3 years ago, on a day in November, Min Je was driving on the highway. He was on his way back to Seoul after meeting a painter in the countryside.

It was when he reached an interchange near Seoul. Min Je rear-ended the car in front of him, unable to control his speed due to the sudden braking of the vehicle ahead.

When Min Je, who had briefly lost consciousness, opened the driver’s door and got out, the road had already become a scene of chaos.

One side of the road was paralyzed with acrid smoke, bleeding people, and others running around seeking help.

He later learned that the accident that day was a horrific multi-vehicle collision involving 6 cars, caused by a driver who fell asleep at the wheel and crashed into the car in front.

Fortunately, Min Je’s car was the last, the 6th in line, so he didn’t suffer serious injuries. But perhaps due to the shock, there seemed to be a ringing in his ears.

“You seem hurt, are you alright?”

Someone asked with a worried expression as he staggered. Min Je just barely nodded and walked towards the line of crashed vehicles.

He didn’t know why he couldn’t just sit and wait for the ambulance. As if guided by some instinct, he went towards the smoking vehicles.

Heavy smoke was rising from the third vehicle. Inside the severely crumpled car was what appeared to be a young couple, with the man in the driver’s seat already unconscious.

Forgetting his own pain, Min Je tried his best to open the rear door. But the car body was so distorted from the accident that the door wouldn’t open with just his strength.

Min Je shattered the rear window with his elbow. The window, already severely cracked, couldn’t withstand Min Je’s force and broke apart.

The woman in the back seat was also in bad condition. Covered in blood, she was breathing heavily.

“Are you alright?”

As if hearing Min Je’s voice, the woman opened her eyes slightly. Then she painfully held out something she had been holding in her arms to Min Je.

“…Please, I beg, you.”

When he reflexively took what the woman was offering, it turned out to be a small child. The child was also unconscious from the impact of the accident.

The smoke rising from the vehicle was getting thicker.

“Someone please help!”

Min Je shouted while holding the child. But there were too many injured people besides them. Unless one was a rescue worker, there was no one readily available to come and help immediately.

“The child… first…”

The woman moved her lips with difficulty. At her desperately pleading expression, Min Je found himself nodding without realizing. The sound of ambulances was approaching from afar.

Min Je hurriedly stepped towards the ambulances with the sole thought of saving the child.

How long had he walked in that dazed state?

Bang! Boom! With a ground-shaking sound, an explosion occurred. And there, Min Je’s consciousness cut off.

When Min Je opened his eyes, he was in the hospital emergency room. After staring blankly at the IV drip in his arm for a while, Min Je gasped and suddenly sat up.

‘The child? Where did the child go?’

He pulled back the curtain surrounding the emergency room bed and came out. He even pulled out the cumbersome IV line, causing blood to flow from the back of his hand, but he couldn’t feel any sensation.

The emergency room was filled with wailing sounds from here and there, reminiscent of a funeral home. Min Je, frantically checking nearby beds, grabbed a passing nurse and asked.

“There was a child about this big among the traffic accident patients, where did they go?”

“A child? The child is currently being treated… Your hand is bleeding! You’re a patient, right? You shouldn’t be walking around like this.”

The nurse who saw Min Je’s condition tried to stop him in surprise, but he insisted that he needed to check on the child’s condition first. The nurse reluctantly led him to where the child was being treated.

The child was unconscious with a ventilator, but they said there was no danger to their life.

Thank goodness, really thank goodness. Min Je, who had just sighed in relief, then asked about the fate of the child’s parents.

“What about this child’s parents?”

At this, the nurses and paramedics there all sighed with grim expressions.

“What? What’s wrong?”

Only after Min Je pressed once more did one of them speak up.

“There was an explosion. It seems the battery of an electric car was damaged in the collision and that exploded. The exact circumstances of the accident are still being investigated, but they say the car that exploded was this child’s parents’ car.”

“How could such a thing…”

As Min Je staggered, a paramedic supported him and said.

“It’s a bit of a headache right now. This child has no relatives at all. At this rate, it seems we’ll have to send them to a child protection facility once treatment is over.”

“You mean this child will have to grow up in an orphanage from now on?”

Min Je suddenly felt dizzy, as if trapped in a hazy fog. In the midst of it, he seemed to hear the blood-covered woman repeatedly saying, ‘Please, I beg you.’

Not only that, but the pitiful sight of the child lying on the bed began to overlap with his own childhood. No one would understand better than him what it means to grow up in an orphanage without anyone to rely on.

Was he out of his mind for not being able to leave the child like that? Min Je stared blankly at the child, unable to sort out the confusion in his mind.

At that moment, as if having received the news, Jun Won entered the emergency room with a pale face. After looking around, he soon spotted Min Je and approached him.

“Are you alright? I thought you had already crossed the River Jordan and was terrified…”

Seeing the lack of focus in Min Je’s eyes, Jun Won exclaimed in shock.

“Is he really okay? He doesn’t look good!”

The accident Min Je experienced was big enough to be reported as major news on terrestrial broadcasts. With a 6-car pileup and an explosion on top of that, there were significant casualties. Two cars were completely burned, and it was a major accident with 5 fatalities.

