Chapter 355

“I’ll erase all your memories of Han Seungbeom.”

When I heard those words, the haze in my head seemed to gradually clear.

Maybe it was because the thought of losing all my memories of Han Seungbeom triggered a sense of crisis, or because I finally realized that Seo Yuseong, as he was now, wasn’t in a normal state.

Seo Yuseong had always been excessively impulsive and self-centered by nature, but even so, he lived within the fence I’d built for him and learned where the lines shouldn’t be crossed . It was thanks to that structure that he’d grown enough to at least make a living for himself as part of Prism.

But now, he looked nothing like the version of him from the time we were together. He was completely unstable. It felt as if he were being chased by something, as if he were certain that he would fail.

“I’ve waited far longer than you think, hyung. I can’t wait any longer. We have to go back right now.”

It had been about two years since I died.

Seo Yuseong had always been highly dependent on me, so not being able to see me during that time might’ve been painful for him. However, objectively speaking, it wasn’t such a long period of time, which made me question things a little.

‘…Did something happen while I was gone, something I don’t know about?’

So perhaps his urgency wasn’t misplaced after all. Maybe this really was the right course.

The system seemed to hate us and couldn’t bear to watch us live happily while Han Seungbeom was made the scapegoat. Saving Han Seungbeom would almost certainly require using the status window’s abilities, and there was no guarantee that something wouldn’t go wrong in the process.

That’s why, to be honest, I still don’t know which choice is the right one.

‘Erasing my memories of Han Seungbeom…….’

But what was certain was that Seo Yuseong’s words and actions had clearly gone far beyond what I could accept.

What on earth am I supposed to do about this?

It wasn’t difficult to arrive at an answer.

What Seo Yuseong overlooked was the fact that his irrational behavior wasn’t unfamiliar to me at all. I also already knew that panicking now would only make the situation worse.

Who in the world do you think raised Seo Yuseong to this age, when even his own mother found him too much to handle?

I slowly approached him, reached out, and gently patted his cheek with the palm of my hand.

“Yuseong-ah.”

When I called his name in a deliberately gentle voice and locked eyes with him, Seo Yuseong flinched. He looked even more nervous than when I had spoken his full name in a stern tone just moments earlier. Even though there was nothing in my demeanor that could be seen as angry, he still shrank back like that, likely because he instinctively sensed that something had gone terribly wrong.

“Can’t you hear me? Or are you just pretending not to because you want to do whatever you want?”

As brothers, we had lived our lives relying on each other, so we’d spent an enormous amount of time together. Because of that, we already knew exactly how the other would act when we were so angry we lost all sense of reason.

“You weren’t like this before. What, now that I’m in a thin, small body, do I seem like a joke to you? I’m the one who raised you, the person who changed your diapers, but now you think I’m going to tremble in fear over a cheap little threat like that, huh?”

Due to my naturally blunt personality, I tended to treat Seo Yuseong with the same curt tone and demeanor, whether I was in a good mood or angry. But when my anger crossed the line, I would swing to the complete opposite extreme.

“Don’t cut me off when I’m speaking. I’m not done talking yet.”

“…Hyung, that’s not what I meant…….”

At my overly gentle words, Seo Yuseong must have sensed something ominous, because he hurriedly reached out to grab my arm again. But the very second he opened his mouth to speak again, I….

Clang!

I picked up the glass on the nightstand and slammed it down. It shattered beneath my hand, fragments scattering with a sharp crash.

The shards that bounced up from the impact grazed my skin and left small cuts, but I didn’t even glance at them. Instead, I picked up the largest piece and held it in my hand, just like Jay had done in front of me before.

The only difference from back then was that this time, the weapon wasn’t aimed at the other person. It was aimed at me. As I brought the shard of glass close to the skin of my neck, where my pulse was beating, Seo Yuseong called out to me in a sharp, almost screaming voice.

“Hyung!”

He immediately tried to grab me, bewilderment all over his face, but I simply stepped back a little and quietly opened my mouth to stop him.

“Don’t come any closer. Stay right there and calmly listen to what I have to say.”

“Put that down first, and then we can talk…….”

