The beginning was extremely ordinary. Saehyeon, who entered the cafe, glared at the menu board for a moment. All kinds of menus were intertwined in a flashy and dizzying manner. He gave up quickly. Having successfully ordered 2 iced Americanos uniformly and paid at the kiosk, Saehyeon hesitantly plopped down at a nearby table.
It was a secret that he’d hesitated when he saw the black card Gil Taeseo had forcibly shoved at him while taking out a card from his wallet. Naturally, Saehyeon took out his own card. There was the matter of pride in using the man’s card, but there was also the fact that he didn’t want to see that face grinning asking if that was all. If there ever came a day when he’d swipe this card, he felt like he’d have to flex something jaw-dropping enough to be satisfying.
Anyway, having safely finished ordering, his body naturally went limp with relief. As he sprawled like that, this thought also occurred to him.
‘I’m like a total social misfit.’
Even this everyday action of coming to a cafe and ordering felt unfamiliar since he hadn’t done it in quite a while. Saehyeon’s daily life after becoming 28 overnight had changed to be very closed off. After clumsily juggling work and childcare, his stamina would quickly hit rock bottom.
Additionally, he didn’t want to wander around looking like a zombie. What a sight that would be. There was no need to confuse viewers about whether the reality genre had changed to apocalypse.
But now he was going to the sea and coming to cafes. His fortunes were at their peak. It was in contrast to how he’d thought he’d go to the afterlife one step faster after reuniting with Gil Taeseo.
“Two iced Americanos are ready.”
Thus, the half-voluntary, half-involuntary reclusive loner was able to obtain two cups of coffee quite easily. The problem was right after that.
The moment he was about to tidy up what was in the carrier and leave. Someone plopped down across from him.
Saehyeon avoided eye contact and brushed it off casually. They could be a customer waiting for their order just like him, or they might have secured a seat in advance thinking he was about to leave. But the other person spoke to him.
“Hi. Would it be okay to say it’s been a while?”
“……?”
A man sitting upright was caught in his raised field of vision. Overall neatly arranged like a student in a T-shirt and jeans, even down to the watch on his wrist. Jet-black hair harmonized with eyes of the same color and slightly raised eye corners.
Definitely unfamiliar, but an impression that gave a sense of déjà vu as if he’d seen him somewhere.
“You’re not planning to pretend not to know me this time too, are you?”
“Ah.”
Only then could Saehyeon recall the man’s identity. It was the persistent religious solicitor he’d met in front of the beachside bathroom.
‘…I haven’t actually been marked by some weirdo and am being stalked, right?’
As soon as that thought occurred to him, Saehyeon scrunched up his face and pulled his body back. Encountering a strange person at a tourist spot—that could happen. But what were the odds of meeting that person again in the city center during work and having a conversation? No matter how he calculated it, it couldn’t possibly be high.
“Who are you?”
Even at the sight of him clearly on guard like a prickly hedgehog, the man didn’t care. If anything, he seemed a bit more interested.
“Your acting skills have improved while I wasn’t looking.”
The man’s head tilted lightly. It seemed like he was briefly contemplating something. Perhaps deciding to play along, he obediently revealed his identity.
“I’m Lee Soohyun.”
His eyes naturally widened at the words suddenly thrown out. Even if he didn’t know the face, that name was definitely familiar.
At the sea the other day, he’d thought there wasn’t really anyone who would call him hyung. Except for people he’d met while working part-time. There really wasn’t anyone. After a certain point in time.
Saehyeon looked over the man before him with fresh eyes. It was to find traces of someone with an ambiguous relationship in him.
“Your younger brother.”
As if sensing the changed attitude, Lee Soohyun smiled with raised corners of his mouth.
***
Saehyeon definitely had a stepbrother with the same name. In the time when only about a year had passed since his mother’s death and he still hadn’t collected himself. Beside the stepmother who’d fallen like a bolt from the blue, a boy with barely a two or three-year age gap was attached.
Under the pretext of becoming a new family, household items were replaced, and soon they even moved. They were people who provided the opportunity for even the traces he’d been holding onto to disappear. There was no way to look at them kindly.
Then one day. He remembered it was definitely on the way home from school. His chest felt so stuffy that he was circling the garden when he felt a rustling presence from the bushes. Saehyeon immediately slipped out cat treats from his pocket as if he’d been waiting. He thought what else could be hiding in the garden bushes like that besides a stray cat.
A calico cat, a black cat, a white cat. He approached imagining all kinds of cats.
‘Wh-what are you looking at!’
He never dreamed he’d discover his stepbrother between the grass and trees. The moment their eyes met, the two scrunched their faces as if by agreement.
‘…Really has a dirty temper.’
Saehyeon clicked his tongue and turned around. Or, he tried to. He would have if Lee Soohyun, who’d been crouching, hadn’t tripped while trying to stand up.
