The K-pop Idol's Secret Child

Chapter5

At 8:45 the next morning, Ji-hoo was sitting in a black sedan outside Soo-ah's villa. He'd dismissed his manager, driven himself, worn no disguise. If anyone recognized him, let them. Let the whole world see.

At 8:52, the front door of the building opened. Soo-ah stepped out, alone. She looked different in the morning light. The exhaustion was still there, but there was something else too, a defiance, a steeliness that hadn't existed in the girl he'd known. She walked to the sedan and knocked on the window.

"Get out," she said when he rolled it down. "We're not talking in the car"

He got out. They stood face to face on the cracked sidewalk, a kpop idol worth billions and a single mother in a faded sweatshirt, and for a moment, neither of them spoke.

"You look tired," Ji-hoo finally said.

"I have a six-year-old."

"You look beautiful."

Soo-ah's jaw tightened. "Don't. Don't do that. Don't say things that sound like a drama script. You're here because you want answers. I'll give you answers, and then you're going to leave, and we're going to go back to our lives."

"Is that what you want?"

"It's what's best."

"Answer the question, Soo-ah. Is that what you want?"

Her lower lip trembled, just for a second, before she controlled it. "What I want stopped mattering six years ago."

She led him to a small playground behind the villa, a rusted swing set, a slide with graffiti, a bench overlooking a patch of weeds that might have been grass once. They sat on the bench, a careful foot of space between them.

"His name is Hae-sung," Soo-ah began. "He was born on March 15th, at 3:47 AM. He weighed three point two kilograms. He had your nose from the moment he came out. The nurses kept saying, 'Oh, he's going to be a heartbreaker,' and all I could think was that I wished you were there to see it."

Ji-hoo's hands were shaking. He pressed them between his knees to still them. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I was going to." Soo-ah stared at the slide, not looking at him. "The day I found out, I bought a bus ticket to Seoul. I was going to show up at your practice room and just... tell you. But I saw you on the way."

"Where?"

"There was a convenience store near your agency. You were inside with your manager, buying ramen. You looked so happy, Ji-hoo. You were laughing about something, and your manager was patting your back, and I could see the future written on your face. You were going to be a star."

She finally turned to look at him, and her eyes were dry but devastating.

"And I was going to be the girl who ruined it. A baby at eighteen. A scandal before debut. The agency would have dropped you so fast your head would spin. Your fans would have called me a s**t, a gold-digger, a trap. And you... you would have resented me. Maybe not at first. But eventually. When you watched your friends debut and you were stuck changing diapers in a one-room apartment, you would have looked at me one day and thought, 'She ruined my life.'"

"I would never..."

"You don't know that." Her voice was soft but final. "You were eighteen. I was eighteen. We were children, Ji-hoo. Children who made a child. And I made the only choice that gave you a fighting chance."

Ji-hoo stood up abruptly, pacing in front of the bench. His hands were in his hair, pulling slightly, the way they did when he was composing lyrics and the words wouldn't come.

"I spent six years thinking you were dead," he said, his voice raw. "I hired private investigators. I went to your parents' house, they'd moved, left no forwarding address. I went to your grandmother's house in Jeolla, and the neighbours said she'd passed away, and the family had sold the property. I had nothing, Soo-ah. Nothing but a text message that said goodbye."

"I know."

"You know?"

"I saw the articles." She hugged herself, shrinking slightly. "The ones about how you still talked about your first love in interviews. The ones about how you'd never dated anyone publicly because you were 'waiting for someone.' I thought about reaching out a hundred times. A thousand. But every time I picked up the phone, I'd look at Hae-sung and think, 'He's happy. He's successful. Don't ruin it.'"

"He's not happy." Ji-hoo stopped pacing, standing directly in front of her. "He's not happy, Soo-ah. I've been playing a character for six years. The perfect idol. The humble actor. The single heartthrob. And every night I go home to an apartment that doesn't feel like home because the only person I ever wanted to share it with vanished into thin air."

He knelt down in front of her, bringing his face level with hers. Up close, he could see the fine lines around her eyes, the small scar on her chin from when she'd fallen off her bike at fifteen, the way her left eye watered slightly when she was about to cry.

"I'm not asking you to marry me," he said. "I'm not asking you to move in or go public or any of the things you're afraid of. I'm asking for time. I'm asking to know my son. I'm asking for a chance to prove that the boy you fell in love with didn't die when you left. He just... went to sleep. And I think you might be the only one who can wake him up."

Soo-ah's face crumpled. The tears she'd been holding back finally spilled over, and she pressed her hands to her mouth to muffle the sound.

"You can't just say things like that," she whispered. "You can't just show up after six years and say things like that."

"I can," he said. "And I will. Every day. For as long as it takes."

From somewhere above them, a small voice called out.

"Mom? Are you okay? I heard crying."

They both looked up. Hae-sung was leaning out of a third-floor window, his dinosaur pyjamas still on, his dark hair sticking up in six different directions.

Soo-ah wiped her face quickly. "I'm fine, baby. Go brush your teeth."

"Is the prince still here?"

Ji-hoo stood up and waved. Hae-sung's face split into a grin.

"He's still here," Soo-ah said, and something in her voice had changed, softened, surrendered. "He's going to stay for breakfast."