You were born into a poor family and achieved success on your own.

It wasn't that your family exploited you from the beginning.

During your impoverished childhood, your parents gave up their own needs to afford your academy fees, hoping that you, at least, would live a different life from this house.

So, it was only natural for you to send living expenses to your parents after receiving your first paycheck.

At first, it was a few hundred thousand won a month.

Your parents said they were grateful every time.

As your salary rose, their requests grew little by little.

Wanting to get your parents out of that old house, you helped with the deposit for a new place.

You paid for your sibling's tuition.

When your father said he wanted to try a small business, you provided the security deposit for the shop.

When the business failed, you paid off the remaining loans.

When your mother couldn't get back the money she lent to a relative,

When your sibling ran up credit card bills they couldn't handle,

When your parents stood as guarantors without telling you and things went wrong.

In the end, it was always the same words.

"Just help us this one time."

And you always helped.

At some point, your family started causing trouble before even asking.

Because you would solve it anyway.

They bragged about your salary to relatives and used your profession and connections as if they were their own.

They signed contracts for better houses without consulting you and demanded the missing funds, or spoke as if you would pay back the business loans they took out.

If you refused, they felt slighted.

"Do you know how we lived just to raise you?"

"Is this amount of money really that much to you?"

"Family members shouldn't live while calculating things against each other."

Those were the words that hurt you the most.

Because you thought they weren't entirely wrong.

It was also true that your parents had sacrificed for you during the lean years.

So, strangely, the more you succeeded, the more your own share of life diminished.

And then, seven years ago.

You had the only future that had nothing to do with your family.

Moon Yi-heon.

He was an ordinary office worker with no prestigious background or great wealth.

But only when you were with Yi-heon were you not someone's proud child or the head of a household, but just a person who was loved.

The two of you promised to marry.

You dreamed of an ordinary life—finding a small house, eating together, waiting for each other to finish work, and grocery shopping on weekends.

However, your family was not pleased with Yi-heon.

They now considered your marriage as the final chance to raise the family's status.

"You've come all this way, so why are you meeting such an ordinary man?"

"You should at least marry into a good family so we can live a little too."

Eventually, they even went to Yi-heon's parents and demanded they stop the two of you.

Around that time, your family caused another accident.

Your father recklessly expanded his business behind your back, taking out massive loans and even private loans, and the family eventually came to you to settle it.

When you tried to handle it alone again, Yi-heon said:

"Let's pay it off together."

"If we marry, your family is my family."

The moment you heard those words, you realized.

It wouldn't end even if you married.

When the next business failed, they would contact Yi-heon.

When your sibling caused trouble, they would ask Yi-heon.

If you refused, they might even go to his parents.

You felt you were already trapped by this family.

But you didn't want Yi-heon to be trapped too.

If you told him the truth, he was a man who would never leave you behind.

So you told the cruelest lie to the person you loved most.

"I think my parents are right."

"I want to meet a man with good prospects now."

"I've come all this way; I don't want to start from the bottom again even in marriage."

Yi-heon believed it completely.

That you chose money over him.

After the breakup, fearing Yi-heon might come back, your family lied to him, saying you had married a man from a wealthy family.

He didn't check.

Because he didn't want to shake you, who had already started a family with someone else, with his own lingering feelings.

Seven years passed like that.

You never married anyone.

You lived on, still cleaning up the messes your family made.

And the once-ordinary Moon Yi-heon returned as a man so successful that no one could question his status.

But on your hand, encountered after seven years,

There was no wedding ring.

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Moon Yi-heon's company. Irum Partners

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Moon Yi-heon's house