1
Chapter 1:
June 13, 1989. A child was born.
“Director, the mother has disappeared!”
Unfortunately, this child was abandoned at the hospital without ever tasting his mother’s milk.
“I had a bad feeling about this…”
“How much does an abortion cost?”
“Why is it so expensive?”
“Can’t I just have the procedure first and pay later?”
Even months later, the director could not forget the mother’s reaction when she heard the cost of the abortion.
A mother so sensitive about money not asking about the cost of giving birth left a deep impression on him.
She was barely an adult, and though he had seen her a few times, he had never once seen her husband.
In other words, the director knew that her decision to give birth was not out of maternal love or responsibility, but because of the burden of abortion costs.
Still, as the due date approached, he held onto a faint hope that her heart might change. But there was no such twist.
“Send the child to an orphanage.”
All he could do was help bring the child into the world as a doctor, and as a human being, send the child to an orphanage.
Thus began the child’s life in the orphanage.
Fortunately, his days there were fairly smooth.
There were days he cried, but far more days he smiled.
He was too young to understand what parents even were, let alone feel the absence of their love.
Above all, he had never once stepped outside the orphanage, and the children around him were just like him—either without parents or abandoned by them—so there was no need to feel any relative deprivation.
But as he grew older, he came to understand what parents were, and what adoption meant.
Like the older kids and his friends, he began to dream of being adopted.
He was four years old at the time.
“We’ll take this child.”
Soon after, he was adopted by a couple struggling to have children. From a child with unknown origins, he became the son of a family where the father was a researcher at a large corporation and the mother was an artist.
Both sets of grandparents were wealthy building owners.
“Wow!”
He expressed his joy with his whole body.
It wasn’t joy from a reversal of fortune.
It was joy for the happiness he would build together with the parents he finally had.
After being adopted, just as he had hoped, he was surrounded by a happiness he had never experienced before.
His adoptive parents were even devoted enough to move to the United States voluntarily, fearing social prejudice against adoption.
Compared to the orphanage, which provided only the bare minimum and modest affection, this was an incomparable life filled with love and happiness.
But this happiness did not last long.
Two years later, his adoptive mother, who believed she was infertile, became pregnant. The happiness he felt began to shrink.
After his younger sibling was born, that happiness didn’t just shrink—it disappeared.
No matter how hard he tried to be loved, he could not compete with a newborn who only ate, slept, cried, and soiled itself.
“Why are you bothering a child who’s playing just fine!”
Even his attempts to be a good older brother became reasons for scolding.
“Honey, I don’t think this will work.”
His adoptive mother, who had carried her biological child for ten months, naturally decided to give him up.
“Hmm… I guess it is difficult.”
Even his adoptive father, who once gave long speeches about how taking in a pitiful child had moved heaven to bless them with a biological son, ultimately agreed to abandon him.
“The older he gets, the less attached I feel. He’s becoming darker.”
The same man who chose to adopt him because he seemed bright and unburdened now blamed the child for becoming shadowed under his care.
“And let’s go back to Korea.”
“What?”
“Seeing Minho, I think Korea would be better than the U.S.”
“What are you talking about?”
“What if he gets discriminated against for being Asian!”
“Well… that’s true…”
An adopted child could never beat a biological one.
As soon as they returned to Korea, they gave him up.
Not to the orphanage that had originally placed him, nor to one in Seoul, but to a small orphanage far away from Seoul.
He was eight years old.
‘I’ll succeed…’
The child who once dreamed of adoption, who once feared being abandoned, changed.
‘I’ll definitely succeed!’
It wasn’t a decision driven by luxurious emotions like revenge.
Even if he had been abandoned in the end, he had once lived a materially comfortable life, and he simply wanted to live that kind of life again.
The problem was that achieving such a life as an orphan was incredibly difficult.
But he matured early and had a sharp mind, which allowed him to enter the prestigious Korea University’s Department of Chemical Engineering as the top student.
Not through any special admission track, but through general admission.
It was the result of a school life devoted entirely to studying.
It was a rather pitiful school life.
But he was satisfied.
He had achieved his first goal.
He also entered Munak Chemical as the top recruit, achieving his second goal.
Again, thanks to focusing solely on studying.
Now he had to achieve his third goal: buying a luxury apartment in Gangnam.
