Chapter 762: Parallel Lines
“You two…”
Their faces carried even more years than mine did, more than Yuhyun’s—but they were unmistakably the same faces. They were the two I had sent away from the nightmare dungeon. Twenty-nine-year-old me looked back at me with a flat expression. My twenty-four-year-old brother looked a little surprised, but he smiled.
I had seen them before, if only for a moment, in that dreamlike haze. I had prayed it was real. Even after hearing their world had been safely separated, some faint unease had lingered. They had clearly changed since the last time I saw them. Time had passed for them.
They were really alive.
Emotion surged up so hard it almost choked me. I shot to my feet and ran toward them.
“Yuhyun! You’re oka—”
“What’s with that disgusting look on your face?”
My twenty-nine-year-old self cut in front of me at once and threw out an arm. Then the bastard grabbed me by the collar, pivoted, and flipped me clean over. I went down hard, and Yuhyun hurriedly caught me.
“Hyung!”
“Yujin hyung!”
“Just toss him somewhere. It’s a dream.”
“Still, this hyung is F-rank—”
“Exactly! My hyung’s body is frai—”
Park Hayul, who had tried to jump in, shrank back with a squeak when Yuhyun shot him an icy look.
“…Your brother really is terrifying. I went up all happy to greet Yujin hyung, and he pulled a knife on me immediately.”
“Well, yeah. It was just me and Yuhyun there, and then you suddenly appeared. I didn’t even know it was a dream at the time. Put me down already, okay? What are you carrying me for like you did something right?”
The moving reunion I’d imagined didn’t just shatter. It got ground into powder. I climbed out of Yuhyun’s arms and glared at the bastard who was technically me.
“Hey, do you have any idea how worried I was? You really are okay, right? You’ve been… living well, haven’t you?”
In that world.
Seeing myself crushed whatever emotion I had left, but when I looked at Yuhyun, it came creeping back again. My twenty-nine-year-old self looked at me like I was ridiculous.
“What is this, some melodrama? You haven’t only met me once. We’ve seen each other, what, two or three times?”
“What?”
“Guess you don’t remember because this dream got dragged together by that idiot, but you already agreed to treat me like an older brother. I’m older than you, after all.”
…Had I been shot in the head? There was no way I’d ever do that. He was obviously lying.
“When exactly?”
“The most recent time wasn’t that long ago. For you, anyway. Time moves a little faster on our side. First time I’ve seen Yuhyun, though. You’re completely different depending on whether he’s around.”
“Well, obviously. Time’s different too?”
“You think it wouldn’t be? It’s a completely different world.”
Still. Still.
That dungeon was still there. Me and my brother were still living together. Relief washed over me so hard it felt unreal. At least somewhere, one version of us had managed to find a peaceful life.
That thought comforted me.
“You’ve really… been doing okay, right?”
“Yeah. We’ve had, what, fifteen fights?”
“…What?”
“We’re still kind of in a cold war right now, actually.”
Now that he said it, there was distance between them. Yuhyun’s mouth twisted tight, like he was grinding his teeth. Twenty-nine-year-old me—immature enough to spend his time fighting with his brother—lifted the corners of his eyes and snapped a glare at Yuhyun.
“You’re even more stubborn than you used to be!”
“And you aren’t?”
“Your head’s gone so hard you don’t listen to a word I say!”
“Like you ever listen to me!”
I stared at them, dumbfounded. The sight of me yelling at Yuhyun and Yuhyun shouting back at me felt strange. It wasn’t as if we had never argued, never raised our voices. But those two were different. The whole atmosphere between them was different.
“W-well, you must’ve done something wrong! Anyway, you’re the older brother!”
Flustered, I blurted it out, and my other self whipped around to glare at me.
“Outside parties should stay out of it.”
“No, hold on, I’m me and he’s my brother—”
“You’re the one who told us to fight.”
“W-what are you talking about?”
“You said Yuhyun kept getting anxious and that was why we fought, right? You told us to stop dancing around it and really fight it out. So we did.”
I had no idea what kind of nonsense I had apparently been spouting. They were fighting because Yuhyun was anxious, so I told them to fight more?
“Didn’t I tell you to comfort him?”
“You said Yuhyun was different from us and all that, so we needed to fight. You also said we should talk.”
“The talking was supposed to be the important part!”
“We did talk. We said we should be more honest with each other about what we wanted. I told him I have no idea why he wants to kill me, but if that’s just how he was born, what can you do. But his big brother has no intention of dying. I’m going to live well and eat well with him.”
“No, you’re supposed to try to understand him!”
“How exactly am I supposed to understand that, you lunatic?”
“But you’re his broth—”
“You said we were basically different species. Even people of the same species don’t understand each other.”
I clicked my tongue and shook my head.
“How many families do you think have never fought? People can’t understand each other just because they’re from different countries. So how exactly are we supposed to understand a being whose very nature is different?”
