Sirin, Who Didn't Want to Be Hated by Her Mother

January 4, 2000.

Russia, Siberia.

For the soil of this land, buried beneath a blanket of white through the ages, winter had long been an indispensable part of its culture. It was recorded in folk tales and poems, like the hidden counterpoint in a melody or the chords in a guitar's music—as if it were a gift.

The snowy landscape stretched to the edges of heaven and earth, washing everything in a fairy-tale clarity and gentleness. Across this permafrost region, the snow-covered forest in the distance showed only sparse patches of green. Snow weighed down the towering trees, while their dark-brown branches tangled together like beacons leading to an ancient castle.

The girl's hollow eyes reflected the scene. Her thin, bright-red clothes fluttered in the gale, and her bare feet sank into the soft yet solid snow. She was like a young snow fox on the verge of collapse, liable to fall completely into the brutal, subzero climate at any moment and never awaken again.

Yet she could feel no fear. Even as her skin and feet froze red, she seemed to have lost all empathy with her senses before they completely went numb.

Memories of the past were like fragments of a broken poem, while her experiences seemed like a mottled mirror.

—Sirin.

This was the first memory to surface in her chaotic consciousness.

In other words, her name.

The girl's gorgeous violet hair fluttered in the wind. As she recalled her name, a few sparks kindled in her golden eyes, as if breaking through the murky chaos within them.

And then came a powerful emotion that scraped painfully across her soul like a blender.

—Hatred.

Though it was merely a simple word, it was enough to contain the origin of countless tragedies.

But what exactly was she hating?