Chapter 818 |
Knowing something and accepting it were two completely different things. No matter how much I had expected it, braced myself for it, turned it over in my head again and again, the moment it actually arrived, it felt impossibly foreign.
Like dry lightning cracking down on the back of my neck.
“…You said we had time.”
Yuhyun’s face was perfectly calm.
Behind me, someone let out a loud, startled cry.
“Huh? Noah?”
It seemed Liette had opened her eyes. Her bright, booming voice rang out.
“Why are you here? Are you allowed to be here? And what happened to your hair?”
“…Sister.”
Laughter spilled over.
Behind me, someone who had returned was laughing.
In front of me, someone who was about to leave was smiling.
Two opposite emotions crossed, tangled, and mixed together. This was probably what life was like, I thought, and still I couldn’t keep everything rising inside me hidden.
“My twenty-one-year-old self will be able to sense that I’m gone the moment he wakes up.”
“The curse is gone. I spent all this time in the light dragonkin capital. Though it wasn’t the real thing.”
Yuhyun calmly began explaining why he had to leave.
Noah calmly began explaining why he had come back.
“If we save twenty-one-year-old Han Yuhyun while I’m still here, it might become irreversible. He was already breaking down. The Gardener only stopped the collapse.”
I drew in a long breath. My throat stung.
“But once he realizes that he’s the only Han Yuhyun left at hyung’s side, he’ll try to come back to you. At the very least, we’ll have room to talk to him and convince him. Once hyung tells him that he’s the only little brother you have alive, he should be all right.”
“…Yuhyun.”
“So I have to go before we save Han Yuhyun.”
“But.”
But.
I couldn’t say anything more after that. There was nothing I could say. Just as Yuhyun said, if we wanted to bring back the twenty-one-year-old Yuhyun, then the other one had to be sent away. Which meant I had to do as my brother said.
“Then, Noah, are you older than me now?”
“Not quite. That much time didn’t pass.”
“Anyway, I’m glad! I missed you so much! Only a few days passed for me, though!”
I barely managed to stay on my feet, feeling as if the ground beneath me were spinning. If I had to send him off, then somehow, I had to send him off properly. I had to say something kind, and then…
“Huh? Noah oppa!”
Yerim’s voice rang out. It seemed she had woken up too.
“You’re safe! I was so worried! What about the World Tree? Everyone looks okay, so I guess it ended well.”
– Kkiang.
Peace, in his spirit form, came over. He sat at my feet with his front paws neatly together and looked up at me.
I couldn’t answer him. I couldn’t reach out to pet him or pick him up either.
Yerim’s voice, chattering away as she asked Noah what had happened and said Liette unnie’s mood had been different all this time, gradually faded. I could feel everyone’s eyes on my back.
I knew I should react somehow, but I couldn’t move so much as a fingertip. I felt stretched taut to the absolute limit, like one light touch would make me burst. All I could do was hold myself together.
“Hyung.”
He called me softly.
That call hurt.
“…Mister, did something happen?”
Yerim must have sensed something strange, because she spoke worriedly.
Instead of answering, I breathed in.
Calm down.
This was something I’d known about. Something that had been decided from the start.
“Yuhyun… I mean, he said he couldn’t stay for long.”
My voice was already a mess. I forced myself to smile.
“We dealt with the World Tree, and to wake up the Yuhyun of the present… there can’t be two Yuhyuns. So he says he’s leaving now.”
That he had to leave.
That the time had come.
I gasped in another breath. I swallowed down what was trying to force its way out, pushing it back with the air.
“…When Yujin–ssi was stopped together with the World Tree, I did hear an explanation.”
Noah–ssi spoke carefully. I didn’t think Yuhyun would have been the one to tell him, so maybe the jellyfish had.
“That if the origin of existence is gone, then even a transcendent of healing cannot bring someone back… I’m sorry.”
“No! Noah–ssi, why would you be sorry? I heard that plenty of times too. So I was ready for this. I really was!”
I waved my hands, telling him it was fine.
Yerim and Noah–ssi, of course, but also Hyunah–ssi and Chief Song, were watching my reaction. Peace was quiet too, and even Liette had closed her mouth. The atmosphere had sunk into something still and heavy, and it was unbearable, so I deliberately raised my voice.
“Really, from a long time ago, I thought I’d be satisfied as long as I could at least find his body. I even got to talk to him, so what more could I ask for? Really… Why are you so quiet, Seong Hyunjae–ssi? You’re exactly the kind of person who’d have something to say at a time like this!”
