By Zephyria 
Kim Si-baek’s first impression of the man was simply: ‘Black.’ From his neatly swept-back hair to the impeccably tailored three-piece suit and shoes, the leather gloves, and the coat draped over his shoulders—the man’s attire was entirely monochrome black.
Above all, it was the eyes.
Because those pitch-black, three-hundred eyes, which seemed to reflect no light, held his gaze captive, he couldn’t properly take in the man’s overall appearance. When he finally looked closer, the man’s face was so elegant that he would have gasped in admiration had the situation been different.
The sharp, clear lines of his features were keen, yet they possessed a strength that wasn’t superficial. It was an exquisite beauty; had the lines been any thicker, he would have seemed dull, and had they been thinner, he would have seemed unbalanced.
Even in his experience as a promising apostle of the religious sect for decades, socializing with countless people and encountering all sorts of beauties, this was a level of stunning beauty he had rarely seen. It was the first time since that child—the cutest and prettiest in the world—that his attention had been so drawn to a man’s looks.
‘The way the corners of the eyes slant upward is very similar, but…’
However, on the left side of the man’s face sat a large scar, as if a beast’s claw had savagely ripped through it. Because his face was so excessively pale, almost bloodless, the gruesome scar gave him a strange sense of vitality, serving as proof that he was not a corpse.
The black pupils, devoid of any emotion, silently stared at Kim Si-baek.
[Death and Beauty are disgusted, saying that the aura is even more hideous than Edokus.]
“…Excuse me, Guild Master Tae-un?”
While Biyendwe and Gwak Yun-sang each displayed their bewilderment, Kim Si-baek quietly observed the man. Objectively, he was very handsome, but perhaps because of the black clothes and the menacing scar, he radiated a quite fierce atmosphere. His cold, expressionless face only added to it.
And so, the final conclusion was:
‘…Is he a gangster?’
Setting aside his beauty, he had a murderous impression, as if he had just finished disposing of someone, and the scar on his face was unusual. If he were a gangster, it would make sense for him to barge in out of nowhere and pick a fight with a glare.
Even after reaching that conclusion, a sense of insufficiency scratched at a corner of his heart. To dismiss it as a simple provocation, those black eyes, that narrow slant of the three-hundred eyes, were somehow…
As he narrowed his brow at the strange sense of déjà vu, the man was the first to act in the silence. With his expression remaining unchanged, the man took a step forward. Thump, thump. The shoes struck the floor with a steady rhythm, and as the air shifted, a chilly frost swept in.
Even as he saw Gwak Yun-sang tense up and reach for the hilt of his sword, Kim Si-baek remained calmly seated in his chair. He was confident enough to take care of himself even if there were a surprise attack, and he was also curious about how this man, who had barged in and glared, would behave. It had been a full 30 years since he last dealt with someone trying to oppose him in mak slecht.
The man, bringing the chill with him, looked down at him. Was he roughly in his mid-thirties? As he had felt when the man entered, he was truly tall. 195 centimeters? 196 centimeters?
Lips as bloodless as his face parted slightly.
“Hyung.”
Hyung. The moment that utterly ordinary word rested on the man’s tongue, a bright vitality bloomed across his face, like the scent of flowers spreading from the tip of his tongue. It was like watching color being painted onto a monochromatic drawing.
The man, who had looked like a corpse, smiled brightly with a face of utmost radiance.
“Si-baek hyung, I really missed you.”
It was a truly dramatic transformation, as if a desolate wilderness where a bleak gale blew had become a spring plain with a warm breeze. Just by uttering a title for one person. It was a smile so beautiful that even Kim Si-baek, who had been watching the man’s actions without much thought, momentarily swallowed a gasp of admiration.
However, regardless of the sentiment, Kim Si-baek’s reaction was clear.
“Who are you?”
He didn’t have a gangster for a younger brother.
Tae-un.
Who was he?
An S-class hunter who possessed the power of being the Guild Master of 7777, one of the country’s leading guilds, the wealth that naturally accompanied it, and a network of renowned high-ranking hunters.
But among the elements that defined him, the most famous wasn’t his ability, his looks, or the guild with a name that sounded like something you’d see in a casino—it was his personality. In the sense that he was violent, cruel, and ruthless, to the point where no one could handle him.
In short, Tae-un was a mad dog.
And yet, this mad dog, instead of swallowing the young man whole while glaring, was smiling brightly and even using polite honorifics. It was only natural that Gwak Yun-sang began to deny reality.
Just as he was deciding that he needed to go to a psychiatric hospital for counseling after work, he felt a sudden surge of betrayal at the nonchalant response, “Who are you?” You can speak Korean?! In fact, it’s fluent, native Seoul dialect.
Whether Gwak Yun-sang trembled or not, Kim Si-baek placed Biyendwe on his palm to protect him and asked again. Since the man had specifically called him ‘Si-baek hyung,’ it was certain that he knew him. The hypothesis of a parallel world and the hypothesis of 70 years later were both erased by that one phrase.
The problem was that the face was truly unfamiliar.
“Do you know me?”
“Hmm.”
Tae-un rubbed the corner of his mouth with an expression that seemed troubled yet amused.
“You don’t recognize me? I have changed a lot, though.”
“I’ve never taken hush money from a gangster.”
