To My First Love, With Regret - 37

—Get in.

Drrrrrk. Cheol-keong.

The barred door shut right in front of him. Ethan was locked in a cell. He still couldn’t believe this reality.

To think that I would end up in prison.

You too will end up in prison just like your father.

He had deliberately walked only the straight path, opposing the curses and criticism that had followed him his whole life. That was Ethan Fairchild’s resistance to the world and the sole proof that he and his father were different.

And it was all meaningless effort. A criminal is not made by themselves, but by the world. The world denied Ethan’s efforts, and he instantly plummeted into the dead end he had run from his entire life.

All because he loved a woman he shouldn’t have.

Up until now, he thought the only traps that would turn him into a criminal like his father were the humiliations inflicted by Harry and the Duke. That’s why he endured the dog-like treatment and the dishonor, gritting his teeth like a shameless bastard with no dignity. He believed that as long as he didn’t fall into that trap, he would be fine.

But now, Ethan Fairchild was a criminal. Exactly like the father he despised.

Ethan, now a sinner to his mother, who died sick after refusing his father’s help to live honorably until the end, and to the Captain, who killed himself to save his grandson, could not bring himself to lift his head.

The honor his mother and grandfather died trying to protect, and their irreversible sacrifices, were all reduced to mere ashes because of a single piece of paper.

In the end, what brought about his downfall was his own foolish love.

People say they break up with a lover, but no one throws them in the trash. However, the Lady, who wished to cleanly erase her shameful past, threw her former lover into prison.

—This love isn’t light for me either. Loving you is a downfall for me.

Do you even know what a downfall is?

The downfall she spoke of and the downfall he experienced were by no means the same. Lady Evelyn’s downfall was at most a blemish on her honor, but Ethan Fairchild’s downfall was this prison floor.

Yes, you pushed me into this hell and flew away alone because you didn’t want even that minor blemish.

Dwelling on the woman who betrayed him in the face of a survival crisis was a luxury.

—What crime did you come in for?

The old man sharing the cell asked Ethan, grinning to expose his yellowed teeth. It was the same filthy smile that perverts in dark alleys gave when looking at a young girl.

Even those who live far from crime know what kind of world a prison is. He had heard that even young, weak, and pretty-looking men are subject to rape here.

I can’t let them look down on me.

—Kidnapping and confinement.

He shouldn’t claim his innocence here. Pleading injustice was seen as weakness, and in this place, no one claimed they were innocent.

—A child? A woman.

—A woman.

The fellow who heard the charge chuckled disgustingly.

—A young one, not only worn out but completely rotten. I’m John Mason. Call me John the Butcher.

He extended his hand for a shake. Touching that dirty skin filled him with such nausea that he nearly choked, but refusing would make him look weak. Ethan grabbed John the Butcher’s hand. As expected, the man challenged him with a test of grip strength. Ethan retaliated by squeezing back, crushing the hand, and the man’s eyes widened as he let out a cackle.

—Wow, you’re young and full of spirit, I like it. My pretty boy, what’s your name?

—Ethan Fairchild. Every time you call me ‘pretty boy,’ I’ll knock out one of your rotten teeth.

John the Butcher flinched. Was he overwhelmed by the strength? Or was he just showing off?

Even so, he couldn’t let his guard down. Ethan spent his first night in prison wide awake. Yet, the beast in the cage didn’t attack him.

The incident he feared broke out that morning in the exercise yard, surrounded by barbed wire.

—Hey, newbie.

A burly man whose forearms were the size of Ethan’s head beckoned him. This was the fellow who had exuded the aura of the prison’s king and whom Ethan had tried to avoid since entering the yard.

—You should pay your respects and go through the initiation rite after coming in. Why are you just standing there staring?

The man, who was standing against the wall, was surrounded by his gang. It was obvious what they intended to do to him, shielded by a wall of bodies so the guards wouldn’t see.

Ethan didn’t move an inch. Even if he was ultimately overpowered, his pride—battered but not yet dead—wouldn’t allow him not to fight once.

Ethan wrapped the improvised guard he had torn from the sheets the night before around his hand, glaring at the prison’s ruler with eyes full of venom. As if daring him to come.

The man burst into laughter, Uh-ha-ha, as if to point out his pitiful act. His followers did not laugh. They approached, hitting their fists into their palms before their boss even ordered them. It was when four big men surrounded Ethan.