I turned to Seong Hyunjae as if daring him to say anything. He looked at me quietly, then opened his mouth.
“Losing family is, without question, a sorrowful thing. It is difficult enough to speak lightly in the face of that. And Han Yujin–gun and Han Yuhyun may be brothers, but your bond is closer to that of parent and child.”
Seong Hyunjae dipped his head in a courteous bow.
“Before someone sending his child ahead of him, even the most silver-tongued speaker falls silent.”
…
It was only natural that I was sad.
Only natural that this hurt.
Even offering comfort could not be done easily.
At those words, my face crumpled and soaked through. The grief I had been holding back fell in thick drops, as if all that effort had meant nothing. My vision blurred white in an instant. My breath hitched and clawed painfully at my throat.
“I really did… hic, think about it, over and over…”
Through my smeared vision, my brother was still smiling. He looked at me with sorrow in his eyes.
“I was going to send you off right… I was going to smile and tell you hyung was okay…”
I had tried to smile so Yuhyun wouldn’t worry. I had meant to tell him that hyung would keep living well, that everything would be all right, that I loved him.
“With a present…”
I took out the watch box I had carefully kept in my inventory. The small box made from dungeon byproduct slipped from my trembling hands. It hit the ground with a dull tap and rolled, the sight of it spreading and warping through my tears. I tried to pick it up, but my knees gave way and I sank to the ground.
I was a wreck.
“I wanted to do it properly, hhk… I really wanted to…”
I brushed the dirt from the box and sobbed out loud.
It was nothing like what I had imagined.
I’d thought that even if I was sad, I would be able to endure it. I thought I would be able to look at my brother gently, have one last conversation with him, hug him tight just once… and send him off like that. I thought I would be able to hold out the watch, mature and steady, and tell him I had prepared it for him.
“…Hyung.”
Yuhyun bent toward me as I clutched the watch box, unable to speak properly. He lowered both knees to the ground and reached out.
“Yuhyun… Yuhyun…!”
I had to send him off well. I had to reassure him that I would be all right.
But the only words that came to mind were that I didn’t want him to go.
Everything I had wanted to say seemed to have melted into my tears, and I couldn’t think of anything at all.
So I just cried.
What did it matter that we had met again?
What did it matter that we had even a little time together?
It wouldn’t have been enough even if we’d had years instead of days.
There was no right time to let my brother go.
“I… I got you… a present…”
I pulled out of my brother’s arms and opened the box. A watch with black as its main color came into view. Through my wet eyes, it looked like nothing but a dark, smudged lump. It didn’t look cool at all. It looked pathetic.
“For you… and the twenty-one… year-old… together… together, hic.”
I had prepared two of them.
I had never forgotten you.
I was going to find you no matter what and give it to you.
I had gone over those words in my head again and again, polishing them, arranging them, but it did me no good. All I could do was stammer through sobs, barely comprehensible.
“Thank you, hyung.”
Yuhyun’s face was blurry too. I blinked hard, trying somehow to see his smiling face properly.
“…A watch.”
“You’re the first, hyung.”
For someone like him, a wristwatch was only an accessory. If he forgot to take it off before a fight, it would break in no time. Maybe that was why I had never seen the Yuhyun of the present wear a watch, nor the Yuhyun before my regression.
My brother held out his wrist.
I grabbed his hand once, then fumbled as I put the watch on him. My hands were shaking so badly that I slipped again and again. My vision blurred all over again.
Together with Yuhyun, I looked down at the watch.
The watch, set to the wrong time, moved slowly.
The tears that had felt as if they would flow forever began to dry, little by little.
“…It looks good on you. Really.”
“Yeah. I like it too, hyung. Thank you. Truly.”
I stared blankly at my smiling brother.
My little brother.
“I’ll never forget you.”
One last tear slid down my cheek.
“It’s going to… keep hurting.”
I’m okay. Don’t worry. I’ll live well.
The words I had stacked up in my head never came out.
“But I was happy that you were my brother, Yuhyun.”
The happy memories, the painful memories, the sad memories—if I kept living, they would gradually fade. Even so, I would not forget. Sometimes my heart would ache until I could hardly breathe, but then I would remember his smiling face.
“Me too, hyung.”
For one instant, Yuhyun’s mouth twisted as if he might cry. His eyes, holding my reflection, grew faintly wet.
“I was happy to see you again. I was happy.”
“I love you, Yuhyun. My little brother.”
My eyes, my throat, the inside of my chest all burned fever-hot. My whole body ached as if I had been beaten black and blue. My insides felt hollow, like I had starved for months. It was hard.
