[Six years earlier]
The room was cold despite the summer heat pressing against the windows. It wasn't a room in the house - it was concrete and bare, somewhere on the edge of the city where the road stopped being paved. The kind of building people drove past without looking at twice.
Kang Dong-hyun stood over the desk with a single sheet of paper laid flat between them, a pen placed precisely at its edge. Outside the thin door, she could hear them. His boys. Low voices, footsteps, a chair scraping. Too many to count.
"Sign it."
Chae-won's sat rigid in the chair across from him, her hands folded tight in her lap, refusing even to look at the document. "No."
"You're not being given a choice, Seo-yeon. Sign it."
"I will never abandon my children." Her voice shook, but the words came out firm, unwavering despite the fear plainly written across her face. "Whatever this is, whatever you think you can force me into — I won't do it. Not while I'm breathing."
