The day started like any other at Mirae Group headquarters, but an undercurrent of tension rippled through the Kang family. Chairman Kang, always a man of few words, was unusually quiet as he went through the morning reports. In his private study, the silence was broken only by the sound of paper flipping as he skimmed through documents. Yet, something caught his eye—something that would rattle him more than any business scandal ever could.

It was the investigative report on Jaemin.

The family had assumed Jaemin had been wasting his time in the United States. That much was clear—his three-year absence from Korea had fueled countless rumors, all painting him as a failure who had indulged in excess. The Chairman, however, was not the type to entertain rumors without first seeking the truth. And so, in a quiet corner of his office, he had launched an independent investigation into his son’s time abroad. What the report uncovered, however, would shake him to his very core.

Jaemin hadn’t been living a life of excess. Far from it, he had been quietly building something—something that none of them could have predicted. His time in the States hadn’t been spent in clubs or bars. He hadn’t frittered away his inheritance or squandered his family’s wealth. In fact, the report indicated that Jaemin had been extraordinarily disciplined with the money he had been given, even going so far as to earn a significant amount on his own through investments and consulting. The report even noted Jaemin’s startling decision to revoke his South Korean citizenship and apply for American citizenship, a move that struck the family as both drastic and irreversible. But it wasn’t the citizenship change that sent a chill through the Chairman’s spine. It was the underlying revelation that his son had entirely rewritten his story in the past three years.

He hadn’t just survived; he had thrived. Jaemin had reinvented himself—his achievements were nothing short of extraordinary, and yet the family had no clue. As Chairman Kang sat back in his leather chair, staring at the report, it dawned on him how little he really knew about his son. What had driven Jaemin to make such drastic decisions? What had shaped him into this new person? And, most disturbingly of all—why had Jaemin kept all of it a secret from them?

As Chairman Kang’s mind raced, his thoughts were interrupted by a soft knock on the door. His daughter, Ji-Na, stood in the doorway, her expression unreadable. She had been the one to request a copy of the report, curious as always about her brother’s mysterious life in the US. But when she saw the expression on her father’s face, she hesitated.

“Father, what’s going on?” she asked, stepping into the study. Her eyes darted to the report in her father’s hand.

The Chairman didn’t respond immediately. Instead, he handed the document to her with a slight, almost imperceptible nod. Ji-Na took it from him, her fingers brushing against the cold, polished surface of the paper. As she read through the report, the shock on her face was evident. Her brow furrowed, and her lips parted slightly as she processed the unexpected details. Jaemin’s life in the US, it seemed, had been nothing like what she had imagined. He hadn’t been wasting his time. He hadn’t been partying, drinking, or wallowing in failure. Instead, he had been carefully crafting his future—his independent earnings, his quiet yet significant investments, and his decision to give up everything tied to the family name.

Ji-Na’s mind raced. This couldn’t be the Jaemin she had known. This couldn’t be the same person who had walked away from everything. She turned the page over, searching for more details, unable to comprehend what she was reading.

“Father… this—this is impossible,” she whispered, barely believing the words on the page. “How could he have done this? How could Jaemin have changed so much?”

Chairman Kang, who had been staring out the window, finally turned his gaze toward her. His expression was unreadable, but his voice betrayed a hint of disbelief.

“It’s shocking, isn’t it?” he said softly, his voice lacking the usual authority. “How could someone go from what he was to this in just three years?”

Ji-Na didn’t answer, too stunned by the revelations in the report to form a coherent thought. She had always seen Jaemin as the family’s failure, the one who couldn’t meet their expectations. To learn that he had accomplished so much in secret, that he had made a name for himself on his own, was nothing short of mind-boggling.

“Father, this… this doesn’t make sense,” Ji-Na said, her voice trembling with confusion. “Why didn’t he tell us? Why didn’t he come home and show us what he’s been doing? Why did he stay away?”

Chairman Kang leaned back in his chair, his fingers steepled in thought. “Maybe… maybe he didn’t want us to know. Maybe he didn’t want to be tied to this family any longer.”

The two of them fell into silence as the weight of the situation settled over them. The idea that Jaemin had distanced himself from them, not because he was lazy or irresponsible, but because he had actively chosen to reinvent himself, was something neither of them could quite grasp.

But what worried them both even more was the question they didn’t dare to ask: what had Jaemin gone through to make such drastic changes? If the investigation was accurate, if Jaemin had truly gone through hell to reach this point, what kind of man had he become?

Neither of them was ready to confront that reality. Jaemin had always been the difficult son, the one who refused to follow the family’s prescribed path, and now he had become someone who existed in a space they didn’t understand. A space they feared.

As they both sat in the quiet of the study, Ji-Na’s thoughts drifted back to the first time she had seen her brother since his return. He was a stranger now, someone who moved through the world with an air of quiet authority that was as unsettling as it was impressive. His success was undeniable, but so was the distance he had put between himself and the family. And as the report suggested, there was no going back to the way things were.

They were no longer sure how to even begin to relate to him. In fact, they realized, they didn’t really know Jaemin at all anymore.

It was clear now: Jaemin had changed—and they were afraid to find out how much.