The rain fell gently in the middle of the crowded city, softly tapping the windows of an old bus fogged with condensation. Kim Mingyu sat in the very back seat, wearing a worn-out jacket already damp from the night wind. His backpack was the only possession he carried. Inside were a few pieces of clothing, a bottle of water, and a photocopied address he had spent weeks searching for.

Two months ago, his mother passed away in his arms. There were no savings left, no relatives who came to her funeral. Just a simple gravestone and his shivering body as he stared at the wet earth. Since then, Mingyu had moved from one place to another, sleeping on park benches or in the lobby of empty buildings guarded by night security who sometimes took pity on him.

But today, he found it. The large house, coated in white paint with tall iron gates. Inside lived his father. The man he once called 'appa'. The man who once carried him on his shoulders and bought him ice cream by the river. But also the man who left his mother when their world crumbled. And the man who never returned. Mingyu rang the doorbell with trembling hands. When the door opened, his father's face appeared, shocked at first. Not warm. Not moved. Just silent. Then flat. Then cold.

"Did you come for money?" his father asked. "I came to ask... why,"* Mingyu answered quietly.* "There's nothing to explain. I'm no longer part of your life. We have no connection anymore. Don't ever come here again."

Mingyu didn't get the chance to say more before a little girl clung to the man's leg and called him 'appa'. A woman appeared from the living room with a calm face, probably his new wife. That perfect family. And in the middle of that perfection, Mingyu stood like a ghost from the past that no one wanted to remember. Anger. Pain. Shame. Mingyu snapped. He called his father a coward. A selfish man. A father who abandoned his sick child and chose to raise the daughter of the woman who took everything from his mother.

Within five minutes, Mingyu was thrown out. The door slammed shut. No one followed him. Now he walked along the sidewalk with hollow steps. Nowhere to go. No place to call home. No purpose. The world felt massive tonight. Too cold for a twenty-one-year-old boy who just wanted to be called someone's son. Mingyu stood at a bus stop, staring at the swaying streetlight above. Then at his own reflection in the glass window.

"I wasn't even important enough for you to regret."

**[ WELCOME TO AU SEVENTEEN! KIM MINGYU IS HERE! HAVE A GOOD TIME<3 ]**