THE POOR BOY WHO REMEMBERS THE END CHAPTER 1
The Moment Before
Darkness.
Not the comfortable darkness of sleep, nor the peaceful void of unconsciousness.
This was something else entirely.
It was the darkness of knowing—of being suspended between two worlds, between two lives, between the end of everything and the beginning of something new.
I died.
The thought echoed through the void like a stone dropped into an endless well.
I definitely died.
He remembered it all. The screeching of tires. The blinding headlights. The sensation of his body leaving the ground, weightless for one impossible second before—
Nothing.
And then... this.
How long had he been floating here? Minutes? Hours? Years? Time had no meaning in this place. He was just... existing. A consciousness without form, a memory without a vessel, a soul waiting to be claimed by whatever came next.
Is this death? he wondered. Is this all there is?
He had never been religious. Never believed in heaven or hell, in reincarnation or eternal rest. He had simply lived—worked, struggled, survived—until he didn't anymore.
But now...
Now I'm thinking. I'm aware. I'm... still me.
And that terrified him more than anything.
Because if he was still him, still carrying all his memories, all his regrets, all his failures—
Then death wasn't an escape at all.
It was just another prison.
The darkness shattered.
Pain. Pressure. Cold.
His world compressed into something impossibly tight, impossibly small, and he felt himself being pushed—squeezed through a space that couldn't possibly contain him, couldn't possibly—
"WAAAAAAAHHHH!"
The scream tore from his throat before he could stop it. Raw. Primal. Involuntary.
What—what is this—
His eyes wouldn't open properly. Everything was blurred, smeared with colors he couldn't identify, shapes he couldn't comprehend. His limbs felt wrong—too short, too weak, flailing uselessly against the cold air that assaulted his skin.
"It's a boy!"
The voice was distant, muffled, as if coming through water. But he understood the words. He understood everything.
No. No, no, no, no—
"Healthy lungs on this one," another voice said—gruff, tired, mechanical. "Ten fingers, ten toes. Looks normal."
I'm not normal. I'm not supposed to be here. I just died. I was twenty-seven years old. I had a job, an apartment, a life—
"WAAAAAHHHH!"
He couldn't control it. His body—this tiny, pathetic, infant body—was operating on pure instinct, screaming its existence into a world it had only just entered.
But inside that body, trapped within that fragile skull, a fully-formed adult consciousness was experiencing the purest form of existential horror imaginable.
I've been reborn.
The realization hit him like a second death.
This isn't a dream. This isn't the afterlife. I've been... reincarnated.
He had read stories like this before. Manga, light novels, web fiction—tales of ordinary people dying and waking up in fantasy worlds, blessed with magical powers and destined for greatness. Chosen heroes summoned to defeat demon lords. Prodigies reborn with all their memories, using their knowledge to climb to the peak of cultivation, to build empires, to live lives of unimaginable glory.
Is that what this is? Am I supposed to be a hero now?
He tried to focus his blurry vision, tried to make sense of the world around him.
And slowly, painfully, the picture began to form.
The ceiling was stained.
That was the first thing he noticed—really noticed—once his infant eyes began to adjust. A brownish-yellow stain spreading across the plaster like a map of some forgotten continent, evidence of water damage that had never been properly repaired.
Not exactly the grand halls of a fantasy kingdom.
The fluorescent light above him buzzed and flickered, one of its tubes clearly dying, casting the room in an inconsistent, sickly glow. The walls were a shade of green that might have been cheerful thirty years ago but had since faded into something that resembled mold.
He was lying on something—a table? A bed?—wrapped in a thin blanket that did little to ward off the chill. The air smelled of antiseptic and something else, something he couldn't quite identify. Rust? Blood? Both?
This is a hospital.
But it wasn't any hospital he remembered. Not the gleaming, modern facilities with their digital monitors and private rooms. This was something older, something poorer, a relic of an underfunded healthcare system struggling to serve too many people with too few resources.
Voices drifted to him from somewhere nearby—hushed, serious, carrying the weight of bad news.
"—understand your situation, but the bill needs to be addressed."
"Please, just give me more time. I can pay. I just need—"
"Mrs. Kang, this isn't the first time we've had this conversation. You still owe from your last visit, and now with the delivery costs—"
"I'll get the money. I'll work double shifts. Triple shifts. Whatever it takes. Please."
Kang?
He turned his head—a monumental effort in this useless body—toward the voices. Through a gap in a thin curtain that served as the room's only privacy, he could see two figures.
One was a man in a white coat, holding a clipboard like a weapon, his expression the practiced neutrality of someone who had delivered financial devastation a thousand times before.
The other was a woman.
