Why Did He Choose to Become a Monster, Even With a Human Heart? – Kang Cheol from “The Palace”
He was a child who should never have been born.
Born between a human and an imugi, he belonged nowhere. The world didn’t call his name. For a long time, he believed he wasn’t meant to have one. The name “Kang Cheol” was the one he chose for himself— strong enough to pierce through anything, yet corroding from the inside.
That name held silent rage, and a loneliness too heavy to place anywhere else.
He rarely spoke. He faced the world with only his eyes, swallowing anger through the tips of his fingers. His silence wasn’t resignation. It was dignity— the last remnant of someone who longed to be human.
He tried, endlessly, to imitate humans. From holding a spoon to mimicking a smile. But no one ever looked past his gaze. Monsters were supposed to have scales and fangs. He didn’t. Yet they still called him one.
There were days he would practice saying thank you, hoping someone might say it to him first. He watched children laugh in the market, mimicking their joy behind the safety of shadows.
The world feared him— his blood, his strength, his stillness. The more silent he became, the more monstrous they claimed he was. And when even he began to believe them, Kang Cheol decided to become what they said he was.
But deep inside, he held the most human of desires— to be loved. To be understood. To one day hear someone say, “You are human.”
He buried that longing deep within, counting breaths to keep it from spilling out. But sincerity always finds its way through the cracks. And in those moments, he hurt—too deeply, too humanly.
Then he met Yeori. The first person who didn’t fear him. She was a shaman, born under a sacred fate, but she looked at him without fear— and saw sadness first, not danger.
She didn’t ask questions. She simply felt. And through her quiet presence, he felt alive for the first time.
Every time her hand brushed his, he broke a little. And healed a little. Her touch was so gentle, it felt like forgiveness— a kind he had never believed he deserved.
He began to dream. Of eating a meal beside someone. Of being welcomed in a home that smelled of herbs and warmth. Of hearing his name spoken gently, not in fear, but in affection.
But the boundary between human and imugi was built on someone’s blood. He knew he could never fully belong to either world. So one day, he quietly chose the monster’s place.
Not because he didn’t love her. But because she needed to live.
Even in her prayers, he knew there was no salvation for him. So he stayed at the edge— willingly, quietly.
He remembered the first time someone touched his hand without flinching. It was Yeori. And he remembered the last time she looked at him like that— with sorrow so deep it nearly pulled him back from the edge. But he didn’t move.
He never let go of his human heart. That’s why he fought in the shape of a beast. That’s why, even as a monster, he still chose to protect.
He was never recognized as a man, but as a monster, he finally saved someone.
Perhaps— he wasn’t a monster at all, but simply the quietest kind of human pain this world has ever known.
And maybe, that pain—silent, unspeakable, unforgiven— was the last thing he held onto. The only thing that reminded him he had once wanted to be human.
