Jin Ryun’s family consisted of three people in total — his father, Haeseong, his older brother, Gyeom, and Ryun himself.
There was no mother. What made things unusual was that Ryun’s mother had passed away in an accident when he was young, while Gyeom’s mother was still alive.
In other words, Gyeom and Ryun had different mothers.
Haeseong had married Gyeom’s mother, and they had Gyeom together. After giving birth to him, she fell into depression over the loss of her career and declared she couldn’t go on living like this — and so she divorced Haeseong.
After that, about a month after the divorce, when Gyeom was around six months old, Haeseong met someone new and remarried. That person was Ryun’s mother.
Ryun’s mother had also been married before, had Ryun, divorced, and then remarried Haeseong.
What that meant was that Gyeom and Haeseong — father and son — shared no blood relation with Ryun.
Ryun, who had been living apart from his mother, had drifted from one relative’s home to another before finally making his way back to her. The child who had wandered without roots had at last found a place to settle — but that happiness didn’t last long. Within just a few years, Ryun’s mother was taken from him in an accident. After that, Haeseong declared that this family seemed to have no luck with women, and that he would not remarry.
Haeseong offered to formally adopt Ryun, but Ryun shook his head.
“Mom said not to.”
His mother had left behind a last wish — inexplicable in its reasoning — that he must never be adopted. And so, legally, Ryun remained a complete stranger to them.
Even so, they treated Ryun like a brother, like a son, and lived together as a family. More than ten years had passed since the three of them began living that way.
Even without a mom, it’s fine.
Ryun didn’t think this life was bad at all.
They were strangers by blood and by law — but he had a gentle father, and an older brother who looked just like him. Without a mother, he was neither lonely nor sad.
He had gone on living like that, cherished as the youngest of the household. When Gyeom entered middle school and began treating Ryun with cold indifference — as though he’d simply lost interest — it did hurt. But as much as Gyeom was distant, Haeseong made up for it with his warmth toward Ryun, so it was okay.
What should I do tonight.
Setting aside the fact that he had no mother and that he shared no blood with the family he lived with — Ryun was, in his own way, living a fairly ordinary life. But since childhood, he had suffered from a peculiar condition.
Hmm, well — was it even a condition? It felt strange to call it one, since his body didn’t hurt or feel unwell in any way. But it was hard to give it any other name either.
By nature, when a person sleeps, their consciousness ought to sink beneath the surface — yet strangely, Ryun’s mind remained perfectly clear and alert.
That didn’t mean he could move his body or speak. Only his mind was fully awake.
So from the outside, one might say he was sleeping soundly — deeply, even — but inside, his mind was wide awake, completely aware of everything happening around him.
His eyes weren’t open, but through sound and touch and sensation, the world beyond his closed eyelids rose vividly in his mind, as though he were dreaming.
When he was little, he had assumed everyone slept this way — conscious mind awake while the body rested. He had once asked his friends what they did while they were asleep.
“While you’re asleep? You just sleep.”
“What do you even do when you’re sleeping? Snore?”
Watching his friends burst into laughter, Ryun had realized for the first time that something about him was a little strange.
He had always been quick to read a room, even from a young age, and he already understood that being unusual was not a good thing.
Having two parents wasn’t unusual — but having one, or three, was. The sympathy and the prejudiced looks he had grown up receiving in those unusual circumstances had sharpened his instincts, and they told him that if people ever found out about his condition, things would become very exhausting for him.
So Ryun never told anyone. He was the only one who knew about it.
The secret ran so deep that not even Haeseong and Gyeom — the two people Ryun loved most — knew anything was different about him.
Aside from the fact that his mind stayed conscious while he slept, Ryun looked perfectly natural when he was asleep — natural enough that no one would suspect a thing. And since he never woke up tired, unless someone could read minds, there was no way for anyone to notice unless Ryun told them himself.
Then one day, while Ryun was asleep, he heard the sound of a door opening.
Who is it?
The scene of his room as he had seen it before lying down remained clearly in his mind, so he could tell what the situation around him looked like — but he couldn’t tell who had opened the door.
It could have been Haeseong, or Gyeom, or even a total stranger.
But it wasn’t likely to be Haeseong.
Because Haeseong had left for a business trip that morning.
He’d said it was a long one, so even if it ended early, there was no way he’d be back today. Naturally, Haeseong was ruled out.
While Ryun was piecing it together, someone came into the room.
Not knowing who it was, all he could make out was a dark shadow walking toward him, step by step.
Desperate to figure out who it was, Ryun strained to listen — and then he heard the intruder’s voice.
“Ryun…”
It was Gyeom. His older brother.
Wait — why is hyung in my room? Ryun was bewildered, but the muscles of his sleeping face didn’t move so much as a fraction.
When Ryun was asleep, his body wouldn’t move the way his consciousness wanted it to.
He could shiver when he was cold, or his body could move reflexively on its own — but those were things that happened without his will, and he couldn’t stop them either.
The closest feeling he could describe it as… Ryun had never experienced it himself, but when friends had described what it felt like to have sleep paralysis, he had felt that it was similar to his own situation.
Though, as he said, he’d never actually had sleep paralysis, so he couldn’t say exactly how it differed.
Anyway — back to it. Gyeom approached sleeping Ryun and sat down on the edge of his bed.
Doesn’t hyung dislike me? Memories surfaced — of Gyeom responding to Ryun’s greetings every day with nothing more than a blank nod, of how Gyeom would shoot up from his seat and disappear into his room the moment Ryun sat near him while he was watching TV.
Because Gyeom always seemed to keep him at arm’s length like that, Ryun had assumed he was disliked, and stopped trying to get any closer than necessary. He had thought Gyeom seemed fine with that too — so why had hyung come to his room?
“Ryun… hoo. Ryun… hoooo…”
Hyung’s breathing is rough.
Was he sick? Ryun was growing worried for Gyeom, quietly resenting his body for refusing to wake up — when suddenly, the blanket covering him was pulled away.
Cold…
Stripped of his blanket, Ryun’s body trembled from the chill — and Gyeom murmured, asking if he was cold, while beginning to rub his hands over Ryun’s sleeping body.
The warmth of his palms against him drove the shivering away, and the trembling stopped.
Gyeom let out a soft laugh and murmured that he was cute — and Ryun was startled all over again.
He thinks I’m cute?
It was a word he had never imagined he would hear from Gyeom in his lifetime. Hearing it now felt surreal.
Gyeom slowly stroked and ran his hands over Ryun’s sleeping body, then pressed his face against Ryun’s chest and drew in long, deep breaths — shhp, shhp — pulling the air in hard.
Through the gap in his pajama top, Ryun could feel Gyeom’s breath against his skin. It tickled.
“My little brother. My Ryun.”
Today really had been one surprise after another.
Not only had Gyeom called him his little brother — he had even called Ryun his.
And then Gyeom did something even more startling. Without warning, he slipped his hand inside Ryun’s pajamas and began to touch him.
“Hmm… Ryun…”
In a low, hazy voice, Gyeom called Ryun’s name with desperate longing as his hands moved over his body.
The roaming hands were ticklish, and they stirred something strange deep in Ryun’s belly — a tingling, electric feeling — and from Ryun’s sleeping lips, a faint, blurred sound slipped out.
“Hmm… ngh… mm…”
At that sound, Gyeom’s hand stilled.
“Ryun, can you feel it? Hm?”
Sleeping Ryun, of course, couldn’t answer. So he didn’t.
