Prologue
For Yujin, the world was nothing but white walls and the smell of disinfectant. The hospital was the only place he had ever known—the room in which he had been shut away his entire life.
If there was any mercy in it, it was that his parents had money enough to keep him from want. That mercy, however, stopped at the bill. His family left him in the hospital and never so much as came to visit, and in the chill of the ward the only warmth he ever met was the nurse's dry, perfunctory hands when she came around, on schedule, to take his blood pressure.
Then, at last, the end came for him. The breath he had been dragging in so harshly grew thinner and thinner, and the white ceiling spread across his vision blurred and slipped away. Even in that final moment, the only faces reflected in his eyes belonged to the medical staff. His family was not among them.
"Haah... haa... h..."
The last faint breath he released scattered into the empty air. Yujin closed his eyes, praying that if another life awaited him, it would not be like this one.
Had his prayer reached the heavens?
When he opened his eyes again, he was in a baby's body—the wish he had longed for with everything he had, already granted.
"Waaah! Waaah!"