“Haha. I didn’t do bad things like beating people up. I grew up well and stayed a good boy while waiting for hyung to return.”
Gwak Yun-sang, who happened to overhear the conversation, was appalled. Right, Tae-un probably never ‘beat’ people up. He likely killed them or swallowed them.
“Hmm. Maybe if I do this, you’ll recognize me?”
Tae-un leaned down with a gentle movement that didn’t suit his massive frame. Now completely crouched on the floor, looking up at Kim Si-baek, Tae-un leaned his face against Kim Si-baek’s knee and smiled softly.
“Hyung.”
Gwak Yun-sang’s entire body broke out in goosebumps at the sight, but Kim Si-baek was finally able to awaken the flickering sense of déjà vu.
〈Hyung.〉
How could he not know? How could he forget?
The smile, the gaze, the face of the child who used to follow him with a clear, bright smile.
Un-i likes hyung the most in the whole world. The child who would whisper shyly in his ear, cheeks flushing red while waiting; when he told the child that he liked him the most too, the boy’s expression would become as bright as if he owned the whole world. It was the cutest and most lovely thing Kim Si-baek had seen and experienced in his entire life.
“…Un-ah?”
With eyes that held the heat of that summer day, Tae-un answered languidly.
“Yes. It’s me, Un. Si-baek hyung.”
✽ ✽ ✽
It was a shock. A truly, truly great shock.
It was more shocking than the truth that time had flowed differently in the world he left behind, or the reality that, despite many twists and turns, he had returned to Korea. How could such a thing happen…
Kim Si-baek looked at Tae-un with dazed eyes.
“Why did the child age so much… My Un used to smell like sunshine when he stood still, smell like milk when he toddled along, and his cheeks were so plump with baby fat that the feeling of squeezing them was so satisfying, and he was so tiny and small, really cute…”
“I know. I should have taken better care of my skin so I wouldn’t age so much.”
The little brother he had raised on his back since the age of five had skipped the entire growth process and appeared instantly as a fully grown man in his mid-thirties. Moreover, for some reason, he had a large scar on his face.
Kim Si-baek couldn’t regain his senses from the shock. He hadn’t panicked this much even when he first crash-landed in mak slecht.
[Death and Beauty, looking at the man in front of him with a face that finds it strange, barks at him to pull himself together.]
Biyendwe, who had climbed up to the crown of his head, pecked at his scalp. Peck, peck, peck.
“Ow, ow, ow. But Un-ah. What’s with the scar on your face? How did you get hurt so badly? You’re making hyung sad…”
“It really hurt when I got injured.”
“Oh dear, did it hurt a lot?”
“Yes, the wounds around the eyes bleed a lot especially. The blood wouldn’t stop, and I was so scared and it hurt so much, so I really missed hyung back then…”
Tae-un trembled slightly, as if recalling the memory of that time. Over that image, the image of a young Tae-un overlapped—the boy who had fallen and badly scraped his knee, yet walked back to the orphanage with dignity, only to burst into tears the moment he saw him from a distance.
Just like then, Kim Si-baek’s eyes were full of pity, but Gwak Yun-sang felt like he was going to die.
As far as he knew, the scar on the face was an injury sustained 17 years ago during the Battle of Busan Recovery. ‘Scared because he was hurt’ my foot. This was a man who, drenched in blood not just on his face but all over his body, dove into the midst of magical beasts and severed all nine necks of the S-class magical beast, Sang-ryu. And he did that at only 18 years old.
On the other hand, Kim Si-baek felt a sense of relief toward Tae-un, who was rubbing his cheek against his knee. Although he had grown not just to adulthood but to a face that looked even older than his own, seeing him act spoiled made him think that inside, he was still that cute little child from back then.
[Death and Beauty asks if it’s really cute for someone that size to be rubbing against him.]
It couldn’t be helped. No matter how big or old Tae-un became, Kim Si-baek had long realized that he would always look like a five-year-old toddler in his eyes.
He wanted to treat the scar on his face, but it was too old a wound. With nothing else to do, he simply stroked the scar on the cheek, and Tae-un gave a gentle, smiling look with his eyes.
“Did you meet a bear or something while climbing a mountain?”
“Not a bear, it was a magical beast.”
“Ah…”
Kim Si-baek trailed off ambiguously. He had many questions—exactly how many years had passed, how the magical beasts appeared, whether he was in contact with other people—but there were ears listening.
“Um, excuse me, anyway, it is correct that you are an acquaintance of Guild Master Tae-un? Did you say your name was Si-baek?”
Gwak Yun-sang, who had been searching for an opening, quickly spoke up, not missing the gap in the conversation.
“Forgive me, but may I ask for your full name? I have no other intention, I simply wish to express my gratitude and provide compensation for helping us…”
“Section Chief Gwak, I’m talking to hyung.”
Tae-un stood up and looked down at Gwak Yun-sang. A cold voice, different from the one he used with Kim Si-baek, dropped flatly. Seeing the hem of the draped coat twitch slightly, Gwak Yun-sang stiffened his shoulders.
‘I’m fucked.’
He never imagined that Tae-un would get pissed off just because he asked for a name during a brief lull in the conversation. Surely he wouldn’t… swallow him over something like this? Surely, surely…
As Gwak Yun-sang rolled his eyes, trying to find an escape route, something even more unimaginable happened right before his eyes.