[Chapter 1] Life in Paris~
The screen glowed in the dim Paris apartment, Soo-yeon's face pixelated slightly from the distance between them.
She looked tired but still put together the way she always was — hair neat, makeup faint but present. Even at home, even on a video call, Soo-yeon Han never let herself come undone.
"The Beaumont project is still giving you trouble?"
she asked, shifting Ara on her lap. The little girl was fighting sleep, her small head drooping then snapping back up with the stubborn determination of a five year old who refused to miss anything.
Juno smiled softly at his daughter.
"The structural survey came back with complications. Nothing we can't work around."
He leaned back in his chair, loosening his collar.
"How's the Kim account?"
"Closed it yesterday."
"That's good."
"Mmm."
A beat of silence settled between them. Not uncomfortable exactly. Just... there. The way silence had been settling between them for a while now. Familiar and hollow at the same time.
"Appa!"
Minjun appeared suddenly, shouldering his way into the frame with the confidence of a boy who knew he was loved.
"My team won our practice match today. Coach said my positioning was the best on the field."
Juno straightened immediately, something warming in his chest.
"Is that so? What formation were you running?"
"Four three three. But I kept pushing higher up the line like you showed me."
"That's my boy." Juno pointed at the screen.
"But don't get comfortable. Your defensive awareness still needs work. A good forward knows when to track back."
Minjun rolled his eyes with the dramatic flair of an eight year old who had heard this before.
"I know Appa."
"Do you?"
"Yes." But he was smiling.
They both were.
Ara had fully woken up at the sound of her brother's voice and was now climbing over Soo-yeon trying to get closer to the screen.
"Appa!!" She pressed her palm flat against the camera so that all Juno could see was a tiny hand.
"Can you see me??"
He laughed. A real one. "I can only see your hand baby."
She giggled and pulled back, her face filling the screen instead, eyes wide and serious.
"Appa when are you coming home?"
The question landed quietly. The way her questions always did. Simple and devastating.
"Soon baby."
"You always say soon."
"Ara—" Soo-yeon said gently.
"Because soon is true." Juno kept his voice light. "But actually, I spoke to my boss this week. I'm trying to arrange for you all to come spend the holidays here. In Paris."
Minjun's eyes went wide.
"Really?"
"I'm working on it. No promises yet. But I'm trying."
"Paris!!" Ara abandoned all pretense of calm and started bouncing on Soo-yeon's lap. "Eomma!! Appa said Paris!!"
Soo-yeon laughed softly, steadying her.
"I heard him."
She looked back at the screen and for just a moment something passed across her face. Something gentle.
"That would be nice Juno."
"Yeah." He nodded. "It would."
They talked for a little while longer. About Minjun's school, about Ara's new obsession with drawing horses, about a pipe that had burst in the apartment building back in Seoul.
Normal things. Safe things. The conversation of two people who knew each other completely and somehow not at all.
When they finally said their goodnights Ara blew him seventeen kisses and Minjun gave him a single dignified nod that made Juno's chest ache with how much the boy was already trying to be a man.
"I love you." Soo-yeon said last. Calm and certain the way she said most things.
"I love you too." He said it back without hesitation. Because it was true.
He did love her.
The screen went dark.
Juno sat in the quiet for a moment, the blue light of the city bleeding through his window, Paris glittering and indifferent outside. He set his phone face down on the table.
And then he sighed.
Not a tired sigh. Not the kind that comes from a long day or an aching body.
It was the other kind. The kind that comes from somewhere deeper and less nameable.
The kind a man releases when he is completely alone and finally allows himself to feel the weight of both things he knew and the ones he didn't.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd ended a call with Soo-yeon and felt anything other than this. This quiet. This stillness that had nothing peaceful about it.
He used to feel something. He was almost certain of it.
He pushed himself up from the chair and moved to the bathroom, turning the shower on hot, letting the steam build before stepping in. He stood under the water for a long time, hands pressed flat against the wall, letting it run down his back.
He couldn't think about anything in particular.
That was the problem.
He dried off, pulled on a t-shirt and shorts and climbed into bed. The apartment was tastefully furnished — his company had arranged it. Clean lines, neutral tones, good light. The kind of space Juno himself might have designed for a client.
Functional.
Considered.
Impersonal.
He turned off the lamp and stared at the ceiling in the dark.
Until he was slowly consumed by sleep.
_______
The site was a converted 19th century building in the 8th arrondissement, an ambitious renovation project that Juno had been overseeing for seven months. The kind of work he was good at.
The kind that required patience and precision and an ability to hold the vision of what something could become even when it currently looked like nothing but dust and exposed brick and potential.
The week moved the way work weeks do when there is enough to keep the mind occupied. Monday's structural concerns.
Tuesday's supplier delay. Wednesday's tense call with the client who had opinions about everything and expertise in nothing.
Thursday's small victory when the eastern wall came down cleaner than projected.
Juno moved through it all with the steady competence of a man who was very good at his job.
Friday arrived grey and drizzling the way Paris Fridays sometimes do, as if the city itself was tired and ready for the weekend.
He was on the upper level of the site reviewing progress on the ceiling restoration when it happened.
A section of temporary scaffolding that had been flagged for reinforcement but not yet attended to gave way without much warning. Just a groan of metal and then the world tilting sideways.
He didn't fall far. Maybe four feet onto a lower platform, his left side taking the impact, his hard hat doing its job. The men around him were at his side immediately, a chorus of concerned French washing over him while he lay there for a moment staring up at the grey Paris sky through the open roof.
He wasn't badly hurt. He knew that immediately. But his shoulder screamed and his ribs ached in a way that suggested at least one of them had an opinion about the whole situation.
The site medic confirmed bruised ribs and a strained shoulder. Nothing broken. Nothing that time and rest wouldn't fix.
His site manager Pierre, a stocky anxious man who treated insurance liability the way some men treated religion, had him off site within the hour.
"One week Juno. Company policy. I'm sorry." He didn't look sorry. He looked relieved that it hadn't been worse.
"I'm fine Pierre."
"One week." Pierre repeated firmly. "Doctor's note. Rest."
______
He spent Saturday on his couch with anti-inflammatory medication and an architectural digest he'd already read twice. He video called Minjun and Ara in the morning. Soo-yeon had gone grocery shopping.
He called his mother in Seoul who fussed over him in the particular way Korean mothers do, equal parts love and accusation, as if the scaffolding had collapsed specifically because he wasn't eating properly.
He called his old university friend Daeho who made him laugh for an hour about nothing important. He called his younger sister Yuna who listened more than she talked and said
"you sound tired Oppa. Not physically. Just tired."
in that perceptive way of hers that he chose not to examine too closely.
By Sunday, he had reorganized his bookshelf, rewatched a documentary about Tadao Ando he'd seen three times before, and cooked himself a proper meal for the first time in months.
By Monday he had run out of things to organize. The apartment felt like it was breathing down his neck.
He was not a man built for stillness. He understood spaces, he understood how they worked, how they flowed, how a room could make a person feel expansive or suffocated depending on the intention behind it.
And right now his tastefully furnished company apartment was making him feel like a very well housed problem with nowhere to go.