By Zephyria 
His complexion gradually turned a gloomy, ashen color. His hunched shoulders trembled intermittently, looking like an occasional seizure.
The first to notice Ki Jae-eon’s strange symptoms was… his older brother, Ki Jae-ha.
“First of all, the things we couldn’t do last time-.”
“Father, just a moment.”
He stopped his father, simply relying on his intuition without knowing the exact reason.
But was it already too late?
“Don’t interrupt impudently.”
Ignoring his incompetent son’s words, his stubborn voice continued to rattle off the schedule, and eventually, “Ugh-!” Ki Jae-eon vomited.
Thud!
Ki Jae-eon got up as if he was having a seizure.
Soon, vomit poured out through the gaps in his straight, long fingers, which were blocking his mouth. Ki Jae-eon stumbled out of his seat like a startled deer shot by a gun! He seemed truly terrified. He was bumping into things and staggering, looking utterly pathetic.
“…!!”
The three people left behind after Ki Jae-eon disappeared froze in place. What just happened? Ki Tae-ho and Ryu Seong-hee, in particular, stared blankly at the empty seat.
A frozen atmosphere was felt. As someone’s sigh broke the chill, Ki Jae-ha jumped up.
“I’ll go check on him.”
The eldest son’s voice was low and subdued.
“Ki Jae-eon!”
Thump, thump, thump. He kept knocking on the door, but to no avail. All that could be heard from inside was the sound of retching, vomiting up his insides.
“Ki Jae-eon, it’s your brother!”
He called out to his younger brother anxiously.
Clang! Clang! The doorknob was also firmly locked. Damn it, should he just break it down? Ki Jae-ha put his hand on his waist and spat out an expletive.
“Open the door!”
-Haa, haa… Ugh!
“Is your stomach really upset? Huh? Jae-eon-ah, Ki Jae-eon!”
-Ugh! Cough…
Panting sounds.
Ki Jae-ha bit his lip tightly. The moment he realized that his voice wasn’t reaching his younger brother, Ki Jae-ha’s face twisted in pain. He wiped his rough, dry face with his large hand.
“Jae, haa….”
But soon he realized how pathetic his sadness was.
Ki Jae-ha let out a stifled sigh.
‘Doesn’t reach?’
You’re stating the obvious, you idiot.
‘What now…’
It’s not even funny.
‘You admire your younger brother who chose this path himself? You feel proud? A Genius?’
Damn it, you left him alone until he became like this.
‘You call yourself a brother.’
“…I’m ashamed, damn it.”
What do you believe in? What is family? What kind of brother are you?
‘Why didn’t you know? Why didn’t you ever look back until he became like this?’
Ki Jae-ha clenched his teeth and raised his fist. Veins stood out on his thick arm. Breaking the door could harm his younger brother, so the answer was to break the doorknob.
His hand, like an iron hammer, drew a large arc in the air.
Whoosh-!
Soon after, the solid doorknob was shattered miserably.
“Ki Jae-eon!”
He hurriedly kicked open the door and saw his younger brother passed out. Turning to his parents and the people who were belatedly following him in, he raised his voice, “Ambulance! Damn it, call an ambulance!”
Ki Jae-ha easily picked up his unconscious younger brother and thought.
How little he must have had to rely on that he had been suffering alone until he became like this.
Jae-eon-ah, I know I’m not qualified to be a brother.
But from now on, I’m going to live hearing you say, ‘Brother, help me.’
“Hey- are you alive?”
Kim Ju-won opened the hospital room door with a creak, and Ahn Seo-myeong, whose personal color was currently a patient gown, nodded roughly. He was alive. The problem was that his stomach was extremely tight. It was a very different attitude from when he was dealing with Ki Jae-eon. It was obvious at a glance that they were very comfortable with each other.
“Why are there only apples? Don’t you have anything expensive? Like melons or mangoes.”
“Isn’t that what you’re supposed to bring, hyung…?”
“Nope.”
“Was there?”
“No, just no.”
Kim Ju-won picked up a large apple with regret and crunched it down. Anyone would think he was starving.
“Those are mine.”
“Did you write your name on them?”
Ahn Seo-myeong vowed to engrave his name on all the fruits tonight.
Anyway, it had already been two weeks since he had a hole in his stomach.
Fortunately, the surgery was successful because it avoided the organs, and he was recovering well.
“Hey.”
“Yeah.”
“What’s with the ‘yeah’? I’m your hyung.”
“Yeah.”
“Has Incheon not contacted you at all?”
“……?”
Ahn Seo-myeong quietly put down the game console he had been tapping on with a cool, expressionless face. Kim Ju-won’s stomach was only getting more frustrated at his clueless face. He was sure that even if that guy was scammed, he would just say, ‘Yes, well. That’s how it is. Is there any other way?’ and just stare blankly with his signature dead fish eyes. He learned from that guy that it’s a problem when a person has too little ups and downs.
“What about that bastard Ki Jae-eon?”
Kim Ju-won, who had already finished one apple, rummaged through the fruit basket and picked up eight new tangerines. Holding them in his hand, the tangerines looked like kumquats instead of tangerines. Ahn Seo-myeong watched Kim Ju-won’s tangerine mukbang with a bored expression. More than that, how many is he eating?
