MW 1

Crunch, crunch.

Contrary to the cute sound, with every step he took on the snow that had piled up softly overnight, a sharp, needle-like chill pierced through the soles of his worn-out sneakers. Yijae, curling his toes inside the faded summer sneakers, paused for a moment and lifted his head. The snow-covered yard filled his jet-black eyes.

Pretty trash. It seemed someone had once said that about snow. As if agreeing with the sentiment, Yijae gave a faint smile, let out a long breath, whoo, and started walking again.

Leading his body that had shivered in the cold all night, Yijae walked with familiar steps into the storage shed and came out with a broom.

“Haa……. Hah.”

Startled by the sound he had unintentionally let out, he reflexively dropped the broom and covered his mouth. Fear crept into his eyes as he looked around, wondering if Dohae had seen him.

Fortunately, it was still early dawn, and there wasn’t a single person outside, not around the main house or anywhere else. Yijae pressed down on his pounding heart and hurriedly swept the yard.

A good while had passed, and the sun was slowly beginning to rise overhead. Yijae looked past the back of his hands, which were frozen red, to his sneakers, soaked with water from where the snow had melted. No wonder his toes had been stinging and his senses growing duller.

The breath Yijae let out drew a hazy white mist. If he stayed like this any longer, he felt he would get frostbite. But he still had half of the white yard left to clear.

Crunch. Crunch.

Just then, he heard the sound of someone approaching. Yijae stopped sweeping the ground and straightened his back, feeling a cold gaze on him as he lowered his eyes.

“The Chairman says to come to the main house for breakfast this morning, so you’d better do that.”

Annoyance was evident in the eyes of the housekeeper, who turned away after delivering her message. When he first came to this house five years ago, she used to occasionally give him snacks, but now that was just a distant memory.

After sweeping all the snow covering the yard and putting the broom away, Yijae rolled his tongue inside his mouth at the bitter feeling and closed his eyes.

⁺₊❆₊⋆

As he entered the main house with his body frozen solid from the cold, he felt a warmth that seemed to melt him completely. The sudden change in temperature made his skin tingle, as if pricked by needles.

When he pressed his palms hard with his short-trimmed nails, the pain seemed to disperse and gradually fade away.

Yijae slowly bent his knees and took off his sneakers. His socks, one of which was a darker color from being soaked in water, were exposed to the air. As his eyes looked down at the damp sock, a clean, new pair of socks, unlike his own, came into view.

“Filthy beggar.”

Dohae, who was coming down to the first floor, spotted Yijae and sneered. Yijae’s chest ached as Dohae looked him over with contempt-filled eyes before passing by.

For the past few years, living under Chairman Gu’s roof, he had received countless insults and scorn from Dohae. So he thought he would be used to this by now, but apparently, he wasn’t. Yijae quickly hid the damp sock under his other foot. To keep from crying, his big eyes blinked as his red lips were pressed down by his white teeth.

“If you’re here, then come in. What are you doing standing foolishly in the entryway?”

But that too was brief; he sucked in a dry breath at the sound of the Chairman’s rebuking voice coming from inside. Lifting his head, which had stiffened with tension, he carefully took a step.

“Sit.”

As he entered the kitchen, the stern-faced Chairman Gu pointed to a seat with his chin. Yijae warily and hurriedly sat down. Dohae, who was already sitting next to him, immediately frowned. As if to express his displeasure with the situation, he slammed his spoon down on the table with a thud. Startled by the rather loud metallic sound, Yijae lowered his head. Dohae then turned his head to the side and whispered, just loud enough for him to hear.

“Idiot.”

Dohae, who had been sneering as he watched Yijae’s reaction, finally grinned in satisfaction upon seeing Yijae’s face turn pale.

“What are you doing? Not eating?”

“Yes…”

“Must be because he grew up without parents, he has no manners. Tsk, tsk.”

Chairman Gu, who had been silent when Dohae made the loud noise, clicked his tongue, blaming Yijae’s behavior. Yijae felt tears welling up at the thought that he had brought shame upon his parents. Biting his upper lip tightly, he hurriedly picked up his spoon, afraid that a greater scolding would follow, and opened his mouth.

