Tae-Hyun slid off the bed, the cold wooden floor biting against his bare feet.
Each step he took felt alien.
A body too small. A heart too loud in his ears.
He crossed the room to the full-length mirror bolted against the wall — a cheap, gaudy thing his mother had picked out years ago, when they still shopped in dusty second-hand stores.
The boy in the reflection stared back at him.
Wide brown eyes. Messy black hair. A thin frame still too frail to carry the weight of the future.
A ghost of who he once was — and yet, something infinitely darker now peered out from behind those childish features.
Tae-Hyun lifted his hand and pressed it flat against the mirror.
The boy mimicked him perfectly, but Tae-Hyun didn't smile.
He couldn't.
He had to calculate. Ruthlessly.
He had come back seven years old. Innocent. Trustworthy. A blank page.
"No one suspects a child," he thought, his mind racing.
"They'll show their true faces freely. They'll let down their guard."
It was an opportunity more lethal than any weapon.
He dropped his hand from the mirror and began to pace, mentally mapping the battlefield.
First, the strengths:
- He knew every key player — their ambitions, their weaknesses, their future crimes.
- He knew every opportunity — every stock rise, every political scandal, every war in the corporate world.
- He knew exactly when Cheon Enterprises would rise and when it would rot from within.
Second, the weaknesses:
He had no allies. He had no money.
He had no real power yet.
And perhaps worst of all — he was still a child, bound by the rules of this timeline.
In the eyes of the world, he was powerless.
But Tae-Hyun smiled thinly.
Power wasn't just about muscles or money.
It was about information. It was about patience. It was about controlling the board without ever letting them realize who moved the pieces.
The walls of the house creaked as someone walked down the hallway — heavy adult footsteps.
Tae-Hyun turned toward the door, senses sharpening like a wolf catching the scent of prey.
Not yet, he thought. Not yet.
Right now, he needed to embed himself into their lives again — like a parasite burrowing into a host.
Smiling. Obeying. Learning.
Waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
He moved to the corner of the room where an old, battered school backpack lay abandoned.
Pulling it open, he found old homework sheets, broken pencils, scraps of childish doodles.
Tae-Hyun stared at the childish handwriting — his own — and something twisted bitterly inside him.
A voice — sweet, familiar — called again from downstairs.
"Tae-Hyun! Breakfast is ready!"
His mother's voice.
Alive. Warm.
Unbroken by grief and loss.
Tae-Hyun closed his eyes for a moment, the memories hitting him like knives.
In his last life, she hadn't lived long enough to see what her brothers-in-law did to her son.
She had died believing in the family's lies.
He would protect her this time.
He would protect her... by destroying everything else.
Straightening his small shoulders, Tae-Hyun plastered on the bright, eager smile of a seven-year-old boy.
He left the room without a sound.
The hunt had already begun.
The smell of grilled fish and warm rice filled the air as Tae-Hyun padded down the stairs.
The kitchen was cramped, the furniture old and worn — a reminder that this was before the family's ascension into untouchable wealth.
Before the marble floors.
Before the imported chandeliers.
Before the blood that paid for it all had dried unseen beneath their shoes.
His mother — still youthful, still smiling — fussed over the table, setting down bowls of steaming soup.
Her hands, rough from work but gentle, smoothed Tae-Hyun's hair as he approached.
"Good morning, sweetheart," she said, her voice a melody he thought he'd never hear again.
Tae-Hyun clutched her sleeve for a brief, desperate moment, breathing her in.
Alive. Warm.
He buried the raging emotions deep in his chest before they could crack his mask.
"Later," he promised silently.
"Later, I will protect you from everything."
The sound of heavy laughter rolled in from the living room.
Tae-Hyun's stomach turned cold.
They were here.
Two men — familiar yet monstrous — lounged casually on the battered leather couch, steaming mugs of coffee in their hands.
His uncles.
The architects of his death.
Cheon Jung-Ho — the snake.
The one who orchestrated his downfall with that polished smile and soft-spoken voice.
He laughed too loudly, clapping one of the others on the back.
Cheon Woo-Sik — the blunt instrument.
All muscle, no brain, but loyal to Jung-Ho to the bitter end.
At the sight of Tae-Hyun, all three turned with beaming, false smiles.
"There he is! Our little prince!" Jung-Ho bellowed, rising from the couch.
Tae-Hyun walked into the room, forcing himself to shrink — shoulders hunched, eyes wide, exactly how a naive seven-year-old should look.
Jung-Ho knelt down, ruffling Tae-Hyun's hair with a rough, "affectionate" hand.
"You'll grow up to be a strong man like your dad and uncles someday," he said, chuckling.
Tae-Hyun tilted his head, giving a shy, sweet smile — one he'd perfected as a weapon.
"Grow up to be like you?"
"I'd rather rot."
Inside, he fought the overwhelming urge to rip the man's hand from his scalp.
Instead, he giggled. A child's giggle. Perfectly innocent.
They bought it. Of course they did.
The breakfast table became a battlefield of hidden meanings and false words.
His uncles joked about business, about the family's "bright future," about Cheon Enterprises.
Tae-Hyun spooned rice into his mouth mechanically, nodding at the right moments, laughing when expected.
Underneath the mask, his mind spun with cold precision.
Each word they spoke. Each glance exchanged. Each moment of hesitation.
He was storing it all away — building their profiles like an assassin studying his targets.
Breakfast ended with laughter and clinking cups, a scene that could have been mistaken for a loving family gathering.
Tae-Hyun bowed respectfully as they left, waving his small hand as the devils filed out the door.
The moment it shut, the smile dropped from his face like a guillotine blade.
In the cold silence that followed, Tae-Hyun pressed his fingers against the spot Jung-Ho had touched on his scalp.
His hands shook — not with fear. With restraint.
"One day," he whispered to the empty kitchen,
"I'll crush you with these hands."