21. Jae
Chapter twenty-one
Jae
The black lacquer table is long enough for eight people, but only three of us sit at it.
Morning light comes in through the tall eastern windows, catching the steam rising from my mother’s tea.
The room is lined with dark oak paneling that swallows sound so completely you can hear the faint thump of my father’s reading glasses hitting his nose.
It’s the kind of silence that forces you to think about how loud your fork is against the plate.
My bowl of congee sits half-finished, lukewarm, a skin forming across the top. My fork taps against the rim.
Tap-tap. Tap. Tap-tap.
Three taps, a pause, two taps. I’ve been doing it for seven fucking minutes.
My father doesn’t look up from his newspaper. His chopsticks move with the same mechanical rhythm that has governed every morning of my life—pinch, lift, chew, rest. The business section of the Chosun Ilbo is spread across the wood, but his eyes haven't left the same paragraph for two full minutes.
My mother focuses on my bowl. Not on me. Her chopsticks hover above a small dish of pickled radish, holding that particular pause that means she’s about to deliver a speech she’s already rehearsed.
“You know we only want what’s best,” she says softly.
“I know,” I say.
My father turns a page. The newsprint snaps in the quiet.
“One semester,” he says to the paper. “That was the expectation.”
“That wasn't the agreement,” I reply, keeping my voice flat. “The agreement was that I would finish my degree at Blackthorn rather than with private tutors here. The location was explicitly agreed upon.”
The location was agreed upon—a year-and-a-half concession my parents had reluctantly granted in this very house after I begged them for a single goddamn chance to live out from behind a billboard.
But my father had treated Blackthorn like an expensive, temporary phase.
He assumed a few months under an alias in California would cure my restlessness—that I’d get the desire for a 'normal life' out of my system, realize how inconvenient living sixteen hours away was, and quietly return to Seoul to finish his tailored SNU program under private tutors right here in this house before stepping into Crown & Throne.
He didn't account for me actually building a life there. He didn't account for how much I needed to stay Jae Kim.
He didn't account for Amiyah.
But neither did I.
My father sets his chopsticks down. The polished wood touches the porcelain with a soft, final click.
“You’ve had your time away,” he says. “You’ve proved whatever point you were trying to make.”
“I wasn't making a point,” I growl, my jaw clenching tight enough to ache. “I’m finishing my education. I have one year left at Blackthorn, and I intend to complete it.”
“At a school that takes you sixteen hours away from your actual responsibilities,” my father says, his voice dangerously even. “We tolerated the arrangement because we expected you to come to your senses once the novelty wore off.”
“It’s not a novelty,” I say, my voice clipped. “And it’s not about running away from responsibilities. It’s about having responsibilities that are actually mine.”
My mother sets her chopsticks down with meticulous care, her expression fragile. “Hyunjae…is it us? Did we make it so unbearable here that you’re fighting this hard just to stay across an ocean?”
“It’s not about you,” I say, turning back to my father. “I want a life of my own. I want to build my own practice after I graduate.”
My father lets out a short, quiet exhale—not a laugh, but the breath of a man listening to a kid describe a fairy tale.
“A private practice,” he says smoothly, leaning back. “And tell me, Hyunjae—how do you plan to run a clinic while sitting on the board of Crown & Throne? Where in your schedule does surgery fit between tour dates, brand obligations, and managing an international media empire?”
“I’ll make time,” I say.
“It is a blueprint for failure,” my father counters, his eyes dark and unyielding.
“You are asking to trade a global legacy for a fantasy that the paparazzi will crush within a week. The second a lens finds your clinic, your quiet little dream becomes a spectacle. Your patients become headlines. You cannot hide behind a stethoscope, Hyunjae. You are Kai Ryu.”
The name lands on the table like a lead weight.
I don't raise my voice. I don't give him the reaction he wants, and I sure as hell don't start screaming like I would have a year ago. I just sit there, my hands flat against my thighs, holding his gaze without flinching.
“I’m Jae,” I say softly. “And I’m finishing my degree.”
My mother looks between the two of us, taking in the wall I’ve built around myself over eight months in California.
She doesn't push further, but the quiet that settles over the table feels heavier now—loaded with the realization that no matter what bullshit they built for me in this house, I’m still looking for a way out.
My father picks up his chopsticks again. The pickled radish makes a crisp crunch between his teeth.
