Richard Feynman said that each mathematical formula appeared to him in a different color.

Liszt, after being appointed Kapellmeister in Weimar, Germany, would ask his orchestra members to “play this note a little more blue.”

Kandinsky was a prominent abstract painter who expressed on canvas the music he saw with his eyes.

Synaesthesia. It sounds like a magic word.

If synaesthesia had been on a manageable level that didn’t interfere with real life, or if it could have been controlled like flipping a switch, it might have been considered a truly magical experience or ability.

But a boy who lived every day under the influence of synaesthesia-something no one else could understand-always felt a sense of emptiness.

In the end, synaesthesia was a condition in which too many sensory systems were disturbed in response to incoming information.

Even when looking at the same scene, he couldn’t share the same visual perception; even when hearing the same sound, he couldn’t share the same auditory experience.

Seeing, hearing, and feeling things differently on his own meant that even if he occupied the same space and time as others, he couldn’t be said to be living in the same world.

Of course, there were times when synaesthesia proved useful.

When confronted with certain works of art, he could hear the harmony of an orchestra echoing in his ears. These pieces soon captured the public’s attention.

Other works, however, produced dissonance. Such pieces were often dismissed as incompetent failures or considered unfortunate mistakes.

In other words, synaesthesia served as a kind of yardstick-one that assigned socially valid value to the intangible concept of beauty.

Recognizing this new utility of his ability, the boy subtly recommended works of art worthy of investment to his adoptive parents.

And the more successful those recommendations became, the more his adoptive parents praised him and forgot about the past.

“See? I told you it was a good idea to take him in.”

“That’s because we taught him well from an early age. Tell him to find more sources of money. We need clear results to impress the chairman.”

At that time, he often accompanied his adoptive parents to the main house under the pretext of making a good impression on the chairman.

That was the first time he entered his adoptive grandfather’s office.

As he grew older and went to the company less often, his adoptive grandfather had set up offices at both the head office and the main house.

While receiving a report from the boy’s adoptive parents about his excellent school performance and exceptional artistic sense, the adoptive grandfather scanned the boy standing silently in front of him-and then spoke in a detached tone, throwing out a single remark.

“But this child does not resemble my son at all.”

“Well, my wife is beautiful, you know. Her older sister was even Miss Korea.”

“That’s right. He takes after me. The older Seol-won gets, the more he resembles my side of the family. He looks just like my maternal uncle when he was young.”

“Then doesn’t that mean he will grow up to be plain-looking?”

“Father, really…”

The boy’s adoptive parents lied without blinking an eye.

Still, since his adoptive mother’s side of the family was generally known for their good looks – and she had once worked as a model herself – people more or less bought the story, even if they added a comment or two about how the boy seemed unusually different.

“There he is alone again.”

Though he didn’t show it, the boy didn’t like the main house very much.

The house he lived in already felt rough and sharp – hard to get attached to – but the main house was even worse.

His adoptive grandfather’s voice sounded like a badly played timpani.

Worst of all were the cousins he occasionally met. When they spoke, it was as if a blood-colored mist hung in the air.

The hue, so reminiscent of fresh blood, sometimes even seemed to carry a sickening metallic scent.

There was nothing harmonious or comforting about the main house. It was eerie and disturbing.

“What was that boy’s name again?”

“They say it was Lee Seol-won.”

Although they were close relatives – they were cousins – they weren’t particularly close.

To an outsider, it might have looked like the siblings were running different branches of the same business, working together.

But in reality, they were more like rivals.

On top of that, they rarely saw each other, so the older cousins often got the boy’s name wrong.

“Isn’t it Lee Jae-won?”

“I was confused and asked earlier. It really is Lee Seol-won.”

“That’s strange. Hey, why don’t you use the generation name?”

“Right? His name is different from the rest of us – it doesn’t really feel like he’s part of the family.”

“They said Seol-won’s name was chosen based on his saju at a naming center.”

A cousin’s sister, visiting the main house after a long time, overheard the conversation and spoke in the boy’s defense.

