111 – ■Hyeonwoo
The first thing I remember is the collapsing ceiling and shabby walls.
A time when as many as ten children ate and slept together in a narrow room with no windows, relying on the light of a light bulb that flickered little by little.
It’s probably one of those memories that can be called a memory, but it’s an unfortunate childhood that doesn’t make you feel very happy.
There, a child who was beaten every day because he was smaller than his peers was staring at the wall every day.
I have no memories of my parents. When he was a baby, he was abandoned here and went off somewhere. Now that I think about it, I wonder if it was because I didn’t have any money, but that was probably a good story.
The director raised them, but he did not feel any affection for them, and the child, who was beaten by the orphans every day, had no time to feel any feelings of love.
So, the child was delusional.
If he leaves here, will his parents be there? Maybe there is someone who can get him out of this hell, even if it’s not his parents. Most of the children who left here with happy faces looking for new parents had smiles that never left their faces.
The boy, who always looked at the shabby wall in his room and continued to daydream, decided to become courageous when he turned six.
The action was quick. Escape was easier than he thought.
No, the expression “Escape” Was not very appropriate either. In the first place, the director would not have been interested in one orphan escaping.
If I think about it now, I might have been desperately hoping to leave this place at once – but that wasn’t really that important.
So the young child headed out in search of his freedom.
The blue sky and sun seen only in children’s books. And the child went out looking forward to the affection he would receive from his parents, which he had never experienced before, and for a happy future.
The moment I walked out the door, unable to bear the time I spent in such a narrow orphanage, being beaten every day by children my own age.
“What? “This scruffy bastard.”
“Isn’t he the one who lives in the orphanage in front of here? Tsk.”
The sight the child saw was a gray sky covered in exhaust fumes, and workers among numerous factories looking at me with disgust.
The clear skies and green meadows that I saw in books do not exist, and only the loud sounds of machinery always resonate in an industrial complex.
A poor village with no parents to take in children, and only drunkards who swear at orphans because they have lived difficult lives.
At the age of six, the child realized what reality was like, and as he erased the word hope from his chest, he realized the first truth of his life.
We live in such a hopeless world, but there is no need to pull ourselves together.
The children who were swinging their fists at him right now, the child who was the leader of the orphanage who reigned over them – he had to overcome them to find some hope.
So the boy returned to the orphanage, took a fork from dinner, and maimed one of the children who had been harassing him that night.
And just as the child realized the truth of life, from the next day onwards, no one gave the boy a hard time.
-What a sad story. A town with gods is no different from this world, right?
Time passed and the child turned eight years old. He began attending elementary school in the name of compulsory education.
There was nothing different from the orphanage there either.
The school originally built in a small village was too shabby and in a corner for children full of dreams and hopes to attend, which also meant that children who lived ordinary lives did not exist even if they looked for it with their eyes closed.
The child served as class president there. He was an alley leader, as the other kids called him, but that was it anyway.
The child who was beaten by children at the age of six had already given up hope a long time ago, and the next day, he took power by beating the leader of the orphanage where the child was located until right before he died, so in a way, it was natural.
Even though they live in a small town and don’t have cell phones, rumors are always going to spread.
The fact that even though he was a small child, he almost killed a person was an object of fear even for orphans who had lived through harsh hardships.
The child lived a peaceful life until the age of 13.
The teachers looked at the child with a negative gaze, but it didn’t really matter because they were already so accustomed to it.
All he does is close his eyes and wait for school to end, and after that, he wanders the streets at night with his followers, also known as his followers.
In that way, the child grew into a teenager and a boy.
“-I heard it will be redeveloped?”
He was 14 years old. The boy finally couldn’t even stay in the shabby orphanage.
Redevelopment. For adults who owned buildings and land, it was like a sweet dream, but for a child who had nowhere to go, it was not very welcome news.
“Hey. “Where are you going?”
“f*ck. “Where are we going?”
The boy was worried, and he looked at his subordinate next to him, who was looking up at the sky blankly, and asked,
“Even though it looks like trash, this is my home.”
After hearing the subordinate’s answer, the boy decided to take a different path from his subordinate. It was because he knew from a young age that taking a different path from an ignorant child who knew nothing was the right choice.
