The Voices of the people he once trusted, turned on him.
"The Decision has been made."
There was no warning.
No chance to prepare.
Just a flood of agony, of betrayal, crashing down like an avalanche.
"Cheon Tae-hyun, You are hereby fired under suspicion of embezzlement and insider trading using Company Funds."
The air had been heavy that day. Too heavy.
Even then, some part of him had known.
The faces around him swam into focus. Familiar faces. Family.
Uncles. Cousins.
All smiles that didn't reach their eyes.
The Chairman's seat — empty.
Cheon Yeon, his grandfather, conveniently absent.
Tae-Hyun's hands had been steady then, resting atop the sleek black table.
He thought he was respected.
Valued.
The first accusation landed like a bullet.
"Misappropriation of company funds."
Another.
"Suspicious overseas dealings under your name."
Lies. All lies, dressed in the language of legality.
His chest had tightened, but still he had held on — reasoned, demanded evidence, pleaded for logic.
Their responses were smiles.
Pitying. Cold.
One by one, they attacked him — his title, his authority, his honor — each word a scalpel peeling him apart.
He had built Cheon Enterprises with his hands.
Given them eighteen years of blood and loyalty.
And they rewarded him with an execution.
The memory shifted — faster now, brutal, chaotic.
The cold night. The slick streets. The black car.
The hollow reassurances:
"Let's talk, Tae-Hyun." "Family shouldn't fight."
He had believed them — the fool. He had gotten into the car willingly.
The drive was silent.
The city lights bled into blurred rivers against the windows.
Then — the forest.
Dark, isolated. The engine cut. Doors opened.
Hands — too many hands — dragged him out.
They beat him. No words. No explanations.
Just the sound of fists against flesh, bones cracking under boot heels.
He tried to resist, fight back but it was nowhere enough.
He remembered the metallic taste of blood coating his tongue.
The bitter cold seeping into his skin as he lay broken against the dirt.
Their faces hovered above him — faces he had once called uncle, cousin, brother.
Unrecognizable now. Monstrous. Satisfied.
A voice — low, almost tender:
"You should have known your place."
The last thing he saw was the shovel.
And the last sensation he felt was the crushing weight of earth being piled onto his battered body — the world turning darker, heavier, until there was nothing left but silence.
They had buried him alive.
Darkness.
A heavy, suffocating darkness clung to his lungs, his mind, his very soul.
Tae-Hyun jerked upright with a ragged gasp, hands clawing at the empty air, body slick with cold sweat. His heart slammed against his ribs, frantic, terrified — and then stuttered to a halt when his eyes caught sight of the room around him.
The room was too big.
Too empty.
Too familiar.
It smelled faintly of old wood and winter — a scent he had not breathed in for decades.
He froze, the sheets crumpled in his small fists, staring at the giant mirror standing beside the bed.
A boy's face stared back.
Wide black eyes. A fragile jaw. Skin too smooth, too untouched by the years of cruelty that had once carved trenches into his flesh.
No.
No, no, no.
His gaze dropped to his hands.
Small. Soft. Innocent.
Like porcelain that hadn't yet been shattered.
Tae-Hyun's breath caught.
A broken, half-sob, half-laugh escaped him.
This was a joke. Some fever dream. A final cruel illusion before death dragged him under for good.
But then his eyes caught something lying on the floor — a battered, broken robot toy.
Its left arm snapped off, its paint chipped and faded.
The same toy he had cried over the night his father forgot his seventh birthday.
A memory so distant, so forgotten, it had long since turned to dust.
He clutched the blankets tighter until his knuckles turned white.
Terror clawed at his spine — the impossible knowledge that the universe itself had turned inside out.
Then came the sound.
A voice.
Clear. Warm. Alive.
"Tae-Hyun-ah! Breakfast is ready! Come down quickly!"
His mother's voice.
He felt the blood drain from his face.
He hadn't heard that voice in twenty years. Not since she had wasted away, forgotten in a hospital room they never visited.
His body refused to move.
If he turned toward the door, if he answered, would the dream break?
Would she vanish again?
Tae-Hyun squeezed his eyes shut, willing his heart to stop racing, willing his mind to stop screaming.
But when he opened them, nothing had changed.
The cracked ceiling.
The faded curtains.
The frayed carpet where he used to race toy cars.
All of it was real.
And slowly — painfully — realization clawed its way up from the pit of his gut:
He was back.
Somehow, impossibly, he had been thrown back into the body of his seven-year-old self.
A second chance.
A tremor ran through his body.
For a moment, rage threatened to tear him apart from the inside.
He remembered — oh, how he remembered — the years spent building the family name, the nights clawing up from the mud only to be tossed aside like trash.
His nails dug into the mattress.
"This time..." "This time, I will not be the pawn."
Let the rage settle deep into his bones, like a sickness he would never cure.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead with trembling hands, staring at his reflection in the mirror — a child's body hiding a corpse's soul.
"Eighteen years I served them."
"Eighteen years I bled for them." "And they buried me alive."
A slow, vicious smile curved his lips.
Not this time.
This time, he would be the one digging graves.