Forged, Not Born

CHAPTER ONE

"Ah... I want to die."

The words slipped out of Park Hyung-Seok's mouth like broken glass. His vision blurred as fresh tears rolled down his cheeks. On the screen in front of him was the video that had spread across the internet so quickly it felt impossible to escape. There he was—helpless, humiliated, and beaten down—while strangers laughed at him as if his suffering were entertainment.

Everyone was laughing.

And he was still alone.

Hyung-Seok pressed a trembling hand against his face, trying to wipe away the tears, but it did nothing. The shame stayed. The pain stayed. The feeling of being nothing stayed. His eyes slowly drifted downward until they landed on his stomach.

It was all because of this.

Or at least, that was what he had always told himself.

His body was ugly. His body was the reason people mocked him. His body was the reason he could not stand tall, could not speak properly, could not live like everyone else. It was easy to blame the flesh he wore every day, easy to hate the reflection in the mirror because it gave him something concrete to despise.

But then Hyung-Seok stopped.

No.

Today had shown him something worse.

What happened today was not only because of his body. It was because of him.

His mentality.

His weakness.

His own shameful habit of becoming arrogant the moment life gave him even a little kindness. He knew himself too well. If he was placed in a good situation, he would get careless. If people treated him nicely, he would start acting like everything was already solved. He became comfortable too fast, soft too fast, stupid too fast.

That was the real problem.

Not just his stomach. Not just his weight. Him.

Hyung-Seok clenched his fists tightly, his shoulders shaking as the truth settled into his chest. If he kept living the same way, nothing would ever change. He would remain the same pathetic boy who could only cry after the damage was already done.

He had to change.

Not tomorrow. Not someday.

He had to change from this point forward.

But for now, all he could do was lie down and sleep, carrying that bitter realization with him into the dark.

Next Morning...

Hyung-Seok slowly got to his feet and walked toward the small mirror hanging on the wall. His swollen eyes stared back at him. The reflection was the same overweight, exhausted boy he had hated for years, but this time he didn't look away. Instead, he held his own gaze, as if silently making a promise to the person staring back at him.

Reaching into a drawer, he pulled out a black permanent marker. Removing the cap, he carefully wrote across the top of the mirror in bold letters.

"CHANGE FOR MOM AND MYSELF."

He read those three words over and over until they burned themselves into his mind. He wasn't going to change because people laughed at him. He wasn't going to change to become popular. He was going to change because his mother had sacrificed everything for him, and he refused to let her hard work be wasted any longer.

Without another moment of hesitation, Hyung-Seok pulled out his mobile and began searching for ways to lose weight. He spent hours reading fitness articles, watching workout videos, and comparing diet plans before finally finding a beginner's training regimen that seemed both difficult and achievable.