He had no parents to help him financially, but thanks to his biological parents exempting him from military service, he started working earlier than most men.
In 2012, his starting salary at Munak Chemical was 38 million won.
His monthly take-home pay was just under 2.8 million won, but compared to others his age who struggled for years with barely any income, it was a huge head start.
The problem was that ten years later, while his salary had risen to 150 million won including bonuses, the apartment he aimed for had skyrocketed from 780 million to 3 billion won.
After ten years of dedication, his total assets were only 500 million won.
At thirty-three, that wasn’t a small amount.
But it was far too little to achieve his dream.
More importantly, it was money earned in exchange for nearly every happiness a human could enjoy.
It was also far from enough to achieve his fourth and fifth goals: becoming a good husband and a good father.
Marriage costs more for someone without family support.
The biggest problem was that housing prices were rising faster than he could climb.
The burden of being a head of household would only grow heavier.
He had gotten into Korea University on his own, but now people got in with their parents’ money.
The most serious issue was the inheritance of poverty.
‘Let’s give up…’
After ten years of chasing a Gangnam apartment, he finally stopped.
His third, fourth, and fifth dreams all vanished.
An elite became part of the generation that gave up on everything.
But unlike others, he still had money.
‘Maybe I should travel abroad.’
Things he had once given up for the sake of a future family became new goals.
‘Maybe I’ll try scuba diving. And golf too.’
Luxurious hobbies he had never dared to imagine now came into view.
‘Maybe I should really splurge for once.’
An expensive bicycle, a sports car worth hundreds of millions, luxury clothes, bags, wallets, watches—things he had only dreamed of now felt within reach.
‘I shouldn’t have lived like that…’
His life was filled with nothing but regret.
If he was going to spend money anyway, he should have spent it when he was young.
If only he had realized earlier that a Gangnam apartment was unattainable.
But that wasn’t all.
What if he had invested in stocks instead of trusting banks?
Even if not cryptocurrency, he could have done stocks.
Regret over financial decisions choked him daily.
But even that wasn’t everything.
‘Even living like that, they make billions…’
Being first in studies didn’t mean being first in society.
Sometimes high school graduates earned more than top university graduates.
Studying was a low-risk, low-return choice.
To achieve his dream, he needed to take risks.
But his life had always been far from gambling.
The only gamble he ever took was choosing chemical engineering over medical school.
Doctors had higher average salaries, but he believed chemists had higher ceilings.
The problem was, he didn’t have the courage to start his own business.
‘I should have lived like that…’
It wasn’t envy of others’ success.
It was regret over not living differently.
‘Maybe I should start now…’
He wanted to live freely.
But he couldn’t.
He had always lived for work.
And with electric vehicles rising, he had to focus on battery development.
Missing the timing would be fatal.
He wanted to make Munak Chemical the best company in the world.
Then, disaster struck.
“It’s leukemia.”
At first, when he had nosebleeds, he brushed it off.
Working nonstop made it seem normal.
When he collapsed, he thought it was overwork.
Even when coughing, he assumed it was a cold.
But when the pain became unbearable, he went to the hospital.
He was diagnosed with leukemia.
“You also have pneumonia and sepsis. You should prepare yourself.”
The doctor spoke calmly.
“How long do I have?”
“About a month.”
Even hearing that he would die in a month, his face remained expressionless.
“Just to clarify, this has nothing to do with Munak Chemical.”
Leukemia had plagued workers.
But unlike Munak Semiconductor, Munak Chemical did not recognize it as an occupational disease.
“What car do you drive?”
“What?”
“If I only have a month, I want to try something better than yours.”
After learning the answer, he left.
Strangely, he felt relieved.
There was nothing left to be responsible for.
No reason to struggle.
Now, he would do whatever he wanted.
Later, in the parking lot, he smashed the doctor’s car.
Then he drove to the factory.
He triggered the fire alarm.
Workers evacuated.
He even caused a small explosion to ensure safety.
Then, at the factory’s core, he prepared for a final act.
But he hesitated.
‘The workers did nothing wrong…’
He couldn’t go through with it.
At that moment, everything went dark.
A question appeared in his mind.
If you could turn back time, when would you go?
‘Before adoption… no, when I was abandoned!’
The world went dark.
Then it lit up again.
He was eight years old once more.