Hyeon laid sleepy Ijueng on the bed.
His shoulders were heavy with truth, his heart even heavier.
All the sleepless nights he'd endured, the hate he'd kept alive — it had finally settled, only to be replaced by something no one could ever cure.
He whispered something under his breath — words only he could hear — before brushing his lips softly against Ijueng's temple.
(Last night)
"So… whose child is he?" Hyeon still had his smirk while chewing the bite.
Nala's fingers clutched her shawl tighter.
There was something in her stillness — a quiet helplessness that said more than words could.
He waited.
Nala's lips trembled before the word escaped.
"Laila's."
The name felt heavier than the silence between them.
His smirk froze- then fell, sharp and hollow, as if it had turned into a slap across his own soul.
The spoon in his hand trembled.
He tried to swallow, but the lump in his throat fought back — the same way it had fifteen years ago, the night he had cried for the first and last time over her.
He didn't speak.
Didn't look at Nala again.
He simply picked up his spoon, forced the food down one bite at a time — each swallow tighter, harder —as if he could drown the ache by pretending it wasn't there.
When he had asked the question, he thought the answer would be something simple — adopted, found somewhere, maybe a distant relative.
But the name he heard…It was a name he never thought he would hear again — not after eight long years.
Laila.
His first love.
The one he wanted but couldn't keep.
The one he watched walked away — not because she wanted to, but because life forced her to.
Memories surged — her laughter under the spring rain, the quiet tremor in her voice the night she said goodbye,
the way he had stood frozen, helpless, as she was taken away.
Laila — the woman who once laughed like she owned the sun, the one who had been married off to a womanizer old man just to save her sister's future... Nala's future.
"She was pregnant, Hyeon," Nala said, her voice trembling now. "She ran away from that house during her labour. She said her child shouldn't live caged by the same fate she did. She gave him to me… begged me to raise him as my own."
Hyeon looked at her — no anger, just the hollow sound of memories crashing in his chest.
"And she?"
Nala's eyes blurred. "A month later… she was gone."
Hyeon said nothing. The truth didn't break him; it hollowed him.
And when he finally looked up at the sky, it wasn't to escape — it was to remember.
The night suddenly felt colder, heavier — like the past had just walked back into the room.
Now he understood why ijueng had always felt so achingly his.
Because he was.
His heart's own child.
And he would do anything to protect him.— even lay down his life, which he couldn't for her.
Ijueng was his child.
And he wasn't going to lose him.
A sudden urge stirred within him.
"Where's Ijueng?"
"In his room," Nala replied quietly.
But something in Hyeon refused to rest.
Today, his heart pulled toward Ijueng with a tenderness he hadn't felt in years — a love so deep he wanted to hide it from the world and keep it only to himself.
He pushed open the door.
But just as his hands had always been empty of happiness, so was the room.
Ijueng wasn't there.
They searched everywhere — panic rising with every heartbeat.
The bedroom, the courtyard, even the basement.
Nothing.
No trace, no sound.
"He must have been scared," Nala whispered, her voice shaking. "He must've feared the echoes of our voices rising again. he must have been too scared to bear it any longer."
"What do you mean?" Hyeon asked sharply.
Nala only looked at him — eyes hollow, words trapped behind guilt.
And in that silence, the truth hit him like a blade.
For the past year, all they had done was fight.
He had been so consumed by his own grief that he hadn't seen the fear in his son's eyes.
He hadn't even truly looked at Ijueng.
Lost in his own grief,
he never once stopped to think
what must've been happening inside that child's heart.
He had locked his own child in loneliness.
And slowly the boy had become a prisoner
— not with walls, but with silence.
A prisoner, not in someone else's home, but in his own. between the very people who were supposed to protect him.
He had made his own child feel utterly alone.
The realization tore through him,
so sharp it felt like it could kill him from the inside.
The guilt crawled through him, cold and merciless.
They searched the entire night.
Every street, every shadow, every place Ijueng might have gone.
But he was nowhere.
By dawn, they returned home — exhausted, broken.
.....
Present day..
It marked Gyu's third day in that village
and second in school.
He unknowingly became the hot talk of the school within two days.
Mr. Cha was so tensed with distribution of team members and being the head of the volleyball committee, he still needed at least two more players so that he could select his best twelve out of which six finest will be final members.
"Were you a dog in your past life? Just leave my side!" Gyu said, agitated.
"Can't do, if I did.. you wouldn't even talk to me then, and we just made up-can't risk that!
"I can do it now"
"Well, you didn't. if you were to,you would have done it long before."
"What do you want from me?"
"Nothing, just..." He gazed at a significant person. His eyes glimmered.
.....
The gym was alive — sneakers scraping, the echo of the ball smacking hardwood, and a storm of voices cheering from every corner.
Team One: Kaven, and five others.
Team Two: Garam, Auron, Terry, and three more players.
"How did you even pull that off?" Auron laughed seeing the players name.
Kaven only smirked. "Connections. And a little bit of luck."
On the sidelines, Ben was loud — too loud.
"Let's go... Auron! Garam! Smash it through them! Smash that kaven face!"
Kaven laughed it off.
Every word stabbed Garam's focus sharper.
He forced a grin, stretching his arm as the whistle blew.
But then his gaze landed on the opposite side —
and his grin faltered.
Gyu.
Standing near the backline, adjusting his wristband, looking awkward yet calm.
For a second, Garam thought he was imagining things.
What's he doing here?
Gyu wasn't supposed to be here — not in this game, not on this court.
He'd never even joined sports. Garam had made sure of that — always shielding him, always warning him, "You'll get hurt. Stay out."
So why now?
Why walk into humiliation willingly?
The whistle sliced through his thoughts.
Gyu first denied but when he came to know Garam was playing something inside him shifted.
It's show time.
Time for Garam to know who the real Gyu is!.
He smirked at his thoughts,
That lovely brother of mine called me a crossdresser! Does he still think I'm a girl who will keep crying for his attention?"
He shook his head, his hair falling with a careless grace that made more than a few hearts skip.
And click.
At a distance stood a man wearing a smile too ugly to be called human. his gaze fixed unblinking on Gyu.