Chapter 1: Prologue

I’ve been lucky since I was young.

My biological father was a scumbag, but I had a good mom.

My father would often get drunk and raise his fists.

Mom fought back against him to protect me.

Even in my young heart, I felt her devotion and love.

Maybe because of that, I think I became a bit obsessed with receiving praise.

“Teacher. I’ll do it.”

During my early years in elementary school.

I tried hard to get praise from the teacher at school too.

“Huh? This is heavy…”

“It’s okay. I just need to put it over there, right?”

Was it because the homeroom teacher had a similar aura to my mom?

I often volunteered for tasks I wasn’t asked to do, and the teacher favored me for it.

The teacher gradually entrusted me with more and more tasks.

I think it was also because when I stood among the other kids, my head was a full head taller.

“Having Hyun really reassures me, doesn’t it? Then I’ll count on you. Ah, Hyesun, could you help out a bit?”

“Yes, Teacher!”

That day was an outdoor class day.

While the teacher led the class, I moved with my female classmate to push the roller.

“I’ll grab this side!”

At the time, I didn’t really like the kids in my class.

I felt they were too loud and talked about useless things too much.

Especially my classmate, the only one in class taller than me, who even had a loud voice.

“Ready~ One, two…”

Anyway, since the teacher told us to do it together, I stood side-by-side with my classmate and grabbed the roller handle.

It was a roller for compacting the playground.

It was large and heavy for children to handle.

Drrrrk

“Huh? I was counting… Hmph.”

I wasn’t just tall; I was also strong and ran fast.

Without waiting for my classmate’s count, I put my strength into it and pushed the roller forward.

“We have to do it together!”

I didn’t answer and headed towards the corner of the playground.

My classmate hurriedly scrambled to catch up beside me.

It was when we got close to the flowerbed.

“Huh? Wait! Hyun, wait!”

My classmate shouted right into my ear.

The sharp, high-pitched voice peculiar to children touched something within me.

“Frog! There’s a frog ahead! Stop!”

When I didn’t stop and kept going, my classmate screamed and pulled my arm.

Just because there was a small frog in the path of the roller.

“Let go.”

“Stop!”

I shook off the hand grabbing me.

But the girl stubbornly clung to me.

Grasp

So, I did it.

Because she was screaming and hindering my work, I responded appropriately.

“Go around it…”

Crack

I grabbed the girl’s slender fingers and bent them sharply outwards.

“Aaaaaaaah!”

Thud

My classmate screamed louder than ever before and collapsed onto the playground.

I regained my peace of mind and finished pushing the roller.

Of course, I didn’t go around the frog.

Indeed, I am lucky.

The teacher and other adults thought my classmate’s finger broke because she ‘fell down’.

But my mom had the ability to see right through me.

“She kept getting in the way.”

“In the way? Wasn’t she helping you, Hyun?”

Mom didn’t scold me.

Instead, she asked about my thoughts in a calm tone.

“I was taking the shortest route, and she interfered.”

“Still, since she’s a friend, how about listening to what she had to say?”

“She’s not my friend. And that was the most efficient way. She got excited and just started shouting.”

Thinking back now, Mom’s voice might have been calm, but her expression probably wasn’t.

“Our son is certainly smart… Hoo.”

Mom stroked my head and prepared to go out.

Then she took me to a specialist.

“Hyun, nice to meet you. Could you tell me a bit about yourself?”

A young female doctor in a white coat asked me various questions.

“Hmm… So, in Hyun’s opinion, that was the efficient thing to do?”

“Yes.”

“So how did you feel? Were you sad that your friend was hurt? Or did you think you resolved the situation rationally?”

“I thought I handled the situation rationally and well.”

Knowing I had learned to read Hangul early, she had me fill out questionnaires too.

“Doctor. Does my child have… a mental illness?”

“We can’t be certain yet.”

So, the place Mom took me was the psychiatry department of a general hospital.

“Hyun is very bright. Precocious, too. We need to run some tests and observe him a bit more, but.”

“Yes.”

“There’s likely a problem with specific thought patterns or emotional processing. The amygdala or…”

“What? What does that mean…”

Meeting that passionate young female doctor was another stroke of luck for me.

Even when my mother and I couldn’t go to the hospital, she would sometimes come to see me herself.

“We will choose various approaches for diagnosis. Identifying Hyun’s thought patterns and behavioral patterns…”

“Ah…”

“By doing so, we’ll be able to adjust aspects that could be problematic in daily life. Even if there’s a congenital issue with brain function, our brains have a characteristic called plasticity.”

After our first meeting, I regularly had sessions with the doctor.

I underwent various tests and did some training whose name I didn’t know.

“What if a bad person appears with a dangerous weapon?”

“Then I’d assess whether to run or if there’s a means to subdue them and…”

“Wouldn’t you be scared?”

“Scared? Of what?”

I communicated very well with the doctor.

She especially praised me a lot.

“Hyun’s Mother. Hyun has outstanding spatial awareness. Also, his ability to visualize situations in his head and recognize patterns is remarkable.”

She also discovered my strengths and imparted valuable life wisdom that I would cherish forever.

“We will focus on this. Mother, please help out a lot too.”

“What should I do?”

“Have him visualize the situation in his head first. Hyun’s imagination might even be more detailed than reality.”

The doctor never once said there was a problem with me.

“Hyun. There are parts of you that are different from other friends. Everyone is different. Right?”

“Yes.”

“Hyun also has things he likes and dislikes, things that make him happy or sad. Other people are the same. Hyun doesn’t feel fear easily, but people usually feel fear when faced with something different from themselves.”

Instead, she helped me understand differences.

