The Hidden Young Master

Chapter Two

Shin Jun used to believe that his parents had a beautiful love story until that night, he could still remember his father lying in bed with him and all his siblings telling them his tale. He could still remember how their eyes glittered with wonder.

They had truly met due to fate as if they were protagonists in a Chinese drama that would become popular in the future.

When their father was thirteen, his school would have a letter exchange program that would connect one student from China, where he was sent to school, to America. It was a meeting that would have never happened if his parents hadn't sent him away to learn what life was like for normal families.

He was the young master of a wealthy family in Korea, living humbly with a small allowance and a nanny in China. He would be set to inherit the family business ahead of his two younger siblings.

Their mother, however, was born in America to a fairly average family as a single child. She was spoiled by her stay-at-home mother, and her father was often out of town as a truck driver so she grew up as a bit of a bully. Not that their father would know.

At first, the letter exchange was stiff. Their father had known English due to his own mother being Canadian, but he wasn't fluent. He would sit with a dictionary in front of him while reading the letters, and carefully put together his words.

What started out as trying to learn English, would turn into a friendship. He never told her about his identity, but instead, they would talk about the smaller things in life.

They would tell one another what they had for meals, snacks, and their favorite places.

They would describe the restaurants to one another, as neither of them shared the same restaurant.

They would speak about culture and local histories.

They would tell tales about their day-to-day lives, what they studied, where they went, etc.

She didn't care if he had money, or how he did in school. She just wanted someone to talk to, to talk about her day with and it was refreshing.

Eventually, the two thirteen-year-olds would grow into eighteen-year-olds. Their father would become proficient in English, and their mother in Chinese, thinking that was his nationality. They both became fond of one another and considered each other their best friend... But alas, they had forgotten that they only received the letters due to the school system and they wouldn't receive letters from one another due to graduating.

They hadn't told each other their full names, or addresses, and the schools wouldn't tell them due to privacy reasons.

Two years would pass. Their father went home to Korea to go to university and followed behind his father to learn the family business until he was offered to join an exchange program to Canada, the place where his mother grew up.

Another moment of fate would occur as if the two were drawn towards one another by the universe, they would meet at university.

On the first day of their third year in university, the two would directly bump into one another in the doorway to their lecture and they would laugh it off as they sat next to each other, slowly becoming friends once again.

A few weeks later, they would find out that they were penpals, best friends for five years by recognizing each other's handwriting when passing course notes to one another to study.

Afterward, they were inseparable. They mingled in the same friend group, went to the same classes as one another, studied together, ate lunch together, went out to restaurants and cafes... They would start dating after only a few months of knowing each other in person.

A few years later, with a degree under his belt and a beautiful love story to be told, their father would rush back to Korea to get permission from his family to marry her and she would rush back to America to inform her family.

She was already pregnant with the triplets, though they didn't know there was more than one baby at the time.

He would fail to get permission from his family. She wasn't from a wealthy family who could bring benefits to their own, she wasn't even Korean and it would be a hassle to immigrate her. They had already planned out a marriage for their eldest son, with one of his childhood friends who's family business was close to their own.

He disagreed with his family and said if they didn't approve then he would just elope with his girlfriend. He didn't care about inheriting the family business, he didn't care about their wealth, he only wanted love.

He was disowned.

True to his words, he flew to America and married his dream girl, and they would move to China where he would create a small business with his friends and she would become a secretary for a corporate CEO until she gave birth.

The triplets were born just months afterward.

She stayed a stay-at-home mom for a year, before going back to work, where there was an in-company daycare for the worker's children. She would stay at that job for a few years until she became pregnant with Shin Jun and decisively became a stay-at-home mom.

Meanwhile, their father was building relationships with other businesses in the local town and slowly building a high-class restaurant chain.

The four boys listened to their father well, and he made them promise not to tell their mother about his past. He said that their mother would be sad to learn she was the reason he wasn't in touch with his family anymore.

Later, they would be happy they didn't tell their mother. If they had, maybe she would have stayed with their father for the wealth.

Just three years after their mother abandoned them, their father's family would come to bring them back to Korea.