Back in Seoul, the Choi family was living a life untouched by the chaos Jae-Min had chosen. Seung-Hyun, the patriarch of the Mirae Group empire, sat in his study, his fingers tapping impatiently on the sleek desk. His demeanor was impassive, as usual, but there was a flicker of concern in his eyes—one that he quickly masked.

"Where is he?" Seung-Hyun muttered under his breath.

His wife, Min-Ji, was in the living room, sipping her tea, unbothered by the passing of days without hearing from their son. She had long since given up hope of him ever coming back. Jae-Min had become a source of embarrassment, someone who had failed to live up to expectations. She knew how hard he had fallen from grace with the Han Group’s daughter and how everything in his life had unraveled. Yet, she assumed he was simply drowning in his own self-pity—an emotional wreck somewhere in the United States, drinking away the remnants of his failed engagement.

"You’d think he’d at least show up for the holidays," Seung-Hyun remarked again, his voice colder now. He had sent countless texts, messages, and even tried calling, but there had been no response.

Min-Ji glanced up briefly from her phone, barely acknowledging her husband. "He’s probably still there, wallowing in self-pity. You know how he gets when things go wrong. The Han Group... well, they were always too good for him. I bet he’s just drinking himself into oblivion."

Seung-Hyun let out a long, controlled exhale. He had hoped for more from his son, but Jae-Min had let him down. He had always been too soft, too weak to handle the pressure. Even now, after Jae-Min’s departure, Seung-Hyun never considered that his son might be doing something productive or meaningful. He was a failure, and that was all he could see.

"At least Ji-Na’s doing well," Min-Ji said, turning her attention to her eldest daughter, who was busy organizing a charity event for the family’s social image. Ji-Na had always been the perfect daughter in her parents’ eyes—focused, ambitious, and loyal to the family name.

Ji-Na's life was exactly what they had hoped for Jae-Min—beautiful, poised, and entirely in control. There was no room for failure in her world. And with Jae-Min out of sight, out of mind, it was clear to everyone that Ji-Na was the real heir to the family legacy. Her success was everything they could have asked for, while Jae-Min’s absence only reaffirmed their belief that he wasn’t worth their attention anymore.

"Ji-Ho doesn’t care," Seung-Hyun muttered, thinking of his youngest son, who was barely around the house. Ji-Ho was content with his gaming, his friends, and the few luxuries that came with being a member of Korea’s wealthiest family. He had no interest in Jae-Min’s self-destruction, no interest in his brother’s downfall.

"I don’t think Ji-Ho’s been concerned about Jae-Min for a while," Min-Ji replied dismissively, continuing to scroll through her phone. "He never liked him. Not since high school."

The conversation moved on, as it often did when it came to Jae-Min. They didn’t dwell on the son they had lost, because in their eyes, he had already been lost a long time ago. There was no expectation for him to return, and certainly, there was no desire to engage with someone who had never lived up to their standards.

But while his family assumed he was wallowing in his failure, Jae-Min was far from the image they had painted of him. He wasn’t drinking or partying away his life. He wasn’t throwing away what little dignity he had left. Instead, he was buried deep in work, away from the comforts of his family’s wealth, working tirelessly to create a life that would never be defined by their expectations.

In his quiet apartment in New York, Jae-Min sat at his desk, the glow of his laptop screen illuminating his sharp features. The world outside had no idea who he had become, and that was exactly how he liked it. He wasn’t the weak, pathetic heir they had hoped would fail. He wasn’t the man who had been discarded by the Han family.

He was a different person now.

But even as he worked—his mind focused on the spreadsheets, the market analysis, the numbers—his thoughts occasionally drifted back to his past, to Soo-Ah. He hadn’t expected to care so much when her engagement to another chaebol heir flashed across the news. But he did. The pain was still raw, a bitter reminder of his own inadequacy.

As he saw her smile in the press photos, standing next to another man—one more suited to her family’s desires—he couldn’t help but feel the weight of his failure all over again. He had failed her. Not only had he failed to meet her expectations, but he had also failed to build the kind of life that would have earned her love.

But unlike before, he didn’t drown in self-pity. He didn’t reach for a bottle of liquor. He didn’t wallow. Instead, he turned his pain into something else—a fuel to work harder, to be better. The scars of his past were still there, but they had become part of the man he was now. He had the power to change. And he would.

But the news of Soo-Ah’s engagement was a reminder he couldn’t escape. Every time he sat in his office at Goldman Sachs, staring at the figures on the screen, the image of her radiant smile would appear, haunting him from the corners of his mind.

He could never have her now. And it was his fault.