It was fortunate that he had survived such an accident unscathed, but seeing Min Je’s condition, it didn’t seem so fortunate after all. Apart from minor injuries on his face, his body appeared fine, but somehow his mental state seemed extremely unstable, as if he had lost his mind.

“It seems you rescued this child from the accident. This child’s parents have all passed away.”

After hearing the whole story, Jun Won clicked his tongue in sympathy. He couldn’t help but wonder how someone who had grown up without knowing his own parents’ faces felt upon meeting a child who had just lost their parents before their eyes and become all alone.

‘Ah, poor guy.’

Perhaps because he knew what kind of life Min Je had lived until now, Jun Won couldn’t oppose when he said he would officially adopt the child and register them in his family registry.

Rather, he only hoped that the child would become a ray of sunshine in Min Je’s life, which had been bleak and dry until then.

Min Je calmly revealed the past events of how Ji Hoo became his son. Ha Yeon had chewed her lips so much trying not to cry that they had become numb.

“The reason I haven’t told you until now was because I wanted you to grow up thinking I was your real dad.”

Min Je said, his face contorting in pain. The days he had spent alone, worrying and suffering, came back to him once again, causing a sharp pain in his chest.

Even after telling the whole story, Ji Hoo gave no response, causing Min Je and Ha Yeon to exchange worried glances.

Was the shock too great? Was it too hasty to speak? As their minds were tangled in complexity with only sighs coming out, Ji Hoo muttered in a small voice.

“I, knew.”

Plop, plop, large teardrops fell from Ji Hoo’s eyes.

Min Je doubted his ears for a moment. He knew everything? Did he have memories from when he was three years old? Unable to hide his confused expression, he asked urgently.

“How, no, since when did you know?”

To know everything and not show any sign. Is that possible? Min Je quickly approached Ji Hoo’s side, kneeling down to meet the child’s eyes.

Even when he was young, Ji Hoo never threw tantrums or cried. Seeing such a child now shedding tears, Min Je’s heart felt like it was being torn apart.

“It’s okay. Dad is sorry. Dad did everything wrong.”

He kept muttering like that repeatedly, not even knowing what he was apologizing for. Just one thing was clear. This child had done nothing wrong. If so, then it must unconditionally be his fault. With that logic, Min Je continued to apologize.

Ha Yeon tried to tilt her head back and swallow her tears, but having reached her limit, she was now crying uncontrollably, having given up on trying to hold back the flowing tears. Her heart felt like it was being torn apart, it was so painful and sad. Because the accident was just an accident, it wasn’t anyone’s fault.

“Dad didn’t do… anything wrong. To Ji Hoo, you’re a very… thankful person.”

Ji Hoo managed to complete the sentence while sniffling.

Min Je covered his face with his hands. Tears were not familiar to him. Having become an adult too early, he had long ago nailed it into his heart that only weak people shed tears.

So he instinctively covered his face to hide the hot thing flowing down his cheeks. But with tears flowing so much that his vision became blurry, there was no use in trying to cover it. Min Je roughly wiped away his tears with his sleeve and took out an old photograph from his wallet to hand to Ji Hoo.

“This is a photo of your parents.”

The photo he had been carrying in his wallet all along, not knowing when to show Ji Hoo, showed the image of a happy family.

“I wondered who Ji Hoo took after to be so handsome, it must be thanks to your parents.”

At Ha Yeon’s joking remark, the child’s hand holding the photo trembled. And then suddenly, Ji Hoo burst into loud tears.

“Waaaaaah!”

The crying sound of the wailing child sounded like an animal howling. The sound of the child’s cry, exploding all the emotions that had been neatly piled up inside until now, continued for quite a while.

Knowing that Ji Hoo’s crying was a way of releasing the pent-up emotions inside, Min Je and Ha Yeon couldn’t comfort the child. So they cried together, and cried some more.

How long did they cry? Ji Hoo, with eyes swollen from crying, started to hiccup. Ha Yeon gently rubbed the child’s back. Just thinking about how much burden this small body had been carrying made her body tremble.

“To Ji Hoo, I’m still dad, right?”

Min Je asked, holding Ji Hoo’s hand with a gentle expression.

“Of course, definitely.”

The two looked at each other and smiled. Just looking and smiling, yet it felt as if a warm energy was spreading throughout their bodies.

Because there was something hidden, they were awkward with each other. As if there was some barrier they couldn’t overcome, the gap didn’t close. Though they were father and son in words, they couldn’t share real affection and the child grew up in a state of emotional distance.

Min Je thought that this moment today had created a true family. Forming a family with someone truly becomes ‘real’ when hearts are shared.

No matter how much they are legally bound as family on the family register, that cannot be the proof of a real family.

If asked whether blood ties alone are the basis for maintaining a family, Min Je would answer ‘no’ without hesitation. He would say that something else beyond blood ties can certainly give birth to a family.

“Since meeting you, there has never been a time when you weren’t my son.”

Min Je’s sincere words once again turned the scene into a sea of tears.