I never thought I would return to the place I ran from seven years ago.
Yet here I was again… standing in the same city, holding my daughter in my arms.
Everything felt painfully familiar.
These streets had seen my blood, my tears, and my fight for survival. People walked past me now, unaware that a young man had once nearly died here, that this place had almost swallowed him whole.
This city had taught me what betrayal truly meant.
Love had failed me here. Trust had been shattered here. And even now, the wounds still felt as fresh as if they had never healed.
I was born in the city, but growing up, I always felt like I didn't belong anywhere.
People bullied me.
Not only with words… but with looks, silence, and the way they avoided me.
Before I even spoke, they had already decided I was strange.
I tried to change.
I tried to be normal.
But no matter what I did, I was always the boy people pushed aside.
One day, even my own mother told me she wished I could be normal.
She didn't know how deep that sentence would cut me.
So I became quiet.
I became careful.
I learned how to hide inside myself.
Then in 2015, I found Rider.
They were a Chinese K-pop group.
When I saw them on my screen, it felt like another world opened for me.
Their music spoke to the part of me that no one ever listened to.
But their leader… he changed everything.
The way he smiled was soft and kind.
His voice felt like it could hold broken hearts together.
I didn't want to touch him.
I didn't want to own him.
I just wanted to see him.
So I bought their albums.
Their magazines.
Every small thing that proved he was real.
Sometimes, when Rider came to town, I skipped class to stand far away and watch him walk past.
I wasn't crazy.
I was just a lonely boy who learned how to breathe by loving someone from far away.
In a world that never wanted me,
He gave me a reason to stay alive.
I never thought I would get this close to him.
Seven years ago, he was only a face on a screen.
A voice in my headphones.
A dream I could never touch.
Now, I was standing in an office, face to face with him, and my heart felt like it was going to burst.
I thought I would faint.
Two months earlier, I had sent my résumé to an art company.
I'm a videographer, but I also know how to teach and guide people.
I thought maybe I could work in music too.
I didn't even check who owned the company.
That was my mistake.
They took two months to reply.
Two long months.
When they finally did, I told myself to be calm.
To be professional.
To do my best.
I didn't know the company belonged to the man I had loved for seven years.
When I walked into the building, I saw MKTO in the practice room.
Laughing.
Playing.
Like they weren't the centre of my whole world once.
I froze and hid behind the wall.
"Why are you hiding?" the receptionist asked.
"I… I don't know," I said.
The interview went well.
They told me they would call.
I left shaking.
Then, in the elevator, the doors were closing, and suddenly the Riders rushed in.
All of them.
Including him.
He stood so close I could feel his warmth.
I stared too long.
I saw the fear in his eyes.
To him, I must have looked strange.
When they left, I slid down the wall and couldn't breathe.
Seven years of loving him from far away had just stood in front of me… and walked away.
Outside the building, I started dancing like a fool.
I had finally seen him in real life.
Then a car splashed water all over me, pulling me back to reality.
I went to my favourite café and told my friend Ji-hyuk everything.
Then my phone rang.
I got the job.
Not as a videographer.
Not as a teacher.
But as a rider's manager.
The world spun.
And I fainted.
Because loving someone from far away is one thing,
But being pulled into their world is something else.
I was pulled out of my thoughts when a car slowed in front of me… one that looked painfully familiar.
Could it be him?
No… it couldn't be.
Then I saw the driver.
Junhoo.
My heart froze.
He was one of the reasons betrayal had cut so deep.
Seeing Junhoo again felt like coming face-to-face with the Grim Reaper himself.
I quickly lowered my head, praying he wouldn't recognise me. My heart was pounding so hard it felt like it would give me away. I watched him through the bus window as he stepped out, surrounded by people. The youngest son of the Jamal empire, powerful, untouchable.
I didn't want to exist in that moment.
I didn't want to be seen.
I just wanted to disappear.
My daughter stared at me like I had lost my mind.
"Dad… are you serious?" she whispered. "Come on."
I said nothing.
If we were noticed… if we were caught…
She would be grounded.
So I closed my mouth, stayed still, and prayed the past wouldn't find me.
I overheard people on the bus whispering about him.
They said he was on his way to pick up his girlfriend… that he was so in love he was ready to run away with her.
They called him a love-struck man.
They said any woman would be lucky to have him as a husband.
They laughed.
They smiled.
They praised him.
But they didn't know the darkness I knew.
They didn't know that he didn't only love women…
He loved men too.
And I was one of the ones he destroyed.
His life was built on lies and control.
I heard them say he was keeping the girl at home, refusing to let her leave him. But she was stubborn, too strong to be trapped so easily.
She looked pampered.
Clean.
Soft.
Of course she did.
Junhoo always spoiled the people he claimed to love. He never wanted them to lack anything… because he wanted them to depend on him.
He had tried to do the same to me.
I once refused his gifts, refused to let myself become something he owned. But the girl beside him now looked different. Younger.
And then I remembered.
She was his secretary.
The intern from seven years ago … the one he told me he only "liked."
Everything he ever said about her had been a lie.
What a shame.