By: Hannah Zhang

Haesu was raised in a troubled family, full of neglect and poverty and trauma. He was a small kid, living with his mother and brother, with rationed food portions, living the hell we all imagined ourselves in, once upon a time. The hell that normal children are blessed with being ignorant to–a blessing Haesu Seo did not receive.

He and his brother were sold off to a gang, but they ran–they ran for their lives, and that was the first time Haesu Seo found his hands stained with blood. His mother was dead.

He spent time on the streets with his brother, starving, hiding, begging, and worst of all, watching other children live in their blessings. Haesu was protected by his brother, which was perhaps the last lucky thing in his life–until he suddenly wasn’t.

He made a life for himself–learned to fight, learned to get food–but he was very different from what his kind-hearted brother would have been.

By now, Haesu Seo was ruthless, he’s had contact with blood. But even after all this suffering, he still wasn’t fit to be a villain–only a small one, a minion, forever destined to do someone else’s bidding.

“Don’t surrender,” Haesu told himself, as he sat there, in the pouring rain, beaten up, for the first time in his life. What did he do to deserve this? As Haesu Seo closed his eyes, his mind flashed with every time his brother would tell him: “Bad people get what’s coming for them.” It became clearer what his brother meant. With it in mind, Haesu Seo let go, and allowed his mind to plummet into the darkness.

Why do some children have to grow up so fast? Some are lucky, yet others become associated with gangsters and drug dealers. Whether they become the villain or the hero of the story depends entirely on luck–who do they meet when they’re troubled? Who pulls them out of the ordeal?

It’s fascinating how we have so little control over the people we become, and how much we are credited for when we turn out the way we do. So many terrible people as we know it get so much worse than they deserve, and that leads us to wonder how many of the people we’ve looked over deserved better than they got. Much like Haesu Seo, maybe they only needed to meet the right people at the right time.