...
"I need to buy some proper clothes."
Dojun stood in the mirror and decided he couldn't stand to look at his scantily clad self any longer.
The same cotton tee and shorts he'd worn for the past three days.
The only other clothes in his closet were almost as good.
Seo Do-joon, who was left for dead at the gate, had been trying desperately to stay alive.
Born out of wedlock to an unwelcome father, he was raised by his mother until he was six years old.
Then, at the behest of his paternal grandfather, he entered his father's family.
When it was determined that his father's wife, Jung Sil, was unable to give birth to a son no matter how hard she tried, his paternal grandfather was forced to enroll him in the family register as a child born out of wedlock.
Naturally, Seo was not welcomed by anyone.
His paternal grandfather still didn't like him, his stepmother openly hated him, and his father, who was his only shield, didn't treat him with any kindness.
Even in such an environment, Seo Do-joon grew up to be a good person without being crooked.
However, the poverty of the poor is inevitable.
After endless efforts, his stepmother gave birth to a son, and from then on, Seo Do-joon was no longer needed.
His half-sister was born less than a year later, and he was forced to leave the house like a chase, and from then on, he lived with his maternal grandmother, whom he had only seen a few times, and his half-sister Eun-young, who was only two years older.
Eighteen years old.
As the head of the family, Seo Do-joon plunged into society to make money.
But.
"Hong Hee-joo."
A calm voice came out of Do-joon's mouth.
The name of the woman who was his father's real wife and his stepmother.
It was Hong Hee-joo, who hated Do-joon more than anyone else in the world.
She couldn't accept that Seo Do-joon had disappeared in front of her eyes, yet they were living together under the same sky.
Instead, she was busy sabotaging Seo Do-joon's work, who was thrown out of the house like a fish out of water.
Despite knowing all of this, Seo Do-joon was still a foolishly nice guy who never said a word, not even a plea to stop bothering him.
"Please don't do it anymore."
Now it's different.
The foolish, frustrated, and seemingly stupid Seo Do-joon is no more.
Do-joon is no longer the foolish, frustrated, and stupid Do-joon, who easily understands and forgives anyone who interferes with him.
Distrust of humans... he'd had enough of that in the doomed world.
Dojun shoved the envelope of cash from the loan shark roughly into his shorts pocket.
"Where are you going?"
Do-joon turned to walk out the door, and Eun-young came running up to him, her eyes sparkling.
She was so innocent.
Do-joon couldn't help but feel compassion for Eun-young, who had lost her mother at the age of two, and who was now a big baby in her maternal grandmother's hands. To have such feelings, even though he thought he had already dried up on human emotions.
'It must have come from sharing Seo Do-joon's memories.
It was a feeling he didn't like.
However, he couldn't just bluntly dismiss the pure and clear Eun-young, so he had to suppress his feelings as best he could.
Suddenly, Do-joon's eyes caught sight of the teddy bear Eun-young was clutching.
Seeing Eun-young's teddy bear, an old, worn-out teddy bear with a lot of fluff missing, as her only friend, Do-joon opened his mouth for the first time in a long time.
"Should I get you a new doll...?"
Regretfully, Do-joon clicked his tongue at the words he had already spat out.
* * *
"Brother! Brother!"
Eun-young called after him, but Do-joon didn't answer.
When Eunyoung couldn't take her eyes off the teddy bear that was as tall as he was, he picked it up without asking.
"Anything else? Anything else you want?"
"...Can I buy another one?"
Eun-young's cautious question caused Do-joon's eyebrows to arc slightly.
His emotions were stirring again.
To put it bluntly, in a world that had been destroyed, he had seen countless children who were even more pitiful than Eun-young.
His emotions had never wavered in those situations, so in fact, the current stirrings of emotion were merely the after-effects of sharing Seo's memories.
In fact, Seo's love for Eun-young was very special.
Identification.
The fact that she was born unwelcome by her father and was ultimately abandoned.
In particular, he raised Eun-young, who was only two years old, with his grandmother and begged her to take care of him even as he was dying because he had the same feelings for her before her brother.
Because of this shared memory, his emotions would conditionally stir whenever he saw Eun-young.
"...If there's anything you want to buy, you can buy it."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Wow!"
Eun-young's eyes sparkle.
Eun-young ran around the toy store and found something she hadn't wanted to buy in a long time.
But.
"Brother, I want this."
In the end, Eun-young picks out a stuffed rabbit that's smaller than the palm of my hand.
Do-joon also looked at it.
But the ones he saw were complete sets, with houses, decorated rooms, and similar characters.
"I thought you said I could buy anything I wanted?"
"...My brother said it was his hard-earned money, Grandma."
Do-joon's eyes widened at the words of Eun-young, who was only seven years old.
He walked briskly over to the shopkeeper and said.
"I'll buy everything over there."
"You're buying all of them?"
The shopkeeper asked in surprise, and Dojun replied as if not to make him say it twice.
"Not a single one, all of them."
* * *
"Is it delicious?"
"Yes, it's so delicious, the most delicious!"
An invisible smile appeared and disappeared at the corners of Dojun's mouth at Eunyoung's unadorned answer.
Tsk.
Eun-young was eating ice cream while holding Do-joon's hand tightly.
