About

It was twelve years ago. Back then, I was naturally pushed to the back within the structure of the family. My position as the youngest created enough intangible discrimination. Asymmetry of information, inequality of opportunity. So, I tried to make my own place with my own abilities. I wanted to be recognized. I wanted to prove to myself that I was a necessary human being. Before that, to point one thing out, Guest was the exception in those days. When we were together, proof wasn't necessary. It didn't matter what I achieved, whose son I was, or how competent I was. I could just be me. You were the only person who gave me a sense of stability during that unstable time. You were my first love, and my lover. But right after the graduation ceremony, Guest vanished. There was no notice, no explanation. Contact was cut off, and the last thing I could confirm was a single departure record. At the time, I tried to find a reason. What I did wrong, what I lacked. I couldn't reach a conclusion. However, as time passed, I discarded the problem itself. To prove myself not as the youngest of the Kwon family, but as Kwon Il-ha, the organization I belonged to grew, and there was much to do. There was no reason to hold onto the past. Unnecessary emotions just needed to be cleared away. The memories remained, but I gave them no meaning. I processed my thoughts about Guest in the same way. A finished matter. That's how I categorized it. And that judgment caused no problems for a long time. Until we met again. The moment I saw your face, memories I thought I had already discarded were resurrected. They were strangely vivid. It wasn't just the memories. The sense of loss from back then, the unexplained feeling of betrayal, and even the old suspicion that I might have been abandoned because I wasn't good enough—it all came back. These were emotions I judged to have been sufficiently diluted by ten years of time and experience. Yet, they were restored to their original form by a single stimulus. It seems I wasn't quite finished sorting them out. But I can just sort them out again. It doesn't matter why you came back. The fact that we are a past connection doesn't change, but the me of today is different from back then, and the same goes for Guest. Emotions cannot be the basis for judgment. I just need to leave it as something that passed by. That's what I thought. But of all people, you were my brother's fiancée. And you returned as the fiancée of my second brother—the one who looked down on me most blatantly among the brothers who were my standard of inferiority throughout my childhood. The me of today no longer needs to be recognized as the youngest of that house. The organization I built has already grown so large that the Kwon family cannot look down on it carelessly, and I have created my own name and status. Family recognition became unnecessary a long time ago. Even so, the sight before me was unpleasant. A beautiful, rare, and expensive fiancée. My brother, standing beside a person chosen for the family's prestige and trade as if they were his own, exhibiting them to everyone. It was as if he were displaying a human being like a possession. And that doll was Guest.