A small warmth was felt along my palm.
So clear and refreshing was the scent that it made the foul odor that had been tormenting me earlier seem meaningless.
So I…
Had no choice but to do this.
“I’m sorry, Seolheon!”
Squeeze! I pulled him into a hug and rubbed my cheeks all over his face.
“You suffered emotionally because of your lousy hyung!”
“Hyung. I can’t breathe.”
“Let me hold you just a little longer!”
“I’m not a kid anymore.”
“I know, my 9-year-old puppy!”
“…”
That’s right.
For the past 10 years, unlike ‘Baek Gunho’ in the novel, I never oppressed, gaslighted, or was jealous of my younger brother.
As a result of only cherishing him with love.
“Hyung. Let go for a second.”
“Hm?”
“You said you lost your medicine. I brought a spare from home.”
The child I had misunderstood as the obsessive crazy seme Baek Wooheon grew up healthy and became the good younger brother Baek Seolheon who knows how to worry about his hyung.
“My Seolheon! What am I going to do with you being so good?”
“Hyung, get off. And take your medicine.”
“Let me pet you a little more!”
“…Then just a little.”
“Okay!”
Look at that pure child who’s sulking yet blushing from embarrassment.
Who could dare call that face an obsessive seme after looking at it!
An aspect honest with his own feelings,
An awkward cuteness befitting his age,
Altruism enough to rush to the hospital for his hyung!
Though it’s nothing new, I felt a surge of pride thinking that the teachings of the past 9 years weren’t useless after all.
‘As expected, no one is born rotten.’
Honestly, even without me, my doting adoptive parents would have raised him well while giving him plenty of love. What on earth did Baek Gunho in the novel do that was so heinous to cause a dark evolution into an obsessive crazy seme?
Anyway, unlike my prediction from 9 years ago, Seolheon who grew up like bamboo shoots without any major incidents was so admirable.
Thanks to that, I’m enjoying this life very comfortably.
…Except for the bizarre worldview where men can also get pregnant, and the problem with my constitution.
“Smell…”
“Hm? Smell?”
“Yeah. Hyung’s smell.”
For a moment, I broke out in a cold sweat thinking Seolheon was bringing up pheromones. But there’s no way a 9-year-old child who hasn’t even manifested yet could detect pheromones.
Body odor or something like that, maybe?
“But there’s also a strange smell.”
“Ah, jeez!”
‘Come to think of it, I collapsed after vomiting!’
What happened to the scene? No, before that, aren’t my clothes dirty? For now they look okay to the naked eye, but what about the smell?
“Seolheon-ah. I’m going to wash up. Let me go to the bathroom for a bit…”
“It’s okay. Hyung.”
As I hurriedly tried to put Seolheon down from the bed, he instead hugged my waist tightly.
“I like hyung’s smell more… It’s okay.”
Then he buried his face deep into my neck.
When was it that he was bouncing around haughtily like a cat, and now he’s like a baby puppy burrowing into its mother’s embrace.
“This… adorable kid!”
Is it okay for a boy to be this cute? I’ve been volunteering to escort this handsome, pretty, and cute guy home every day since kindergarten because I was scared someone might kidnap him, and I even worried about what I’d do if I ended up doing it for the rest of my life until I die of old age.
‘Wait? I can just do it. For life.’
Just as I was nodding my head while vigorously petting the puppy’s head.
“How did you lose it?”
“Hm?”
Suddenly, Seolheon slightly pulled away from my embrace and looked straight at me.
“The medicine.”
“Ah, ahh. The medicine? Did it fall out of my bag? It suddenly disappeared.”
“…”
“Sorry. Maybe it’s because I’ve been busy with student council work lately. I was out of it. I’m going to get an earful from mother about this. It’s expensive since it’s not covered by insurance.”
I quickly laughed it off.
Only I know about the omega male student incident. According to Kim Jaewook, I was found collapsed ‘alone,’ so that bastard must have already fled.
I didn’t want to cause unnecessary worry to my friends or family, so I was planning to quietly resolve this matter later…
“Who is it?”
The stunningly handsome boy opened his mouth with an expressionless face.
“The person who stole the medicine.”
“…What?”
“Inside hyung’s bag, third compartment. You always keep it there. There’s no way hyung, who always puts things in their proper place, would make a stupid mistake like losing it.”
Baek Seolheon is definitely a cute 9-year-old younger brother.
Though somewhat blunt, he has an awkward cuteness befitting his age, but…
Sometimes, there are times like this.
“Who is it? The person who tormented hyung.”
When he has sharp eyes like an adult.
“…Seolheon-ah. I told you I lost it. I really was tired lately and just forgot.”
“Don’t lie.”
“Baek Seolheon.”
But I didn’t back down either.
“What’s already happened won’t change just because you’re being stubborn.”
“…”
Baek Seolheon was a genius from birth, no, a prodigy.
Unlike me who barely maintains my grades with memories and tricks from my past life, Seolheon was brilliant enough to understand a hundred things after learning one, and often showed astonishing insight that left even adults speechless.
