When Kim Seokjin heard the cries of his newborn, he experienced a range of emotions. The unstoppable salty tears that ran down his cheeks clouded his eyesight, much like the condition of his thoughts, which were cloudy and unstable.

"It's a boy." The doctor announced, bringing the baby close to Seokjin; he asked, "Do you want to hold him?"

In the midst of his sobs, Jin nodded and hurriedly wiped away his tears. He remained there with his arms outstretched, and they soon became heavy with the weight of his newborn.

The tears he had wept earlier were nothing compared to the ones that came when he held his son; the whole experience seemed unreal. He had spent the previous nine months trying to picture himself in this same situation, but nothing had prepared him for it. He couldn't believe this infant was part of his flesh and blood. Then, a devastating cry emerged from deep within, attracting everyone's attention in the room.

They were all frightened that something had happened and had crowded around him out of worry; their worries turned into questions, but his screams buried everything spoken.

The frightened newborn cried in his arms, but even then, his tears didn't stop. The pain he experienced was far too much for him to handle; life was cruel and unjust, but so was love and everything else that was mixed up with it.

As the hospital room doors opened, loud heels clicking on the tiles could be heard. The staff members moved aside to make space for a lady elegantly dressed in red as she went up to where Seokjin lay. She welcomed him with a cheery expression and said, "I heard delivery went well, and a little boy has joined us."

Jin looked at her with tears and a pleading expression, saying, "Please, I-I can't do this."

The lady sighed, indicating that she was impatient and frustrated. She glanced around the room at the employees and asked them, "Allow us a moment."

After receiving nods of acknowledgment, the room emptied, leaving only her, Seokjin, and the baby.

She drew closer to Seokjin, peeked at the baby, and then looked at him and said, "You are not qualified to care for him. You will abide by the terms of the agreement we had previously reached. You can hold him now since I gave you permission to do so. It goes above and beyond what any other person would have done in this situation."

With her fingers, she swept away some strands of Jin's hair as he continued to look at him, "At some point in the future, you are going to remember me, and you are going to be thankful that I relieved you of this responsibility.

You have been given a second chance at life, in which you do not have to care for a child. Make something positive out of it, and use it as a reminder never to lose sight of where you are in the grand scheme of things in life. You have never been significant to this world and never will be.

Be thankful that your offspring won't have to go through anything you did. He will be cherished, and his needs will be carefully attended to."

As Jin held onto his son and wept even more, he was at a loss to comprehend how and why the world had been so unkind to him. In his wildest dreams, he never dreamed that he would have to endure such unbearable pain.

"An abortion would have been a better choice, but I presume you needed the money, so this works out better in terms of the benefit."

"I don't want your money! I never did." Jin screamed.

The woman rolled her eyes and sighed, "If only those words were real. I have seen many people like you, and you would probably have been successful if you were someone; nevertheless, when you are a nobody, you are easily disposable since nobody cares about you. I hope that you accept this money and use it to at least make an effort to become someone, and if you can't do that, at least attempt to pull yourself out of poverty."

"I hate you!"

"And what does that do for you?" the lady replied with a chuckle. "Make you bitter? In any case, you will continue to be a nobody, and the hate you feel toward me will not influence the outcome of your life. You will never be anything other than what you are now, nobody. Be glad that your kid will never have to come into contact with you. If he had to go through life with you as a parent, he wouldn't want to see another minute of it. You should be grateful to me rather than hate me, so why do you hate me?"

"P-please, I don't care what you think about me; he is my son, and I want to keep him. I have that right-"

"You lost that right when you signed those papers."

"I didn't! Y-you and him, you used me. You tricked me."

"Tell that to a judge; sure, they would be happy to hear it. Anyway, I will take my son now and leave."

There was no hesitation on the lady's part as she leaned forward and pried the infant out of Jin's arms. His sobs and the effort he made to keep hold of his child were no match for her strength and the security team that she called upon to help hold him down.

He was helpless as he saw her leave the room with his son as he was confined to the hospital bed and could only watch in tears.

