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Chapter 05
My name is Watanabe Ren. My Korean name is Kim Ryeon.
My mother is Korean, and my father is Japanese.
Whether it was simply unfortunate that they met during a time when Korea and Japan were at one of the lowest points in their relationship…
Or whether they were people who should never have met in the first place…
Everyone around them strongly opposed their relationship.
My mother’s name was Kim Hyang-eun.
It’s a name I’ll always miss.
My father fell in love with her the moment he saw her. After persistently courting her, they became lovers, got married, and eventually had me.
As time passes… once we have a child… once that child is born…
Those had been their hopes.
But contrary to everything they had dreamed of, my father’s family never stopped opposing their marriage or tormenting my mother.
I heard that my father tried desperately to stop my mother when she left, taking me with her.
Even now, whenever I occasionally see the resentment in my father’s voice when he speaks of her, I can tell that he, too, was deeply hurt.
After my mother took me back to Korea, my father was pressured by his family once again and married a Japanese woman named Ryoko.
In that household, even the word remarriage was taboo.
Everyone simply called it a marriage.
It was celebrated with blessings and warm congratulations, but contrary to everyone’s expectations, Ryoko kept giving birth to daughters.
Eventually, after she had her second daughter, the family ordered my father to bring me back from Korea.
They needed a son to carry on the family line.
I was eight years old when I first met the woman who would become my stepmother.
She had eyes like a snake.
Cold.
Creepy.
Repulsive.
In complete contrast, the mother I remembered had always been as warm as sunlight.
Like every loving mother, she cherished me as though I were the only treasure in the world.
I missed those gentle hands so much that many nights I cried myself to sleep.
“Our Ryeon… my beautiful Ryeon.”
I can still remember the way my mother called my name.
Her voice overflowed with love.
She was always smiling whenever she looked at me.
At the time, however, my maternal grandfather desperately needed surgery, and my mother was in urgent need of money.
My father’s family offered her more than enough money to cover the operation and promised her the best medical care available.
In exchange…
They took me.
For an eight-year-old child, life in Japan was nothing short of a nightmare.
My stepmother treated me like an unwanted intruder, and my half-sisters’ hostility terrified me.
Having never experienced hatred before, I became nothing more than a target for them to vent their emotions on.
I was only an innocent little boy who understood nothing.
Every day I waited for my mother to come and take me home.
I simply wished each day would pass as quickly as possible.
I clung to the vague belief that if today passed, surely my mother would come tomorrow.
That hope was the only thing that kept me going.
Whenever I grew tired of waiting for her, I blamed myself instead.
Was I sent here because I was a bad child?
Because I never listened to Mom?
If I become a good boy again… will she come back for me?
Mom…
I’m sorry.
Please come get me.
Praying with all my heart that somehow my words would reach her, I would stand by the front door every day until darkness fell.
Even on freezing winter nights, no one in that house cared that a small child was standing outside alone.
I hadn’t come there by choice.
Yet everyone in that family treated me like a thief.
They were the ones who insisted on bringing me there.
And so I grew up learning firsthand just how cold and cruel they could be.
As I got older, I never really wanted or needed anything.
Financially, I lacked for nothing.
But inside…
My heart always felt empty.
Like I was chasing clouds that could never be grasped.
And yet, ironically…
Because of my family’s prestigious status and my appearance, there were more women than I could count constantly surrounding me.
It was the complete opposite of my stepmother, who shuddered every time she looked at my face because I resembled my mother.
Wherever I went, girls I didn’t even know would blush and approach me.
Wherever I went, there were always girls waiting to hand me their phone numbers or confess their feelings.
The more attention I received from women, the more they became something ordinary…
Predictable.
Boring.
Even my own mother—who had loved me more than anything—had ultimately been forced to let me go.
I knew genuine feelings existed.
But I’d learned far too early how fragile and easily discarded they could be.
Because of that…
Everything in life felt empty.
The obedient Ryeon, who had always done exactly what his family demanded as their chosen heir…
No longer existed.