‘Th-this…’
The sound was loud enough that rocks were almost colliding, so he couldn’t pretend not to notice. The knee he glimpsed was full of cuts and scrapes from the bushes. It was the result of making a fuss by himself, but it felt wrong to just leave him there. He was a bit younger, and who knows what he’d tattle about.
The fact that he’d seen his eyes become teary, perhaps from frustration, also played a part. Moreover, hiding in a corner of the garden instead of in a perfectly good house somehow… seemed to overlap with himself.
‘Didn’t they say she can’t have another child because of a difficult birth? How pitiful…’
Hadn’t Saehyeon himself had plenty of experiences crouching in the bushes and picking up such words? It was funny to pity someone else when his own nose was three feet long, but.
‘Right. That kid must be in a shitty situation too.’
A young child was just being tossed around by adult circumstances. Thinking that the kid’s personal wishes weren’t included in this choice, his heart softened a bit. It also felt a bit uncomfortable thinking he’d seen him secretly wandering in an unfamiliar environment.
In the end, Saehyeon clicked his tongue and reached out his hand. He could see the kid squeeze his eyes shut at the approaching shadow. Seeing that, a snort naturally escaped. It was a bit funny that he’d been that annoying knowing full well he could get hit if Saehyeon put his mind to it.
‘You definitely tripped on your own, got it.’
He could see the kid who’d ended up standing properly without incident blinking his eyes. At that dumbfounded face, Saehyeon threw him a small pack of juice along with those words. Modest, but it was hush money.
‘Fuck, I shouldn’t have done that.’
After that, his stepbrother became even more annoying. Secretly peeking from afar, items disappearing from his room. It was enough to suspect whether the juice he’d thrown had gone bad or been taken as a challenge.
Just as he was getting fed up with such behavior. A decisive incident occurred.
‘Did you give this to him by any chance?’
‘…I did.’
The stepmother’s disgusted reaction. It was as if he’d tried to poison him or something. That became the decisive trigger, and Saehyeon cut off even the thought of ‘annoying.’
After that, there were no particular points of contact. Once his head grew a bit bigger, he wandered outside the house, and after becoming a high schooler, he went to the dormitory and didn’t even come back during vacations.
Therefore, it was perhaps natural that Saehyeon didn’t recognize this stepbrother. The image Saehyeon remembered was still a kid huffing with scraped knees. That appearance was truly nowhere to be found now.
“Last time you played innocent so hard, I really thought I’d seen wrong. Well… your appearance too.”
That was the same for the other person. Saehyeon himself would also look clearly different from when he was a Beta. Pale, thin, not even able to get porridge—that kind of state. Yet he’d skillfully recognized him and even grabbed him.
Speaking to him without hesitation was also strange. No matter how much he had no memory, he could discern this much.
“So what do you want.”
Nevertheless, the reason he didn’t immediately get up from his seat was curiosity. That was about the 28-year-old Lee Saehyeon, not about the brother across from him who didn’t share a drop of blood.
“Just… I’ve been continuously curious.”
It wasn’t that he had high expectations. The relationship was what it was for there to be any grand matter between them. The stage was just set and since the other person was acting like that, he intended to lightly confirm.
Not knowing that this light-hearted attitude of ‘it won’t be anything special’ would actually make him let his guard down. The net named expectation that he’d pulled carelessly missed spectacularly, as if to show him.
“Do you like that man that much?”
It was because of the words the person called his brother suddenly brought up.
‘…What the hell is he talking about?’
A dumbfounded expression naturally appeared on his dry face. Lee Soohyun carefully looked over Saehyeon like that. Last time, an awful obstacle had appeared and he hadn’t been able to properly examine this person called his hyung.
While his clothes were neat, his appearance wasn’t particularly good to look at. Not only his sunken cheeks, but joints protruded excessively from places on his body revealed beneath his clothes. Overall, a very thin and shabby impression. He also looked quite sickly somewhere. Lee Soohyun was given an impression similar to yet opposite of what Saehyeon had. The previous appearance was nowhere to be found. But it hadn’t changed in a good direction.
“What?”
“I still don’t understand. Whether that man has that much value.”
Lee Soohyun was quite bothered by that. It was closer to being irritated.
Ruining a life that, while not easy, would have flowed reasonably well like this. The sight of still being stuck with that man and even looking after that child. It was the same even if such a foolish choice and life benefited himself.
“Enough to turn against Father and give up all the inheritance.”
A few years ago, Lee Soohyun had gone to find his ‘hyung,’ unable to control this dirty feeling. Thanks to swallowing every word he could and couldn’t say, he’d even gotten satisfyingly punched.
So this time too, he was prepared to at least be grabbed by the collar. For some reason, the mild reaction was a bit puzzling. Thanks to that, the sarcastic words that had been boiling up also lost momentum and hesitated. In the end, Lee Soohyun calmly swallowed his words, but even just the content was a fatal blow to Saehyeon.
“…What? Inheritance? Turned against?”
It was because this side had truly never heard of any of these words or situations.
‘So… he’s saying right now that I was disowned because of a man and even lost my future inheritance?’
Saehyeon’s head spun.