It was an unfortunate event for the subordinate boy who gave up going to middle school and decided to live in a familiar space, but it was also a good choice to the point where it could be called luck for him.
It’s just a shabby building with a familiar smoke smell, but it’s a place with a lot of affection. The expectation that I might be able to escape from this place and live a new life.
The boy broke away from the children who had decided to stay here and followed the adults in suits to an orphanage located in the city.
“-That bastard, what is it?”
“I don’t know. It looks like it’s growing under the bridge over there. “I end up looking like a f*cking idiot-“
When he entered the middle school located there and faced the seniors who came to his class to take the lead – the boy laughed.
Ah, no matter how many children who grow up with dreams and hopes live, the truth of life does not change. If you just have the strength, you can solve everything.
In that way, the boy defeated all the seniors who came to visit him.
“-That orphan beat my son!”
However, that was just the boy’s illusion.
Perhaps it was possible to express it in words. Or perhaps I could have expressed it in words, “Now, finally.”
Son of the school president. Or the son of the chairman of a company somewhere.
Clearly the business cards and positions held by those who bullied others and dominated them with power. The difference in the color of the spoon that has been in your mouth since birth.
It was only after being slapped by adults that the boy realized another truth.
Power? No. It can never protect itself.
Life was about money and power. In a way, since power can be bought with money, it could be said that money is everything in life.
That was the second truth of life that the boy learned.
-Hmm. After all, it’s not much different from this world.
So the boy graduated from middle school and went out into the world to make money.
Part-time work, factory work, or other jobs that others may not view as very good.
He made money by any means necessary, and by the time others were studying in high school, he had become the leader of a company.
“Aang? What are you saying? If this isn’t a company, what is? Work and earn money! There is no difference between office workers and you, right? “Giggle.”
It was difficult to relate the words “Company” And “Action leader”, But he could only nod his head at the words of an older brother who taught him the truth about the third life.
The leader of the gangsters’ actions. And my older brother was the boss who ran a crime report using those gangsters.
The boy who lived so stubbornly to make money became a mere gangster and continued his life.
-Those gangsters who live in that world. Isn’t he no different from the villain here?
“It’s noisy.”
I know too. Those who destroyed other people’s livelihoods, extorted money, and lived with that money were, in the end, scum, no different from the villains of this world.
“There was no choice at the time.”
-Huh. If that’s the case.
If I were to make an excuse, I had no choice. The owner of the store where I worked part-time in the first place – I only half-killed the kid who was swinging a baseball bat as if he was going to kill my grandmother, but who would have thought that more guys would come and drag me away after that?
Of course, the old woman was a mad b*tch on the inside, who had borrowed money and pretended not to know, and had not paid the boy for two months – but at the time, it was the only bar where people could stay.
-Yes. Okay. So? What happens next?
“…More than that, why are you here looking at this damn memory with me?”
Isn’t it absurd to think about looking at my past like this and making excuses? I’m sure I lost consciousness after getting pierced in the stomach, but I’m doing this without dying.
I glared at Dream Eater, who was chewing popcorn next to me, but this b*tch just stuck out his tongue and raised his middle finger.
-I won, what are you complaining about? If you pick one, you won earlier.
“…You f*cking b*tch.”
Okay, leave that crazy b*tch behind.
A boy who grew up as an orphan and eventually became a gangster. First of all, the early part of my life could be summarized like this.
However, it wasn’t such a bad memory. Actually, thinking about it now, it could have been a good memory.
“Aang? Are you a high school student? This is really f*cking up. “What kind of high school student beats up an adult like a rat?”
My brother, who was dragged away by thugs and met him on his knees.
“What is your name?”
I don’t remember what my brother’s name was, but
“Hey. Even though he’s an orphan, you gave him a girlish name? It won’t work. From now on, your name is Kang Hyeon-woo. Okay?”
At least he gave me a name,
“Do you have nowhere to go?”
Because it provided a place for me to rest after wandering around every day.
“Work here. At least tell the story to that guy you kidnapped. Then, from then on, I will also give you a salary.”
In a way, the first person who gave me warmth – my first teacher, my first parent,
“Then give a round of applause to our youngest! Order black bean noodles too! “I will buy it for you-“
Wouldn’t this be the first family that I had longed for?
-Your name was Kang Hyeon-woo? The name is the same as here.
“It’s noisy.”