*Year - 2029*
A year had passed since Taesan's death. The calendar insisted on it. The seasons had turned, headlines had changed, companies had rebranded and expanded. Yet for Jaewon, time had stalled on the day of the accident. Everything after felt like an extension of that single, suffocating moment.
He left Korea quietly, without farewell parties or dramatic goodbyes. There was nothing there for him anymore except ghosts. Joshua had taken over the companies. The apartment was gone. Even the streets felt altered, as if the city itself had decided to erase what once belonged to Taesan. So Jaewon packed a single suitcase and boarded a flight to Canada, telling himself he needed distance, that an ocean might dilute the grief.
Vancouver greeted him with cold air and unfamiliar skies. He chose it precisely because it meant nothing to him. No shared memories. No hidden corners that would ambush him with the past.
He opened a small café on a quiet street lined with bookstores and laundromats. It was modest, almost forgettable. Exposed brick walls, secondhand wooden tables, warm pendant lights. He named it "Northbound," though he never told anyone why. To customers, it was just another cozy place for coffee and quiet conversation. To him, it was camouflage.
Most mornings, he arrived before sunrise. He liked the stillness, the way the world felt suspended before it began demanding anything from him. He would grind the beans, wipe down the counter, and breathe in the sharp, bitter scent of espresso. It grounded him. It was something real, something immediate.
"You always open too early," Seo-young said once over a video call, her voice crackling through the screen from Seoul.
"I can't sleep anyway," Jaewon replied, forcing a small smile. "Might as well make it productive."
She studied him in silence. "You look thinner."
"I'm fine."
He ended the call soon after.
The café did well enough. Students came in with laptops. Couples shared slices of cake. Office workers stopped by on their lunch breaks. They thanked him for the drinks, complimented the atmosphere, told him it felt peaceful there.
If only they knew.
***
At night, when he locked the doors and turned the sign to Closed, the silence crept in like fog. He would sit alone at the corner table, lights dimmed, staring at nothing in particular. The memory of Taesan would arrive uninvited. The way he used to straighten his cuffs before meetings. The quiet laugh he reserved only for private moments. The firm, steady voice that had once made Jaewon feel anchored.
Sometimes he found himself whispering into the empty room. "Would you have liked this place?"
There was never an answer.
What unsettled him most was not just the loss, but Joshua.
Joshua Hong. The name was impossible to avoid.
Business magazines, financial news, social media feeds. His face appeared everywhere. Always composed. Always in control. Headlines praised his leadership, his decisiveness, his vision.
"Joshua Hong consolidates power, plans to merge Altrion Group with HJ Foundation."
"Hong announces global expansion strategy."
Every article felt like a quiet theft.
It was Taesan's company. Taesan's dream. Jaewon remembered the nights Taesan had stayed awake drafting proposals, the way his eyes had lit up when he spoke about sustainable expansion and long term impact. He had poured himself into that company.
Now Joshua stood at podiums, speaking of legacy.
Jaewon would stare at the screen until his vision blurred.
"How dare you," he muttered one evening, the words slipping out before he could stop them. "How dare you say his name like that."
He tried to be rational. Joshua had been close to Taesan. Everyone knew that. He had been trusted. Capable. Perhaps even the obvious successor.
But the bitterness would not subside.
It twisted deeper whenever he thought of the accident.
A tragic brake failure. Poor road conditions. An unfortunate sequence of events.
That was the official version.
Jaewon had memorized every article, every public statement. He had read the reports so many times that he could recite them in his sleep. Yet something refused to settle inside him. A quiet, persistent doubt.
One night, alone in his apartment above the café, he spread printed articles across his small dining table. His finger traced each line as if searching for a hidden confession.
"Brake malfunction… investigation pending… no evidence of foul play…"
He leaned back in his chair and laughed softly, though there was no humor in it.
"No evidence," he repeated. "That doesn't mean no truth."
His chest tightened.
Why had Taesan been driving alone that night? Why had certain details never been fully disclosed? Why had everything moved so quickly afterward? The merger. The restructuring. The press conferences.
Joshua had stepped into power with frightening ease.
Jaewon slammed his palm against the table, the sharp sting barely registering. Papers scattered to the floor.
"Tell me I'm wrong," he whispered to the empty room. "Tell me I'm just being paranoid."
But there was no one to answer.
He hated himself for thinking it. For suspecting without proof. For letting jealousy tangle with grief until he could no longer separate them.
He was alone in a foreign country, clinging to suspicions he could not verify. What authority did he have? He was not family. Not business. Just someone who had loved Taesan too late and too poorly.
The truth, the one he never admitted aloud, was that he was afraid.
Afraid to return to Korea.
Afraid to stand in front of Joshua and see confirmation in his eyes. Or worse, to see nothing at all. Calm innocence. Indifference.
"I would fall apart," he murmured once, staring at his reflection in the dark window. "I know I would."
He tried to move on. He went on dates arranged by well meaning acquaintances. He laughed at jokes, held hands across restaurant tables, even allowed himself a few fleeting nights of distraction. But every time, it ended the same way.
A polite message. A gradual withdrawal.
It was not fair to them. They were not competing with a living rival. They were competing with a memory carved in stone.
***
On the anniversary of the accident, he closed the café early. He told customers he was feeling unwell.
Back in his apartment, he sat on the floor with his back against the couch, lights off, the city glowing faintly through the curtains.
"I'm trying," he said quietly. "You see that, right? I'm trying to live."
The silence pressed in around him.
Later that night, unable to bear his own thoughts, he opened his laptop. He had avoided Korean news for months. Avoided Joshua's face. Avoided anything that might reopen wounds that had barely scabbed over.
But something compelled him.
He typed the company's name into the search bar.
Article after article filled the screen. Expansion into Europe. Philanthropic initiatives. Interviews praising Joshua's strategic mind.
His jaw tightened.
Then, near the bottom of one page, a smaller headline caught his eye.
"Ongoing Investigation into Late Chairman's Accident Continues."
His breath stalled.
Investigation?
He leaned closer, rereading the paragraph.
Details sealed. Authorities declined to comment. Case remains open pending further review.
His heart began to pound, each beat loud in his ears.
"Open?" he whispered.
He read it again, slower this time. The wording was cautious, almost dismissive, but it was there. Not closed. Not resolved.
A strange mixture of dread and hope surged through him.
"If there's an investigation…" His voice faltered. "Then it wasn't that simple."
He stood abruptly, pacing the small room.
Could it mean nothing? A procedural formality? Or could it mean that someone else, somewhere, had also felt that something was wrong?
Joshua's face flashed in his mind. Calm. Controlled.
"Were you involved?" Jaewon asked the empty air, the question trembling despite his anger. "Did you know something? Did you let it happen?"
He sank back into his chair, hands covering his face.
He did not know which possibility terrified him more. That Joshua was guilty. Or that he was innocent, and Jaewon had poisoned his own grief with unfounded suspicion.
The room felt smaller, the air heavier.
For a long time, he simply sat there, the glow of the laptop screen illuminating his tired features.
If the investigation was ongoing, then the story was not finished. The past was not sealed away as neatly as the headlines suggested.
A fragile, dangerous thought took root.
Maybe the truth had not been buried.
He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly.
"I don't know if I'm strong enough for this," he admitted softly. "But I need to know."
Outside, Vancouver remained indifferent. Cars passed. Lights flickered in distant apartments. The world continued forward.
Inside that dim room, however, something shifted. Not closure. Not peace.
But a spark.
And for the first time in a year, Jaewon was no longer only grieving.
He was waiting.
——————— TO BE CONTINUED