the Korean fans and fansites. The area was maybe only big enough for a hundred people and I knew that these were rotated around so that, when filming, there was always a fair amount of the fans for the groups performing in the audience—assuming there was a big enough fandom.
Then there was a small area where the hosts would stand when not on stage, to be filmed as though they were in the middle of the crowd.
Next came the moving cameras. The cameramen were employed by the show and took the main film of the performances. These were the guys who would chat with the group’s company to see where their focus needed to be to give the best possible visual for at home audience.
Behind them were a row of raised cameras—the fan cams. These were the cameras that focused only on one member of the group.
And then, at the back was the raised seating area, which was primarily reserved for international fans.
As I arrived, ATEEZ were performing on stage. With the lights down and the cameras rolling, I stood to one side, just underneath the fan cams, scanning the faces of the seated fans.
Kyun’s father, thankfully, wasn’t there.
I waited for the lights to go up and ATEEZ to leave the stage before I checked the fan pit at the front. Honestly, I hadn’t expected him to be in there, but I wasn’t leaving until I made sure.
Backstage, although the room had been separated into private sections, H3RO were sharing the room with several other groups. Once more they were in woolen sweaters for their winter boyfriend look.
I lingered in the doorway, watching as Dante and Nate arm-wrestled with each other. Jun was busy talking to a member of Golden Child, not doubt getting more gossip—he really did seem to know everyone.
Tae was sat in the corner, oblivious to everyone with his eyes closed and his headphones on.
Just as my gaze landed on Kyun, Minhyuk stepped in front of me. “Holly?” he beamed his smile at me but tilted his head in curiosity. “What are you doing here?” He shook his head. “I was going to call you after the show. I was wondering if…” Minhyuk looked over his shoulder before looking back to me. “I was wondering if I could help you plan the Halloween party?”
“Your schedule is—”
“Not this week,” he said, cutting me off. “But next week is the last week of promotions and everything is finished with by six. I could come by after.”
“H3RO!” a voice yelled just behind me, making me jump. “You’re up next.”
The shout had naturally diverted everyone’s attention to the door, and by default, to me. Moments later, everyone was surrounding me, though, thankfully keeping a respectful distance. It was followed up with a respectful bow in greeting.
“What are you doing here?” Tae asked, shooting me a suspicious look.
“Work,” I said, vaguely. “I thought I would call by before I left, but it looks like I timed it wrong. You need to head to the side stage. You know how strict they are with timings. Don’t let Atlantis Entertainment look bad.”
I was rewarded with another suspicious look from Tae, but he led the others in another bow before leading them out of the green room.
The only person left in the section was Manager Kim. “Are they leaving straight after the performance?”
Manager Kim nodded. “You know how these shows go. So many groups that they have to keep traffic moving.”
I did, all too well.
Quickly, I explained the situation to Manager Kim, asking to keep an eye out for Kyun’s father when they left, and to bring Kyun to Atlantis when everything was finished for the day.
Tonight, I was going to tell Kyun the truth.
Turn Back Time
I was in the middle of reading documents when Kyun arrived.
He wasn’t alone.
At his side, his face set in a scowl, was Tae.
I wasn’t surprised.
Giving them both a bright smile, I walked over and gave them a kiss. As Kyun pulled back, he looked at me with a frown. “Did I do something wrong?”
“Not at all, but I do have something I need to tell you.”
“Holly,” Tae said, his voice low and warning.
Kyun looked back at him. “You know what it is?”
Tae shot me a dark look before stepping between us. “Yes. And I know Holly means well by telling you, but I really want you to trust me when I say that this is something you don’t need or want to hear.”
Kyun leaned to the side to look at me, still frowning. “I’m not in trouble?”
I shook my head, biting at the inside of my cheek to not react to that question. His automatic response of him doing something wrong was my fault for essentially summoning him to the office. This would be doing his anxiety levels no good.
“No,” I told him, stepping beside Tae. “I’m sorry to get Manager Kim to bring you to my office, but I needed a place where no one was going to walk in.” This was one meeting I had told Inhye not to interrupt me—if Kyun’s father turned up, she was to text me.
“So long as I’m not in trouble, I want to hear it.” He gave Tae an apologetic smile as Tae lightly shook his head. “But I want you to stay,” he added, reaching for Tae’s hand.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Tae promised him, leading him over to one of the white leather couches in my office.
Making a diversion to my desk, I collected the letters and email printouts I’d put together earlier, and then joined them.
“I want you to know that no matter what your decision is after this, I’m going to support you, and Atlantis will support you.” I took a deep breath. “Kyun, your father has been in touch.”
The tip of Kyun’s tongue appeared in the corner of his mouth as he stared at me.
“He has been trying to get in touch with you and he wants to reconnect. He called by Atlantis today and said he had to be in Sangam-dong. I had gone to the studio to make sure he hadn’t gotten in the audience. I didn’t want to tell you just before you went on.”
Kyun got up, shaking his hand free of Tae’s. Silently, he walked over to the window, staring out at the nighttime view of the city.
