Jaeha was born at an annoying time. It's annoying because he won't know if he's an eclipsed until he's 13. Not that he's looking forward to that, understand; he doesn't want to be eclipsed. If he eclipses, he'll have to spend two years in virtuality, and that's really not an acceptable amount of time to spend away from his studies. And of course, he knows the chances are very small, just one in a thousand. But still, it's annoying that he has to wait so long. He wishes it were over and done with already, that he could put this eclipsed nonsense behind and focus on his studies.

If he were perfect, he wouldn't be wasting so much time thinking about a one-in-a-thousand chance. It shouldn't be distracting him from his duties. It kind of makes no sense that it is. He needs to focus, and stop thinking about that. What he needs to think about is how to be perfect for father, like a good heir, a good son. He needs to think about whom to emulate, needs to compare and contrast. So he thinks about other doms a lot. All the time.

He's... been thinking about other doms kind of a lot, recently. He knows why, it's because he wants to know what he'll be like when he grows up. That's why. And the reason he gets excited about it is, well—puberty, of course. Physiological reactions are just physiological reactions, and besides, it's good and correct that he will feel excited about the prospect that he will grow up into a hot and powerful dom. He should be a hot and powerful dom. And that's what he imagines being. It definitely is. He likes sports, he is fit, he's popular at school, he's attractive. When he was 11 he kissed a sub and he didn't like it very much but it was probably because she was unattractive, definitely not as attractive as he is, and he was picking up on the fact that he was too good for her. He tried telling her to do things and it didn't feel right, he didn't feel powerful, and it's probably because he's still learning, still figuring it out. He needs to mimic his tutors and the other doms who do it right better. Of course, to other people he looks perfect, but he knows he must be failing at something, at some step there, because he doesn't feel perfect.

He will be perfect someday, he knows that. He has a lot of study material. He is going to be so hot when he grows up, so hot, like, just as hot as his tutor Park Taeyang-nim, who manages to be very commanding. So commanding that he even manages to elicit a response from other doms, like Jaeha. Jaeha wants to be that commanding someday, to be able to dom even other doms.

...

Well, regardless of what he wants, he will be that commanding someday, because that's what being perfect is. It's sounding just like Park Taeyang-nim. He needs to pay a lot of attention to his seonsaengnim, so that he'll know how to be perfect. Just like him.

He turns 13, and shortly after he eclipses.

The sinking feeling in his stomach, compounded by his father's look of disapproval, only doesn't make him throw up because he has been fasting and there is nothing for him to throw up. He can still taste the bile in his throat, though, and he does his best to not let it show.

On the bright side, he's a psion. That's the more useful of the two by far. Although that's maybe not such a bright side; if he'd been a mage, his father would have had him locked down, and he wouldn't need to face two years in virtuality now. Him being a psion means that he could be useful.

Actually, he'll just focus on that. Yes, two years of virtuality will be very bad for his growth and for becoming perfect, but on the bright side he'll get magic powers that can make up for it. That's the bright side. Focus on that. Actually he can do that, he can focus on that. When he focuses on that, he's cheerful again. Happy. That's why he's happy, it's because he'll get something useful out of this time out. That makes sense, a ton of sense, actually, that's why he's not feeling as bad as he thought he would. He's gonna spend two years in virtuality, away from Kang Jaehyuk and Park Taeyang and all of his tutors, and...

...

He'll be... away from Kang Jaehyuk. For two years. He will, in fact, be away from everyone, for two years, because Kang Jaehyuk does not want it getting out that his son is eclipsed. Jaeha will be locked down for a couple of months, just until winter break, and then he will be "moved to a boarding school abroad", and while in virtuality he will be using a different name (Jake, but he will keep the Kang last name, since it's common enough in Korea), and no one will know who he is. His father will give him study materials, and a plan for what he will be focusing on as an eclipsed, and will be expecting frequent reports on Jaeha's progress. But for two years, he will be away from Kang Jaehyuk.

In virtuality, Jake Kang is not perfect. Oh, he'll study the things Kang Jaehyuk wants him to, he'll get the empathy and the limited precog, so that he has useful reports to give Kang Jaehyuk and so that he will not be forcibly pulled out and locked down. He is still a minor, and he has to play to Kang Jaehyuk's tune, here.

But he's free. He doesn't have to tell anyone that he's Kang Jaeha. He's just Jake, the Korean boy who moved recently to North America and still has a very strong accent. Jake, just a boy who is a psion and who is working on his magic, alongside everyone else in virtuality. Jake, who will major in engineering probably when he goes to uni, because he likes maths, and he likes machines. He's just Jake, and he's not perfect.

Jake is also not a dom.

He doesn't know what he is. Not a sub, that's for sure, he doesn't want just anyone telling him what to do, and when a couple of kids try him they get what they've got coming. They are not Park Taeyang.

But when he finds someone else who is a bit more like Park Taeyang than others—and it's a girl! a girl dom! the West is amazing—he might let her tell him what to do. Just a little bit. And he might even do it. Oh, sure, his ID says "dom", but isn't this sexy? Isn't this hot? Doesn't she feel so powerful, that she gets him to flutter his eyelashes at her and kneel before her and feed her fake virtuality fruit?

Only as much as he lets her, of course. But that is still much more than Kang Jaeha ever would have.

By the time Jake leaves virtuality, he knows a lot more than he did before he went into it.

He knows how to tell what people are feeling, in the broad strokes—both magically and not, he has learned to associate his magical feelings with his nonmagical intuition to get a result that's better than the sum of its parts. He knows how to tell what people will feel, depending on what he does or says, which is a sufficiently restricted and limited form of precognition he managed to get it down during those two years. He's even got the very first steps of being able to just directly get people to think he did or said something that made them feel a certain way.

He knows he is not a sub, but he is not into subs, either. He's into doms. But not all doms. Just the good ones, the ones who know what they're doing. He is really, really gay.

And he knows that he will never, ever be perfect for Kang Jaehyuk. He knows there is nothing he will be able to do to get Kang Jaehyuk's pride or approval. He understands that the very best he will get is a lack of disappointment, always temporary.

When he's out of virtuality and sees his father for the first time in two years, he knows his father does not love him, never has, and never will.

He's still a minor. But now, here, on the other side of virtuality, in America, Jake Kang does not need to fear that Kang Jaehyuk might lock him down. That danger has passed. Kang Jaehyuk only has one prospective heir, him, and Jake Kang knows, now, that actually Kang Jaehyuk needs him a lot more than he needs Kang Jaehyuk.

Still, Kang Jaehyuk can make Jake's life harder. Jake Kang has a lot of incentive to keep practising his psionic powers, so that he will no longer be subjected to Kang Jaehyuk's whims and desires. Kang Jaehyuk is so, so confused by what happened in virtuality, what caused his darling son who always tried so hard to please him to stop.

Jake now knows that Kang Jaehyuk is an incompetent idiot.

He can do whatever he wants, with whomever he wants.

He's heard of these new fancy schools for eclipsed people. And he's in America.

He can do whatever he wants. With whomever he wants.

Jake Kang is free.