It was a bitter winter afternoon when Oh Yejun stood outside the gleaming black gates of the Yeon family estate, her infant son Jihoon wrapped in a thin fleece blanket in her arms. Snow flurried around her, white specks melting into her hair and clothes. The world felt frigid, cruel—like the man she had once loved.
Or so she had believed.
She pressed the buzzer on the intercom for the fourth time, her gloved fingers trembling—not from the cold, but from the storm of humiliation and desperation brewing in her chest. Her lips were chapped, and her face worn from sleepless nights of caring for a baby and mentally preparing for this confrontation. This was her last card to play. Her only card.
A voice crackled from the speaker.
"State your name and business."
"It's me—Oh Yejun. I need to see Sunghan. It's urgent," she said, her voice wavering.
A long pause followed. Then the gates, as tall and unfeeling as the man she had come to see, remained firmly closed. No further instructions came.
But she didn't leave. Not this time.
Ten minutes later, the front door of the grand estate opened, and from within emerged a man in a tailored charcoal suit. Yeon Sunghan.
His face was as expressionless as she remembered—chiselled, clean-cut, untouchable. His black coat swayed with authority as he walked with careful, deliberate steps toward her. His eyes landed briefly on the bundle in her arms, then sharply snapped back to her face.
"What do you want, Yejun?"
She took a shaky breath. "He's yours. Jihoon. You know it."
Sunghan glanced down at the baby, whose small, round face peeked from the blankets. Jihoon blinked up at the wintry sky, unaware of the gravity that surrounded his existence.
"I want you to acknowledge him," she said, her voice firmer now, desperation giving way to resolve. "He's your son. He deserves your name."
Sunghan didn't blink. "No."
Yejun stared at him, the chill in her bones now replaced by an icy disbelief. "No?" she repeated.
"He's not mine."
"That's a lie, and you know it!" she snapped. "We were together for two years. You told me you loved me. You said—"
"I told you what you needed to hear," Sunghan cut in coldly. "You were just a mere diversion. Nothing more."
The words were sharper than the biting wind. Yejun's throat tightened, and for a moment, she almost dropped to her knees—but the child in her arms kept her standing.
"I gave you everything," she whispered. "And you gave me a child. You won't even give him your name?"
Sunghan leaned closer, his tone quiet, but cutting like steel. "You will keep this child hidden. Out of the press. Out of society. If you try to expose him, you'll regret it. I have the means to destroy you, Yejun. Don't think I won't."
Tears blurred her vision. "You're a coward," she spat. "Hiding behind your perfect image. That baby is flesh of your flesh—how can you be this heartless cruel bastard?"
Sunghan straightened, brushing invisible dust from his sleeve. "The Yeon name belongs to my family. My wife. My children. The ones born within the bounds of legitimacy."
His words were heavy with finality.
Then, with no further glance at the woman who had once shared his bed—or the child in her arms—Sunghan turned and walked back inside the estate.
The gates closed.
The snow fell harder.
And Yejun, shivering and humiliated, stood outside, knowing she had lost.
That same evening, the Yeon family estate buzzed with activity. Reporters and photographers flooded the grand ballroom as the Yeon Conglomerate prepared to celebrate the public debut of its next generation. Spotlights illuminated the long marble hallway, where banners boasting "Legacy and Leadership: The Future of Yeon" hung with dignified elegance.
At the center of it all stood Choi Minae, the elegant matriarch of the Yeon family. Her smile was poised, perfect, practiced. Her long white gown shimmered beneath the chandelier light, and her arm was hooked around her husband's—Sunghan, the same man who had condemned his other child to anonymity just hours ago.
The cameras clicked as Minae spoke into the microphone, her voice calm and warm.
"Tonight, we proudly present to you the future pillars of the Yeon Conglomerate. Our eldest son, Yeon Sungjae—"
A proud, serious-looking young boy stepped forward as his parent instructed. He was only five years old, dressed in a formal black suit, his eyes sharp and composed despite of a young age. The press swooned at this young prodigy's polished demeanor.