Young, he realized. Too young. She couldn't have been older than twenty-two, maybe twenty-three, with dark hair plastered to her forehead with sweat and dark circles under her eyes that spoke of sleepless nights long before today.
She was sitting up in a hospital bed, her hospital gown hanging off one shoulder, her hands clutching the thin blanket covering her legs as if it was the only thing keeping her from falling apart.
"The total comes to ₩2,340,000," the doctor said, flipping through his clipboard. "That includes the delivery, the room, the basic postnatal care—"
"Two million—" The woman's voice cracked. "I don't... I can't..."
"We can set up a payment plan, but you'll need to make a down payment before discharge. Hospital policy."
"How much?"
"At least ₩500,000."
The woman—his mother, he realized with a strange, hollow feeling—closed her eyes. Her lips moved silently, and he understood that she was doing math in her head. The terrible, desperate math of poverty, calculating what could be sacrificed, what could be sold, what could be borrowed.
"I have ₩180,000," she said finally, her voice barely a whisper. "In my account. That's everything."
The doctor sighed—not with sympathy, but with the irritation of someone who had heard this story too many times.
"I'll see what I can do. But you understand, Mrs. Kang, that this debt will need to be settled. One way or another."
He turned and left, his footsteps echoing against the linoleum floor, and the woman—his mother—let out a breath that seemed to empty her completely.
She sat there for a long moment, motionless, staring at nothing.
And then she began to cry.
Silently. Shoulders shaking. Tears streaming down her face without a single sound, as if she had learned long ago that her grief was something to be hidden, something shameful, something that couldn't be allowed to take up space in a world that had no room for it.
This, he thought, is the life I've been given.
No magic. No system. No cheat abilities or divine blessings.
Just debt. Just poverty. Just a mother who couldn't afford to bring him into the world.
I didn't reincarnate into a hero's story.
"Let me see him."
The voice cut through his spiral of despair, and he felt himself being lifted—carefully, gently—by hands that trembled slightly.
And then he saw her face.
Really saw it.
His mother's face, inches from his own, filling his entire field of vision.
She was beautiful, he realized, in that way that poverty couldn't quite erase. High cheekbones. A delicate jaw. Eyes that might have sparkled with life in another circumstance but now held only exhaustion and worry and something else—something fierce and desperate and determined.
"Hello, little one."
Her voice was soft now, different from the broken whisper she had used with the doctor. This voice was meant only for him—a private song between mother and child.
"I'm sorry."
What are you apologizing for?
"I'm sorry I can't give you more. I'm sorry this is all I have. I'm sorry—"
Her voice caught, and she pressed her lips together, fighting back more tears.
"But I promise you," she continued, and now her voice was harder, edged with steel. "I promise I'll work hard. I'll do whatever it takes. You won't go hungry. You won't go cold. I'll give you everything I have, even if everything I have isn't much."
She pulled him closer, pressing him against her chest, and he could feel her heartbeat—rapid, anxious, but steady. A metronome of survival.
"We're going to be okay," she whispered into his ear. "We have to be."
Don't make promises you can't keep.
That was what he wanted to say. What his cynical, world-weary, already-died-once mind wanted to scream at her.
You don't know what's coming. You don't know how hard it gets. You don't know—
But then she shifted, and he caught a glimpse of her face again.
And he saw something he hadn't expected.
Hope.
Irrational, impossible, completely unjustified hope.
She was looking at him like he was a miracle. Like he was the best thing that had ever happened to her. Like his existence—his tiny, wrinkled, screaming existence—was somehow worth all the debt, all the struggle, all the tears.
Why?
He didn't understand. In his first life, he had never had children. Never even come close. The concept of unconditional love was something he understood intellectually but had never truly experienced—not as a giver, not as a receiver.
But looking into his mother's eyes, seeing the way she held him like he was the most precious thing in the world despite having nothing else...
Something cracked inside him.
She doesn't know me, he thought. She doesn't know that I'm not really her son—not the blank slate she thinks I am. She doesn't know that there's a twenty-seven-year-old failure trapped inside this body, someone who couldn't even manage to stay alive long enough to—
"You have your father's eyes."
The words snapped him out of his thoughts.
Father?
He looked around, as much as his limited mobility would allow. The room was empty save for the two of them. No proud father pacing nervously in the corner. No family members waiting to celebrate the new arrival.
Just a young woman alone in a cheap hospital room with a baby she couldn't afford.
His mother seemed to read his confusion—or perhaps she was simply talking to fill the silence.
"He's not here," she said quietly. "He won't be here. It's just us now, little one. Just you and me."
Ah.
Another piece of the puzzle fell into place.
Single mother. Young. Poor. Abandoned by whatever man had helped create this situation.
Classic.
In another context, he might have felt sorry for himself. Might have raged against the unfairness of it all, against whatever cosmic force had decided to drop him into this particular life rather than the fantasy adventure he had half-expected.
