Chapter 1
Chapter 1
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: My Kid's Music is Different
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Now six years old, Yeonwoo carefully eased the door open, holding his breath.
Yeonwoo's room was a tiny space with a small window, the kind found next to the kitchen in old houses—what people usually called the kitchen annex and turned into a storage room.
Creak.
The door to Yeonwoo's room was like something out of an ancient house, in a place that even had its own separate kitchen annex, so no matter how gently he opened it, the hinges let out an obnoxious screech.
Yeonwoo panicked, but it was already too late.
"Didn't I tell you to open that door quietly because the noise annoys me?"
The woman sitting on the living room sofa beyond the kitchen shot him a glare and scolded him.
Seeing her like that, all Yeonwoo could do was look up at her with a dejected face.
The woman glared at him menacingly for a moment before turning her gaze back to the TV.
Watching her expression, Yeonwoo cautiously sat down at the kitchen table.
Someone's half-eaten leftover meal was Yeonwoo's lunch.
Yeonwoo shoveled the half-dried rice someone had left uneaten into his mouth as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Bang.
While he was wolfing it down, the front door opened and slammed shut with a loud crash.
Yeonwoo, mid-bite, hunched his shoulders.
"I'm home."
The man who entered was middle-aged.
His face flushed red as if he'd already had a drink in the middle of the day, and he scowled at the sight of Yeonwoo eating in the kitchen.
"You're scrawny as hell, but you never miss a meal, huh? Rice thief. Tsk."
At the man's words, Yeonwoo made a pitiful expression like a rain-soaked puppy and quickly stood up to clear the table.
"What the hell? Drinking in the middle of the day? Cut it out already!"
"You never even set up a proper table for your husband, and now you're nagging me?"
Yeonwoo hurried back into the kitchen annex as the two began to argue.
They were his Uncle and Aunt, his mother's siblings.
The childless couple had taken in Yeonwoo last year after his mother passed away.
Leaving their bickering behind, Yeonwoo let out a deep sigh in his room and gazed out the window.
Sunlight poured dazzlingly through the tiny window, too small even for Yeonwoo to squeeze out of.
Back when his mom was alive, on days with weather like this, they'd go on a picnic to the neighborhood park.
She'd pack a lunch with Yeonwoo's favorites: kimbap and bulgogi.
But now, it was just a fond memory to yearn for.
His mom had died from illness, and all Yeonwoo had left was the trauma that stole his voice and a life of tiptoeing around at his uncle's house.
In this grim reality, the only escape was this little room. As Yeonwoo sighed and stared out, his ears perked up.
He couldn't go outside to confirm, but there were people nearby playing the piano.
Probably a music academy—early in the morning, the piano accompaniment would drift in through the window.
Yeonwoo got up and moved closer to the window.
It was positioned high enough that he couldn't see outside, but the piano sounds came through even clearer.
Unknowingly, Yeonwoo closed his eyes and focused on the melody.
His mom had been amazing at the piano.
She knew every song, and even if Yeonwoo hummed some random tune, she'd play it perfectly.
Listening to her play like that for a long time would summon the blue fairies, just like now.
They began dancing before his eyes, in time with the piano.
The first time he saw them, Yeonwoo had been terrified.
They were small and cute, but even to a child's common sense, they seemed like beings that couldn't exist in this world.
When he told his mom about them, she looked at him with joy tinged with sadness.
'Our Yeonwoo can see them now, too.'
She said they were visible to her eyes as well.
His mom had told him they were Music Fairies who loved music.
And sure enough, whenever they heard a song, they'd appear, dance, chatter in words he couldn't understand, and play with Yeonwoo.
At some point, they were always by his side.
Until he came to this house.
They hated it here with his uncle and aunt.
The only time they showed up now was moments like this, when the piano sounds drifted in.
They looked a bit clumsier than when they danced to his mom's playing, but this moment was Yeonwoo's happiest time.
He smiled warmly at the children dancing in their own ways.
But it was only for a moment.
"Hey, go buy some medicine!"
His uncle burst through the door, and the fairies vanished in an instant.
All that remained was his terrifying uncle.
Yeonwoo stood up and stared blankly at his uncle, who spoke with a gaze like he might devour him any second.
His uncle looked back with a "What the hell?" expression, then clicked his tongue and smacked Yeonwoo hard on the head.
Seeing Yeonwoo crumple to the floor, his uncle said,
"Ugh, forgot you're that mute little shit who can't talk. If I'd known you were this much of a burden, I never would've taken you in."
His uncle scribbled the medicine name on a torn corner of the calendar and thrust it at Yeonwoo.
Clutching the paper, Yeonwoo headed out.
Yeonwoo couldn't speak right now.
It wasn't that he'd been mute since he was little.
Yeonwoo suffered from elective mutism—or more precisely, aphasia.
From the shock of losing his mom.
His uncle was the type to hurl hurtful words at him without restraint.
Each time, it felt like nails driving into the young boy's heart, but if he'd cared about that, he wouldn't have beaten Yeonwoo when drunk out of his mind.
