Chapter 377

My eyelids felt heavy.

If I wanted to somehow fix this situation quickly, I needed to open my eyes, but the dizziness made it difficult. However, as I kept unconsciously picturing the faces of Seo Yuseong and Han Seungbeom, I couldn’t simply lie there and rest. So, I forced my eyelids open just enough to see the bottom of my field of vision, and a world completely detached from reality appeared before me.

“…….”

As if time itself had frozen, the wreckage of buildings and shards of earth hung scattered in the air, while every trace of life had vanished, as though it had never existed in the first place. I was leaning against Han Seungbeom’s embrace, lying on one of the larger fragments drifting in the emptiness.

‘Seo Yuseong … isn’t here.’

It seemed Seo Yuseong was nowhere nearby. Han Seungbeom must have fled all the way here to avoid him.

But just because Seo Yuseong wasn’t in sight right now didn’t mean I could relax. There was no telling when he might come after us again, and this place didn’t look particularly safe either.

To be honest, at this point, being crushed under debris or falling to my death might come faster than being stabbed by a knife.

There was no ground left to stand on, so it couldn’t be helped. Still, floating this high up with nothing but a human body that couldn’t fly made my blood run cold.

Maybe it was because this world had been copied straight out of Han Seungbeom’s mind, exactly as he wanted. The moment he fell into panic, cracks began to form, and it was to an extent that even he himself could no longer control it.

The broken streetlamps and cars, smashed like toys, were bathed in faint purple and orange light, showing that the sun was beginning to rise.

If the end of the world were to come, it might look like this.

It was so quiet that, for a moment, it almost gave the illusion of peace.

“Dad … please, wake up…….”

In this place, where there was no birdsong or laughter, the only thing I could hear was Han Seungbeom’s weeping as the floating buildings came crashing down. I couldn’t tell what made him so miserable, but he was crying so hard he was nearly choking on his own breath.

“I’m sorry. This is all because of me…….”

Seeing Han Seungbeom in tears cleared away some of the haze clouding my mind.

A metallic, coppery scent filled the air. When I shifted my gaze to trace its source, I saw that Han Seungbeom’s pristine white clothes were soaked through, stained deep red with my blood. The black clothes I wore made it difficult to notice the extent of my bleeding, but if his were drenched like that from just brief contact, I could roughly estimate how much blood I had lost.

I wasn’t sure whether it was because Han Seungbeom’s hands trembled too much as he tried to stop the bleeding, or because the wound in my abdomen was already far beyond saving, but the bleeding simply wouldn’t stop. My life was seeping out of me like water from a broken bowl.

Since Han Seungbeom had said earlier that in this world anything could go his way, I briefly considered asking him to at least take away the pain. But if that were possible, this wound would have disappeared long ago, so I quickly abandoned the thought.

As I saw it, Han Seungbeom could control everything within this world at will, but he seemed unable to exert direct influence over things that didn’t belong to it. That was why he couldn’t force out either me or Seo Yuseong, why he couldn’t stop Seo Yuseong from stabbing me, and why he couldn’t heal this wound now.

‘Well, life was never meant to go the way you want, anyway.’

I tried to reach out to pat Han Seungbeom’s head as he cried his eyes out, but soon gave up from lack of strength. Instead, I lightly tapped the back of his hand and then opened my mouth to speak.

“…I’m not dead yet, but you’re crying like I’m already gone.”

“…Dad?”

“Calm down, it’s nothing serious.”

Since I forced my stiffened vocal cords to work, my voice came out cracked. At that, Han Seungbeom’s face crumpled up even more miserably, and he immediately retorted.

“How could this be nothing serious! You’re bleeding this much!”

“…Uh, I just wanted to try saying that line once. In movies, the protagonists always say stuff like that.”

When I answered in a joking tone, despite my face being so pale it had turned bluish, Han Seungbeom’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped open in disbelief. A moment later, his brows furrowed and he pressed his lips tight, looking furious. But really, it was just Han Seungbeom. No matter how much someone that tiny got mad, it only looked cute to me.

“This isn’t the time to be joking around.”

“If not now, then when else would I ever get the chance to say something like that?”

“Dad!”

“Alright, I’ll stop.”

As I let out a chuckle at my own ridiculous joke, a sharp pain shot through my abdomen. I stifled a groan and cast a quick glance at the blood endlessly seeping from my stomach before squeezing my eyes shut.

‘This won’t do.’

Ah, it didn’t feel as bad as I’d expected. Maybe it was even better than falling from a high place.

I tried to distract myself with such trivial thoughts, but my hands and feet were going numb, making it harder to move, and I could feel my consciousness starting to fade.

Honestly, trying to stop the bleeding felt pretty pointless now. Still, it was probably better not to let Han Seungbeom notice.

Contrary to that thought, Han Seungbeom suddenly shouted in alarm, as if he had noticed my vision growing dim.

“Don’t die! No!”

…Who on earth gets to die at will?

No matter what happens, I’ll never die at Seo Yuseong’s hands.

‘Because I know just how much it will hurt him.’

I didn’t care what anyone else, or even Seo Yuseong himself, had to say. He’s my little brother.

‘You want me to make that guy repeat his regressions forever? There’s no way I’ll ever let that happen.’

Even if he can’t feel as much as others, he still knows loneliness, regrets, and sadness. I raised him that way. So, I couldn’t just let Seo Yuseong kill me. I would do whatever it takes to prevent that.

“Go back right now! Then you can survive ……. please…….”

