Arin slowly stepped back. She rushed out, barely putting on her shoes, lest someone see her.

The sweltering heat that had felt unbearable just moments ago was no longer noticeable.

Arin burst through the huge iron gate. She began to run without a destination.

“This can’t be. I’m not their real daughter?”

Mr. Choi’s words from earlier echoed, swirling through Arin’s mind.

[The younger ones take after their mother and father perfectly. But the eldest doesn’t resemble either of them.] [I heard a rumor she was adopted.] [Surely she’s not really adopted? They say you shouldn’t take in a black-haired beast, and besides, you know Yun Kyung Sook’s personality. Would she raise someone else’s child? Right?]

Kyung Sook’s face, which had only smiled without responding to the passing remarks of the neighbors, vividly came to mind.

“That’s why, that’s why I was adopted. That’s what it is.”

Tears poured from Arin’s large eyes.

Finding out the family she trusted wasn’t real made her feel as if her entire existence had been denied.

“What am I supposed to do now…”

Unable to find her way in the face of this harsh truth, she couldn’t return home for a long time.

Now she could neither hate them, nor could she rely on them.

Feeling abandoned in the world, Arin ran and ran until she was gasping for breath.

[This is the timeline separator]

“Sob sob.”

As the memory came back, tears flowed between her closed eyes.

After much deliberation, Arin decided to bury the fact that she knew the truth.

Her feelings for the Chois who raised her were stronger than any affection for her birth father, whose face she couldn’t even remember.

Moreover, she thought it would be disrespectful to the people who had raised her all this time, even though she wasn’t their real daughter.

Arin could no longer look at Mr. Choi comfortably like before. A question mark popped up every time she saw him. At the same time, Arin tried desperately not to think that Mr. Choi had killed her birth father. It wasn’t easy, but she thought it was the only way to avoid being abandoned.

Arin decided to turn a blind eye to the tremendous truth in order to be accepted as family.

Kyung Sook still discriminated between Arin and her siblings. Until then, Arin had thought Kyung Sook’s discrimination was due to her own shortcomings, but now she knew all too well it was because she wasn’t her real child.

Arin swallowed her hurt feelings and surging emotions as she faced Kyung Sook and Mr. Choi.

For Arin, Kyung Sook and Mr. Choi were still the parents she loved most in the world, more than birth parents she’d never even seen.

So Arin kept it a complete secret.

Neither Kyung Sook, Mr. Choi, nor anyone else knew that Arin knew the truth. Very occasionally, Yu Young, who knew the truth, would unconsciously blurt out something about it. Yu Young seemed unaware of it.

‘I think it’s time to face things squarely now. I don’t think I can turn a blind eye anymore.’

Arin felt it was time to confront the reality she had only wanted to see and hear selectively.

Arin’s body felt heavy as a sponge. Thinking she couldn’t stay like this, Arin grabbed her outer clothes.

“Elder brother, are you busy right now?”

Arin’s expression was serious as she called Yu Hyun.

‘I think I’ll have to postpone the trip to Jeju Island.’

[This is the timeline separator]

The next day.

Arin sent the caneles Yu Hyun had asked for by courier. After thinking all night, Arin headed to the address Yu Young had given her.

“We’ve arrived.”

The taxi driver stopped at a famous construction company’s apartment complex near Ilsan Cancer Center.

“Thank you.”

After getting out of the taxi, Arin looked up at the high-rise apartment. Now that she was seeing it with her own eyes, her heart churned even more.

It was the path to Building 104. At some point, a familiar voice was heard behind Arin.

As she slowly turned around, Arin saw a man and woman fighting over a black card.

“Hey, let go of this.”

“Mom said I could use the card!”

“She told me to use it today. She said brother-in-law gave it to me for pocket money.”

“Hey, you’re not the only younger sibling. I’m a younger sibling too.”

Seeing the two of them, Arin gritted her teeth.

“Choi Su Rin, Choi Seo Rin.”

Arin called out the names of her siblings, with whom she shared not a drop of blood, for the first time in a long while.

“…Elder sister?”

“…Elder sister.”

Su Rin and Seo Rin’s expressions were a sight to behold, as if they had seen a ghost.

“Why are you making those faces?”

When Arin met their eyes looking at her, a feeling of despair washed over her as if she had fallen off a cliff.

“It’s not like I’ve come somewhere I shouldn’t, right?”

Arin’s hand moved to the hands of the two trying to pull something away from each other.

The cause of Su Rin and Seo Rin’s squabble was none other than the black card. Arin couldn’t help but laugh bitterly.

“Ha.”

A card that ordinary citizens couldn’t have – Arin could easily guess that the owner of this unlimited black card, which only a limited number of people around her could possess, was Jae Hyuk.

“Hand it over.”

Arin approached the two and held out her hand as she spoke. Flustered, Seo Rin stammered.

“…Huh? Wh-what card.”

“That card.”

Meanwhile, Su Rin quickly snatched the card and hid it behind her back.

“E-elder sister, h-h-how did you c-come here?”

Her younger brother Seo Rin said, looking at Arin. His slightly trembling voice indirectly showed how flustered he was.

Arin stared coldly at her two siblings who were changing the subject.

“Why do you have that card?”

“W-well.”

“Don’t lie, just tell me.”

Arin’s voice coming from between her cherry-like moist lips was terribly low.

“Mom… said elder sister wouldn’t come…”

At her younger sister Su Rin’s words, Arin’s face sank even further.

“Hey.”

“Mmph.”

Belatedly, Seo Rin covered Su Rin’s mouth, but Arin had already heard those words.

“Why did Mother say I wouldn’t come?”