“Look at me. If I see even the slightest sign that you’re looking away or moving your hand like you’re trying to operate the status window, I’ll stab myself right away.”

“…….”

“Like you said, erasing all my memories and turning me into an idiot might work, but I wouldn’t recommend it. From the looks of it, that ability of yours seems to take some time to activate, and I’m pretty confident I can stab myself faster than that.”

Contrary to what people might think, raising a child isn’t always filled with happy and beautiful moments.

Our acquaintances and the public tended to see us as the perfect pair of brothers, but contrary to that belief, the reality was quite different.

To make matters worse, Seo Yuseong wasn’t an ordinary child, so I went through countless hardships while raising him in place of our parents. Just like in this current situation. But every single time, I chose not to give up on him and did everything I could to guide him back to the right path.

“Life’s really hard, isn’t it? It must feel like you’re the only one who doesn’t understand the things that seem to come so naturally to everyone else, no matter how hard you try. All you want is to protect what matters most to you, but it’s just not working out the way you hoped. And when I got this angry over something you did for my sake, you must have felt confused too.”

“…….”

“But that’s not what proper love is. Acting that way won’t make me happy. That’s just an easy, shallow kind of love.”

Because I love even the worst of Seo Yuseong. I love even the ugly, immature side he keeps hidden from the world.

“Look. If I wanted to, I could’ve easily manipulated you too, however I pleased. But the reason I haven’t all this time is because I wanted to treat you like someone I cherish. That’s what love is.”

Because I am Seo Yuseong’s entire world, I exist as his only weakness.

I never wanted to resort to such a measure … but the situation had spiraled so far out of control, I had no choice but to shake him like this.

“Do you understand? Fighting and hurting each other like this is pointless. So, let’s talk things through properly and try to find a solution that works for both of us.”

As I suppressed my bitter feelings and spoke, Seo Yuseong’s knees suddenly buckled. Then, dragging himself forward with shaky, trembling hands, he grabbed onto my leg. The unexpected reaction alarmed me and made me think there was something was wrong with him. But without showing it, I calmly started assessing his condition.

Seo Yuseong knows that I’m weak when it comes to him. Because of that, there was a chance he was pretending something was wrong on purpose to gain the upper hand in the situation.

“Huk, ugh, please…….”

But judging by the look of it, it didn’t seem like an act.

Seo Yuseong was genuinely terrified.

“What’s wrong, Seo Yuseong?”

His condition was far worse than I had expected. When I hurriedly called out to him, a faint, stammering voice came through his irregular breaths, as if he were begging.

“…I won’t do it anymore. I was wrong. So please, put that down.”

Thankfully, as I put down the glass shard just as he wanted and continuously stroked his back, Seo Yuseong gradually began to calm down.

‘Is it because he was very surprised?’

Then, not long after, I heard the sound of hurried footsteps approaching.

When I turned my head toward the door, I saw Choi Jeokhyeon, out of breath. He was in a bathrobe, his hair still damp, which made it clear he had rushed over after hearing the sound of glass breaking while taking a bath.

“I heard a breaking sound, so I came to check…….”

The first thing I felt when I saw him was a sense of relief, ‘ Ah, thank goodness .’

Actually, while the main reason I shattered the glass had been to warn Seo Yuseong, a part of me had also hoped that making a loud noise might bring Choi Jeokhyeon here.

‘In any case, it seems the status window can’t function properly in Choi Jeokhyeon’s presence.’

At the very least, I could assume that the chances of Seo Yuseong using his ability right now to erase my memories of Han Seungbeom had significantly decreased. With that, I stood still, quietly steadying my breathing so it wouldn’t be noticeable, and the first word that came out of my mouth was,

“…Sorry.”

At that, Choi Jeokhyeon’s gaze immediately shifted to the broken shards of glass. Then, after passing over my hand stained with red, and Seo Yuseong’s face frozen in complete panic, his eyes finally returned to me.

“I was a bit too noisy in someone else’s home, wasn’t I? It’s just that the situation was a little pressing.”

