By Zephyria 
“You’ve been erased from everyone’s memories, Hyung.”
“……What do you mean, ‘erased’?”
It wasn’t that he didn’t know the dictionary definition of the word ‘erased.’ It was simply that his brain refused to comprehend it. Erased from everyone’s memories? Me?
Tae-un, his face pale, brought an album from the study. They were Kim Si-baek’s graduation albums. He flipped through them with frantic hands, but nowhere could he find Kim Si-baek’s photo or name. Not even in the contact list on the final page.
The photos taken with the priests, nuns, and children at the orphanage were the same. As he turned the pages, the memories of that time flickered vividly, yet his existence remained nowhere to be found. His ring still held a photo of everyone together, but in the identical photos remaining on Earth, he had vanished.
“…….”
The fingers closing the last page of the album trembled slightly. The discrepancy between memory and reality was a significant shock, even for someone who had endured so much over sixty-eight years.
“……What about the people at the company?”
“Since Seoul was destroyed during the Great Cataclysm, a lot of the police agency’s data was lost, so I honestly don’t know what happened to your records. But I happened to meet Detective Park, who was your partner, and he didn’t remember you.”
“…….”
“It’s the same with your records from your athlete days. Even if there’s a slim chance the photos were manipulated or people forgot due to poor memory, it’s impossible for no one to remember an Olympic and Asian Games medalist, right?”
Facing a Kim Si-baek who couldn’t find the words to speak, Tae-un calmly organized the albums. Having collided with the shock that no one remembered Kim Si-baek several times already, his soul felt worn down, worn and worn, until it seemed it couldn’t be worn any further.
“I felt like I was the only crazy person, so I even went to Jeongseon Prison to visit Tae Cheol-hun. You remember Tae Cheol-hun, right?”
How could he not remember? The man who had locked a five-year-old Tae-un in a semi-basement room and nearly killed him.
“Your memory had been replaced by some random local person who happened to pass by.”
“…….”
“Si-baek Hyung.”
Tae-un quietly took Kim Si-baek’s trembling hand and guided it to cover the scar on his own left cheek. Just as he had once covered the swollen, bruised cheek of a child in a distant past, in a time shared only by the two of them.
However, the large, jagged, distorted scar could not be fully covered even by Kim Si-baek’s long hand.
“I’m not crazy, right? Right? You are really here, and I’m not some lunatic who’s confusing fantasy with reality by imagining and inflating a person who doesn’t exist in anyone’s memory, right?”
Dark eyes, harboring the heat of a summer day, clung to him with a desperate, almost obsessive intensity. With no way to handle the hand he was holding, Kim Si-baek could only stroke the horrific scar.
He didn’t remember clearly what was said after that. He thought he barely managed to say he wanted to rest before returning to his room.
Several hours had passed and the sun had risen, yet the sensation of the scar still lingered in his hand. Kim Si-baek wiped his forehead with a sigh.
Twenty-one years ago, the moment he was swept away by that rift, his traces vanished from the world. Though he didn’t know the reason, did this mean the world itself was denying his very existence? Was it alright to force his way back into a world that rejected him?
After holding his forehead for a long time even with his eyes open, Kim Si-baek sat up. On the bedroom table were the albums Tae-un had brought and a stack of old newspapers. A yellowed newspaper from thirty years ago fluttered as he flipped through it.
July 27, 199X.
There was no trace of the fencer Kim Si-baek, who had brought the first Olympic medal to the Korean fencing world, which was gradually gaining prominence on the global stage. Nor was there any mention of the gold medal he had won at the Asian Games two years prior.
“…….”
Despite having checked repeatedly last night, his fingertips still trembled slightly. The flashes of light from reporters requesting interviews as they hung the medal around his neck flickered beneath his closed eyelids.
Praise like being called an eighteen-year-old genius prosecutor didn’t matter. He had already experienced painfully how easily the facade of public adoration could crumble. That was fine. Even if all the glory ended up rolling in the mud, the fierce life he had lived was still his.
But……
His life, the sweat and tears he poured into that passion—everything had vanished without leaving a single trace.
〈Hyung, for twenty-one years while searching for you, I thought I was going crazy.〉
The newspaper crumpled in his grip. The disjointed memories wavered hollowly. An overwhelming sense of futility swirled confusingly. His younger siblings didn’t remember him, and the world didn’t remember him. Then why on earth did he have to return? Would it not have been better to never return, to give up on coming back and bury his bones in mak slecht?
