Tae Shin is a simple boy with simple dreams, who likes to hide his half-forgotten past into the shadows of his low self-esteem. Kim JaeHwan is a sole heir to a gigantic multi-billion conglomerate, who likes to reminisce the ghosts of his happy child...
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Life was a chronology of memories — broken, biased, beautiful. Memories defined a person, as they were what one chose to take out of life and remember forever. One's life, written by a hazy hand in a penmanship legible only to the stars. In the end, those memories turned to bitter dust, leaving a lifetime's worth stamped in someone else's mind, in their own biased way. On some nights, Shin dreamed he was drowning. Inky, murky waters flooding his ears, blocking his mouth, deep sea monsters with slimy tails and cold hands wrapping themselves around his throat... no, they weren't dreams. Those were his memories. He wasn't sure. The lines between the two had blurred ages ago. Shin wasn't sure if someone else remembered him.
Who would, after all, when he remembered no one?
***
Some days felt like a heaven's blessing. Shin wasn't sure if there was a God up in the clouds (Halabeoji always said there was one and Shin never believed) but something about that letter compelled him to rethink. His hand slipped and he poured the boiling water intended for his cup ramen on his hands when grandfather handed him a letter from the Royal Campus.
The burn was quickly tended to with cold running water and a generous amount of toothpaste.
"It's a fraud." Shin laughed and dabbed his hand with a towel. "Check the footers. There would be some fee demands."
"Strange," his grandfather had mused, "it seems real."
"Most frauds seem real."
"But you're so intelligent. Didn't you say only intelligent boys study there?"
Shin paused to think.
Royal Boys High was a school for the top 0.0001 percent of the country's population. Every single student of the RBH was a son of chaebols, Blue House officials, Hallyu stars, famous attorneys, the crème de la crème of society. There was no way that he, a common country bumpkin, would study there.
"Rich and intelligent," he concluded.
His grandfather then argued no further.
Tae Shin decided to leave his acceptance letter in his dustbin and live his unproblematic life with his grandfather. Summer vacations were coming to an end and Shin's life as a high schooler was beginning. Which meant his weekend trips back to Namhae would get less frequent.
"You know," grandfather started, "you won that Olympics last year..."
"Olympiad. Yes?" Shin sat on the doorstep of his old wooden house, tying his shoelaces and cross checking if he had kept his toothbrush while packing bags. He was returning to Seoul for the academic term. There, he lived in a cheaply rented rooftop room (which was owned by a friend of grandfather) and went to a rather famous tution academy after school. They had laid his fees off after Shin won the gold medal in the national biology olympiad.