Perhaps because of that, there was a period when he couldn’t mingle with kids his own age and isolated himself, but now he’s developed quite a bit of sociability and gets along well with friends his age.
Because.
“Are you going to keep putting hyung in a difficult position?”
I’ve been educating him strictly.
“What did I say before?”
“…Don’t force my thoughts on friends.”
“Right. You can’t do that to hyung either.”
“…”
“Got it?”
Of course, I wasn’t without guilt about pretending to discipline him to cover up a lie, but it was all for Seolheon’s sake.
I didn’t want to unnecessarily worry him and cause stress, and I hoped he would grow up good and upright to become an exemplary law-abiding citizen without even a trace of the ‘ㅈ’ in ‘obsessive crazy seme.’
Though Seolheon seemed displeased and narrowed his brow, he eventually nodded.
Then he slipped back into the bed and buried his face in my chest, muttering.
“If hyung says so, okay.”
“That’s right, good boy. My little brother!”
Usually kids this age would rebel against their siblings and raise their voices, but he couldn’t be more docile!
I really wanted to hit my past self who once misunderstood this baby angel puppy as trash like Baek Wooheon, an obsessive crazy seme.
I wrapped the blanket around the little guy who climbed on top of me.
“Hyung, don’t get sick.”
“I won’t get sick.”
“I’m scared when you’re sick.”
“Yeah. Sorry. I’ll be careful so this never happens again.”
“Promise.”
“Promise.”
Like that, I linked pinkies with my younger brother. A moment later, when I tried to pull my finger back, Seolheon had no intention of letting go.
In the end, we chatted with our fingers interlocked until my finger felt numb. I lost again today to my younger brother’s cute stubbornness.
“My good… Seolheon…”
In my past life, when I was shivering alone in the cold, I didn’t know.
That ‘family,’ which I had never had before, was such a warm existence.
Feeling the child’s warmth, I unknowingly drifted off to sleep.
“…”
However,
I didn’t realize at the time.
The hospital room where darkness had fallen.
The fact that navy blue eyes glowing ominously within it…
Had been watching me all along.
* * *
“Hey, did you hear? Gunho was hospitalized.”
“Really? Why would the president?”
“He has that, you know. A chronic illness.”
“Crazy, really?”
The first day after the entrance ceremony.
The entire school was abuzz with the news of the student council president’s absence.
“A friend who was in the same class as the president last year told me he has medicine he takes every day. If he doesn’t take it even for a day, his complexion turns pale.”
“What do we do! Could it be something like a heart disease?”
“I hope he gets better quickly and comes back…”
The presence of the student council president, Baek Gunho, was that tremendous.
Sharp-minded, well-groomed, virtuous and respected!
There were countless words to describe Baek Gunho, who was handsome, tall, had top grades in the school, and was mature and kind, but due to this incident, one phrase was added to the minds of Sanog Middle School students.
‘A beauty with a short life!’
Just as everyone was trembling with regret and holding back tears, a booming voice echoed through the hallway.
“Everyone! Our student council president says it’s just a cold!”
It was Kim Jaewook, a third-year student as famous as Baek Gunho.
Though widely known as a soccer fanatic, PC bang addict, and idler, Kim Jaewook was even more famous as Baek Gunho’s best friend.
“He says he’ll just rest for exactly one day since it could spread to the kids.”
“Huh? What, it wasn’t as big a deal as we thought?”
“Would you have preferred it to be a big deal?”
“Ah, no! That’s not what I meant!”
Kim Jaewook bickered with his classmates, then suddenly turned around.
Then he asked a male student sitting in a corner of the class.
“Hey. You.”
The male student who had been giving off a gloomy aura flinched in surprise and hunched his shoulders.
“You’re the guy who was watching from the corner when Gunho was being carried away on entrance ceremony day, right?”
“Uh, um…?”
“Why did you go to the annex? There weren’t even any clubs that day.”
“Th-that’s…”
That day, Kim Jaewook immediately called 119 as soon as he found Baek Gunho collapsed alone in the storage room.
Just before that, he had also witnessed a student frantically rushing out of the annex where no one should have been on entrance ceremony day.
That student was the very person Kim Jaewook was now addressing.
“Last time, I went to find… something I forgot.”
“Is that so? Something you forgot?”
Kim Jaewook narrowed his eyes and continued.
“Did you find it?”
“Y-yeah…”
“Good. Then that’s that.”
Then he left the classroom without dragging on the conversation.
At the same time, he opened his phone and started pressing buttons to write a message.
‘I should tell Baek Gunho to be careful of that guy. And…’
“Kyaaaah!”
At that moment, a scream was heard from the hallway below.
Kim Jaewook stopped his hands, wondering what had happened, and immediately ran downstairs.
“This kid is so, so pretty!”
“How old are you? Why did you come to middle school?”
Contrary to expectations, second and third-year students were gathered together in a friendly atmosphere with blooming smiles.
In the center of that crowd, empty like the eye of a typhoon.
“I came on an errand for my hyung.”
A boy was standing there.