Without ever knowing how his life had been tarnished. Keeping ignorance as a blessing.
“You have a face that is thinking complicated thoughts.”
Biyendwe, who had been curled up on the cushion next to the pillow, was already staring at him.
Kim Si-baek rubbed his face several times before finally suppressing his emotions.
“……When I first realized I had crash-landed in mak slecht, did the other gods ever mention this phenomenon?”
“They said nothing. Above all, is your apostle not the first and last to cross the dimension boundary while possessing a human spirit and body?”
Though much calmer than when he first arrived on Earth, Biyendwe, still appearing somewhat intimidated, leaned his face gloomily against the cushion.
“……What do you intend to do now?”
“I don’t know……”
“…….”
“I’m worried about what might have happened to mak slecht, but I’m also a little scared.”
What if my existence has been erased in mak slecht too? Realizing the words he couldn’t bring himself to say, Biyendwe hurriedly continued.
“I cannot deliver a divine utterance directly, but your god’s divine energy is still faintly connected to mak slecht. I can feel that the pontiff and my grand warrior are safe, so there seems to be no problem. Therefore, my apostle’s existence should also be intact.”
“……I hope so.”
Knowing it was a clumsy attempt to comfort him, Kim Si-baek gave a faint smile.
Knock, knock. Following the sound of knocking from outside, a deep, resonant voice was heard. Soon the door opened and Tae-un poked his head in.
“Hyung, are you awake? Are you okay?”
“I’m okay.”
Kim Si-baek cleared his throat and answered in a tone that sounded as nonchalant as possible. He wasn’t okay, but he couldn’t show weakness to him.
Tae-un looked down with eyes full of anxiety and worry.
“Should I stay with you?”
Because the young brother couldn’t hide his worry, his agitated heart actually calmed down. He might have shown it to others, but he could never show his shaking side to this child. Never.
“You have to go to work too.”
“The guild isn’t going to collapse just because I miss one day.”
“No. I’m really okay.”
Kim Si-baek brushed back the hair that had become messy from tossing and turning.
“Can I meet the kids who work at your company—no, your guild? I want to see them with my own eyes.”
The dark pupils looking down at him sank.
“I’m saying this as the person who has heard countless times that they don’t know you…… it will be more shocking than you imagine.”
“Nothing could be more shocking than you becoming thirty-five.”
At the light joke, Tae-un slowly curled the corners of his mouth as if he couldn’t help it.
The truth that the closer home is to work, the better, was the same whether in mak slecht or on Earth. The entire commute consisted of taking the private elevator connected directly to the entrance.
Walking side by side through the quiet early morning company hallway, Tae-un tilted his head.
“I’ve felt this since long ago, but Hyung, you’re a truly strong person.”
“I did sports, so I should be stronger than an average person.”
“Not your fists, but your heart. Your heart.”
Kim Si-baek let out a bitter smile at the boy tapping his own chest. If he were truly strong, he wouldn’t have even thought that it would have been better to live in ignorance without returning.
Tae-un, failing to notice the bitterness, checked the time on his wristwatch.
“Around now, it’s about time they come to the sleep chamber to sleep.”
“They stay overnight at the company?”
“Because of their research. The dormitory is far, and even when offered a house near the company, they say the sleep chamber is more convenient.”
“Hmm……”
Wondering which of the four it was who would always be stuck at the company due to being absorbed in research, he spoke.
“Is that kid Han-gyeol?”
The answer came immediately. As they stood for a moment in front of the sleep chamber door, someone came trudging along. Seeing the exhausted face with dark circles reaching down to his knees, another memory bounced back.
〈Hyuuung…… Min-hyung Hyung hit me again. He always only hits me……〉
The child who used to hide and cry all the time because he was short and only liked books moved his gaze indifferently, as if he couldn’t even see Kim Si-baek standing next to Tae-un.
“Oh, Tae-un Hyung. You’re at work early. Well then, I’m off to sleep……”
“Wait a second.”
Tae-un grabbed Lee Han-gyeol’s arm and nodded.
“There’s someone I want to introduce.”
“……I’m Kim Si-baek.”
Perhaps he had been harboring a sliver of hope. Damp sweat seeped into his palms. The eyes, heavy with sleep, finally slid over to Kim Si-baek.
The hazy eyes flickered with a strange light and widened into circles.