A few days later, he was dumped outside of the hospital in the bitter cold of a city that he was unfamiliar with.

*****

Kim Taehyung paced back and forth while looking at his phone and waiting for someone to respond.

"I don't know why you are doing this to yourself, son; your mother and I have told you a thousand times he wants nothing to do with you or this baby."

When Taehyung hung up the phone, his head suddenly whipped around to stare at his father. "This is not Seokjin!" Taehyung exclaimed. "W-why would he do something like this? Why didn't he just come clean and tell me he was expecting? How could he do anything like this to our child?"

Sunghee went over to her son, who was utterly devastated by the news. She grabbed his hand while simultaneously placing the other hand on his shoulder to console him.

"Son, I must apologize. I know how challenging this situation is, and I am certain that it is among the most challenging things you have ever encountered. Your father and I knew the depth of your affection and concern for Seokjin. Even though we didn't spend much time with him, we could tell that your feelings for him were sincere and that you envisioned a bright future with him. But it turned out that you were the only one who shared those sentiments."

"Son, your mom is right. We wished you would never have to go through this, and it broke our hearts when he told us he was pregnant and didn't want the baby. At first, we thought it was because he was young and scared, but when we asked what we could do to help, we quickly learned that wasn't the case.

He admitted that he did not know and needed time to process everything since he was going through a lot. We cautioned him against coming to any conclusions without first discussing them with us. We didn't tell you at the time because we didn't know what he was going to do, and if he had chosen to have an abortion, it would have been his choice, not yours, and we wanted to respect that. Also, we didn't want to pressure you into making a decision that wasn't yours.

Regrettably, we didn't hear from him the next day. We phoned him because we were anxious, and to our amazement, he told us that he would no longer go through with getting an abortion. Your mother and I rejoiced, but our joy was short-lived since the very next thing he said was that he was going to sell the baby-"

"WHAT?!" Taehyung yelled, shocked to the core. "Seokjin said what?"

"Son, please calm down. Your father and I have given this matter much consideration before revealing all of these specifics to you, but you need to be aware of the facts. We were not in the least bit pleased when he informed us that he intended to sell the baby to a couple who could not have a child of their own. We told him we would take the child and raise it ourselves, but he opposed the idea until we promised to compensate him. After that, he changed his mind.

That made all of the difference. He felt really good about it. He was adamant that we keep this information from you. He explained to us that he had stopped communicating with you and that he wanted to get through the pregnancy, give us the baby, and move on with his life because he has a lot of things he wants to accomplish in the future, and becoming pregnant was a huge accident and the biggest mistake he's ever made in his life.

We tried to talk to him to let him know that being pregnant at a young age wasn't the end of the world and that you and we could be there with him, but he didn't want to be a parent."

Tears were visible on Taehyung's cheeks as he tightly squeezed his fist. It was difficult for him to accept that his first love, the person he had seen spending the rest of his life with, had acted in such a way. The person his parents described sounded nothing like the man he knew, which was strange. On the other hand, Seokjin abruptly severed all forms of connection with him, and despite his several attempts to get in touch with him, he was never able to hear back from him.

"Taehyung, I know this is difficult for you and probably much more difficult to believe. As your parents, it was difficult for us to bear the burden of knowing how deeply you love and care for this person while also seeing how little they care for you. It crushed our hearts that all they wanted was money, and it hurt our hearts even more that they were willing to give up their kid so readily.

I know this is a significant challenge for you, and your father and I are dedicated to being by your side during this process. Because of this, we have concluded that we will bring the kid with us when we move to the United States, and we will take care of him there while you concentrate on completing your education.

Do not let this cause you to lose focus on your plans for the future; instead, use it as a warning not to date somebody whose status in life is different from yours. When you start picking up street trash, your life will become a disaster."

"He was not trash! I don't get why he would do this. If he needed money, he could've come to me. Fuck! I fucking loved him. Why would he do this?"

"He was not in love with you. You were nothing more than a means for him to achieve his goal of financial gain. Even if it meant selling his child."