Page 5 of Fallen Starboy

Two

JUN

“You guys go on ahead.I’m just going to get Yejin settled in with Pujin and I’ll join you.”

Yang-Jin and Minseo stared at me like I’d grown another head sometime during our long ass flight from Seoul to wherever the hell we were now. Some fucking end-of-the-line city in a country I never wanted to set foot in for the long term, forced here thanks to a stupid slip-up on a public outing and the inconsiderate scum of a K-netizen who decided my private life needed to be their front page payout.

In this case, the damage wasn’t just to me, but to my daughter. We had to upend her whole life when the label claimed plausible deniability and pretended ignorance of the fact that I had been raising my daughter out of wedlock, alone and in secret, when they damn well knew from the moment she’d been conceived.

They had asses to cover. I couldn’t be mad at them. At least my bandmates had escaped the fallout in one piece.

And then there were these two goons, who’d decided to escort me to the new label as a last littlefuck youto the old company. They’d never agreed with me leaving the band, andthey made that very clear, but they couldn’t afford to abandon SeoulSOUL, and I wouldn’t let them do that for me. It was time I stood on my own two feet. I had a daughter to raise.

Pujin, my security guard, had been the only one on my personal payroll, and he’d been more than happy to accompany us to keep her safe while we set up a life here in?—

“What the fuck is this place called again?”

Minseo stared at me and rolled his eyes. “It’s called Nocturna Beach, I believe.” He glanced around at the variety of night-crawling patrons coming and going around us, his lip twitching slightly as a scantily-clad woman waggled her brows at him and skated by quickly, joining another woman in the same garb by the door. “Distasteful. If this is how everyone in this country acts, I vote you find a new one.”

“Ah, come on, don’t be such a stiff, Minnie,” I teased, eyes on the man holding my sleeping daughter over his shoulder. “Yang-Jin seems to be enjoying the view.”

Sure enough, the quiet Yang-Jin was eyeing the crowd with avid interest, his gaze missing nothing as he cataloged and absorbed everything around him for later analysis. He wasn’t staring at the gorgeous girls giving him doe eyes or the men who sized him up as immediate competition. No, he was searching for any and all exits and hiding spots. His lips turned down as another girl brushed too close, giggling with her girlfriends. They turned as they passed us, clearly eyeing up our asses.

I shot one a wink and blew another a kiss, playing into myinternational playboyimage.

Pujin brought our keycards over and offered one to me with a smile. “I can take Miss Yejin up to her room, sir. The receptionist says your party is waiting in conference room B already.”

We might not be late, but they were early, and keeping them waiting would only look worse on our part.

Yejin hadn’t flown frequently before, so it was no shock to me she’d fallen asleep on the car ride from the airport to here, and I doubted she’d wake up before we all rejoined her in the room. “If she wakes up before we’re back, just order some pizza on my card. We can fend for ourselves.”

Pujin nodded and disappeared around the corner, heading for the fancy elevators that required a special keycard even to call down. The company, kNight Records, had paid for the very best money could buy, and I couldn’t say it wasn’t a little relieving to know random fans couldn’t just wander up to the floor we were staying on now. I might not be as widely known as other idols abroad, but STARBOYZ had fans on every continent. It was only a matter of time before the company back home announced my departure, and those fans came looking for me here.

“Come on, Jun,” Yang-Jin deadpanned, his eyes glued to mine as I swiveled around with a heavy heart. “Time will wait for no man. And neither will money.”

“Your English proverbs are getting better,” I teased, slapping him on the back as we neared the conference room. I could hear two men arguing and an occasional female voice that joined in with noncommittal noises of agreement or denial whenever prodded. “Hell, before the end of the year, you might not even know you weren’t born speaking it.”

My jokes were met with his classic stoic attitude as a big hand landed on my shoulder and two annoyed eyeballs peered into the back of my skull.

“Don’t try anything stupid tonight, please, Jun.”

The company had put us up in dorms when we first debuted in Korea, and the living arrangements were cramped and left no privacy for anyone. Hell, you couldn’t jerk one out without your neighboring bunkie knowing how many pumps it took you to blow a load.

I wanted a spacious, roomy home for Yejin this time around. Staying at Yang-Jin’s sister’s house was a good alternative, but it was neverourhome.

“Ah, you’re here,” a male voice said in English. “We’ve been expecting you.”

Minseo and Yang-Jin stopped dead in their tracks before me, and I ran into their strong, broad backs because I wasn’t paying attention. Whatever had them frozen in place, I wouldn’t find out from my vantage point back here.

So I slipped around them, holding out my hand for the gentleman in a suit to shake, as was the American custom.

“Hi there, I’m Kim Seo-Jun. These two here are Yang-Jin and Minseo. Don’t mind their silence; they’re harmless. I hope it’s no trouble that they’ve tagged along.”

The first man took my hand and shook it, moving sideways to allow the second man to shake it as well. “I’m Fernando, talent agent and negotiator with kNight Records. And this is Mr. Danvers, our legal representative. We don’t have a permanent translator prepared for you yet, but in the interim, one of our girls from the foreign liaisons department has volunteered to stand in for as long as needed.”

I finally spotted the woman in the room and cleared my throat as she stepped forward to introduce herself, hoping to score some brownie points with the pretty thing before we even started.

She wore a pair of long, elegant pants, half of a sharp pantsuit I’d seen some of SeoulSOUL’s female idols gushing over recently. It was an expensive piece, hand stitched and designer, but instead of wearing the adjoining blazer, the woman wore a daring, low-cut white blouse, her cleavage on full display. As visions of what she might look likeoutof those clothes raced around my head, my eyes lifted from her tits to her chin, and finally, to her eyes.

---