"—and our daughter, Yeon Heesa."
The little toddler girl stepped up of the crowd while being cradled by her mother and beside her older brother, at by only the age of one she already exuding elegance with her strawberry-blonde short bob and soft pink silk dress. She smiled and giggled for the cameras, radiating an innocence that belied her curious eyes.
The crowd applauded. Articles would be published the next morning naming them "The Golden Heirs," the perfect continuation of the Yeon legacy.
No one would mention the other forgotten child.
The child born in shadows, cradled by a mother frozen in despair on the other side of the city.
That night, Yejun returned to her tiny apartment above the bar she worked in. The glamour of the Yeon estate was a distant planet compared to her cramped, dingy world. She laid Jihoon in a worn crib, its paint chipped and sides uneven.
She sat beside him and wept—not for herself, but for her son, who had just been erased from the world before he had even learned to speak.
The words Sunghan had spoken that morning replayed in her mind like a cruel echo.
"He's not mine."
She wanted to scream. Rage filled her—at Sunghan, at Minae, at the world that separated the powerful from the powerless with gates, money, and names.
And in her heart, a dark seed of bitterness began to grow.
Over the next few years, Yejun's bitterness festered into resentment. Her attempts to reach Sunghan again were met with silence—or worse, veiled threats. One envelope contained a note with a single typed sentence:
"Do not test me again."
Another came with a silent bribe—sixty million won in cheque. Hush money.
Yejun burned it in a fit of rage.
She took up more shifts at the bar, drinking when her shifts ended, the exhaustion of single motherhood and shattered pride dragging her deeper into darkness. Jihoon, only a toddler, watched quietly from corners, his large brown eyes reflecting every emotional storm his mother endured.
He grew up learning silence was safer.
That small apartment became his entire universe, filled with the scent of smoke, the clink of empty bottles, and the soft murmur of late-night TV his mother would pass out watching.
He never asked where his father was.
And Yejun never answered.
Meanwhile, Sungjae and Heesa flourished under the spotlight. Their lives became the template for excellence—Sungjae, the brilliant young student with a future in finance; Heesa, the musical prodigy little princess and media darling.
Their faces graced magazines, their milestones broadcast on national news.
They attended Seoul's most prestigious prep academy, arriving in chauffeured cars, dressed in custom-tailored uniforms.
Jihoon, on the other side of town, walked alone to his underfunded public school. He wore second-hand shoes and carried a faded backpack. He was quiet, withdrawn, often mistaken for shy, though in truth he was simply trying to survive invisibility.
Sometimes he saw young Sungjae's face on the billboard outside the convenience store. "Future Heir and CEO of Yeon Conglomerate," the headline said.
And in those moments, Jihoon wondered: Why wasn't I good enough to stand beside them?
He didn't know the answer.
But his mother did.
One night, when Jihoon was seven, he found her crying over a crumpled newspaper. The headline featured Sungjae again—something about a national math award.
Jihoon padded over, placing a small hand on her arm.
"Mama… why are you crying?"
Yejun looked at her son with red eyes, half-mad with wine and regret. She pulled him close, held him too tight.
"It should've been you," she whispered, her voice shaking.
"Should've been you up there."
Jihoon didn't understand. But he didn't ask. He simply let her hold him, even as her breath reeked of alcohol, and her grip began to hurt.
That was the first time he truly felt it—the sharp sting of being unwanted.
Not just by the world, but slowly, even by his own mother.
As years passed, Yejun's bitterness poisoned her love. She began seeing Jihoon not as her son, but as the symbol of her failure. She snapped at him for small things. Slapped him when her moods turned. Ignored him for days, then clung to him in drunken sobs.
Jihoon learned not to cry.
He learned to stay quiet, to avoid being seen. Invisibility became his armor.
And yet, every once in a while, when the wind blew cold, and the city lights reminded him of things too bright for his world, he would look up at the winter sky and wonder—
Why was I born?
He never got an answer.
But the snow always seemed to fall harder when he asked.