“I told you not to tell him,” Tae hissed at me.
A shudder rippled through Kyun as he lowered his head, resting it against the glass. “I saw him today. I thought I was seeing a ghost.”
I stood and walked over to him. “You’ve never spoken of your life before joining this company, other than you grew up with Tae. You don’t need to tell me, but I can guess it wasn’t good. If you don’t want to see him, you absolutely don’t have to. I’m telling you because you deserve to know, and I don’t want him to just turm up at a scheduled appearance and you have no warning at all.”
Kyun turned, looked at me, and then walked out of the room.
Honestly, I had no idea what kind of reaction I was going to get, but it whatever it was, it wasn’t that.
Running my teeth over my tongue, I turned back to find Tae giving me a pointed look. “You shouldn’t have told him.”
“Maybe not, but he deserved to know.”
Tae stood. “I’m going to go find him. I’ll see you at home.”
I moved over to the couch, sinking onto it as the door shut. Leaning forward, I picked up the letters. “I guess he doesn’t want to see him.”
It was late and I was no longer in any mood to work. I sent Kyun a message asking him if he was OK and then I gathered up my things.
I took the lift down to the basement parking lot. It was late enough that it was almost empty. Hoisting my purse over my shoulder, I hurried over to my Range Rover. Still on Atlantis property, I felt safe, but it was cold and I wanted to get into the warmth of my car.
Rounding the side of the car, I squealed when I saw Kyun waiting there. He was leaning against the car, scowling at his feet. He looked up when he heard me and pushed off the side of the vehicle. “I’ll drive,” he said, quietly.
I nodded. He opened the door and climbed in while I went to
the passenger seat. “Does Tae know you’re here? He went to look for you.”
“He knows. I told him to go home.” Kyun backed the car out of the spot, keeping his attention on driving.
Nodding, I settled back into the seat. If Kyun was here, it was because he had something to tell me. While it was likely that it was about his father, if I pushed him, he would just clam up.
Keeping my mouth closed, even when he turned the car in the opposite direction to our home, I waited.
The city of Seoul was built between four mountains. Around the river, the land is flat, but the further out you go, the hillier it becomes. To the north of the river the slopes are the steepest.
Kyun was leading us to the north-west of the city, past Namsan Tower and the mountain it sat on. It was an area of the city I hadn’t really been to before and I didn’t recognize anything.
We drove in silence for almost an hour until Kyun turned off a main street. The road was between rows of three- or four-story buildings which curved up a steep hill. The ground floor of the buildings all had stores in them. Most closed for the night.
Eventually, he pulled over, parking up. The car sat at an awkward angle on the slope, and if another car came, we’d have to move.
“Where are we?” I asked him, curious.
It didn’t feel like a sketchy area, but it also felt like we might have been in a less affluent area of the city, especially in comparison to Gangnam where Atlantis was offered.
Without answering, Kyun killed the engine and got out of the car. Grabbing my purse, I got out after him. Outside, it was cold enough to make my nose tingle. My breath hung in the air like a cloud.
“Is it OK to leave the car there?” I asked as I joined him.
He shot me a scathing look. “No one is going to steal your Range Rover.”
I held my hands up. “It’s blocking the road,” I pointed out. “If you want to take me somewhere, I’m merely suggesting that we park up on the street so that people can go where they need to.”
“The car is fine,” Kyun grumbled. He sucked in a deep breath and then turned, heading towards a closed butcher. At the last minute, he diverted down a thin side alley to a back door.
I followed after him, my heels clattering on the cobbled street. “I can think of more romantic places to take someone on a date than a dark back alley which, back in the US, is probably where I’d get murdered.”
Kyun glanced over his shoulder at me and arched an eyebrow but said nothing. Instead, using his shoulder, he pushed the door open.
“This doesn’t make me feel any better,” I muttered as I followed him inside.
Kyun hit a switch and a flickering light turned on, illuminating a stairway down into the basement of the building. There was a damp, musty smell, like the door hadn’t been opened for a long time, and a thin layer of grime on the stairs.
“Seriously, Kyun… where are you taking me?”
At the bottom of the stairs was a door. For this one, Kyun pulled his wallet out of his pocket, extracting a silver key from it.
A lot of doors in Seoul had been switched to keypads. Or maybe that was just the more affluent areas of the city.
I walked through the door as Kyun flicked another light on.
The room wasn’t big. Maybe the same size as my bedroom, which, to be fair, was large to start with. But this wasn’t just a room. It was a whole apartment.
Along one wall was a kitchenette: a rusting fridge, a worktop and cupboards. The only real piece of furniture in the room was a couch and that actually looked out of place. It reminded me of the rooftop apartments, only this was the basement equivalent.
There was one thin slit of a window, covered in layers of dirt, but I could just about make out the wheels of the Range Rover across the street. In the corner was a box of a bathroom.
In here, along with the mustiness, was the lingering smell of blood and questionable meat. No doubt something had been leaking from the butchers above.
As I looked around, there was something about the apartment that felt like I’d walked into a time capsule. “What is this place?” I asked, softly.
