Jae-Min had long ago abandoned any illusion of comfort. The chaebol heir with everything handed to him now found himself navigating the world of corporate internships, a far cry from the plush offices and luxury meetings he had once known. It was humbling, to say the least, but that was exactly what he needed. To grind, to prove himself, to show that he was capable of more than the pampered playboy he had once been.
The first internship he secured was at a small consulting firm in downtown Boston. It wasn't glamorous, it wasn't prestigious, but it was a start. The work was grueling, with long hours and high expectations. Jae-Min was tasked with menial tasks at first—data entry, research, and preparing presentations. Yet, every time he completed a task, he treated it as if it were a major project. Each document he wrote, every analysis he performed, was done with the meticulous care of someone who refused to settle for mediocrity.
His colleagues were the type who had clawed their way to this point through years of sweat and sacrifice, and they didn't have time for someone who might seem out of place. They were young, ambitious, and skeptical of the intern who came from a wealthy background, a background that could either make him a valuable asset or a useless burden. But Jae-Min didn't give them the chance to judge him. He worked harder, faster, and smarter than any of them.
Every morning, he would rise early, not to hit the snooze button and return to a world of luxury, but to immerse himself in his work, to make the most of the opportunities he had earned. He would review his business strategy textbooks, practice his financial modeling, and work through case studies late into the night.
His professors, too, noticed the change. When Jae-Min had first arrived at Harvard, he had been the aloof student, the one who showed up just enough to get by. Now, however, he was the one who stayed late after class, peppering his professors with questions, seeking advice, pushing the boundaries of the material. They had begun to look at him differently, no longer as the privileged heir who had barely scraped through under the guise of a prestigious name, but as someone who was truly committed to making his mark.
At the consulting firm, one of the senior associates took notice of his determination. Amelia, a woman in her early thirties, had been with the company for five years and was one of the brightest minds in the firm. She saw something in Jae-Min that he hadn't yet recognized in himself—the potential to rise beyond the limitations of his past.
One afternoon, she called him into her office.
"Jae-Min, you've been here for a few weeks now," she began, her tone direct. "I've noticed your work ethic. You're pushing yourself harder than most interns, and you're getting results. But I want to know what you want out of this. What's your end goal?"
The question hung in the air. Jae-Min hesitated. Back before all of this, he would have answered with something generic—something about corporate success, or taking over the family business. But now, after everything, he wasn't sure what his goal was. He wasn't entirely sure what he was doing here in the first place.
"I want to be someone who can stand on his own," Jae-Min said, his voice steady but laced with an intensity he hadn't realized he possessed. "I want to prove that I'm not just the product of my last name. I'm here to earn my place."
Amelia studied him for a moment, her eyes narrowing slightly, as if gauging the truth in his words. "I respect that. But it's going to take more than just effort. You need to show people you're not just here to fill space. You need to own it, Jae-Min. If you want to get out of the shadow of your family, you need to make yourself indispensable."
Those words stuck with him.
In the days that followed, Jae-Min focused even more. He began taking on tougher projects, seeking out clients on his own, diving into financial models with a precision that surprised even him. His nights became longer, filled with work and study, as he finished his MBA assignments and intern tasks with the same fierce determination. He wouldn't let himself rest. Not yet. Not until he had proven to himself—and to the world—that he wasn't the man who had drifted through life on the wings of his father's wealth.
But the self-imposed isolation was beginning to take its toll. The pressure to succeed, the weight of his past failures, all of it compounded in moments of quiet despair. Jae-Min had never allowed himself to feel vulnerable—he had lived in a world where he was untouchable. But now, faced with the grind of daily work, the constant push to improve, the self-doubt began to creep in. Was he truly good enough? Could he really make something of himself, or was this all a long, drawn-out act of self-punishment?
One evening, after finishing a presentation for the firm's CEO, Jae-Min sat alone in his apartment, staring out the window. The sky was dark, and the streets below were busy with the lives of others, lives that seemed so far removed from his own. In the quiet of his solitude, he took a deep breath and allowed himself to feel something he hadn't allowed for a long time—fear.
Fear of failure. Fear of not being enough. Fear that everything he had worked for, every sacrifice he had made, was just a façade that would eventually crumble under the weight of his past.
But he couldn't stop now.
The phone buzzed again, pulling him from his thoughts. It was an email from another company he had applied to, an invitation to interview for a prestigious internship position in finance.
Jae-Min stared at the screen, his fingers hovering over the keyboard. He could hear his father's voice in his mind, demanding that he return home, that he fulfill his duties as the heir to the family business. But he knew that if he went back now, he would never escape the weight of that past. He wasn't ready to return to the life that had nearly destroyed him. Not yet.
He clicked the email, scheduling the interview.
For the first time in a long while, he felt a spark of something—purpose, perhaps. The path ahead of him was still unclear, but he was no longer content to be the man he once was. The grind wasn't over. It was just beginning.