{Life in itself - 1}
Before deciding to become an idol, the initial dream he always had was to become an artist first.
Mainly because his father was a musician and always chastised him about the current trends popular artists seem to have, for him the purpose of music, the purpose of any art wasn't made for commercialization but mostly for feeding our souls.
He knew how to sing, he had a ear for music, so he went ahead and took the easy way, because no matter what kind of style his family had been harboring for years, the truth was he was different.
Of course there was also this underlying tone of rebellion that had him going towards the path he chose for himself, ebcause seeing his father angry at him for wanting to become an idol instead of being like him, an unknown artist who does what he does because he loves it, because he can't live without it kind of made him think that he was doing the right thing.
If it makes his father angry, then he's doing the right thing.
He doesn't even remember when he started thinking that way. It might have been the passage from a teenage life to what he is right now, still too young to be called an adult and too old to be called a teenager.
Or maybe he was just jealous.
Maybe he had this envious strike in him that had him trying to be different from his father, a man so many well known artists respected and looked up to. He might have also been scared, afraid he was going to lamentably fail if he even as tried to be as good and as soulful as his father was with his art, his voice, his music.
He might have thought that quitting the house, leaving the roots he couldn't hold up to behind could have been the easiest way to forget where he came from, forget the expectations and the same of being jealous of someone who'd given him everything and even more than he could ever wish for.
He was right though, it was the easiest way.
Even if becoming an idol required a lot of work, a long process, years of training, but knowing that it was something his father never went through made him give it his all.
The fact that he might have never ever seen himself on stage even after all that hard work, didn't matter, what mattered was to make sure he was recognized by his father for doing something different, what mattered was to gain his pride through something he could do and make him forget about his son being a failure for choosing that path and maybe--maybe his father could also be jealous of him.
Deep down, Jaebum always wonders if his father knew about it.
Maybe he did, maybe he didn't.
But now, he would never know which one it was. Not with his father gone, and him having wasted six years of having these horrible feelings lingering in, even after the man told him that it didn't matter, "You're still my son, you should come back now."
He should have given up then, instead of being stubborn and denying that he didn't like this life he chose, he didn't like any of it, it wasn't the right one for him.
If he did that, he would have been able to hear his father one last time.
It's not that he regrets it for not being there, he regrets it for not being the son who would let his father see him one last time before leaving.
He didn't see any other alternative, when his father died but to quit and start anew, even if he's still lost, still a bit too angry at himself, at his own choices and at the tombstone of his father consistently haunting his mind, despite the fact that he's never seen it.
Six years and he's still scared, for different reasons perhaps, but still scared nonetheless.
He's never really been anything but the little thirteen years old boy who looked up at his father singing one day and forgot that he wasn't just an artist, but his father.
He should have treasured that.