Arin had been a kind elder sister. She was always the one who gave in to her siblings and took care of them in everything.

They say it’s scary when someone who usually doesn’t get angry gets mad, and Su Rin and Seo Rin’s mouths automatically shut in fear at the sight of Arin’s angry appearance.

“You don’t want to answer?”

“…We can’t.”

At Seo Rin’s answer, Arin held out her hand to the two of them.

“Okay. I understand. First, hand over that card.”

“What? No. I can’t give it to you.”

Su Rin hid the hand holding the card even more tightly behind her back at Arin’s words.

“Hand it over. Choi Su Rin.”

“…Elder sister, this… this isn’t your card. Mom gave it to us. For us to use.”

“Choi Su Rin, don’t make me say it twice. Hand it over.”

Though it was a calm voice without wavering or pitch, Arin’s voice was more imposing than ever.

“Do I have to forcibly take it from you?”

Su Rin stared at Arin for a long time before finally placing the black card in her hand. Su Rin’s face clearly showed she didn’t want to give it up.

Arin flipped the card over. When she confirmed it was Jae Hyuk’s card with his signature, her face darkened instantly.

“Haah.”

Arin, who let out a deep sigh, clenched her fist holding the card.

“Should I ask? Or will you tell me everything you know first?”

When the two remained silent, Arin continued speaking.

“You don’t want to talk? Then I guess I’ll have to go home and ask Mother directly.”

“W-wait.”

Seo Rin grabbed Arin’s wrist as she was about to head home.

“Elder sister, Mom’s not home right now.”

“Where did she go?”

“Well.”

Seo Rin couldn’t finish his sentence and lowered his head. Su Rin was the same. Arin was frustrated with her siblings who trailed off and wouldn’t answer clearly.

“Where did she go, I’m asking.”

At the repeated urging, Seo Rin spoke in a very small voice, like the buzzing of a mosquito.

“Brother-in-law…”

“Who?”

“Brother-in-law!”

After a beat, Seo Rin looked up at Arin and continued speaking.

“Brother-in-law came. So Mom went to the store…”

“Brother-in-law?”

Arin’s face twisted uncontrollably like a crushed can.

Her composure, which she had tried hard to maintain in order not to show her emotions, completely crumbled.

“…And you said store?”

‘A store too? Ha.’

Arin bit her lower lip hard at the anger about to burst out.

“And who’s brother-in-law?”

“Elder sister.”

“Where is it?”

“Elder sister…”

“I’m asking where it is!”

On the taxi ride here, she had still tried to understand.

Even though she couldn’t understand, even though it was a situation she couldn’t understand no matter how hard she tried… still… maybe there was some reason.

Arin had tried to convince herself that her parents might have some circumstances.

It was the last chance Arin gave to the people she thought were family.

‘I thought they’d feel a little sorry since I even got divorced… Humans really are consistent.’

Perhaps, knowing she shouldn’t expect it but still expecting and being disappointed, Arin was buying time to realize for herself how futile and pointless it was to expect change from a family that was only a shell.

“No, honestly, elder sister, we had a hard time after you ran off saying you’d live alone. We had no money and ate nothing but grass every day.”

“…”

“Honestly, you probably had it good after leaving, but we suffered because of our selfish elder sister.”

Seeing her family blame her rather than comfort her when she was most hurt, like now, she was filled with a sense of disillusionment.

Following Su Rin, Seo Rin also poured out criticism towards Arin.

“Su Rin is right. Honestly, elder sister, you were too selfish.”

They were immature and took after Kyung Sook, blaming Arin for their poverty, saying it was because she had acted recklessly.

‘From the beginning, I was never family.’

‘Really… what have I been doing all this time? I tried so hard for people like this…’

Family?

These people were no longer her family.

It was just an illusion that Arin alone had been holding onto.

The price of turning a blind eye to the consistent truth and harboring useless expectations was devastating. Arin bit the soft flesh inside her mouth hard. Swallowing the emotions welling up in the back of her throat, Arin said:

“Where’s the store? I don’t want to argue with you two.”

“Elder sister.”

“Don’t call me elder sister anymore!”

Su Rin was visibly flustered by Arin’s scolding appearance, which she had never seen before.

“…Um.”

After a silence, Seo Rin turned his body and pointed to a place, saying:

“You see that entrance over there? Right across the street, you’ll see a yellow sign that says . Just go there.”

As Arin was about to go, Seo Rin blocked her way.

“We… ah, elder sister, just a moment, the card…”

Seo Rin belatedly blocked Su Rin’s front, but he couldn’t break Arin’s will.

However, at the word ‘card’, Seo Rin had no choice but to swallow his words when he met Arin’s fierce gaze.

Arin left the two of them and headed for the store.

“We’re doomed.”

The two siblings said, blankly staring at Arin’s back as she walked away with a terrifying momentum.

“This is crazy, how did elder sister find out and come here?”

“I don’t know either. Mom said elder sister definitely wouldn’t know.”

“What do we do now? We lost the card too, surely she won’t tell us to leave this house too?”

“Hey, surely she wouldn’t do that to family?”

There was no concern for Arin in Seo Rin and Su Rin’s conversation.

To them, who were only eager to protect their own well-being, the name of family was nothing more than a faded scrap of memory.

[This is the timeline separator]

Arin stood in front of that her siblings had told her about. Across the glass door half-covered with a window decal, Jae Hyuk and Kyung Sook were sitting face to face.

As the reality she hadn’t wanted to believe until she came here unfolded before her eyes, something welled up from deep inside Arin.

“Everyone deceived me. They treated me like a fool. Everyone…”

Tears quickly filled Arin’s large eyes at the anger surging like angry waves.