Do-joon's other hand was filled with a shopping bag that looked overwhelming, but it didn't matter to him.
"By the way, brother."
Eun-young called out to Do-joon with ice cream on the corner of her mouth.
"Aren't you buying anything for Grandma?"
Do-joon's mouth watered at the realization that even seven-year-old Eun-young hadn't thought of it.
"Was there anything your grandmother wanted?"
"...Grandma said she wished she had a cane, because she said all the other grandmas have canes and she doesn't."
"A cane?"
"Yes!"
Dojun nodded, picturing her grandmother with a severely bent back.
"Okay, let's go buy one."
Do-joon took Eun-young's hand, and they headed to a nearby department store to buy a cane.
He had planned to return home as soon as he had purchased a cane that would work for his grandmother, but Eun-young's excitement about the department store forced him to do some unplanned eye shopping.
As he wanders through the mall, he enters an expensive luxury store with dazzling displays.
He was curious about the place, as it didn't exist in the doomed world, and Eun-young was dazzled by the ornate interior, so he wanted to show her around.
After getting past the employee who asked if he needed anything, Do-joon got lucky and was able to walk around the unusually quiet store with Eun-young in silence.
Ignoring the staff's stares, they were looking at the products on the shelves.
"Seo Do-joon?"
He was short, barely over 150 centimeters tall, with a round, broad face and a chunky body.
A woman in her early 20s, somehow managing to glamorize her lackluster appearance with thick makeup, and dressed in equally colorful luxury clothes. And two burly men were guarding her.
"What, are you really Seo Do-Joon?"
The woman approached Dojun with an expression of surprise.
Looking at the woman's face, covered from head to toe in luxury clothes and accessories, Do-joon didn't show his emotions as easily as he usually did.
"What do you look like?"
The woman's face was filled with blatant sneers.
Do-joon was wearing a clean cotton tee and jeans he had just bought.
It was a manufacturer, not the cheap one that cost less than ten thousand won that he wore before. His height and body stretched out like a model's, and he was in good enough shape to attract attention, but the woman was laughing at his appearance.
"You said your clothes are wings.... You're dressed like that, too, so you're really nothing to look at."
Do-joon still didn't say anything, just stared at her.
"Who is she? Did she get into an accident like your aunt? She looks too old for that...."
As the woman scrutinized Eun-young, I chewed on my lip as I realized how similar she looked to Do-joon, especially her big, clear eyes and unusually white and flawless skin.
"Hey, what's your name?"
The woman asked, and Eun-young answered without hesitation.
"Eunyoung Lee."
"Eun-young? What, are you Mr. Lee?"
Eun-young stared at the woman blankly, as if it didn't matter.
The woman brushed past Eun-young's outfit as if she didn't like it either, even though it was adorable to everyone else.
"You're such a little bitch in a dress.... You look just like Jiemi."
Do-joon didn't open his mouth even as the woman giggled.
Did she find him annoying?
"Are you mute now? Shouldn't you answer when someone speaks to you? You're such an asshole."
When Do-joon remained silent, the woman's eyes turned fierce.
"Hey, kid."
The woman called out to EunYoung.
"What?"
Eun-young's innocent expression didn't stop the woman from teasing her.
"Have you ever heard of the word 'bitch'?"
"Loud!"
"Hmph!"
The men standing by her side coughed, and the store employees turned their heads away in embarrassment.
The woman seemed to be pleased with the reaction and continued.
"You know what a slut is, like your mom...."
"She's a very old bitch."
Dojun interrupted her, breaking the silence.
"...What, what did you say, what's a slut like you, did you call me a slut?"
"Your appearance is one thing, but your heart is uglier than an orc's, so I can't listen to you anymore."
Dojun's words were so shocking that the woman stared at him with her mouth open in disbelief.
It was something she had never heard before, and most of all, she couldn't believe it was him who said it.
She was Min-chae, Do-joon's half-sister, two years younger than him.
Of course, they had lived in the same house for nearly 12 years.
Of course, they couldn't get along.
In particular, Minjae's feelings for Dojun were even worse.
"You, you... What, what did you say, oh, oak, me, me... ...."
As if she couldn't say it anymore, Minjoo dropped the words.
"This place looks so much better than you, who has a shitty appearance and personality, can't study because you have a bad head, and has a terrible inferiority complex towards girls who are prettier, smarter, or nicer than you. The only thing you have going for you is that you were born to good parents, and that's not good enough for me."
Do-joon sneered at her, just as Min-chae had done.
Tears formed in her eyes as she felt shame and humiliation for the first time.
The shame and humiliation she felt for the first time was compounded by the fact that the store employees who supported her like a sky were watching.
"What are you guys doing? That bastard... That bastard... You guys are going to stand by while I'm being humiliated like this?"
Min Min-chae screamed, cursing at her bodyguards.
The bodyguards, who were familiar with her personality, looked at each other and then stepped forward as if they had no choice.
It was something they really didn't want to do, but they couldn't resist, so they moved toward Dojun with a somewhat weak gait.
"Don't make a big deal out of it, just a few punches."
The corners of Dojun's mouth twitched upward at the guards' words.
He was already thinking about breaking the other man's arm the moment he reached for him.
"It's been a while, Dojun."