His neatly straight eyebrows crumpled in an instant. Given how frighteningly quick-witted he is, he had probably already figured out what had happened.

In truth, I didn’t want to break Seo Yuseong’s stubbornness this way, and I knew it wasn’t the right thing to do either. So, I forced an awkward smile in an attempt to mask my discomfort, and then just blurted out whatever came to mind.

“This is one of those cups piled up like a mountain in the storage room, right? I remembered you said last time you didn’t care about the stuff kept in the guest room…….”

But Choi Jeokhyeon’s expression made it clear he wasn’t really listening to my explanation, so I quickly shut my mouth. Judging by the way he didn’t even glance at the cup, he probably didn’t care about it at all, but seeing him at a loss for words like that still made me uneasy.

In response, I lowered my head toward the floor, absentmindedly ran my fingers through Seo Yuseong’s hair, and quietly apologized once more.

“I’m sorry. I’ll pay you back.”

And then, as if to drive the point home, I looked down at Seo Yuseong and asked, “…This won’t ever happen again. Right?”

At that, Seo Yuseong, who remained frozen with his arms wrapped around my leg, slowly nodded. I let out a deep sigh, gently stroked the back of his head, and whispered softly.

“Let’s stop doing this. I don’t want to do this to you.”

When I looked up, I saw the morning sunlight pouring in through the window.

‘I stayed up all night, huh.’

As I kept blinking my eyes while looking at him, Choi Jeokhyeon walked over to me. And just as he was about to say something to me, a bright red warning window suddenly appeared in front of us once again.

[System error!]

[A crack has formed in the boundary between the system and reality.]

At the same time, a constant crackling noise started coming from the laptop.

The moment I reflexively turned toward the source of the sound, the laptop, I heard Han Seungbeom’s voice.

[“Dad, good morning.”]

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Translator’s Corner:

They don’t pay Choi Jeokhyeon enough for this …. like imagine finally thinking maybe Yutae wouldn’t be suicidal anymore now that Yuseong is apparently still alive, but then he pulled stunt like this……

This was supposed to be posted yesterday, but I got distracted so bad by the things happening at Boys 2 Planet. No but it’s so crazy ????? Like not only their K-Center was exposed (and he admitted it) as bully, but Mnet themselves lied by saying the K-Center and one other trainee (that also got good edit and screentime in ep 1) are individual trainees, when in fact both of them are Wake One (Mnet’s agency, the agency that will debut the group later) trainees. And it was lowkey confirmed the suspicion the K-Center got the Center position by manipulation.

And they still haven’t announced the K-Center departure … he wouldn’t debut though, the backlash is no joke. You would get cyber bullied if you showed that you supported him. Meanwhile for the other trainee … it’s not that bad, but that’s like a guaranteed ticket for getting trashed as Mnet’s pick by the netizens for the rest of the show. I mean, I doubt a 18 years old have that much of choice, but at the end of the day, he was still the beneficiary so it made sense people don’t look at him kindly. The worse thing is, while the K-Center came clean about his years of trainee experience, the other one cosplayed as ordinary person with no training experience, he wrote in his self-introduction that he has no training experience … so before the scandal exploded, people were thinking he was some kind of genius singer who went busking and joined the show to pursue his dream become idol, despite having no dance skills … like in twitter, people were saying he wore the same clothes over and over again because he had no agency to sponsor him, he made it solely because of skills, etc …. when apprently it was a concept and he was affiliated with the show’s company ….. the busking video even turned out to be made by Wake One’s director (but honestly I was skeptical about this too. An ordinary person busking would just be them and guitar vs the world …. meanwhile his equipment was pretty expensive ….. I guess I’m the kind of person that won’t get scammed easily.)

So, that’s it. They failed to force a “Park Moondae” narrative because they got caught. I don’t know why I’m still watching Mnet’s survival show that’s definitely rigged like this T_T But I need to watch the MC….. but it’s two episodes already and no trainees caught my eye. The only one that interested me was the one who performed Chk Chk Boom but they eliminated him right away …… I was so ready voting and defending him on twitter if he made it…… see, if you’re a true individual trainee, they eliminated you right away like that…….

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