The classroom smelled like dust and wood polish—familiar, but faintly suffocating. Choi Tae-hyun sat in the second row, hands folded neatly on his desk, eyes unmoving as the teacher droned on about multiplication tables. His classmates fidgeted, some whispered, some passed folded notes. But Tae-hyun remained still.

  He wasn’t listening.

  He couldn’t.

  He was too busy watching the ticking clock, watching time slip away—again.

  Third period. 10:22 AM.

  Back in his past life, he would’ve been asleep on his desk by now, maybe daydreaming about getting out of this city. But this time was different. Every tick of the second hand was another heartbeat closer to the empire he would build... and the families he would crush.

  He blinked slowly, turning his gaze to the window. Outside, the world looked cleaner, simpler. Seoul in 1990 wasn’t yet the beast he knew it would become. The air still held hope. And that made it all the more dangerous.

  Lunch Break.

  The noise hit him like a wave—children laughing, yelling, the scrape of metal lunchboxes on desks. Tae-hyun opened his bag. A simple lunch packed by his mother. Kimchi, rice, rolled egg omelette. Still warm. The smell tugged at something in his chest.

  He stared at it for a second longer than necessary, then began to eat in silence.

  “Hey, Choi Tae-hyun!” A voice called out.

  He looked up.

  A boy with a bowl cut and too much energy flopped into the seat beside him, grinning. "You're being weird again today. Did you hit your head or something?"

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  Tae-hyun recognized the face. Jung Min-soo. His old friend. Someone who, in his past life, had drifted away by middle school. Not malicious, not important. Just... another ghost from yesterday.

  Tae-hyun smiled faintly. “No. Just thinking.”

  “Ooooh,” Min-soo said with mock drama. “Did your mom finally tell you Santa isn't real?”

  Tae-hyun almost laughed. Almost.

  After School.

  The bell rang. Tae-hyun gathered his things slowly, watching the kids rush out like they were fleeing a cage. He walked home alone, hands in his pockets, absorbing everything—the cracks in the pavement, the old newspaper fluttering down the alley, the scent of roasted chestnuts from a street cart.

  The world was moving exactly the same.

  Only he had changed.

  As he turned the corner to his neighborhood, he slowed his pace. His eyes fixed on the tiny bookstore across the street, the same one that would go out of business in two years. Behind it, a lot that would eventually become a small electronics store.

  That’s where the first investment goes.

  He smirked to himself. The market was still asleep. He wouldn’t be.

  At Home.

  His mother was humming in the kitchen when he got back. The same song. Always the same.

  “Did you eat well?” she asked, wiping her hands on her apron.

  “Yeah,” he said softly.

  “You look tired,” she said, placing a glass of milk in front of him. “Don’t forget, we need to go see your uncle this weekend. He’s been asking about you.”

  Tae-hyun tensed for a split second.

  Uncle.

  He nodded. “Right. I remember.”

  But he didn’t forget. That uncle—Hwarang blood—wasn’t just family. He was the first thread in the web he needed to unravel. His mother had always seemed hesitant around him, always careful with her words.

  Why? What was she hiding?

  He went to his room and locked the door behind him. The books from the shelf—textbooks, workbooks, notebooks—were pulled down, stacked into a fortress around him. He took out a pencil and began writing on loose sheets.

  Timeline.

  Investment opportunities.

  Key names. Politicians. Chaebols. Media.

  Jinsung Family — Her name came last. He wrote it slowly, each stroke like a wound. He stopped at the last letter and sat still for a moment, staring.

  Soon.