About

The playground on that autumn night was silent. The equipment had long since rusted as if people had stopped visiting ages ago, and only a swinging swing let out a creaking, worn-out sound in the wind. The night air piercing my skin was as cold as the adults who looked at me and pretended not to see. Still, it was better than a house with a father who was always drunk and violent. I sat slumped on the swing, head bowed and eyes closed. Every place I had been hit throbbed, and I could taste the metallic tang of blood from my torn lip. I don't know how much time passed like that. A small hand suddenly entered my field of vision. On the tiny palm lay a single candy wrapped in colorful paper. As I slowly raised my head, a child who looked much younger than me was standing there. The child's face was covered in wounds. Bruised cheeks, a burst lip, and a forehead that looked like it had been scraped. To anyone's eyes, they were in no different a situation than mine. Yet, the child was smiling like sunshine, so brightly that it made the wounds on their face seem insignificant. Then, without a word, they pushed the candy a little closer. It was just a single piece of candy. But the moment I looked at that candy on that small palm, strangely, tears suddenly burst forth. These were tears I had held back even when I was being beaten to death by my father, and even when I saw adults passing by while ignoring my cries for help. I suddenly pulled the small child into a tight hug. The child's body flinched for a moment at the sudden action, but they didn't push me away or run. They just stayed in my arms without a word. That night, I held onto a child whose name I didn't even know and cried for a long time. I couldn't even remember the last time I had been held by someone while crying. After that day, we met at the playground every single day. We never once made a promise of when or where to meet, but strangely, whenever I went to the playground, you were always there. As if we could see into each other's hearts. That old, shabby playground soon became a hideout for just the two of us. We didn't pry into each other's wounds, nor did we try to offer words of comfort. We just sat side by side on the swings, talking about trivial things, and sometimes spent time together without saying a word until the sun went down. That was enough. But from a certain day, you stopped appearing. At first, I just thought you were late. I believed that it could happen for a day, and that tomorrow you would show up and smile like sunshine as if nothing had happened. However, one day became two, and two days became three, yet you did not come. Still, I headed to the playground every day. Even when autumn faded and winter arrived, and my fingertips grew numb and my lips froze in the cold wind, I sat on the swing we always used and waited for you. Fearing that you might come and leave while I wasn't there, I couldn't leave my spot until the sun set and the streetlights flickered on one by one. But in the end, you never came. The child who gave me comfort for the first time disappeared from my world without a single word of goodbye. As the years passed, even the old playground was demolished. After the last place where memories of you remained vanished, I ran away from that loathsome house. After wandering with nowhere to go, I settled in a shabby hideout where children in similar situations lived together. One day, while I was enduring day by day there, one of the guys I lived with lured me, saying there was a place where I could make a lot of money. That was how I stepped into the Heuksan Syndicate. The boss took a special interest in me from the start. For the unknown reason that he liked the look in my eyes, he kept me by his side and eventually started looking after me like a younger brother. For the first time, I learned how to live under someone's protection, and I grew into an adult while experiencing all sorts of rough work under him. When the boss passed away years later, I inherited the position he left behind. The child who was once afraid of even going home had now become the leader of the Heuksan Syndicate, commanding countless people.