(Inside an old café)
Tucked between narrow streets of Seoul, the air smelled faintly of burnt beans and dust.
"Hey... hey! Wake up!"
An old lady's sharp voice cut through the morning quiet as she shook Haneul's arm roughly.
"Get up and work! You're still sleeping like some lost puppy."
Haneul jolted, trembling. His thin body flinched at the sudden touch, eyes blinking open.
He sat up slowly, weak from another night without proper food or rest.
"If you don't work hard today,"
The woman snapped, crossing her arms,
"I'll reveal your identity. Let's see who saves you then."
His heart sank.
The words hit harder than the cold air inside the room.
He shook his head quickly, voice trembling.
"No, please don't… I have nowhere else to go. Please, let me stay. I'll do as you say."
The old lady sniffed, unimpressed.
"Then clean the café. Wash all the dishes. Serve the old customers when they come in.
This is an old people's café that's why you're still breathing.
Otherwise, you'd have been torn apart by Alphas out there by now."
Haneul's lips pressed tight, eyes lifting slowly toward her.
He didn't say anything, but his gaze carried something hollow, sadness mixed with quiet resentment.
Why are people here so merciless?
Why does everyone hurt each other?
Did I do something wrong by coming here?
"Yaa! Don't glare at me!"
The woman barked.
"Go on, move!"
He turned away without another word, steps dragging.
Each movement felt heavy, like even his body had grown tired of surviving.
Since leaving Taekyun's place, he'd been running again hiding from Alphas, from questions, from himself.
Until one night,
An old woman named Han Su found him shivering behind her empty café.
She had offered him a place to stay, and he'd trusted her.
Told her everything.
But now… she treated him like a servant more than a person.
And yet, he stayed because he had nowhere else to go.
[Kim Residence]
The air inside the Kim residence carried a kind of silence that didn't need to be forced it simply existed.
Polished wood floors gleamed under warm lights, the faint smell of herbal tea and cedar drifting through the wide hanok-style living room.
Mr. and Mrs. Kim sat across the low table, upright, composed as they always were.
In front of them,
Taekyun and Haru sat properly on the floor, knees folded, hands resting neatly on their laps.
Haru's small frame trembled faintly, her eyes lowered, following every unspoken rule the family demanded.
Beside her, Taekyun's posture was straight, still as stone.
Not a hint of expression on his face.
Mr. Kim's sharp features softened slightly when he looked at his granddaughter.
A small smile appeared.
"Come here," he said gently.
Haru hesitated for a second, then bowed low before rising to her knees.
She moved toward him the way she'd been taught slow, graceful, careful not to break the silence.
When she reached him, she bowed again before he placed his hand lightly over her head.
"She's grown," he said, his tone proud but calm.
Taekyun watched quietly, eyes unreadable.
Mrs. Kim's gaze shifted to her son.
"So," she began, her voice firm yet polite,
"Is everything going well these days?"
Taekyun nodded once. "Yes, Mother."
Her next words came smoothly, but her tone sharpened slightly.
"I heard an Omega appeared in your residence recently. Caused some trouble, didn't he?"
Taekyun lifted his eyes to her, his voice low and steady.
"It wasn't a big matter. He slipped mistakenly."
Mrs. Kim didn't let him finish.
"I also heard," she interrupted, eyes narrowing just slightly,
"That he's a time traveler."
Taekyun's expression didn't waver.
He nodded. "Yes."
Her gaze hardened.
"You haven't forgotten the family law, have you?"
Her words were precise, cutting through the air.
"No male Omegas within the Kim household."
For a moment, the room fell into a tense silence.
Then Taekyun spoke, tone calm and distant.
"I'm not planning anything, nor do I know him."
Mrs. Kim's posture relaxed slightly.
"Good."
Without another word,
Taekyun rose slowly, bowed to both parents, and said quietly,
"I'll take my leave."
He turned toward the hallway, his movements composed, controlled.
As he stepped out into the corridor, a figure appeared tall, poised, and unmistakably sharp.
Kim Nayeon.
His elder sister.
The daughter of the Kim family who carried pride like a shield and bitterness like a shadow.
She leaned slightly against the doorframe, arms crossed, a faint smirk curving her lips.
"Well," she said, voice smooth but laced with mockery,
"visited after a long time. Looks like you needed something again, little brother."
Taekyun stopped for half a second. His eyes met hers, cold and distant not anger, not pain, just… exhaustion.
Then he walked past her without a word.
Nayeon's smirk faltered slightly, but she said nothing as he disappeared down the hallway, his footsteps fading into the quiet mansion.
Outside,
The car waited.
And as Taekyun slid into the driver's seat, a strange heaviness filled the air.
the kind that came not from words, but from what had never been said.
The hate between Nayeon and Taekyun wasn't something born out of their own hearts
it was shaped by the very walls of the family they grew up in.
The Kim family's law had always been cruelly clear: sons mattered more.
Boys inherited power, girls inherited silence.
No matter how close the siblings once were, how Nayeon used to follow Taekyun everywhere when they were children, the distance began to grow the moment the family started treating them differently.
Nayeon, who had always been strong, bright, and capable, was slowly shadowed by the praise that surrounded her younger brother simply for being a son.
It twisted her heart, not because of Taekyun himself, but because of what their family made her believe that she would always come second.
That her worth would never weigh the same as his.
And no matter how much Taekyun tried to make her see otherwise, no matter how many times he told her she was his equal, she never believed it.
The law of their generations had already poisoned her heart.
For Taekyun, it became a silent wound one he carried but never showed.
He hated that law more than anyone, hated how it destroyed the one bond he valued most.
But he couldn't change it. No matter how powerful he became, that ancient rule stood like a wall between them.
And after years of trying to fix what was already broken, he finally stopped.
He left the relationship as it was distant, bitter, hollow.
He took his daughter and built his own small world away from that cold mansion.
But today, as he left Haru behind in the same place he once escaped, it felt like walking back into his own nightmare.
He wasn't just leaving his daughter with her grandparents he was leaving a part of himself there too, a part that had already been torn apart by the same traditions he could never destroy.
And for the first time in years,
Taekyun felt utterly lost. No one to comfort him, no one to tell him he'd done the right thing only silence, and the quiet ache of knowing he couldn't protect his family from his own bloodline.