—Stop!

John the Butcher, Ethan’s new cellmate, shouted as he frantically rushed toward the real power, his face pale with dread.

—That man, he’s Jack Fairchild’s son!

Simultaneously, the atmosphere among the prisoners froze. The men threatening Ethan looked terrified, as if they had almost touched a dangerous bomb, then retreated quickly, adopting a posture of surrender.

The criminals recoiled and avoided him as if he were the Duke of Kentrell’s son. In that moment, Ethan had a realization that flipped his life upside down.

—You, come here.

He crooked his finger at the prison king who had called him over. The man, far from being enraged at being treated like a dog by a young upstart, nervously crept toward him, almost crawling. With his size, he even groveled like a dog.

—I apologize. I didn’t know and committed a rudeness. Please forgive me, Ugh.

The sound of tearing flesh echoed across the exercise yard, which was frozen like thin ice. The man, who was skilled enough in fighting to rule over vicious criminals, didn’t fight back even after being struck by Ethan.

This is the life of a person in power.

Ah, this was Harry’s life.

—Ha….

Ethan burst out laughing. It sounded like a fit of crying.

To feel a sense of liberation, not guilt, while striking a person down with power.

Yes, they were right. I was my father’s son after all.

Why did I take the difficult path when this one was so easy? What exactly was I struggling to escape from on the easy path? I chose to live like a stepping stone, trampled upon like a bug, when I could have had everyone under my heel.

He was angry at himself for realizing this only after being stripped of everything he had as a price. He was furious at the world that easily made his long struggle worthless.

Kingsbridge expelled Ethan without even waiting for the verdict. The only pride he had built with his own hands was instantly stolen from him.

If I had lived like my father from the start, would I have felt so unjustly treated?

In a way, he was grateful to the school for abandoning him, ensuring he would never again dream of that foolish ‘normal’ life.

After all, having been born into the lower class, even if he crawled all the way up the class ladder, he would only end up licking the bottom of a noble’s shoe, living as their slave for life.

But in the criminal world, Ethan Fairchild was born a crown prince.

In prison, his father’s notoriety protected his body, and his sister’s cry guarded his spirit.

—All Sherwoods deserve to die.

I must live. I must live to take revenge.

Just let me get out of here, and I’ll bury every single Sherwood under my heel.

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One day, after a month of relentlessly training his body and sharpening his thirst for revenge, the moment arrived.

—Prisoner number 1819 is released.

The judge dismissed the case. On the grounds of insufficient evidence.

Ethan was cleared of the false charges. Fortune does not simply fall upon the powerless.

As he stepped out of the prison gate, a road blanketed in a thick gray fog greeted him. Beneath the hazy gas lamps, he saw two figures standing with their backs to a black sedan. Ethan recognized Becky, and a strange man in a fedora.

The man who had only ever existed to him as a shadow—his father.

The luxurious suit with dangling gold chains, the gold rings flashing on the hand that took the cigar from his mouth, the subordinates guarding his back, and the gleaming luxury sedan.

In the man elegantly cloaked in the weight of power, the image of the weary, port laborer, rotting from the wounds of a hard life, which Ethan remembered from childhood, was nowhere to be seen.

Ethan felt it. In front of this man, who emanated a sharp, heavy authority even without speaking a word, the Duke of Kentrell was nothing more than an old boar. Had even the air been compressed by Jack Fairchild’s presence and held its breath, retreating? Ethan found it hard to breathe.

Ethan wasn’t the only one shocked by the transformation of his kin.

‘Ethan, what on earth did you go through in prison?’

Becky had intended to run up and hug her brother immediately to confirm with her own eyes that he was truly alright, but she flinched, startled by the murderous intent he radiated.

Because of this, the first person to approach Ethan was his father. He tossed his cigar, cupped his son’s face—who had gone from a boy to a man—with both hands, and stroked it.

—Ethan, my son.

A mix of emotion and regret flickered in eyes identical to Ethan’s.

—You look exactly like your mother.

The father wrapped his arms around Ethan, who could only stare blankly, and patted his back.

—You suffered greatly. Ethan, what do you want? Your father can give you anything now.

Ethan knew it. Just by defeating the Duke of Kentrell in the war of bribing the judge, his father was a man who could give Ethan anything.

But can he give me this, too?