But looking at his mother's face—at the determination written into every line of her exhausted features—he found that he couldn't summon any self-pity.
Because she had it worse.
She was the one who had to carry this burden. She was the one who would work herself to the bone, sacrifice everything, pour her entire being into raising a child who wasn't even supposed to exist.
And she didn't even get the benefit of knowing that it would all be worth it.
For all she knew, he would grow up to be worthless. A burden. Another mouth to feed that would never repay her sacrifice.
She doesn't know that I remember, he thought. She doesn't know that I already have a lifetime of knowledge, of experience, of—
He stopped.
Wait.
A new thought surfaced, cutting through the fog of despair and confusion.
I remember.
He remembered everything. His entire previous life—twenty-seven years of education, of work, of learning and failing and trying again. It was all still there, stored somewhere in this infant brain that shouldn't have been capable of containing it.
I remember how the world works.
He remembered economics and politics and social dynamics. He remembered technology and science and history. He remembered every book he had ever read, every lesson he had ever learned, every mistake he had ever made.
I'm not starting from zero.
The realization sent a jolt through his tiny body—or maybe that was just his undeveloped nervous system misfiring.
I'm not helpless.
He had been given a second chance. Not the glamorous, power-fantasy second chance of the stories he used to read, but a second chance nonetheless.
A chance to do things differently.
A chance to take everything he had learned in his first life and apply it to this one.
And maybe...
He looked up at his mother again, at her tired face and her hopeful eyes.
Maybe I can help her too.
It wouldn't be easy. He knew that. He was an infant, completely dependent on others for his survival. It would be years before he could do anything meaningful, before he could contribute in any real way.
But he had time.
For the first time since his rebirth, something other than horror and despair flickered in his chest.
Not hope, he told himself. Hope is for fools.
But maybe... resolve.
The first night was the hardest.
Not physically—his infant body was exhausted from the trauma of birth and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep almost immediately.
But when he woke, in the dead of night, in the dim red glow of the hospital's emergency exit sign, the full weight of his situation came crashing down.
I'm really here.
I'm really a baby.
I'm really going to have to do this all over again.
He lay in the plastic hospital bassinet, staring at the stained ceiling, unable to move, unable to speak, barely able to think coherently through the fog of his underdeveloped brain.
Across the room, his mother was asleep—or trying to be. He could see her form in the darkness, curled on her side in the hospital bed, her face pale and drawn even in rest.
She must be so tired.
The thought came unbidden, surprising him with its tenderness.
In his first life, he had never known his mother. She had left when he was young—too young to remember—and his father had raised him alone, with all the emotional availability of a brick wall. He had grown up believing that parents were obstacles to be overcome, not people to be understood.
But now, looking at this woman who had chosen to keep him, to raise him, to sacrifice everything for him despite having nothing—
I think I understand a little better now.
He wanted to help her. Wanted to tell her that it would be okay, that he would work hard, that he wouldn't be a burden.
But all that came out when he opened his mouth was a formless gurgle.
Right. Baby.
He closed his eyes, frustration building in his tiny chest.
This is going to take some getting used to.
Three days later, they left the hospital.
The bill had been "negotiated"—which meant his mother had signed a payment plan that would hang over her head for years to come, with interest rates that bordered on predatory.
He had listened to the whole conversation, unable to contribute but understanding every word. Understanding the trap she was walking into. Understanding that this debt was just the beginning, the first link in a chain that would bind her—bind them—for the foreseeable future.
If I could just talk, he thought, as the nurse wheeled his mother toward the exit. If I could just tell her—
But he couldn't. And even if he could, what would he say? A baby spouting financial advice would get them both committed to a psychiatric ward, not save them from poverty.
I have to be patient.
I have to grow.
I have to wait.
The automatic doors slid open, and for the first time, he saw the world outside.
It was gray.
Gray buildings, gray sky, gray streets wet with recent rain. A cityscape of concrete and rust, of cramped apartment blocks and convenience stores with faded signs, of power lines crisscrossing overhead like the bars of a cage.
Seoul, he recognized. Or somewhere near it.
But not the Seoul of gleaming skyscrapers and K-pop dreams. This was the other Seoul, the one tourists never saw, the one dramas never showed. The Seoul of the working poor, of the left behind, of the people who kept the city running without ever sharing in its prosperity.
His mother stood at the curb, the baby carrier heavy in her arms, looking at the street as if trying to solve a puzzle.
She's figuring out how to get home, he realized. She can't afford a taxi.
After a long moment, she started walking toward the bus stop.
