The last time I stood in this city, I almost died.
Seven years later, I came back carrying my daughter in my arms.
The streets looked exactly the same. Cars crawled through traffic. People hurried past with their own problems. The tall buildings stood under the afternoon sun as if nothing had ever happened here.
As if this city hadn't nearly destroyed me seven years ago.
No one looked twice at me.
To them, I was just another man standing on the sidewalk with a sleeping child on his shoulder.
They didn't know what happened here.
They didn't know a scared teenager had once bled on these streets.
They didn't know he had run away with his grandmother and his baby daughter, promising himself he would never return.
I adjusted Anna against my shoulder.
She was asleep, her tiny fingers curled around my shirt. Whenever she slept, she held onto me like that, as if she trusted the world completely.
I looked down at her and smiled.
"You're lucky," I thought.
"You don't know this city yet."
The moment I stepped back here, the memories returned.
The memories of the boy I used to be.
Seven Years Earlier
Growing up in this city wasn't easy.
Most people remember school as a place where they made friends and created happy memories.
I remember it as the place where I learned that people could dislike you for no reason at all.
I wasn't bullied in obvious ways.
Nobody shoved me into lockers.
Nobody stole my lunch money.
What hurt more was how invisible they made me feel.
People whispered when I walked past.
Conversations stopped when I entered a room.
And the seat beside me was always empty.
I still remember one afternoon during class.
Two students were talking behind me.
They weren't even trying to be quiet.
"Don't sit near him."
"Why?"
"He's weird."
I stared at my notebook and pretended I didn't hear them.
The seat beside me remained empty for the rest of the school year.
I spent months wondering what was wrong with me.
Was I ugly?
Did I talk too much?
Not enough?
Had I done something?
But no matter how hard I searched for an answer, I couldn't find one.
Because there wasn't one.
Sometimes people decide they don't like you, and that's it.
I tried changing myself.
I smiled more.
Talked more.
Joined conversations.
Tried making friends.
Nothing worked.
I was still the strange boy everyone avoided.
The boy who ate lunch alone.
The boy who walked home alone.
The boy nobody chose.
Then one evening, my mother watched me trying to talk to a neighbor.
She sighed.
"I wish you could just be normal."
The words weren't cruel.
At least, I don't think she meant them to be.
But I was only twelve years old.
And after spending years trying so hard to fit in, those words hit harder than anything anyone at school had ever said.
I laughed it off in front of her.
Then I went to my room and stared at the ceiling for hours.
Something changed inside me that night.
After that, I stopped trying.
I became quieter.
More careful.
I learned how to make myself smaller.
How to take up less space.
How to become invisible.
And for a while, that was my life.
In 2015, something unexpected happened.
That was the year I discovered Rider.
At first, they were just another K-pop group everyone seemed to be talking about. Their songs played everywhere. Students at school talked about them during lunch. Their faces appeared all over social media.
Out of curiosity, I decided to listen to one of their songs.
Then another.
And another.
Before I realized it, I was hooked.
Their music made me feel something I hadn't felt in a long time.
Alive.
The songs were energetic and bright. For a few minutes, whenever I listened to them, the loneliness didn't feel so heavy.
But it wasn't just the music.
It was them.
One night, I watched one of their performance videos.
The members danced across the stage with huge smiles on their faces. They looked confident and happy.
They looked like they belonged somewhere.
And then I noticed him.
Charlie.
The leader of Rider.
The first time I saw him, nothing dramatic happened.
The world didn't stop spinning.
My heart didn't explode.
It was much quieter than that.
It felt like a door opening inside me.
Charlie always seemed warm.
When he smiled, it felt genuine.
When he spoke during interviews, he sounded kind.
And when he looked into the camera, it felt like he was talking directly to whoever was watching.
I knew that wasn't actually true.
I wasn't delusional.
Charlie didn't know I existed.
But when you're lonely enough, even a stranger's kindness can feel like sunlight.
Some nights, I would lie in bed with my headphones on and listen to Rider's songs for hours.
Whenever things got bad, I listened to Charlie's voice.
Whenever I felt alone, I watched their videos.
Whenever I felt like giving up, I reminded myself that somewhere out there, people like Rider existed.
People who smiled.
People who laughed.
People who looked happy.
It sounds ridiculous now.
But back then, it kept me going.
In a world that constantly made me feel unwanted, Rider gave me something to look forward to.
And Charlie gave me a reason to stay.
Soon, I started collecting everything I could find.
Albums.
Posters.
Magazines.
Photocards.
My room slowly filled with pieces of the world they belonged to.
Whenever Rider visited the city, I would find a way to see them.
Not up close.
I was never brave enough for that.
I usually stood at the very back of the crowd where nobody noticed me.
I didn't scream their names.
I didn't push forward.
I just watched.
Especially Charlie.
Seeing him in person, even from far away, always felt unreal.
It reminded me that he wasn't just a face on a screen.
He was a real person.
A person who existed somewhere beyond my small lonely world.
I never wanted anything from him.
I didn't expect him to notice me.
I didn't expect us to meet.
Honestly, I was happy just watching from a distance.
Looking back now, maybe that's why everything that happened later felt so unbelievable.
Because I never imagined I would get any closer than the back of a crowd.
I never imagined that one day I'd be standing right in front of him.
I never imagined that my life and Charlie's would somehow collide.
But life has a strange sense of humor.
And soon, everything was about to change.
I was wrong