What was the perfect way to start the morning?
Certainly not waking up to the terrible news that your father had supposedly passed away in a car accident.
Certainly not waking up to the sight of your insufferable step-sister, who possessed absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
And definitely not waking up to the realization that if you didn't pass college this year, you'd be forced to repeat it all over again.
Oh wow, the world really has it out for me, doesn't it?
Most people live their lives believing that the universe is conspiring against them. More often than not, they're simply facing the consequences of their own poor choices. Other times, though, they're just plain unlucky. I like to think I fall into the latter category.
But enough talk about misfortune and fate.
I haven't even introduced myself.
My name's Ryuji Kim, eighteen years old, male, and utterly single. My hobbies revolve around watching random shows on Netflix, bingeing anime, and laughing at self-proclaimed "fans" who act like jerks for no reason. I also read manga. Though, admittedly, some of them aren't exactly suitable for those who were not adults, if you catch my drift.
On top of that, my lazy self was unemployed.
Basically, I was your average teenager with an unhealthy amount of hormones and a knack for doing nothing productive. My life consisted of things like sleeping through alarms, pretending to study, and trying not to think too much about how meaningless it all felt.
Oh... and I had a huge little brother. Of course, I am not talking about a blood relative or the sorts. Not in a bad way, but... let's just say "abnormal" fits it better than "normal."
Was it more appropriate to call it a forbidden sword?
Anyway, since you're already here, I might as well tell you a bit about myself or, more accurately, the dysfunctional mess I call a family.
My mother died the day I was born. Complications during childbirth, or so I was told. I never got to hear her voice, never got to see her face beyond a faded photograph tucked away in an old frame. My father never liked talking about her either. Whenever I asked, he'd just go quiet, and change the subject.
He was a good man, though. At least, I think he was. A self-made businessman who climbed from nothing to wealth, respected by his peers and admired by his employees. The kind of man who always knew what he wanted and how to get it.
Then, one day, without warning, he decided to remarry.
Completely out of nowhere.
It was impossible to predict. Our life had been fine and peaceful. Nothing fancy, nothing chaotic. Just simple, stress-free living. Honestly, it was perfect. So why on earth would anyone ruin that by introducing a woman into the mix?!
What happened to the invincible father-and-son duo?!
But, of course, my opinion didn't matter much. Who cared about the thoughts of an unemployed eighteen-year-old who still lived off his dad's money?
Putting that aside, the person he got remarried to was a divorced Latina woman who had a daughter from her previous engagement. She went by the name Victoria West, thirty-eight years old, 170 centimeters tall, and her three measurements were [36-28-50]. (Don't ask me how I know this. I have my methods!)
Victoria was actually a sweet individual personality-wise. She was really amazing in all aspects, and in her workplace, which was Riverside Medical Center, she held the respectable position of an administrator. This meant that she was a woman who carried both authority and grace wherever she went, someone capable of handling people and pressure with the same effortless poise.
In all honesty, I could somewhat understand why my dad married her. I mean, who wouldn't want such a capable individual as a partner? She was everything in one package, possessing the kind of physical traits and personality that most men desired, along with a career that could make any woman envious. Perhaps it wouldn't be wrong to say she was perfect, at least from a mortal standpoint.
Which was exactly why it was such a shame that her daughter turned out to be the complete opposite.
Ashley West — nineteen years old, standing at about 160 centimeters. In terms of appearance, she was a mirror image of her mother. Unfortunately, that was where the similarities ended.
Truth be told, I might be giving her too much credit.
Now, picture the most insufferable person you've ever met, then amplify every one of their worst traits by ten. The result would be my step-sister.
Perhaps I sound dramatic, but I genuinely can't stand that girl's existence.
To start with, she had already graduated high school yet hadn't the faintest idea what to do with her life. As you'd expect, she was completely jobless. Well, to be fair, she used to work as a bartender but she got fired after a week.
Apparently, "telling the customers to make their own damn piss" wasn't considered acceptable service etiquette. Go figure.
Since then, she's spent her days doing… well, absolutely nothing. Watching makeup tutorials, posting filtered selfies, and whining about how "unfair" life is. The only consistent thing about her was how consistently unproductive she managed to be.
Honestly, if there were an Olympic sport for being annoying, Ashley would've taken home gold and then complained the medal didn't match her outfit.
So yeah, waking up to that face after hearing my dad was gone was not the kind of morning I'd call "ideal."
You'd think that kind of tragedy would shake a family into coming together, right?
Such a thing did not happen. If anything, it was like throwing gasoline on a dumpster fire.
Victoria was devastated. She barely spoke, barely ate, and when she wasn't crying, she was locked in her room making phone calls to "handle arrangements." I tried to give her space.
She didn't deserve this.
Ashley, on the other hand, acted like she'd just been told the Wi-Fi was down. Sure, she cried a little but within an hour, she was already scrolling through her phone, probably posting something along the lines of "RIP Mr. Kim. You were like… a dad to me 😔💔"
Like shut the hell up. As if you cared about anyone other than yourself.
Now... I... I... what should I even do?
Dad was gone just because someone wanted to be careless. He was gone because of someone's stupid mistake. No, I refuse to believe his so-called death was an accident.
Following his death, the bank seized all of his assets, claiming there were "unresolved financial discrepancies" tied to his company accounts.
Yeah, right. Discrepancies my ass.
My father wasn't the type to leave loose ends.
There was no way in hell he'd let anything "unresolved" slip past him.
But this was the current situation. We were technically living in a house that no longer belonged to us.
Victoria tried to fight it, of course. God bless her soul. She made calls, visited lawyers, begged for extensions. But nothing worked. One by one, everything he'd built was stripped away, leaving us with nothing but debts, condolences, and a home full of ghosts.
The police said the crash was an accident or more precisely, a simple case of brake failure on a rainy night.
But something about it didn't sit right with me.
The timing. The money. The sudden seizure of his assets.
It all screamed "planned."
No way something like that didn't scream suspicious!
Yet there was nothing I could do. Did I have the strength to fight whoever was behind his untimely demise?
Of course not.
After all, this was a rotten world where the weak were devoured by the strong. The so-called strong were not defined by courage or righteousness, but by money, influence, and power. The kind of people who could commit sins in broad daylight and still sleep soundly at night. Needless to say, they faced no consequences for their actions.
Meanwhile, the poor just kept crawling forward, scraping by like cockroaches, praying not to get crushed under someone else's shoe.
This was hierarchy of the world.
I hated it.
I hated the world for taking him away.
I hated the people who sat in their glass towers, sipping wine and smiling like they didn't just destroy someone's life with the stroke of a pen.
But most of all, I hated myself because deep down, I knew I couldn't do a damn thing about it.
What could an unemployed eighteen-year-old with no future, no money, and no power possibly do against people who controlled the law itself?
Nothing.
I was just another piece on their board. Another disposable pawn that could be brushed aside whenever the game master demanded it.
Yet a part of me refused to let it go.
Call it stubbornness. Call it denial. Call it the pathetic delusion of a powerless kid desperate for closure. It was pathetic yet I couldn't yield.
If only I had... power.