Chapter 2

I dropped to the floor, clutching my eye, and heard Henry laughing. "You brought this on yourself by having such pretty eyes."

It was already too late by the time I made it to the hospital.

Henry hid behind Dad, putting on a pitiful expression. He claimed he hadn't done it on purpose and had only been fooling around like any other boy. He said he hadn't known it would turn out this badly.

Dad shielded him, patting his shoulder. "It's alright. I know you didn't do it on purpose, Henry."

He then turned to me with a furrowed brow and said, "Henry didn't do it on purpose. You're the older brother, so don't make a big deal out of it, Julian."

I lay in the hospital bed, a bandage covering my right eye. I looked at Dad and asked, "W-what about my eye, Dad?"

"The doctor said it can't be fixed. You'll just have to use your left eye from now on. Don't be such a baby about it, Julian," Dad said before he went back to soothing Henry.

He even took Henry out to buy the new game console as a treat to make up for the scare.

I was 15 years old when that happened, so I knew well enough what was happening. I gritted my teeth and forced myself to face the fact that Dad didn't love me.

I got used to seeing the world with one eye, used to the permanent blur of gray where my right eye used to be. I still sometimes walked into doorframes on my right, spilled water when pouring it, or read until my left eye hurt and began to tear up.

Nobody ever took note of these struggles.

One day, Henry walked past me and asked, "Does your eye still hurt?"

I was taken aback for a moment. It had been quite a while since he'd asked about my eye, after all. "It doesn't hurt anymore."

Henry nodded and took a step forward. He suddenly looked back and said, "It's good that it doesn't hurt. It's not as if it'd change anything, right?"

He cocked his brow slightly, a triumphant grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.

I snapped out of my memories as I finished washing the dishes and went into the living room. Dad was carefully cleaning Henry's newly purchased limited-edition sneakers with a shoe brush, muttering as he worked, "Henry is going to look so handsome in these. He takes after me when it comes to style."

Henry smiled, telling Dad not to get any dirt on them. Dad chuckled and handled the sneakers more delicately.

My sneakers had been falling apart at the soles for ages, but Dad had never bought me a new pair.

I remembered that whenever my shoes got worn out as a child, Dad would head down to the workwear market to pick up the cheapest stiff-soled shoes, saying boys didn't need to be pampered. He would use the money he'd saved to buy designer-brand shoes for Henry instead.

I watched him polish Henry’s sneakers while standing in my old, ill-fitting shoes.

I always felt inferior to Henry. He had everything I didn't, and the designer-brand shoes he wore always made my eyes sting.

I walked past them without either of them sparing me a glance. I returned to my room and closed the door behind me.

I got ready to do my homework as the light from my desk lamp fell across the paper.

I suddenly heard Dad speaking from the living room. "Your birthday's next week, Henry. I've ordered a large birthday cake for you. How many of your friends do you want to invite over to play video games and celebrate with you that day?"

Henry's birthday fell on the same day as mine—or at least, that was the day we were both brought home. I had asked Dad back when I was still young why Henry got a cake while I got nothing. He simply told me that Henry was his biological son and I wasn't and that as the older brother, I had to be more sensible.

I was only six years old that year, but from that day on, I knew how things worked.

Henry had been kidnapped by human traffickers, and I was found alongside him. We were two newborn boys, both less than a month old, and we looked almost alike. Following the paternity test, Mom and Dad took Henry, their biological son, home.

They probably felt some kind of bond with me, so they chose to adopt me and raise me as their eldest son.

I finished my homework, turned off the desk lamp, and sat in the dark for a while. I kept thinking back to what those two teachers had said—two people with type O blood could never have a child with type B blood. Could there have been a mistake in the paternity test all those years ago, then?

I took a deep breath, finding the idea completely absurd the moment I considered it. I closed my eyes, not daring to think about it any further. I was almost afraid of what I might find if that assumption turned out to be true.