Yeonwoo trudged out of the house toward the gate.
As he pushed open the rusted gate with a creak, matching the old house,
he saw people standing in front of it.
While Yeonwoo stared blankly, they examined him closely and exchanged glances.
What could it be?
As Yeonwoo tilted his head, the lady among them—the one with the kindest smile—knelt down on one knee to meet his eyes and asked,
"Are you Yeonwoo?"
"……"
Yeonwoo nodded silently.
"Yes, you're Yeonwoo. Yeonwoo, this lady is from the Child Protection Center. The people behind me are police officers."
"……"
"They've come to protect you."
Yeonwoo's eyes lit up as he looked at the lady.
He pulled out the letter his mom had left him long ago—the one she said to give to anyone but his uncle and aunt who promised to help—and handed it to them.
[This child has parents. The people with him now have no legal relation to him.
Though I was trapped mentally and physically by them and couldn't escape, please save this child.
If you've come to rescue him, please let him return to his father's arms.
His father's information: name, Shin Jihoon……]
After checking the letter, they exchanged looks. The woman took care of Yeonwoo, while the police headed toward the house where his uncle and aunt were.
It was the moment a ray of light pierced the darkness that seemed to await Yeonwoo's future.
* * *
"...Still no luck finding them?"
-We've looked everywhere, but it doesn't seem like they're in Seoul—or anywhere in the capital area.
"And?"
-We're only operating in the capital area. To search the provinces, it'd cost more...
"Sigh... I understand. I'll pay whatever it takes, so please find them."
Shin Jihoon, a successful salaryman at a major corporation, had been searching for people for a long time.
His wife and child.
His wife and only child had vanished like the wind.
It was the night he came home at dawn after overtime.
And for a long time, he had wandered in search of them.
But he didn't abandon his life or job.
When he found them and brought them back, he'd have to be the head of the household responsible for protecting them, so he couldn't drop everything to look.
Of course, on days off or vacations, he'd set out on his own without fail, but mostly, like now, he entrusted it to professionals who made finding people their business.
But it wasn't easy.
Even after filing a missing persons report, the police hadn't found them properly, and their registered address was still the one-room apartment from their newlywed days.
Time passed, and he rose to youngest section chief at the corporation, living without financial worries, but he still couldn't leave that one-room.
The only change was that the rented place was now in his name.
Of course, he could afford a better home.
He spent only on the search, so money wasn't an issue.
But what right did he have, robbed of his wife and child, to live in luxury?
Day after day, his body and mind wasted away, yet he clung to everything, struggling on.
But no matter how hard he searched, or whom he hired, they eluded him.
Even now, he regretted it.
He shouldn't have given his address to his mother-in-law.
She'd shown up late to "help" her runaway daughter, with a kind smile that won sympathy and wormed into their marriage.
His wife rejected her, but he thought it was a wall from her childhood and worked tirelessly to reconcile them.
But it turned out that "mother-in-law" was actually his wife's stepmother, who had gaslit her and ruined her life until she fled.
The woman had been in a common-law marriage with his father-in-law, used his wife to seize the inheritance after his death, and kept her mentally imprisoned.
He hadn't known his wife had fallen in love with him, Shin Jihoon, as an adult and finally escaped.
Realizing she couldn't truly break free, she ended up back in the spider's web with their child.
At least he knew the stepmother's details.
No matter how she fled, he'd catch her eventually, he thought.
But now that she was dead, even that thread was gone, making the search for his wife and child more hopeless.
Just as he was pouring money into dead ends and drying up inside,
news came from the lost family themselves.
-This is the Child Protection Center. Is this Shin Jihoon?
"Yes... that's me. What is it?"
-We received a child abuse report and are protecting Shin Yeonwoo at our center. Are you his father?
Shin Yeonwoo.
His son's name.
His precious son, now six years old.
And he learned the shocking truth.
His wife was already dead.
His wife's stepbrothers had taken over binding her after the stepmother, and after her death, eyed her insurance while keeping the child.
What a vicious family.
How could such a woman and child exist in this world?
And child abuse, no less.
The stepbrother hadn't even raised Jihoon's son, Yeonwoo, properly.
Or maybe, since he was that evil, it was fortunate they'd found him this way?
Shin Jihoon heard the full story and rushed to the Child Protection Center to reclaim his son.
There...
"……"
was a beautiful child who looked just like his wife—the one he loved most in the world—staring at him blankly.
In that instant,
the heart of the man called a cold-blooded machine at work, knowing only his job, crumbled.
The little boy's frail body, so thin he could feel the bones, pierced his heart even deeper.
But Jihoon didn't cry.
He didn't want to show tears first to the family—and son—he'd searched for so desperately.
Jihoon steadied his trembling voice and said to Yeonwoo,
"Hi, Yeonwoo...?"
He had so much to say, but the words wouldn't come.
Still, this one he had to say.
"I'm your dad... Yeonwoo. I'm sorry it took so long to find you. Dad's so sorry."
With those words, Jihoon couldn't continue.
The tears he'd held back burst forth.