Not long after Seo Yutae left for the world where Han Seungbeom was, Seo Yuseong appeared before the dejected Choi Jeokhyeon and the Prism members. Then, with a gait no different from usual, he approached and looked down at Han Seungbeom’s collapsed body with an expressionless face.
“…I warned you, didn’t I? I told you that you mustn’t meet my brother.”
In the backstage, where it felt as though time itself had stopped, only a dry, emotionless voice scattered into the air.
His words called out the mistake, but there was no resentment in them. Having had no expectations from the beginning, he felt no disappointment either.
“It’s Seo Yutae we’re talking about, not just anybody. Obviously, he’d try to seize even the slightest opportunity that came his way.”
Seo Yuseong does not trust others.
Not even Seo Yutae, the very person who raised him and the most precious person in his life.
Seo Yuseong had always kept in mind the possibility that Seo Yutae might eventually leave to save Han Seungbeom, despite everyone’s attempts to stop him, himself included. He had also prepared himself, at least to some degree, for the possibility that Choi Jeokhyeon would ignore his request, unable to let go of his lingering attachment1 for Seo Yutae, and go to meet him.
“You always turned into such a fool whenever you were in front of my brother.”
“You should’ve just threatened him. You should’ve told him you’d die if he went. That would’ve given you better odds.”
Choi Jeokhyeon let out a short, bitter laugh at that remark. Then, with a vacant look in his eyes, he gazed down at the one in his arms and murmured, “…Yeah, if I’d done that, he might have been able to hold on for a while. I actually said something like that once before.”
“For me, just having him alive is what makes me happiest, but … how long could he endure that way? A month? A year?”
“…….”
“You know it yourself, don’t you? The state Yutae was in after losing you. We witnessed with our own eyes just how painful it was for him to go on living when he’d rather be dead……”
When he brought up the time Seo Yutae had given up on life, Seo Yuseong’s eyelids twitched faintly. It was a change so subtle that most people wouldn’t even have noticed, but Choi Jeokhyeon caught it clearly. As if he had expected that reaction, he showed no particular response and simply continued in a calm tone.
“Back then, no one else was involved, and Yutae quietly accepted it, so it was bearable to some extent. But now, with Han Seungbeom’s life on the line, it can’t be like that. If he loses that child, Yutae’s life will become a living hell.”
“…….”
“I can’t do it. Yutae’s joy has become my joy, and his sorrow has become my sorrow…….”
Seo Yuseong quietly turned away from Choi Jeokhyeon, who muttered in a sort of monologue, “…In the end, I just didn’t want to be hated by him.”. Then he opened the status window.
“…I’m going to save my brother.”
“Wait, brother ……. no way, you!”
“…Seo Yuseong?”
The Prism members, who had been standing dazed and couldn’t keep up with the conversation between Choi Jeokhyeon and Seo Yuseong, urgently called out to him. But Seo Yuseong, even though he heard their voices clearly, did not look back. He kept his gaze fixed solely on the status window, and just before pressing a button, he spoke to the members.
“I hope we get the chance to meet again in the next life.”
.
.
.
“Let’s go back, hyung.”
Within the bounds of common sense, if someone were confronted by a madman wielding a knife, fleeing without a second thought would be the obvious choice. However, for some reason, Seo Yutae severely lacked wariness when it came to his younger brother. He simply asked with a face showing only a faint trace of tension.
“…How did you get in here?”
“As long as you can use the status window and cause a system error, getting in itself isn’t that difficult. The problem is getting Han Seungbeom out of this world. His soul is too badly damaged, so unless someone else sacrifices their soul in his place, he’ll never be able to leave this place.”
Seo Yuseong, as if he had prepared the answer in advance, replied Seo Yutae’s question without hesitation. He then rolled his dull, lifeless eyes and gazed at Han Seungbeom.
“I don’t think Han Seungbeom would want to live at the cost of sacrificing you, hyung, but you probably have no intention of listening to him anyway.”
When Seo Yuseong first met Han Seungbeom, he knew that Han Seungbeom had helped him, so he treated him with a relatively friendly attitude. But now, Han Seungbeom was nothing more—and nothing less—than a threat to Seo Yutae’s life, and a bone-chilling gaze pinned him.
