Unwelcome at Home

Chapter 2: Unwelcome at Home

The scent of boiled radish and anchovy broth lingered in the hallway, clinging to the walls like a memory Yichen didn’t want to keep. He tiptoed into the kitchen the next morning, hair still damp from a rushed shower, the hem of his hoodie brushing just below the bandages he’d rewrapped over his chest. His mother didn’t look up from the sink.

“你又起这么晚。(You’re up late again),” she muttered in Mandarin, rinsing vegetables with too much force. “하루 종일 자는 애 같아. (You sleep like a child with no purpose.)”

He murmured, “对不起… 죄송합니다. (Sorry…)”

His father, already seated at the small breakfast table, grunted without lifting his eyes from the newspaper. “Eat fast. Minjae needs the car.”

Yichen nodded, silently sliding into the seat across from his older brother. Minjae barely acknowledged him–one glance, then back to his phone. Hair neat, sleeves rolled up. Corporate. Reliable. Everything Yichen was not.

The rice tasted like paper.

His parents never said it aloud, but the distance wrapped around them like glass: present, untouchable. He was the boy they adopted because his mother’s friend knew a woman in Guangzhou who had given up a child. A favor. A pity. Nothing owed.

They renamed him Jiwon. Enrolled him in hagwon, gave him clothes, taught him Korean etiquette. But not once had they said, “You are ours.”

He remembered the first time he tried singing at the table. He was nine. IU’s “Good Day” had just come out, and he mimicked every note with perfect pitch.

His father said nothing.

His mother turned off the TV.

Minjae snorted. “You sound like a girl.”

Yichen never sang at home again.

That morning, after clearing the dishes in silence, Yichen retreated to his room. The door shut with a soft click, and the world outside dissolved.

He sat in front of the mirror, not to transform–but to remember. There was a pale line along his cheek from where the wig cap had pressed too tightly the night before. His eyes were bloodshot. He hadn’t slept much.

From the drawer, he pulled out the earrings. Small pearls. A gift from one of his earliest fans.

He didn’t put them on.

He just held them.

Like proof.

Outside, Minjae’s voice echoed faintly down the hall, deep and clipped. “네, 오늘 중으로 서류 전달할게요. (Yes, I’ll send the documents by today.)”

Yichen leaned against the wall, listening to the sound.

There were days–rare and dangerous–when he wondered what it might’ve felt like to be loved by Minjae. Not as a brother. Not as Jiwon. Just… seen.

Would you have smiled at me, he wondered, if I had been born someone else?

He pressed his forehead to the door.

Xinyi was the only version of him the world ever applauded. And every day she grew stronger, more vivid.

Jiwon was fading.

Maybe that was the point.