“That’s… no, I know you’re different.”
“I understood that Yuhyun had been holding himself back this whole time. The obedient, sweet little brother routine only existed because he was forcing it.”
“Hey, if you know that, then shouldn’t you be more accepting?”
“Why?”
…The face that asked me that was so unfamiliar it made my chest drop.
It was me. Even if he had walked a different path, it was still me.
“How can you possibly—”
“Han Yujin.”
He jabbed a finger into my chest.
“Unlike you, I don’t have any guilt.”
“What…”
“I never lost my brother. We just had one huge fight and drifted apart for a while. I was weak, so I couldn’t protect my little brother—but at the same time, Yuhyun pulled away from me without saying a word. So I decided to call it even.”
I—at twenty-nine.
I, who had never lost my brother.
“I told him he’d worked hard all this time, forcing down his nature, and that he didn’t have to keep doing that anymore. I said at least that much. But we’re different. Of course we started clashing. So what? Families fight when they live together. We fight more because we’re too different, sure, but still. He’s the only brother I’ve got, and I like him best.”
“You’re all I’ve got too, hyung. I like you best.”
The two of them smiled like they hadn’t been fighting a second ago.
“And the same goes for you. You don’t need to feel guilty toward twenty-year-old Han Yuhyun.”
Toward twenty-year-old Yuhyun.
I took a step back without meaning to.
“I get why you feel that way. To us, our younger brother is basically our child. A child we raised carefully, treasured, protected. If anything, we’re closer to father and son than brothers. So how could anyone stay normal after losing someone like that?”
There was pity in Han Yujin’s eyes.
“Especially when he died protecting you. The miracle is that you stayed sane at all.”
It suddenly became hard to breathe. Yuhyun caught me, and I clutched at his arm.
“Whatever Yuhyun did, you’d want to accept it. If killing you would let him keep living, if there were nothing left he needed to get back, you would’ve given him your life.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
Because it was true.
Thinking back, the me who had just regressed hadn’t been that different from the one standing in front of me now. I got angry at my brother for trying to hold onto me. I tried to leave on my own. If I had never learned the truth, wouldn’t I have ended up fighting with Yuhyun over and over, just like those two? Wouldn’t I have lashed out, asking what the hell was wrong with him, calling him insane?
“Your advice helped. I agree that seeing Yuhyun’s differences clearly, accepting them, and trying to live together anyway is the right thing to do. But trying to swallow everything whole—doesn’t that actually take you farther away from understanding?”
I should have stayed on the shoreline.
I should have stopped at wetting my feet, dipping in my hands.
Even if I wanted to dive into the sea, wrap my arms around it, sink all the way to the deepest place, I should not have done that.
We were different.
All we could do was stand on parallel lines and hold hands across the gap. We could not cross over.
“If we stay ourselves, then we’re always going to clash. And honestly? That’s fine. It’s not some grand tragedy. That’s just what living is.”
“…Living.”
“Nagging each other. Getting mad. Sometimes having real fights. You’re not trying to change Yuhyun, are you? And you can’t become someone else either. So what’s left? You walk side by side on different roads. Since they’re different roads, there’ll be times when you drift apart suddenly, or end up facing opposite directions. But that doesn’t mean you ever intend to let go.”
“Of course not.”
No matter what it took, we would stand side by side and clasp hands again.
“It’s just rougher with Yuhyun than most. Living with other people is always like that.”
He was right. Even with close friends, even with family, there were times you had to part, times when your paths didn’t line up. I sank into the chair.
“So what exactly happened to leave you looking like a rag someone wiped a floor with?”
“My physical condition is… pretty bad.”
“I heard.”
He said it casually. Kind Yuhyun—far kinder than seemed possible for someone related to this guy—looked at me with concern. The two of them really were different. Seriously, they had to be separate species.
“I don’t know how much you’ve already heard, but right now I’m…”
I explained what had happened recently. To my surprise, he listened calmly.
“I get why Yuhyun reacted the way he did. And I think… maybe it really is time for you to stop.”
“What about you, separate from Yuhyun? What do you want?”
I was silent for a moment, then answered.
“You already know.”
“Then do what you want.”
I looked back and forth between him and Yuhyun.
Do what I wanted?
“Hey, what about Yuhyun—”
“I already told you. You don’t need to feel guilty toward twenty-year-old Han Yuhyun.”
“No, this isn’t just about guilt! My brother is terrified out of his mind because he’s worried about me!”
“Yuhyun, how many times did I run away from home?”
“Three days ago was the fifth time.”
“I’m you.”
He said it with a shameless face. In other words, he was saying, You keep making your brother worry sick by pulling this crap too, so why are you acting like this is new? Which, admittedly, hit a little too close to home.
“You’ve been living like that?!”