“I’m, sorry…”

Dohae hated it when he spoke, so Yijae was inwardly worried that a hand might fly at him at any moment, but thankfully, perhaps because they were in front of the Chairman and his wife, he remained quiet. Yijae was extremely careful to not get on the nerves of the person sitting right next to him. Then, he put the sand-like, coarse rice into his mouth.

“I heard your CSAT scores were quite good?”

Chairman Gu asked Yijae as he picked up a glass of water.

But after taking a sip of water, he spoke first, before Yijae could even answer.

“Apply to the same university as Dohae.”

“Dad!”

Dohae, who had been sullenly eating his meal, making his mood obvious, shouted at Chairman Gu’s words.

“Dohae, you be quiet and listen to me.”

“No, but still, how could you put someone like that with me!”

“Gu Dohae.”

Dohae bit his lip hard and whipped his head around to glare at Yijae as if he would eat him alive.

“Seo Yijae.”

“Yes? Yes…”

“You don’t need to think about anything. Just do as I say quietly. Do you understand?”

“…Yes.”

“Good. If you’re done eating, you may leave.”

Coming from him now, when not even 10 minutes had passed since the meal began, ‘you may leave’ meant the same as ‘get out.’

Yijae looked down at his rice bowl, which was almost as full as when he started, and got up from his seat, fleeing the main house.

As he stepped out of the front door, the cold air wrapped around him again, and Yijae came to his senses.

‘If I do as Chairman Gu says, does that mean I can go to college?’

Yijae was scared of having to attend the same university as Dohae, but he felt a slight flutter of excitement begin to take root in his heart.

After he came to live at Chairman Gu’s house, he had naturally quit school. The reason was that the Chairman and his wife were worried about letting him out since he was an unstable omega. But Dohae, who was also an omega, was attending school just fine, so Yijae knew it was just an excuse.

He received an old laptop and money for online lectures under the pretext of homeschooling, but in reality, it was closer to neglect. With no hobbies and no friends, the only thing Yijae could do was study. He studied until the workbooks that Dohae had thrown away without ever using became tattered, and as a result, he was able to get good scores on the CSAT.

‘He didn’t want me to go to high school, but was he planning on sending me to college?’

Thinking about it now, it seemed that Chairman Gu’s words telling him to prepare for the CSAT all had a purpose.

‘If I go to college, will I be able to make friends?’

Yijae’s life had always been lonely. A poor family, busy parents, and always being by himself.

Yijae pictured himself strolling through campus with a friend and blushed by himself. Like that, little by little, his frozen heart began to melt.

The first time he met Dohae was five years ago, at his father’s funeral. The moment Yijae saw Dohae, he knew at once that he was his twin. The words his father had casually let slip when drunk were clearly etched in his memory.

He had always been curious about having a sibling. How are you living? Why did our parents send you away instead of me?

He had lived with a vague sense of longing and guilt for Dohae while looking at his own face in the mirror. So, the moment he first saw his twin, Yijae felt a sense of gladness at the face that looked so much like his own.

But the words that came out of his mouth were different.

<That’s my twin?>

Hearing the hate-filled tone and seeing the look in his eyes, Yijae knew instinctively. Unlike him, his sibling hated him.

Dohae, who appeared in the dark, mourner-less funeral hall, was like a shining jewel that didn’t belong there.

Looking at Dohae, dressed in clothes that, unlike his own, looked clean and high-quality, Yijae hid his frayed sleeve under his palm.

<This kind of dirty beggar?>

Beggar. The second thing Dohae had called him might have been, funnily enough, the truth. Because on that day, Yijae had sold himself because he had no money.

And so, five years ago, he packed all his belongings into a small bag and went to Dohae’s house.

<This is where you’ll be living from today.>

It was a clean and spacious house, incomparable to the shantytown where he had lived with his parents. But in that palace-like house, the only place permitted to Yijae was a small storage shed, separate from the main house.

“Haa…”

Finally arriving in his own space, Yijae sat down, rubbing his neck, which was still stinging from a wound that hadn’t healed. In winter, the cold seeped right in, and in summer, the lack of ventilation trapped the air, overwhelming him with stifling heat, but still, it was his only sanctuary.

After carefully checking that the door was shut properly, Yijae went inside the shed and headed first to the bathroom. The word ‘dirty,’ which Dohae had said to him just a moment ago, was stuck in his head. When he took off his clothes and turned on the bathroom light, he caught sight of a cockroach rustling, shrrk, as it scurried up the wall.