“So let’s try this. First, picture it in your head.”

And she trained me.

With my mother. For a long time.

That incident happened when I graduated from elementary school and became a middle school student.

A sunny spring day.

I entered a shabby commercial building to get a haircut.

The salon was on the second floor, requiring a climb up narrow stairs.

Tatadat

When I had almost reached the top of the stairs, I heard footsteps.

It was a man wearing a cap pulled down low, and he instantly ran up right behind me.

Thwip—

The person reached out towards the nape of my neck.

At that time, I wore fairly expensive headphones around my neck.

They were something my mother had stretched her finances to buy for me.

The doctor had diagnosed me with low stress tolerance, and one of the factors that caused me significant stress was noise.

I reacted particularly sensitively to human voices.

So my mother bought me relatively expensive headphones, and the man who suddenly ran up was targeting those precious headphones.

That was an unforgivable act.

Grasp

The moment the man’s hand touched the headphones.

I was already imagining it in my head.

Whether there was CCTV in this building, whether the stairs were visible from inside the salon, whether I could sense anyone else around.

And how I could protect my headphones.

I vividly pictured every scene.

Whoosh—

The man grabbed my headphones and pulled roughly.

Simultaneously, I made my decision.

Thump

I quickly crouched down, grabbed one of his legs, and lifted it with all my might.

As high as possible.

Just as I had imagined.

Bang, Clatter-clatter-clatter

The man lost his balance and fell.

His lower body flew up as he landed headfirst on the stairs.

Then he tumbled down to the first floor.

Thump

I barely caught the headphones the man dropped.

Fortunately, they weren’t broken.

Ding-a-ling

“Welcome~ Oh? Hyun, you’re here?”

“Hello. Hairdresser, outside…”

“Geez. I told you to call me Noona! Can you wait a moment?”

“Yes. But I think we need to call 119 first. There’s a man outside who…”

I heard later.

The man who targeted my headphones was a runaway teenager, and he died instantly.

Luckily, I wasn’t suspected of anything.

But I told Mom the truth.

I like my mom very much, and Mom hates lies.

“I’ll be back in a week.”

After hearing my story, Mom left the house for a week.

She made a huge pot of curry before leaving.

That was the punishment.

For a week, I waited for Mom, eating only curry.

“How was it, living apart from Mom?”

“I missed you.”

“But if Hyun commits another big wrongdoing, you might never see Mom again for your whole life. Is that okay?”

Mom taught me how to keep the ‘social contract’.

By utilizing the fact that my sense of possessiveness was very strong.

“You just need to end the imagination as imagination. You can do that, right?”

“Yes. I understand.”

I felt a strong possessiveness towards my mom, and Mom knew that fact well.

“But what if ending it as imagination results in a greater loss?”

“Can Hyun judge that properly?”

“Um… I don’t know.”

“That’s why you need to study hard. Even if you dislike people, you need to learn how to blend in among them.”

Mom was wise.

She used that single incident as an opportunity to present a path for me to integrate into this society.

Thanks to her, as time passed, I was able to safely establish myself as a member of this society.

Today, I left work in the afternoon.

As usual, I boarded the last car of the subway and leaned against the wall.

It’s nice that the end cars have relatively fewer people.

‘It’s supposed to rain tonight…’

Perhaps I might have to go out again at dawn.

Many people die on rainy nights.

Then, naturally, I get busier too.

While considering schedule changes in my head.

The subway I was on started crossing the Han River.

‘Huh?’

I casually looked out the window, and the sky was overcast.

But the clouds were red.

Even though it wasn’t time for the sun to set yet.

‘Strange.’

The scenery outside felt somewhat unreal.

Feeling something was off, I looked around inside the car, but most people were looking down, focused only on their smartphones.

Ssk

I took out my earphones.

Then I heard a woman’s voice.

“Oh? Wow…”

The woman was taking pictures of the scenery outside.

Following her gaze, I turned my attention back outside the window.

Krrrrumble

Along with the sound of thunder, shooting stars were falling.

Not just one shooting star, but a meteor shower.

Countless red lines embroidered the sky.

Like red threads connecting the sky and the earth.

It was an incredibly majestic and beautiful sight.

Screeeeeech

And then, a sharp sound came from somewhere.

Clunk

At the same time, the floor shook.

No, the subway car shook.

Screeeech Thump!

In that fleeting moment.

I pressed my face tightly against the window and tried hard to look forward.

“What, what is it?”

People’s panicked voices were heard, and my eyes caught sight of the front of the subway.

Red lines were falling directly above the subway too.

‘Fatty.’

I immediately threw myself forward.

Towards the fat man who was near me.

Lifting the large backpack he was wearing, I squeezed my body between the man and the bag.
The smell of the man’s sweat hit my nose sharply.

“Uh, uh? What…”

The man’s bewildered voice was heard, but I paid no attention and clung to him tightly.

Because, no matter how hard I pressed my face against the window, I shouldn’t have been able to see the front of the subway.

Screeeeeeech

The sound, like twisting sheet metal, swallowed all other noise.
Soon, my body tilted.

“Kyaaaaah!”

The sight I had seen was the front part of the subway soaring into the air and derailing.
Like a snake raising its head.

And even now, I could see another Han River bridge outside twisting like taffy.

“Ugh!”

The man I was clinging to let out a startled sound.
My feet left the floor, making it impossible to control my body.

I raised my arms to cover my head.

Thump-thump-thump-thump Craaaaaash—

Loud noises echoed from all directions, and windows shattered.
Through the chaos, the faint screams of people remained.

Thud

Soon, the world was engulfed in darkness.