— somewhere in the middle.
Now, here’s the truth. Soohyun is not… Soohyun. The man behind the name Kim Soohyun grew up in New York City with the name Simon Kim. Why, you ask, does he look exactly like Kim Soohyun? Well, you see, identical twins have a tendency to look alike. And that, my dear Watson, is the case here. Twins, separated in their childhood, blah, blah, blah. How many times have you heard that one? Well, hear this story out. Mama Kim was only about 20 years old when she had those two beautiful baby boys, Sehyun and Soohyun, and she was scared. Scared to raise these two babies on her own, so, she did the only thing she could. She sent one of her boys to New York to live with her elder sister and her husband, to grow up away from his birth mother and brother with the name Simon. And so, life went on. Mama Kim, detached from one child, held desperately onto the other. Think Norma Bates-esque controlling, minus the murder. All she wanted to do was make it with her baby boy.
And so began Looking Glass Inc, a major step for the young single mother. It started out with decorating cafes and helping businesses flourish. She had a knack for it, she knew what people wanted and how they wanted it. And so, the business grew, and with it, their family name. To be a single mother and attain this sort of financial growth, to have the money but not the prestige, she became known as the Gatsby of Garosu-gil. That didn’t prevent Soohyun from going to all the best schools, after all, he made the grades for them, of course with a lot of encouragement from his mother. There was one thing she always said, something along the lines of, “We wake up every day to present a perfect self.” And that is certainly what Soohyun did, anything to please his mother. After all, she was all he had.
High school was difficult. He had no time for friends, all his time and effort went into training under his mother’s company and studying. He couldn’t risk ruining their reputation by joining any cliques. Also, one other thing. He couldn’t come out of the closet. If there was one thing that Kim Soohyun had known with absolutely surety, it was that he was gay. He longed, but never more than that. Korea was not the place for a teenage boy to be who he was, especially if who he was was gay and his mother’s son. And so, he suffered silently.
Soohyun never knew his brother. He never even knew he had one. And he never will. He just always felt like something was missing, and he was right. Partially, it was the ambiguity of the life his mother led, he knew so little about her, and thus, so little about himself. He had heard about an aunt that had died while he was in high school, but never more than just a few words about how they were never close. Soohyun couldn’t imagine having a sibling and not being close. There was nothing he wouldn’t give up to have one. But he didn’t have one, at least to his knowledge, and so, he did give up. Maybe it was being in the closet, knowing that he would stand behind that door for the rest of his life. Maybe it was the ever increasing pressure from his mother. Maybe it was the fact that he had spent 9 months growing next to a being he didn’t know existed.
But, thousands of miles across the ocean, one spring day, Simon Kim felt pain in his chest. It didn’t last long, but it was a sort of pang in his heart. He was in art class at the time, finishing up a piece for his senior portfolio. No one else felt anything, just him, in the studio with a half-finished canvas in front of him. That was the moment that he lost a piece of him he didn’t know about. That was the moment his brother had took his own life.
What came next changed his entire life. He met a woman who claimed to be his mother, and while she looked a lot like the woman Simon knew was his mother, he also knew that his mother had been in a coma since last year. Just graduating high school with no money to pursue design school, he almost had nothing to lose letting this woman into his life. That is, until he lost himself.
The next few years, Simon spent excelling in university, especially in the aspect of design. His “mother” couldn’t be more happy. She funneled money into his education and the two grew closer. While she could never be his mother in the same aspect, she had a place in his life now.
It was the moment he laid his eyes on his diploma when he knew something was wrong. He knew his birth records had his Korean name, so he wasn’t surprised upon seeing a Korean name on his forms. The name just wasn’t his. But, at this point, Kim Sehyun didn’t exist anymore. Just Kim Soohyun. At least that’s what Mother said. That’s when the truth finally came out. She didn’t come for him to take care of her sister or him. She came because she needed a replacement, one she had conveniently birthed years ago.
So. Why does Kim Soohyun live in Seoul? Because, if he didn’t listen to Mother and be a good boy, he would lose the only woman he knew to be his mother. Mother pays the medical bills, keeping Simon’s mother alive, and in exchange, Simon plays house. The risk is high, but at this point, this is the life Simon knows belongs to him, and one day, he is certain that he will take back what is his.
