Unable to endure it, I even tried leaving my mother’s side after just entering high school. My freedom was only brief. My mother, left alone, reported me as a runaway to the police, slit her wrist, and swallowed a handful of sleeping pills before being rushed to the hospital.

When I heard the news at school, I went straight to the hospital, and when I came back, stories about me and my family had already spread widely through the school. It had all been out of my control, but the way people looked at me had changed. I did not even remember how I managed to keep going to school after that.

I just prayed that I would become an adult as quickly as possible so I could escape this situation.

But the year I turned nineteen, I got a younger brother. Another cursed existence, just like me, had been born.

My mother soon regretted having given birth to him. His biological father had abandoned her and left not long after.

But my mother still would not let go of hope.

"Sometimes people only manifest when they’re adults. As long as you manifest as an alpha, you can go find your father..."

She still could not let go of the alpha who had abandoned her. Even after being discarded by countless alphas.

It was pitiful, and at the same time, utterly disgusting. My mother was, and so was I, who could not leave her side.

I had decided I needed to leave. I had decided hundreds of times that I could only survive if I abandoned my mother... and yet.

If my mother, too, had abandoned me back then when my father abandoned us, she might have been treated better by alphas. But she could not give me up, and even when she went to another alpha’s house to play mistress, she never took me out of her arms.

So I could not leave. Even knowing I was falling apart, I had no choice but to stay beside her.

It seemed like it would only end when one of us, or both of us, died.

The year I turned nineteen, my mother found work for the first time in her life. She said she had gotten a job as a servant in a wealthy household. It was a relief that she was finally working without depending on an alpha, but in the meantime, taking care of my younger brother was my job.

I went to school in a daze and took care of my brother. Just when I was so exhausted that I wanted to run away, my mother said we had to move.

"The chairman heard about our situation and took pity on us... He said we could live together in the mansion. He even said he’d give you your own room."

It felt strange, but my mother cleaned up the semi-basement we had been living in as if she were being chased by something. Then she practically dragged us to the mansion.

Something about it may have been strange. I was not the only child the servant had brought to live with her. And this was not merely a rich family’s house. It was the house of one of the country’s most prominent conglomerate chairmen.

"He even said he’d pay your tuition. And he’ll send Chaemin to daycare too."

No matter how much money he had, why was he doing all this?

I wondered, but my mother soothed my suspicions and said it was fine. Fortunately, when I saw her up close, work did not seem that hard on her. All she had to do was clean the chairman’s study and serve him when he returned home. So I thought it would be fine. I had planned to leave once my brother got a little older.

But I soon realized that, despite the mansion looking elegant and old-fashioned on the outside, the inside was nothing like that.

There, only the chairman’s son, who shared his blood, remained, and I had no idea where the woman who had given birth to him had gone. That was Cha Taewoo.

At first he seemed to watch me warily, but after a few months he started coming toward me for some reason. I had not noticed his intention and allowed him to inch closer little by little, but the purpose that eventually became clear was not especially surprising.

The one place in this house where I could breathe at all was the annex.

At first it had just been a mistake. I had wandered aimlessly through the garden because I did not want to stay in the main house where the chairman and his family lived, and found it by chance. It had originally been built for a concubine, but now it was said to be for the second son.

Thanks to the fact that he had left for the United States, the annex was always empty except when it was cleaned at the same time every day. Whenever I felt like I would suffocate to death from the oppressive atmosphere, I would habitually hide in the annex.

At first I had been terrified of being caught, but after a few months, half a year, and then more than a year, it became even more familiar than my own room. Just sitting quietly there without leaving behind any trace felt as if I could breathe again.

The annex stood apart all alone in the vast mansion, and within it, the darkest and most secluded corner. I had long suffered from insomnia and could not fall asleep easily without medicine, but it was the only place where I could truly sleep soundly.

That was why I had both looked forward to and been disappointed by the news that Cha Seonwoo was coming back to Korea. My place to run away to inside this suffocating mansion had disappeared again.

After the day we first met, I avoided Cha Seonwoo as much as possible. It was because I thought there was no benefit in getting involved with him, and because of the instinctive fear he caused.

But Cha Seonwoo was hard to see, so I did not even need to avoid him all that deliberately. The place he stayed in was the annex to begin with, and he was not in the mansion either day or night. During the week since he had arrived, all I had done was catch sight of him from far away.

Still, even if I could somehow avoid Cha Seonwoo, I could not avoid Cha Taewoo. I had run into Cha Taewoo when I came to the dining room to prepare my brother’s meal. It was a disaster.

He brushed aside my claim that I was busy, grabbed my wrist, and dragged me into the living room, where he made me sit on the sofa. Then, with me sitting there giving him no reply, he started badmouthing Cha Seonwoo. It seemed he thought I was the only one in this house who would agree with him.

He was shameless. He acted as if he had already forgotten what happened that day.

I sat there blankly and looked at a framed family photo hanging in the house. Cha Taewoo did not exist in it. Was he really fine with that?

"He never can give up that bad habit of his. Even after coming back to Korea, he’s still running around like he’s in heat or something."

Only then did I snap out of my thoughts.

At those words, I remembered the smell of alcohol on Cha Seonwoo when I first saw him. He had not looked drunk from the outside, but perhaps he was. That would explain why he had said such meaningless things.

"To think the company will be handed to some bastard like that..."

Cha Taewoo sneered at his half-brother. But his expression, every one of his words, was soaked through with crude emotions like inferiority and jealousy.

I could sympathize, but I did not show it. If I reacted here, I would be trapped with Cha Taewoo even longer.

"May I go now?"

"Already? Why?"

"I said I had something I needed to do."

"You can do it a little later. Come on, just a little longer with me..."

Cha Taewoo suddenly clamped his mouth shut. Then he lifted his eyes and looked over my shoulder. It was a wary gaze.

Slowly turning my head to follow his, I saw Cha Seonwoo walking past the living room toward the front door. Perhaps because the chairman had called for him, there was a faint irritation on his languid face.

No matter when I saw him, Cha Seonwoo revealed without restraint that he was an alpha. I found it uncomfortable and unpleasant.

Then Cha Seonwoo turned his head in my direction, and our eyes met.

Flustered by how much I looked like I had been secretly watching him, I reflexively snapped my head away.

"...Ah."

At the same time, I let out a small sigh as something occurred to me. I hurriedly turned back, but Cha Seonwoo was already gone. He had probably gone to the annex.

I had not even thought about it lately. Only then did I remember that before Cha Seonwoo arrived, I had been going to the annex several times a week. If Cha Seonwoo found out about that... just thinking about it made my head throb.

I searched my memory for any traces I might have left. Had I taken anything from that room? No, there was no way. I had been careful, and careful again, worried that I might leave even the smallest trace. And yet I could not be certain that I had left absolutely nothing behind.

"Why? Is there some problem?"

Cha Taewoo was looking at me with a strange expression. It was the kind of gaze that seemed to be sizing me up from top to bottom.

"...No."

"Really...? That’s a relief."

But despite saying that, his gaze, full of unease, kept drifting toward the annex. The look Cha Taewoo gave me while watching that was prickly.

"Have you run into Cha Seonwoo before?"

I stayed silent for a moment at the question, unable to tell what he meant, then shook my head.

"I see... Be careful. It won’t do you any good to get involved with him."

At the same time, Cha Seonwoo’s voice, warning me the same way, flashed through my mind.

"...Yes. I’ll be careful."