But the boy already secretly knew the reason why only his name didn’t follow the family’s generational naming rule.

It was because he wasn’t really a blood relative of that family.

The traces of a child taken in from elsewhere were hidden everywhere-in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.

Still, time passed – somehow.

He was nineteen, about to turn twenty.

Now a young man, the boy had achieved a remarkable feat: a perfect score on the college entrance exam.

For twelve years-six in elementary school, three in middle school, and three in high school-his adoptive parents had pushed him relentlessly, insisting that he must excel to prove himself worthy of acceptance.

And now they wasted no time in bragging about their adopted son’s accomplishments to anyone who would listen.

In the middle of December, the cousins who were studying in foreign universities and graduate schools began to return home one by one.

The cousin sister who had always been the kindest to him was the first to call.

“Seol-won, I heard that you did well in the college entrance exam. You must have worked really hard. I want to congratulate you, so how about we go out for dinner? I’ll treat you to something expensive and delicious. Let’s meet at the main house.”

On the day of the promised meeting, he left the house early.

When he arrived at the main house, however, he received a message from his cousin’s sister saying that something urgent had come up and they had to reschedule.

If he had gotten the message earlier, he wouldn’t have gone at all – but now that he was there, there was nothing he could do.

He decided to wait for the chairman just to say a quick hello before heading home, but of all times, he ran into some of his older cousins who had also come by to show their faces.

“Hey, I heard you took the college entrance exam this time?”

“Who are you? Lee Seol-won, right? If I met you outside, I wouldn’t have recognized you. You’re an adult now, huh?”

The brothers in that house were strange.

The eldest wasn’t particularly good at anything, but he wasn’t particularly bad at anything either.

He did everything moderately, left no memorable impression, and was relatively well-behaved during his school years.

The second oldest, on the other hand, was the family’s most notorious troublemaker, having caused several school violence hearings.

When the two were together, however, it was clear that the balance of power rested with the oldest.

He handled his louder, rougher younger brother with subtlety and cunning.

“So the youngest is finally growing up, and here we are – your older brothers – realizing that we’ve never done anything for you. Isn’t that right?”

“Ah, of course, we need an initiation. Hey, do you drink? Smoke?”

It was a completely absurd question. As a minor, there was no way he had ever touched alcohol or cigarettes.

“You’ve lived a pretty boring life, huh? Let’s go, we’ll show you a new world.”

The reason he got into the car and followed them was simple.

For lack of information, he didn’t know his cousins very well.

Although the second eldest had a history of causing several violent incidents at school when they were younger, there had been no rumors about him during his time studying abroad.

Even though the colors and sounds were disturbing, that didn’t make them an absolute standard for judging people.

It was no different from people who didn’t wash or wore unclean clothes that gave off a bad smell.

Such people might make you feel uncomfortable approaching them, but that didn’t mean they were bad people.

Whether it was his sharp-edged adoptive mother, his heavyset adoptive father, or his booming adoptive grandfather, they were all seen as highly successful people on the outside.

This disparity created a sense of complacency.

There was no reason to be openly guarded among blood relatives, so he just assumed they would take him out and buy him a drink.

And if the opportunity arose, he thought he should try drinking at least once.

He’d heard that getting drunk made one’s mind fuzzy, and he figured he needed to understand how it would affect his synaesthesia so he could be more careful in the future.

But his cousins drove him out of Seoul.

“I am actually happy to have a younger sibling. Lee Jae-shin, your older sister is really too bold for a woman. She’s always looking at the affiliate companies, her greed is so obvious, and after she graduates from college, I have a feeling she’ll try to worm her way into this field…”

“Seol-won is listening.”

“Let him listen. What’s the big deal? He should know. The three of us have to stick together and get things done.”

“We’re just talking casually here, you know? You get it, right? You’re one of us.”

While bad-mouthing her cousin’s sister, the second oldest continued to make calls and send messages.

After a long drive, the car reached a quiet neighborhood in Gyeonggi Province.

They parked in front of a mansion the boy had never seen before, and the brothers led him inside.