“Home,” Kyun replied, his gaze fixed on the couch.
“Home?”
“I used to live here when I was a kid.”
Staring up at the window and thinking of the lack of light that came in, combined with the size of the room, I realized that Kyun had grown up poor.
“We lived a few streets over until I was six. Then my mom was killed in a car accident. My dad started drinking and lost his job as a taxi driver. We ended up moving here. My dad drank to forget about my mom, and eventually, he started to forget about me.”
With my eyes locked on Kyun, I stayed perfectly still, even my breathing became quieter. I felt like making any sudden movement or noise would likely stop him continuing.
“If it wasn’t for a teacher coming to check in on me and making sure I got to school, I’d never have gone.” Kyun walked closer to the window, staring up at the street. Another shudder went through him. “That’s where I met Tae. He took me home one day and I never left.”
That was the one part of the story I knew. Even though his back was to me, I nodded.
“She came to see him, you know? Tae’s mom.”
Kyun turned back to me. For someone who always looked like they were ten seconds away from anger, his face was strangely expressionless.
“She came to ask my father’s permission to take me in. He told her didn’t know who she was talking about. To this day, she doesn’t know I heard the conversation. She’d made me stay upstairs, but I had sneaked down.”
I bit the inside of my cheek, resisting the urge to go over and smother him in a hug. Not only would he clam up, but I knew Kyun well enough to know that if I did, he would get embarrassed and angry—he didn’t like pity.
“It took years to pay off our trainee debt, but when I did, the first thing I bought was this place.”
When I’d first started working at Atlantis and I’d discovered the ‘debt’ all idols had, I’d been appalled. It wasn’t just Atlantis—all K-pop entertainment companies did it. They considered the training and development of their idols, as well as the cost of the production of their albums and music videos an expense that the idol was responsible for paying.
It was a part of the reason that so many idols were desperate for the wins. The more sales, the more money earned and the quicker their debt was paid off for them to start earning.
I felt bad for the groups which had never really succeeded. H3RO had been one of them until the last couple of years when we’d got their first win. Some groups who didn’t make enough money were disbanded early. Others were locked away ‘in the basement’, as fans called it, until their contracts expired, locked in limbo, usually having to work in convenience stores or cafes to pay their living expenses.
Considering H3RO’s status, I was willing to bet this was a fairly recent purchase. It didn’t look like it had been empty for over a decade.
“Why?” I asked, before I could stop myself.
“To make sure no child ever ended up living here. This place created enough nightmares for one kid.”
The hell with it.
I crossed the room in three strides and threw my arms around Kyun. A hug was never going to make up for a childhood without them, but it didn’t mean I was going to deprive him of one.
His body was tense beneath me, but he hugged me back.
“We should go,” Kyun eventually muttered, pulling away.
I followed him out of the room, waiting as he locked it, and then we both returned to the street. Kyun had been right—no vehicle had tried to go up the hill while it had been parked up.
We drove back to the house, once again in silence. I could see Kyun chewing at his lip and wherever his thoughts were leading him, I didn’t want to disturb them yet.
It wasn’t until we pulled into the garage and Kyun killed the engine that he finally spoke. “Did you want to meet you
r father?”
I shook my head. “No, but I’m not sure that’s a reasonable comparison.” When he didn’t respond or look at me, I unfastened my seatbelt and turned in my seat. “I didn’t know my father at all. My mom had taken me to Chicago and raised me completely by herself. And then, out of nowhere, I was summoned back to Seoul. I only came back because my mom said I might regret it. She was right: I’d never have met you.”
Kyun slowly turned to look at me. “Do you think I’ll regret it if I don’t meet him?”
“Do you think you’ll regret it if you don’t meet him?” I asked.
Despite everything I’d seen and heard, I did think he was going to regret it. There was a possibility that Ha Jeonggu was reaching out because he had changed and genuinely wanted to make amends, and maybe there was time for Kyun to create a relationship with his father, like I had.
And if Kyun didn’t want a relationship, this was an opportunity to tell his father how he felt and that he never wanted to see him again.
But that was Kyun’s decision, and he needed to make it, not me.
“Tae thinks it’s a terrible idea. He thinks I’ve already made my decision when I moved in with him in high school.”
“Kyun, what do you think?” I asked him, gently. “Not me and not Tae. You.”
Kyun stared at me for the longest time, unblinking. “Maybe,” he finally admitted. “If he hadn’t come to find me, I would never have gone to look for him, but he did, and if I don’t meet him, I’m going to wonder what he had to say.”
I reached over taking his hand and giving it a squeeze. “You don’t need to meet him alone. I’ll go with you.”
I Like That
Before we could meet Kyun’s father, I had to get through a brunch with my own.
That was unfair. Things with Lee Woojin had improved a lot over the year. It was the rest of the family which needed work. My grandmother, Park Sonha, barely acknowledged my existence unless it was to mutter venomous comments under her breath, and Seungjin…
Wicked Souls: A Limited Edition Reverse Harem Romance Collection Page 114