Born to the managing director of KGCCI and the regional manager of KEB West, Minhwi wanted for nothing. Well, the materialistic side of his life was fulfilled, but as the second son to the wealthy family, he was far from spoiled in love. Seungjae, the son destined to be victorious and raised to be a businessman, received all the attention from their parents. Essentially, Minhwi was often left behind at the house with a babysitter. He found his escape at the nearby library; as small as it was, the spines of books took Minhwi into the embrace he only ever dreamed about from his mother. It was from his young age that he learned about the world, feeling safe within the pages of non-fiction and fiction alike - encyclopaedias and atlases, kids' books and comics. Even the limited collection of videos made him feel at home.

A little after he turned ten, his mother was relocated to a bank in Seoul, uplifting the tiny world Minhwi made for himself among the shelves of his hometown library. And there he was, trying to settle into the bustling life of the country's capital. With a new house came a new babysitter, a new school, and a new adventure - Minhwi needed to find a new library, a new home. It was a few months before he found that a library isn't what captured his heart, but a cafe with comics and cats. When he wanted to learn and explore, he went to Seoul Library, but his escape quickly became that cafe. More than that, he made friends.

Not the cats he read with, but the people he met by chance: Junhoe and Lalice. Minhwi was shy, stumbling over words as he tried to shake off the satoori from where he grew up, but they made him feel like home wasn't hiding between the shelves of a library - it was wherever Junhoe and Lalice were. They were an inseperable trio to the point that Minhwi's parents had no need for a babysitter when he spent his evenings with his friends so often, his family stopped asking where he's been. Minhwi eventually stopped responding to his birth name at home after deciding a new name for his new family was a good way to recreate the relationships he was lacking, and thus Minhwi was reborn as Minsung. Soon after that, the trio added one more, opening up to welcome another boy: Changkyun.

The four of them spent every waking moment together - school and after-school studying, games and movie marathons, bonding over their love of science and all things nerdy; competitors in the ISSF stood no chance whenever these four participated and rules never applied to them. Minsung often slipped out of his house after lights out if the white noise on his walkie-talkie stopped for the voice of a friend, and he wanted nothing more than to spend time with them if it meant leaving his own room.

But that slice of happiness wasn't meant to last. Minsung would have preferred a thousand nights alone in his room over the abrupt ending to his life that wasn't really an end at all.

He remembers a flash of searing pain before nothing, and there was nothing when he woke up.

No bed or carpet beneath him, no ceiling above him, no light, no shadows, no heat and no cold, no tears in his eyes, absolutely nothing. It felt like hours that he tried to adjust to the darkness, taken away from his house and his friends, the life he was finally happy to have. Those hours could have been days before he finally got up, his curiosity getting the better of him.

Now, Minsung was never one to be afraid of the dark, the kind of person who shies away from the unknown, but something about this place was unsettling. The moment he escaped nothing, he was unsettled. It looked familiar, he knew these streets like the back of his hand, but nothing about them felt familiar. Buildings in ruin, tattered and destroyed, like Minsung was in the post-apocalyptic books he read. He didn't know how he got there, and he know what was happening, but neither of those stopped him from trying to escape.

The more he explored, the more he realized this place was inhabited - not by the people he knew from home, but monsters. They looked like demons, walking this sullen Earth in flesh, violent with each other over something on the ground, a black mass sprawled across the cracked concrete of the sidewalk. Minsung didn't dare move; not when the monsters' screams hit his eardrums or the mass on the ground let out a whimper, moved as if alive. His heart stopped beating when the mass was lifted, revealed to be a person, someone Minsung could have passed on the streets. He couldn't look away as he watched the monster feed, witnessed the certain death of another human.

The next thing he knows, a rustling behind him that sends chills up his spine turns out to be more terrors from a nightmare - the trees he'd often find solace under from the sun, the plants he'd watch dance in the wind, everything cried out with hunger.

Minsung remembered pinching himself, hiding behind an upturned car from the monsters that moved on legs Minsung was certain he couldn't outrun. He calmed himself, told himself if this was a dream and he wasn't waking up now, he'll be fine after he gets to his sanctuary. A safe haven in life subconsciously translates to one in his dreams, right? He hoped, gathered all the strength he had from playing tag, made a run for the nearest library he could think of when the treehouse felt miles away without his friends.

