By Zephyria 
I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness before quietly stepping forward. I could hear the sound of steady breathing. Was he fast asleep? Wondering if I was waking him for no reason, I called out in a low voice.
“Un-ah, are you sleeping?”
I had intended to turn back if there was no answer, but Tae-un tossed and turned, rolling over toward Kim Si-baek. His eyebrows flickered a few times, and then his three-hundred eyes—deep as the darkness, no, deeper than the darkness—slowly revealed themselves. Before his black pupils could reflect my image, a bright, crescent-shaped smile formed first.
“You’re here already? I thought you’d be sleeping with Si-woon hyung.”
“He suddenly took over my room. I couldn’t even bring my luggage; was it uncomfortable sleeping in an unfamiliar place?”
“Whether it’s that room or this room, it’s all unfamiliar anyway.”
Tae-un let out a shallow yawn and lifted the duvet. As Kim Si-baek slid inside and sat by the head of the bed, Tae-un rested his head on Kim Si-baek’s thigh instead of the pillow. It had been too dark to tell before, but now I could see he was lying in bed wearing only a bathrobe. Kim Si-baek gently stroked his hair. The slightly damp strands brushed through his fingers.
“I’m glad Si-woon hyung remembers.”
“Yeah… I wonder if Si-woon is a case like Sister Hyo-ju Agnes or Mother?”
If there was a commonality, would it be blood relation…? As if soothing his heart, which was joyful at the reunion with his brother but unable to be fully at ease, Tae-un changed the subject.
“How is Si-woon hyung? Didn’t you say something bad happened to him in the past?”
“Did I not explain in detail because you were young? The ledger where I found Si-woon’s name… it was written by an organ trafficking organization.”
Stroking the damp hair, Kim Si-baek explained slowly. How his brother managed to survive without dying, and what he went through before meeting his current adoptive parents.
“The organization fed and housed him well to ensure there were no problems with the organ transplant, and while the first adoptive parents were indifferent, they had a lot of money, so the babysitters took good care of his basic needs. That’s why he said he wasn’t physically hurt or struggling.”
His brother had spoken of it as if it were nothing, but could a child truly have been lighthearted in spirit? Kim Si-baek swallowed a sigh, reflecting on a past that his hands could not reach.
“…But I already knew what my brother had gone through.”
Tae-un, who had been lying quietly with his head on the thigh, seemed surprised by the unexpected remark, and Kim Si-baek felt him shift.
“I saw Si-woon in a dream before, at the same age he is now.”
“A dream?”
“Yes, a dream.”
If Tae-un dismissed it as a joke, he intended to brush it off as one, but Tae-un held his breath in silence, as if listening intently.
“Si-woon appeared in my dream with the same aged face and build, and a similar hairstyle and clothing. The life he lived was exactly the same as the story I heard from Si-woon today.”
The organ trafficking organization, the death of the intended organ recipient, the first adoptive parents, the dissolution of adoption, the second adoptive parents… He recited them one by one, counting on his fingers, tracing the path through puberty and school years until he got a job at the research institute. Even reviewing it again, the only difference was one major.
“Then how was hyung in the dream?”
“I had also become an ordinary middle-aged man. I continued as a fencer without ever going to mak slecht, and because of that, I ended up meeting Si-woon…”
“You continued fencing?”
“It’s a bit embarrassing, but apparently, I even beat Karl Werner and won four consecutive gold medals at the Olympics. I guess my desires were projected too much because it was a dream.”
Despite it being a dream, he felt awkward and scratched the bridge of his nose, making Tae-un chuckle softly.
“If I were hyung, I would have dreamed of winning six consecutive golds. What about me? Was I in that dream too?”
The question, rising casually from the darkness, momentarily froze Kim Si-baek’s fingers as they stroked the hair.
By mutilating the body of the final victim, Young Tae… The voice of the panelist flowing from the TV poked at his mind. At the time, he had dismissed it as merely a dream, but now he had met his brother in reality, who had grown up exactly as in that dream.
…If so, what about Tae-un, who was murdered at age five in the dream, his body left incomplete.
“Of course you were the same. You didn’t cause trouble, studied hard, went to a good university, and grew this tall.”
“Did my chest grow too?”