The argument is over. It always ends like this—not with a resolution, but with a quiet standoff where no one moves. I pick up my spoon, but my hand betrays me—a sudden, involuntary tremor in my wrist that makes the metal rattle against the rim.
Damn it.
I set it back down.
My mother reaches for the teapot, pouring herself a cup of barley tea. Steam coils into the air between us.
I push my chair back, the legs gliding without a sound across the floor.
“I have prep for the term,” I say, keeping my hands in my pockets so they can't see my knuckles turned white.
Neither of them looks up.
I walk out of the room with my spine straight and my pulse hammering against my ribs, the quiet following me all the way down the hall.
Fuck their expectations.
The living room is where family conflicts go to freeze over.
Floor-to-ceiling glass looks out over the gray sprawl of Seoul, and my little sister is sprawled across the center cushion of the leather couch, swallowed whole by a gray plush shark blanket.
The fleece jaw frames her face like a giant hood, two stuffed pectoral fins flopping over her ribs, and a tail fin dangling off the edge of the cushion.
She hasn't moved. Her eyes are fixed on the screen above the fireplace, where two women in matching neon tracksuits are screaming at each other over a stolen yoga mat. The volume is muted, meaning she’s been reading subtitles for the entire forty minutes my parents were dissecting my life in the breakfast room.
She pulls a Pepero stick from the box balanced on her plush shark stomach without looking, biting through the almond coating with a sharp snap.
I walk past the sofa, my shoulders tight enough to snap.
“??? ? (little bitch),” she mutters, her face framed by stuffed shark teeth.
I stop. “Excuse me?”
“‘I’m Jae and I’m finishing my degree’?” she mimics in a dead-accurate, low drone, peering up at me through the plush shark jaws. “Real dramatic. Did you rehearse that in the mirror before you flew in?”
“I’m twenty-six,” I say, ignoring the jab. “Stop eavesdropping on breakfast.”
“I didn't have to eavesdrop, the walls are paper-thin and you were practically vibrating with angst.” She shifts her weight, the fleece tail fin slapping against the couch cushions.
“Though I have to admit, your whole noble rebel routine is a lot less convincing when you spend half the night whispering into a headset like a lovesick middle schooler.”
I freeze. My pulse does a sharp, violent stutter against my ribs.
She notices the micro-reaction instantly. A slow, terrifyingly smug grin spreads across her face from inside the giant shark mouth.
“Oh?” she singsong, propping her chin on her stuffed pectoral fin. “Did I hit a nerve? Is that why you’re suddenly so desperate to cross an ocean back to your little veterinary fantasy? Or does it have something to do with the girl I hear you talking to until four in the morning?”
“I don't know what you're talking about,” I say, keeping my voice flat.
“Right. Because ‘Go be brilliant, hotshot’ sounds like something you’d say to a male study buddy,” she fires back, her eyes sparkling with absolute glee. “What’s her name?”
The sheer, unfiltered terror of having my two worlds collide through an eighteen-year-old in a shark blanket makes my jaw lock.
My sister watches the panic settle into my face, completely triumphant. “You’re welcome for keeping your secrets so safe,” she says, reaching for another Pepero with a lazy flourish. “For now.”
I don't say a word. I step toward the couch, pivot sharply, and release a loud, deliberate fart right beside her shark tail that echoes off the floorboards.
The Pepero freezes an inch from her lips. Her eyes go wide in utter horror.
Before she can react, I reach down and snatch the Pepero box clean out of her hands. Crumbs scatter across the gray fleece.
She lets out a sharp, operatic shriek from inside the shark head. “HYUNJAE!”
I’m already moving. I plant my hand on top of her shark hood and give it a rough, messy shuffle that pulls her braids completely undone underneath the fleece. She bats wildly at my wrist with her stuffed fin arms.
“Stop it! STOP! MY HAIR!”
I unspool the ties, then step back out of reach.
“HYUNJAE KIM!” her voice booms down the hallway after me, muffled by the plush shark head. “I HATE YOU! I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE FOR THIS! YOU’RE DEAD!”
I round the corner toward my bedroom, holding my middle finger over my shoulder with the stolen Pepero stick clutched between my fingers.
Her shouting fades behind my bedroom door. I step inside and shut it with a soft click.
Silence.