I already knew the simplest method that would be best for him.

‘Seo Yuseong must have stabbed me to make it turn out this way.’

Having spoken to Han Seungbeom so carelessly, I stared at him with a blank expression before opening my mouth again.

“If we do it that way, I won’t be able to remember you in my next life.”

“…You won’t be able to remember me?”

“Seo Yuseong will try to block all information about you from me so that I won’t have any attachment to you. Then you’d be left alone forever in this world full of lies. Would you really be okay with that?”

Han Seungbeom froze, mouth open, apparently so focused on saving me that he hadn’t even considered that possibility. After a moment, he replied, “As long as Dad can live, I’ll be okay.”, but his words were heavy with a lingering attachment he couldn’t hide.

I had already scolded him a moment ago, telling him to stop talking nonsense. That alone was more than enough, and I no longer had the energy to get angry. I simply let out a light laugh and started speaking in a small voice.

“I wish you would wait until you’ve grown a little more. You need to meet more people, get to know the wider world. A lot of the time, things that seemed perfectly fine at the moment turn out to be completely different when we look back. Perhaps none of us really know ourselves, or the right way to live. In the end, life is a long journey of discovering who you truly are.”

“…Are you saying that I’m still too young and don’t know anything?”

“Well, yeah. It’s only natural. Even at my age, I still find myself difficult to understand. But now, I think I finally understand why I tried to carry so many people on my back. Everyone else might think our relationship was one-sided, but that’s not true … It was because of them that I was able to keep going.”

“…….”

“Just knowing that there are people who love me gave me a foolish kind of courage, the kind that made me feel like I could overcome anything. And for the same reason, the thought of losing them was unbearably terrifying.”

After letting out words I could never say in front of those guys, I felt a little embarrassed. I tried to turn my head to avoid Han Seungbeom’s gaze, but even the slightest movement made the blood pooled inside me surge. I painfully coughed it out, then lowered my eyes and muttered to myself, almost as if speaking alone.

“…I guess I just didn’t want to end up lonely.”

Seeing Han Seungbeom crying again before his tears had even dried, I asked once more.

“Why did you leave that diary behind? You must have had plenty of chances to delete it.”

“…….”

“Why did you tell your aunt that you were going to disappear, and why didn’t you erase her memories of you to the very end?”

Han Seungbeom couldn’t answer.

I watched him quietly for a moment, then answered for him.

“Isn’t it because you, just like me, didn’t want to be forgotten?”

My words must have hit home, because Han Seungbeom’s tightly clenched fist trembled. Just as I tried to soothe him, saying, “It’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with it…….”, the fragment that had been holding us up finally cracked and then shattered with a loud sound.

When I reached out my hand toward Han Seungbeom, who had started falling before me, it wasn’t his skin I touched first, but cold droplets.

They were Han Seungbeom’s tears.

After confirming his answer, I grabbed Han Seungbeom’s wrist and pulled him into my arms, holding him so tightly it felt like I might crush him. Then, I felt his arm, which had been hesitating in mid-air, slowly wrap around my back, and I closed my eyes.

“…I don’t want to be left alone. I’m scared. Honestly, not even for a single moment while I’ve been here have I been happy.”

“Mm.”

“I still have dreams I want to achieve. I wanted to be a person who appears on TV, just like you, Dad.”

“Mm.”

He hesitated at first, as if he were scared, but as I nodded and listened to every word he said, his voice became more and more emotional, and he started to pour out his feelings without holding anything back. It was as if he were releasing all the sadness he had been keeping inside.

“I want to learn how to love and how to be loved.”

“Mm.”

“I want to be happy…….”

As I quietly watched his clumsy, awkward self, a small question suddenly crossed my mind, ‘ How many people had ever asked Han Seungbeom about his feelings? ‘. Perhaps he had never experienced a single moment like this, where someone simply listened to him.

I nodded silently as I listened to him, and after hesitating for a long time, he finally managed, with great difficulty, to utter one last thing.

“…I want to live.”

The same words I had kept to myself, the ones I had swallowed dozens or even hundreds of times in my heart until now, finally came out of Han Seungbeom’s mouth.

Then a warmth suddenly spread deep in my chest, and before I even realized it, I was smiling.

Ah, in this moment, I was happier than anyone.

Because this child finally learned to love himself.

‘I know your heart better than anyone else.’

Cutting through the wind, I fell until the collapsed building was right before me, and a familiar status window appeared before my eyes.

[Would you like to restore HAN SEUNGBEOM’s soul at the cost of SEO YUTAE’s soul?

(YES/NO)]

‘Because I’m feeling the exact same thing right now.’

The moment I saw it, the faces of Prism, Pantheion, and Choi Jeokhyeon came to mind.

In response, I wrapped my hand around Han Seungbeom’s head and held him even tighter in my embrace.

“…Yes.”

So that the letters in the status window wouldn’t be visible in his sight.

So that I wouldn’t forget what I had to do.

[YES]

I nodded and whispered into his ear.

“Let’s go back, to the world where people who will love you are waiting.”

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Translator’s Corner:

The word Yutae used to respond to Seungbeom’s confession was all 응 (Eung), a very informal and casual way of saying “yes” in Korean, basically can be translated to “Yeah, Yes, Uh-uh, Mm, etc. I used “Mm” for the first three to match the situation (and considering Yutae is in pain too so he can’t say much), and “Yes” for the last one since it felt more … final? and really matched the situation.

Anyway, listen to this (turn on caption for eng sub)

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