"You will be different, sometimes you'll feel like an outcast, but you'll never be alone. You will make my strength your own. You will see my life through your eyes, as your life will be seen through mine. The son becomes the father and the father becomes the son."
- Jor-El to his son Kal-El (Superman 1978)
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WARNING: ⚠️ ADULT AND MATURE SEXUAL CONTENT IN THIS CHAPTER. READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - 2003
Twelve year old Kim Hyun-Bin smiled proudly at the Gundam robot his halabeoji had brought over with him for his twelfth birthday a week ago. The moment he'd received the present, he'd bolted back into his room and begun assembling it so that he could show his grandfather the finished product when he returned the next week.
His halabeoji was a very busy man. He was the chairman of YumShin Group, one of the biggest conglomerates in Asia - not just South Korea. The chairman was invested in collecting acquisitions in a similar way as one would collect cars, or pieces of art. Hyun-Bin's cousin Ji-Sub hyeong would one day take over as chairman, and this was why he'd been spending more and more time with Hyun-Bin's father than at home with him and his eomma.
He heard the voices coming from his abeoji's office. Unlike most fathers, his appa gave them free access to every room in the house. Even when he was working, Kim Ho-Bin had an open door policy. His family always came first.
He was about to push the door open, but froze when he heard his grandfather's harsh tone.
"You have to keep trying, emi! This entire family is depending on you."
"Abeonim-"
"I allowed you to marry my son for one reason. Unlike all those vapid chaebol debutantes, I saw that you put your family above all else. You reassured me that you would provide us a big family. You've given us one! One child. It didn't matter before, while my daughter was still alive, but her idiot husband killed her!"
Hyun-Bin almost dropped his precious toy robot, on which he'd worked tirelessly for hours on end.
"It was an accident, abeonim."
He took a peek around the slightly ajar door. He gasped silently when he saw his mother's distressed and tear-stained face.
"Don't make excuses for that scoundrel! If he'd prioritized having a family over his own ego, we wouldn't be in this mess..."
"Let's not talk ill of the dead, abeonim," his mother urged his grandfather. But the old man continued on as he hadn't heard her.
"What heinous crimes did I commit in my past life to be saddled with such failures?"
"I promise to keep trying, abeonim. You know how desperately I want to have another child," his mother swore to the chairman, in earnest.
"If this one doesn't bear out you must be prepared to take even more drastic actions!" the chairman warned.
"Abeonim. Jebal. You know how Ho-Bin-ah and I feel about those options. They go against what we believe in," Hyun-Bin's mother pleaded.
"Desperate measures, emi! Desperate measures. How many times must you let my son and his family down? Time is now of the essence. Your son is still young, but when the time comes he will be expected to do his part. I expect everyone in this family to do their part, particularly you. I will not accept further failures."
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