Sungju grows up in a comfortable Pyongyang apartment, dreaming of becoming a military general like his high-ranking father.

Kim Il-sung's death is announced, and Sungju's family joins the nation in collective shock and public mourning.

Sungju's family is relocated from Pyongyang to the impoverished, famine-stricken city of Gyeong-seong as punishment.

Sungju is forced to watch a public execution where a woman accused of planning to flee North Korea is shot dead.

Sungju's father travels to China to find goods to trade, promises to return in one week, but never comes back.

Sungju's mother leaves to collect food from a relative and never returns, abandoning him completely alone.

Sungju collapses from severe starvation at Young-bum's house after surviving alone for a week with almost nothing to eat.

Sungju and Young-bum form a gang with other orphaned street boys, including Chulho, Myeongchul, Sangchul, Unsik, and Min-gook.

The gang travels to multiple cities by stowing away on trains, fighting established kotjebi gangs for food and territory.

Myeongchul is mortally wounded in a violent fight with drug-addicted rival gang members in Rajin-Seonbong and dies overnight.

The gang is caught stealing from a government farm and imprisoned in the guhoso, a brutal prison for street children.

Sungju gets the guhoso guards drunk until they pass out, and the gang escapes by jumping the prison fence.

Young-bum is beaten by government farm guards during a nighttime potato theft and dies beside the Orang River.

Sungju's grandfather recognizes him at the Gyeong-seong train station and brings him home after years of searching.

Sungju is reunited with his father in South Korea after defecting from North Korea with a human smuggler's help.

Sungju Lee grows up privileged in North Korea's capital, Pyongyang, dreaming of military glory until Kim Il-sung's death and his family's forced relocation to impoverished Gyeong-seong destroy his sheltered world. After witnessing a public execution and facing starvation when both parents disappear, Sungju survives on the streets as a kotjebi. He forms a gang of orphaned brothers and fights for food and territory across multiple cities, enduring brutal violence and the deaths of two close friends. Imprisoned in the guhoso, Sungju engineers a daring escape and continues to struggle on the streets until Young-bum's death sends him spiraling to rock bottom. His grandfather's unexpected discovery of him at a train station leads to rehabilitation, and eventually his father arranges for a human smuggler to help him defect. Sungju crosses into South Korea and is reunited with his father, ending his years of survival on the streets.

The headline events of Sungju's survival and escape from North Korea.

Sungju's grandfather tells him a folk tale about two brothers and a swallow on the very night Kim Il-sung dies.

A flickering streetlight and a dead bird of prey appear as omens on Sungju's walk home just before his family learns they must leave Pyongyang.

Sungju chases his dog Bo-Cho through the snow, wailing, as a colleague leads the dog away from the family forever.

Sungju watches in horror as emaciated, starving people beg for food from train passengers on the journey to Gyeong-seong.

Young-bum bluntly tells Sungju that his family was kicked out of Pyongyang and returning there is simply not possible.

Sungju returns to his former Gyeong-seong house only to find strangers living there who discarded all his family's belongings.

Young-bum's grandmother dies on a journey to her aunt's city, and the gang pools money to give her a proper funeral.

Chulho admits he has secretly been visiting a brothel whose owner wants the gang to work as pimps for money.

Sungju defeats rival kotjebi gang leader Hyekchul in a fight in Pohwang, merging their two gangs into one brotherhood.

Sungju adapts a rock-signaling strategy from his childhood military games into a warning system for when police approach.

After Myeongchul dies, a sympathetic farm worker helps the gang find a spot near the mountains to bury him.

Sungju's gang joins forces with Big Brother and his group of men who are fleeing military service in Pohwang.

The gang is caught stealing from a government farm and thrown into a feces-filled shed as punishment by the guards.

A mentally injured girl in Kimchaek tells Sungju he is surrounded by death and that all the dragons now fall.

Sungju sees his parents' wedding portrait on his grandparents' wall and collapses to his knees in sudden recognition.

Sungju's story is filled with pivotal secondary moments that deepen its emotional impact and reveal the world around him. From the night Kim Il-sung dies — when his grandfather shares a fable about kindness and greed — to the terrible omens that precede exile, the early chapters are packed with foreboding detail. Once in Gyeong-seong, Sungju faces layered losses: he finds strangers living in his old home, watches Young-bum's grandmother die, and witnesses his gang make increasingly desperate moral compromises. On the road, he defeats rival leaders, builds solidarity through shared hardship, and buries his fallen brother Myeongchul before the gang's second stint in Pohwang with Big Brother. A mentally injured seer's cryptic warning of encroaching death foreshadows more tragedy, and Sungju's reunion with his grandparents — sealed by the sight of his parents' wedding portrait — offers the first genuine hope in years.

The secondary moments and quieter revelations that shaped Sungju's journey.

Sungju's father hints upon arriving in Gyeong-seong that the world is not as North Korean schools have taught, suggesting the regime hides the truth.

Sungju's mother confesses that the family was exiled from Pyongyang, not sent on a temporary vacation as Sungju believed.

Sungju's parents admit their food stores are nearly gone and that they only manage to work two days a week.

Sungju's father points out the Chileseong constellation and tells Sungju to look to it whenever he is in pain or lost.

Sungju's mother teaches him how to pray before she disappears, giving him a source of hope outside the communist regime.

Young-bum brings Sungju to the market and tells him it is his new kitchen, introducing him to the reality of street survival.

Sungju learns from a stranger at the market that kotjebi means street boy and realizes this label now belongs to him.

The gang drinks sool together after Chulho arrives with moon cakes and Sungju fully accepts his new life as a kotjebi.

The gang stows away on a coal train to Cheongjin after deciding Gyeong-seong can no longer sustain them all.

Sungju adopts the gang alias Chang to protect his identity from police and shangmoo who patrol the streets.

The corrupt guhoso manager sends Young-bum and Chulho to steal for him while keeping the other brothers imprisoned as collateral.

After Young-bum's death, Sungju spirals into drug abuse, rage, and grief until he begins forgetting his own real name.

A stranger arrives at Sungju's grandparents' house carrying a note proving Sungju's father has paid for his escape from North Korea.

Sungju says a final goodbye to his gang brothers at the Gyeong-seong train station before departing to defect, lying about where he is going.

South Korean customs authorities discover Sungju's fake passport, interrogate him, and send him to a center for North Korean defectors.

Pool 3 traces the internal shifts and key revelations that transform Sungju from a naive, propaganda-raised child into a hardened survivor capable of escaping North Korea. Early disclosures — his father admitting the regime lies, his mother confessing to exile, and the desperate revelation that their food has nearly run out — strip away every illusion of his Pyongyang upbringing. Small but profound moments, like his mother teaching him to pray and his father pointing out the Chileseong constellation, give Sungju spiritual anchors he carries for years on the streets. His kotjebi years are defined by decisive threshold moments: fully accepting his street identity, taking an alias, and enduring imprisonment in the guhoso. After Young-bum's death sends him into a catastrophic spiral, the arrival of a stranger bearing his father's note forces him to choose between the only life he knows and an uncertain escape. His journey ends when South Korean customs expose his fake passport and inadvertently deliver him to the freedom he had fought so long to reach.

The decisions and discoveries that transformed how Sungju saw himself and his world.