“And I’m still healthier than you, aren’t I? Don’t get worked up over nothing. Han Yujin, before you’re Han Yuhyun’s brother, you’re you. Even a caretaker is a person with his own life. Sure, you can’t treat a kid like that—but Yuhyun’s an adult.”
“He turned twenty-one less than a month ago!”
“…He is young, sure. But still, this is what you want. You.”
“But I can never let go of Yuhyun’s hand.”
“Who’s telling you to? Keep holding it. We never stopped holding on. That’s how we walked this far. It was never a road we walked alone.”
I looked down at my palm. Without realizing it, I’d clenched it tight enough that a faint trace of warmth lingered there.
I thought I understood.
Or almost did.
Me and my brother…
“Hyung.”
Yuhyun’s voice came.
“If that’s me too, then I’d be okay with it.”
“…Okay with it?”
“Yeah. I’d be okay. And, hyung.”
Yuhyun paused, thinking, then went on.
“He’s probably sensed that too. Your guilt. He gets especially sensitive when it comes to you, so there’s a good chance he instinctively realized you’re projecting something that belongs to someone else onto him.”
That made my heart plunge.
He had already learned about his pre-regression self.
And if, on top of that, he had realized I was trying to smother him with care and accept everything because I still couldn’t let go of the brother I’d lost…
“…At first it confused me, but now I see my little brothers as different people. The two of them changed.”
“Then start acting like it. I cared about Yuhyun too, but that didn’t mean I walked on eggshells around him. If I had, he wouldn’t have gone charging into danger over becoming a Hunter. You’re Han Yujin—the one who got mad at Yuhyun and slammed right back into him.”
He wasn’t wrong, but hearing him sit there and lecture me made heat start creeping up my neck.
Who did he think he was?
“Easy for you to say when it’s not your life! It’s not just Yuhyun, either! I’ve started trying to carry everyone, worrying myself sick over everyone! Why don’t you live through it first, then talk!”
“Yeah. That sucks. Sorry.”
I cursed.
What kind of asshole was this? So what—he’d never lost his brother, and that made him special?
“I used to think Seong Hyunjae was the most infuriating person in the world, but turns out he was standing right in front of me!”
“That was way too harsh.”
I kicked him in the shin and slumped back into the chair. In the distance, Park Hayul’s eyes rolled helplessly back and forth.
“…I tried.”
“Sure you did. Keep it up.”
“…Hyung.”
As if telling him to stop, Yuhyun tugged him back. He grumbled, “What?” but Yuhyun slapped a hand over his mouth before he could say anything else. When Yuhyun tried to hold him down, he only flailed harder.
“And you’re taking his side just because he’s your brother?”
“He is my brother.”
The two of them bickered naturally. I hadn’t held back, and Yuhyun hadn’t held back. But they didn’t look unhappy together.
If anything, the opposite.
‘…Yuhyun.’
I thought of my brother as a child.
The years when he slowly grew up, left me, came back, and stayed with me again.
And all at once, something clicked.
“That’s right. I… We were always together.”
“No kidding.”
He scratched the back of his head, then let out a long sigh.
“You, the pretty one over there.”
“Yes!”
Park Hayul shot his hand into the air.
“Don’t come crawling into our world anymore. Our world’s completely separated now. If we stay entangled, it’ll start having an effect. That’s actually what I came to tell you. If it comes to it, I’ll have Yuhyun just swipe—”
“Oh! Yes, sir! I’ll remember that!”
“So this really is the last time.”
I looked at myself.
“It’s a completely new world, so before long, a new intelligent species is going to be born there.”
“…An intelligent species?”
“Yeah. No idea if they’ll be anything like us or if they’ll be birds or reptiles or something completely different. That’s exactly why we can’t keep meeting. We were told it could have a bad influence on them.”
The two of them stepped back.
I rose to my feet without thinking.
“Then you’ll be… okay, right? You’ll be able to live well?”
“Of course. Who knows, maybe we’ll end up as some kind of myth. We’re basically the ancestors of a new humanity. Maybe they’ll be starting from the Stone Age.”
He laughed and said it actually sounded kind of fun.
“Yuhyun might be the one to pass down fire. You’ve got a lot of myths like that in your world, don’t you?”
He sounded like someone from a truly different world now.
Yuhyun told me to take care of myself.
Han Yujin turned away without a single goodbye.
For all his attitude, he’d be the one to feel sympathy for the new intelligent species. Yuhyun probably still wouldn’t care. He might even dislike them.
A story suddenly came to mind—of two divine brothers, and the older one stealing the younger one’s fire to share it with humankind.
Those two would fight again.
And still, they would live well.
I watched them fade away.
I stood there quietly until they were completely gone.
“Hayul.”
“Yes, hyung!”
“Is there any way you can help me?”
I needed to do what I could.
And there was something I absolutely had to tell Yuhyun.
–TL Notes–
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