Even with time to prepare, this was not easy.
Even with another brother waiting for me, my heart shook as if it might collapse.
Relying on Yuhyun’s hand, I barely managed to stand. I looked at my brother endlessly. Even now, it didn’t feel real.
“Hyung.”
My throat closed up again, and I couldn’t speak. I only nodded.
“Can you lend me that white spear for a moment?”
Threefold Godslayer.
I was about to take the spear out of my inventory at Yuhyun’s request, then stopped.
Come to think of it, I still didn’t know how Yuhyun intended to leave. He had said there was time. That meant he wasn’t simply going to meet a natural end.
“…Yuhyun, that… this is a bound weapon, so you probably won’t be able to use it.”
“I’m not trying to use it.”
Yuhyun held out his hand. Hesitating, I handed him the spear.
Holding the pure white spear, Yuhyun took a few steps back. He drove the spear into the ground and left it standing upright.
“I want to leave something behind for hyung.”
“What…”
With a flare, red drops of blood formed at Yuhyun’s fingertips, and black flames rose.
The light held inside the fire flickered over his white face.
“My everything.”
I was about to ask what he meant, then suddenly remembered.
Blade-Devourer.
The ability to melt blades down and forge them into a new weapon. Of course, Yuhyun was not a sword. But a skill’s description window was not everything, and Yuhyun was also fire itself.
“I want to become hyung’s sword.”
“W–wait! Yuhyun!”
“Don’t worry. It won’t hurt. It won’t be painful.”
Black Blood Flame wrapped around Yuhyun’s entire body.
“I was originally fire, so I’m only returning to my essence. It’s my fire. It’s me. So I won’t feel pain.”
“But, but…”
Yuhyun smiled.
Starting from his fingertips, he turned into flame. He was not burning or melting away. He was becoming fire itself.
“I love you, hyung.”
“I love you too, I love you too, Yuhyun!”
I answered in a hurry, before he could no longer hear me.
Still smiling, Yuhyun closed his eyes.
Black, black flames swayed. They circled the white spear, drawing beautiful lines as they seeped into it. Black branches stretched out, and red drops of blood bloomed at their tips. One by one, like plum blossoms opening.
Without leaving even ash behind, Yuhyun’s figure disappeared.
I stared endlessly at the empty space he had left, then stepped forward.
I took the white spear, now holding black flames, into my hand.
At the same time, Yuhyun’s voice reached me.
‘Hyung.’
It was the trace he had left behind.
My brother’s feelings, the ones he had wanted to give me, poured down on me in their purest form, with nothing standing between us.
‘I love you.’
‘Only you, hyung, forever.’
That heart that had always looked only at me.
That flame that, from beginning to end, had held, thought of, and longed for only one person.
The only thing inside it was me.
‘I missed you.’
‘I wanted to stay by your side.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘But I was happy.’
‘I like you, hyung.’
‘I want to give this to you.’
‘Thank you.’
At his final moment, Yuhyun had truly been happy.
Happy that he could give me the strength he had left.
Happy that he could give me that body.
As he returned to pure fire, he had been smiling.
All of those feelings reached me, deep and vivid.
So I smiled too.
The time he had spent away from me.
You were lonely.
You were so lonely.
Even though the distance between us had grown, for Yuhyun, there had still only been me. No one else had ever entered my brother’s eyes. He had been alone to a heartbreaking degree.
‘Hyung.’
Right.
It wasn’t heartbreaking to you.
It was only natural.
Because that was the kind of being you were.
That was why I should have gone to your side, no matter what.
‘I knew.’
That I still loved him.
The skill that would not activate if there was someone who held goodwill toward its target. If I had hated Yuhyun, if I had given up on him, then perhaps Yuhyun might not have died. But even then, my brother had been happy. Happy at the way I looked at him, that gaze of mine that kept him from using the skill.
I hadn’t been able to tell him I loved him.
But he had known.
That was why he smiled.
That was why.
I sank into emotions filled with nothing but me.
Everything, honest and without a single thing hidden, smiled toward me.
It was a world where only the two of us looked at each other.
Tap.
Something white fell.
Snow fluttered down from the sky.
Before I knew it, I was standing in a snow-white field.
The branches of a giant tree, so enormous they covered the sky, came into view.
It was my brother’s old memory.
“…The tree where snow falls.”
And in front of it.
“…Hyung is.”
Yuhyun stood there.
My brother, alive and breathing.
–TL Notes–
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