“Even if he can’t come to visit, shouldn’t he at least call out of conscience?”
“If you had any conscience, you’d stop eating, hyung.”
“If you don’t have manners, you should at least have some sense, but you really don’t have either manners or sense. It’s not easy for a person to be so consistently and universally lacking. Don’t you think?”
It was a heartfelt rant, as if Ki Jae-eon had swindled him out of money.
“Did he trade his personality for talent?”
A bitter smile even appeared on his muttering face. But Ahn Seo-myeong knew. Kim Ju-won was more satisfied with himself for appropriately using the difficult word ‘equivalent exchange’ than with the fact that he had slandered Ki Jae-eon. Of course, he knew that if he said this out loud, his hospitalization period would be extended, so he just blinked his eyes quietly.
“Hey, why aren’t you saying anything?”
“Say what.”
“You’re so out of it.”
Ahn Seo-myeong’s indifferent attitude didn’t seem to please him at all.
Well, if you had to be specific, the source of his nonchalant attitude was partly his innate nature… and partly because the words weren’t particularly relatable in the first place.
He was injured because of a specter. The reason for that was simply a happening that occurred because he was weak. Rather, Ki Jae-eon was a benefactor who saved his life. Of course, his actions in the beginning were a bit of a nuisance, but if you were to go by that, this guy who was coughing up blood with a hole in his stomach wasn’t much better. If they were to stand in court to determine who was more of a burden, this guy would be more likely to lose.
Beep beep.
Ahn Seo-myeong looked down at the game console screen that read [Game Over] and defended Ki Jae-eon, saying, “He probably has a good reason.”
“Reasooooon?”
Kim Ju-won made a face that said he didn’t believe it, but Ahn Seo-myeong shrugged. The last image of Ki Jae-eon in his fading consciousness kept coming to mind.
-I, I can save… Haa, I can do it. I won’t let you die again.
He definitely said that.
‘Again?’
He had nothing else to do while he was hospitalized, so he thought about it whenever he had the chance.
‘What again?’
‘Repeatedly.’
Then… He must have had a similar experience before.
Hmm, come to think of it.
‘He tried to jump in front of a train, didn’t he?’
Ahn Seo-myeong suddenly became curious.
At first, he just thought he was a gloomy and eccentric person, but it seemed like he had some kind of story.
‘Weak, afraid of specters…’
Ki Jae-eon was completely different from the rumors he had heard.
‘What curse did he receive? A curse that even the Teacher couldn’t unravel.’
It was quite an unusual reaction for Ahn Seo-myeong, who was insensitive to others.
‘Does he always stutter?’
The thoughts that followed led to the question, ‘What kind of person is Ki Jae-eon?’
“Hyung.”
Ahn Seo-myeong waved his hand at Kim Ju-won, who had now conquered even bananas after the tangerines. It meant that he should focus on the patient instead of the fruit.
“Stop looting the granary.”
“You have to eat fruit quickly. It goes bad quickly.”
It was a banana mukbang that would make even a monkey run away.
Ahn Seo-myeong made a face that said his stomach was bloated as he watched Kim Ju-won.
“Give it time to go bad.”
“Hey, get me a cola.”
“About Exorcist Ki Jae-eon.”
“I don’t want to hear about that bastard.”
……?
Who was just chewing him out like crazy?
Ahn Seo-myeong stretched his mouth into a straight line at Kim Ju-won’s shamelessness, then regained his signature expression and handed him a cola.
“Didn’t you notice that his condition was strange?”
Gulp, gulp.
“He didn’t seem normal.”
Gulp, gulp.
Kim Ju-won, who had emptied the difficult 500ml of carbonation in one go, accurately threw the empty plastic bottle into the trash can next to him. Thump-! A perfect score.
“I don’t know.”
“…….”
“He just seems crazy.”
Kim Ju-won’s expression as he said that seemed quite complicated for his prickly tone. It seemed like there was something he was worried about. Indeed, this hyung doesn’t have a talent for lying. Ahn Seo-myeong smiled as if he found Kim Ju-won cute.
At that very moment, the hospital room door opened without a knock and a loud shout of “Hey!” was heard.
“Kim Ju-wooon!”
It was Lee Gyeong-hak, one of the Exorcists of the main office and in charge of Kim Ju-won’s left ball friend. For reference, the right ball is Ahn Seo-myeong, but Ahn Seo-myeong has been refusing that title for years.
“Gyeong-hak-ah, can you take off your uvula? You’re loud.”
“My uvula isn’t important. Ah, Seo-myeong, hi. How’s your body?”
“Yeah, well. So-so.”
After exchanging simple manners by raising their palms, Lee Gyeong-hak began to make a fuss over Kim Ju-won.
“I have great news.”
“What, has my punishment been decided?”
He had already resigned himself to the fact that the great Gi Clan would put all sorts of pressure on him to humiliate him. The Teacher had taken the lead in defending him… but he also knew that it wouldn’t work at all. A pay cut? Disciplinary action? Or revocation of qualifications? Whatever it is, bring it on. Would he be intimidated by that? He wasn’t scared.
“That’s…….”
But the sound that came out of Lee Gyeong-hak’s mouth was an absurd statement that broke all of Kim Ju-won’s expectations.