It wasn't big, and it wasn't whole - decaying in the world that wasn't his own, but it became his home. He didn't find the pages to be as welcoming here, the pages rotting and dark, words smeared and running across sheets. They served a different purpose though, the moving shelves providing a place for him to hide, a rough pillow beneath his head, something to hug against his chest. It's a dream, it's only a dream.

But he never woke up. The screams and howls, the smell of rot, the running footsteps never ceased.

And too quickly, his snacks and drinks were gone. He couldn't stay put, he had to find more food, more water, things to get him through one moment at a time until, well, he never thought about it, didn't want to think about how this nightmare would come to an end.

The first time he wandered around, he was cautious - taking his time to hide behind what he could in the streets, avoid the terrors in the grass between buildings, lining sidewalks along his path. Eventually, it became second-nature, trying not to be seen by anything around him and the patches of darkness didn't make him feel so numb.

He doesn't know how long he was there, with no stars and no moon, no sun to count the days, but he was no longer feeling okay. A life of solitude is one he left behind when he became Minsung, and being thrown into The Inverse where he was alone tore at him, started eating at his sanity. He wished for someone to keep him company, keep this place from taking away what little will to live he had left.

And then the voice started: A girl named Yerin. For a while, he thought he'd already lost it, the part of him that had any sanity left, but Yerin comforted him and he wasn't as alone as he thought he'd be, and maybe he wouldn't die that way. Their conversations were brief when they happened, but it was enough to keep him from losing everything. Once again, he had hope, and Yerin kept him alive.

It went on like that for a while, where the real thing that kept Minsung going out on a search for more food, more water, was the occasional chance at hearing Yerin again. He wandered aimlessly then, never staying in one place too long if it meant he'd be closer to Yerin when she would reach out to him, but he dragged on, still losing the will to fight altogether.

Minsung was in that state of mind when his friends found him; more than figments of his imagination, yelling at him and giving him warmth he hadn't felt since he was swallowed up in this place. He didn't believe they were real, and the confusion of hearing a familiar voice made him take pause, a moment they couldn't afford when a Nightwalker picked up on their presence.

They did all they could do: they ran, pulling Minsung along behind. Away from the horror of the monster, away from the solitary life Minsung had here, but they weren't yet safe.

Junhoe and Yerin stayed behind, sacrificed themselves for the rest of the group. Minsung didn't remember how they escaped, but he remembers how blinded he felt by the stars in the sky, the moonlight shining on his face and the lamps lining the street. He felt empty, like part of his soul was left behind in The Tnverse he'd just escaped. Junhoe and Yerin were gone.

Life couldn't end there, though. The sacrifice of their friends shouldn't have been in vain, and none of them let that happen. As hard as it was, Minsung tried to return to life as it was before everything. His parents were only happy for so long after his return, he remembers as much as a month of their attention - through all the questioning of the police about where he'd been and what happened, where his friends went - but he still wasn't as important as Seungjae, the better son.

It didn't help that Lalice left, either. The numbers of his friends were dwindling and the walkie-talkie didn't bring him comfort anymore, it wasn't enough. His body was here and his mind was here, but his heart and soul felt a little less than they were before. No one believed his stories, said they were the result of his overactive imagination, even if they knew he'd been gone for two weeks, abducted by who knows what and taken who knows where.

School felt boring after the days of his return. Minsung can't explain the weird things that happened in class, starting conversations in science class about something he knew to be true that contradicted what was being taught, and soon it wasn't a contradiction - the teacher agreed. After that, Minsung stopped asking questions, worried he was being teased by his teachers, and instead read more books about what he loved. Studied and worked harder, even applied for a job at the store to stock shelves in the early hours before school until he hardly had time to sleep.

His weight dropped and he shot up in height, having no idea why girls would look at him and giggle - he knew bullies and how they'd laugh, but these laughs were different. Regardless of the new attention he got from people, he stayed focused on his studies, wanting to make most of his second chance at living. Lalice came back that year, bringing a trio back together for good. They carried on in their lives of normalcy, moving in together and attending the same university together, each in their own fields.

Life isn't what it's cut out to be though, with the fear of what might have happened to Junhoe and Yerin in all the years they've been in The Inverse, but no one in this group is about to give up. Somehow, they were going to reunite and overcome this obstacle keeping them apart.