It was a thirty-minute walk to the nearest route that would take them where they needed to go. He knew because he watched her check the map on her cracked phone screen, watched her do the mental calculation of bus fare versus distance, watched her make the decision to save ₩1,200 by walking the extra blocks.
₩1,200, he thought. That's what her comfort is worth.
That's what my comfort is worth.
He wanted to cry—not the automatic, reflexive crying of an infant, but the real tears of frustration and helplessness.
But what came out instead was silence.
He was learning to control it, he realized. The crying. It was difficult—his body wanted to scream at every minor discomfort—but if he focused, really concentrated, he could suppress the urge.
Good, he thought. Every won she doesn't have to spend on calming me down is a won she can use for something else.
It was a small thing. A pathetic thing. But it was something.
And right now, something was all he had.
"Home" was a one-room apartment on the fourth floor of a building with no elevator.
His mother climbed the stairs slowly, pausing at each landing to catch her breath, the baby carrier growing heavier with every step.
He could feel her exhaustion through the straps that held him—the slight tremor in her hands, the ragged rhythm of her breathing, the way she leaned against the wall for support when she thought no one was looking.
She just gave birth three days ago, he thought. She should be resting. She should have someone taking care of her.
But there was no one.
Just him. A useless infant who couldn't even climb stairs, let alone help carry anything.
When they finally reached the apartment, his mother fumbled with her keys for almost a minute before managing to get the door open. She stumbled inside, set the carrier down on the floor, and then simply... collapsed.
Not dramatically. Not with a cry or a sob. Just a slow, controlled slide down the wall until she was sitting on the floor, her back against the door, her eyes closed.
She sat like that for a long time.
He watched her from his carrier, unable to do anything else. Watched the rise and fall of her chest. Watched the way her hands trembled in her lap. Watched the single tear that escaped from beneath her closed eyelids and traced a path down her cheek.
I'm sorry, he thought. I'm sorry I can't help. I'm sorry I'm just another weight for you to carry. I'm sorry—
"Okay."
Her voice startled him. She hadn't moved, hadn't opened her eyes, but she was speaking—to herself, to him, to the empty apartment that would be their whole world.
"Okay. We can do this."
She opened her eyes, and there it was again.
That determination.
That impossible, irrational, beautiful determination.
"First things first," she said, pushing herself to her feet with visible effort. "Let's get you set up. Then I need to figure out work. I can probably go back in a week, maybe two if I'm careful. Mrs. Park downstairs might be able to watch you during the day. She owes me a favor. And there's that night shift at the convenience store—if I can get both jobs, we might be able to..."
She kept talking, more to herself than to him, planning and calculating and strategizing as she moved around the tiny apartment.
He watched her, this woman who refused to break.
And he made himself a promise.
I'll remember this.
I'll remember every sacrifice you make, every night you go without sleep, every meal you skip so I can eat.
And when I grow up—when I'm finally able to—I'll pay it all back.
I'll give you the life you deserve.
I swear it.
"I've been thinking about what to call you."
It was late—how late, he couldn't tell. The apartment had no clock, or if it did, it wasn't visible from his position in the makeshift crib his mother had assembled from a cardboard box and spare blankets.
She was sitting beside him on the floor, her back against the wall, her eyes fixed on some point in the distance.
"I had a name picked out," she continued. "Before you were born. Your father—" She stopped, her jaw tightening. "Well. That name doesn't seem right anymore."
He waited, watching her face in the dim light filtering through the thin curtains.
"I want to give you a name that means something. Something that will remind you—and me—of what we're fighting for."
She was quiet for a long moment.
"Hajoon," she said finally. "Kang Hajoon. It means 'great achievement' or 'vast excellence.' I know it sounds... ambitious. Maybe too ambitious for someone like us."
Hajoon.
The name settled into his consciousness like a key fitting into a lock.
"But that's the point, isn't it?" His mother smiled—a real smile, the first he had seen from her. It transformed her face, made her look younger, made her look like the girl she probably still was beneath all the worry and exhaustion. "I want you to aim high, Hajoon. Higher than anyone thinks we can reach. I want you to prove them all wrong."
Hajoon.
My name is Kang Hajoon.
And I have something to prove.
Part IX: The End of the First Day
Sleep came for him eventually, as it always did for infants.
But before it claimed him, as his consciousness began to fade and his adult mind surrendered to his baby body's demands, he had one final thought.
Clear and sharp and certain.
I didn't reincarnate into a hero's story.
I was born into something harder. Something more painful. Something with no magic system, no cheat abilities, no destiny written in the stars.
I was born into poverty.
I was born into debt.
I was born to a mother who has nothing except her love and her determination.
He closed his eyes.
But maybe...
Maybe that's exactly the kind of story that needs to be told.
And maybe...
Maybe I can make it a story worth reading.
END OF CHAPTER 1