“Yes. It did.”
“I guess the me in the dream worked out hard to look pretty for hyung.”
Hearing the light, joking laughter, Kim Si-baek struggled to erase the ominous pain stimulating his head.
“I had a dream about my brother like that, but Si-woon said he found out I was here after receiving a strange email.”
He deliberately dragged out his words, slowly retracing the events his brother had experienced. The effect of ruminating worked; by the time he finished the explanation, he had managed to wash away some of the ominous feeling lingering in his mind.
Tae-un, who had been lying on his side, shifted to lie flat on his back. Even in the darkness where the dim shapes were barely discernible, he could feel Tae-un’s gaze looking up at him, piercing through his skin. And the low sound of Tae-un’s breathing, barely audible.
“You have a guess as to who sent the email to Si-woon hyung, don’t you?”
“It must be the system.”
No matter how he thought about it, it seemed like nothing other than the system’s doing. Since the system was the one that guided him to meet Hyo-ju Agnes, wouldn’t the opposite also be possible?
“How does the system write emails?”
“I think it gave quests to other people, just as it gives them to me. Above all, who else would remember me?”
The system had erased his existence to reject him, yet it forced him to carry out quests. His decision to save the world was his own will, but even that was being read by the system. From throwing out the irresistible fruit—the way to return to mak slecht—Kim Si-baek could not shake the feeling of being toyed with.
As Kim Si-baek’s voice gradually became more agitated, he heard Tae-un let out a small, startled gasp.
“…Aren’t you happy to find out your brothers are alive? Especially since you were so sad, thinking Si-woon hyung had died long ago.”
“Of course I’m happy that Si-woon is safe. And I think it’s a relief to know where Mother is. But in the end, both Si-woon and Sister Hyo-ju Agnes are being used by the system.”
“….”
“Because of me.”
If the system’s purpose had been for his benefit, it would have told him about his brothers’ whereabouts the moment he was confused after realizing his existence had been erased. It would have provided comfort by informing him of the survival of the brother he had presumed dead and despaired over.
The system did not do that. It merely tossed out trivial and meaningless quests, and only after several months did it bring out another bait: his brother.
The things he had to perform under the guise of quests until now had been truly insignificant. Aside from the incidents at the Management Center and the amusement park, they were nothing more than fragments of daily life anyone would experience.
Thus, until now, he had believed these quests were meant to integrate him into the environment and life of Earth, but now he finally understood the clear intention. It wasn’t such a simple purpose.
The system had anticipated the decision Kim Si-baek would make. Knowing his nature, how could it not know his desperate affection for his brother?
“It’s a crude analogy… but I feel like the quests weren’t enough, so it’s using my brothers as adhesive to stick me here.”
A brother he thought had died long ago was alive. That fact alone began to give this world a different meaning than before.
The system’s intention became clear, but it gave birth to a new question.
Why go this far?
If he had refused to carry out the quests, the system likely would have thrown out the bait that his brother was alive—asking if he would let the world where his brother lives perish. But Kim Si-baek hadn’t done that. He vowed to save the world. There was no reason to provide a new pretext like his brother’s survival now.
“I don’t know. How does it plan to use me? It erased me to reject me, and now it arbitrarily brings my brothers here! Using the fact that only you remember…”
The confusion of emotions surging uncontrollably was suddenly swallowed by the movement of a dark silhouette that blocked his vision more densely than the darkness. No sooner had he felt Tae-un stirring than a familiar sensation pressed against his lips.
The kiss was soft, unlike his usual self who would dive in urgently. As if intending to take all the agitation gathered on his tongue, he carefully stroked his tongue and licked the trapped breath. At the familiar contact that seemed to calmly soothe him, a different hue rose on the cheeks that had been red with anger, and the tension in his rigid shoulders loosened.
Only after transferring his rage to Tae-un could Kim Si-baek calm his heart. At the same time, he felt incredibly pathetic. What kind of unsightly display was this in front of Tae-un, who was so much younger?
“Sorry. I wasn’t very mature, was I?”
“It’s enough to make anyone angry.”
Tae-un whispered, kissing his lower lip with a soft mwah sound. It was a sweetness that skillfully and secretly seeped through the gaps of his confused heart.
“But I’m happy, though.”