Seeing Han Seungbeom cower in fear, barely able to breathe, Even so, when Seo Yuseong continued to follow Han Seungbeom with his gaze, Seo Yutae uttered his name in a low voice.
“Seo Yuseong.”
It meant, ‘I’m watching everything, so stop.’
Seo Yuseong, finally averting his gaze, continued calmly as if nothing had happened, a smile playing on his lips.
“I know it’s no use no matter who says it. That’s why I gave up on trying to persuade you.”
At those words, Seo Yutae paused, unable to hide his brief shock.
The Seo Yuseong he knew would never give up on him until the very end. He would try to drag him out of this place one way or another. Did that mean he had chosen a different method instead of persuasion? With that thought, Seo Yutae hurriedly composed himself and asked another question.
“…Then what did you come here for?”
“At first, I considered threatening you. If I just held a knife to my own throat and said I’d kill myself if you didn’t do as I say, you’d give in, right? In fact, that might be the most efficient way.”
As he said that, making a gesture of bringing the sharp knife to his own neck, Seo Yutae’s body went stiff.
Seeing a blade moving dangerously near his younger brother’s neck made him anxious, but from the way he spoke, it seemed he no longer intended to do it, so he didn’t take the risk of lunging at him.
“But I changed my mind. I heard something I hadn’t thought of before. Even if I went through with it, I don’t think you’d ever be happy.”
“…Yeah, there’s no way I could live a normal life after trapping Han Seungbeom in a place like this.”
“Yeah, I guess so. I could erase your memory, but you’d probably remember it again soon anyway. Once you break this ability on your own and regain your memories, it’s highly likely the same thing will happen again. If you hadn’t known about the system’s existence, this ability wouldn’t have broken in the first place. It’s really bothersome.”
He was the only person in this world who knew about the system and had ever had his memories erased by Seo Yuseong. And he had never again forgotten a memory that had been erased. Yet, hearing Seo Yuseong speak with such certainty, as if he had erased memories more than once, Seo Yutae instinctively felt that something about the situation was very, very wrong.
Before he could even ask something like, “How do you know that?”, Seo Yuseong spoke with a smiling expression.
“Yeah, it can’t be helped. Let’s start over from the beginning. We just have to go back to a time when you didn’t know anything about Han Seungbeom or anything else. It’s a shame we won’t be able to meet again, but given how things have turned out, I have no choice but to accept it.”
Seo Yuseong didn’t utter those words with the intention of actually having a conversation with anyone; he was merely voicing the thoughts that came to mind, just to keep the gears in his head turning quickly.
To anyone else, it would have looked far from normal, but Seo Yuseong didn’t have the ability to notice that for himself. He simply spoke with a facade of a gentle smile and a soft tone designed to make him seem likable.
Seo Yutae, who had been silently listening to him, nervously ran his hand through his hair.
‘F**k, I wish I could actually read that guy’s mind…….’
Start over from the beginning, what does that mean? Before he could even find an answer to that question, Seo Yuseong walked straight toward where Seo Yutae was.
And the tip of the knife Seo Yuseong held was pointed at Seo Yutae.
Seo Yutae let out a hollow laugh as he looked at him.
“You’re not seriously planning to stab me with that, are you? You?”
Seo Yuseong simply smiled.
And when Seo Yutae let his guard down, he plunged the knife into his abdomen.
Seo Yuseong lifted his head and whispered into Seo Yutae’s ear, which had gone stiff.
“I can do it. Hyung, I’ve seen you die so many times that I’m already sick of it.”
“…….”
“Didn’t you find it strange? There’s no way I could gather enough cost to erase the memories of every person in this world in a single lifetime.”
Seo Yuseong’s hand pushed the knife lodged in his abdomen further in, then lost its grip on the handle. At first, Seo Yutae thought his hand had simply slipped on the blood that stained it bright red. However, he soon noticed that his hand was shaking uncontrollably, and a flicker of something unusual appeared on Seo Yuseong’s otherwise emotionless, machine-like face.
And regardless of Seo Yuseong’s turmoil, crimson blood had already begun to gush from the abdomen where the knife was lodged.
Seo Yutae blankly watched the blood splatter onto the floor with a wet squelching sound, then thought to himself.
‘…What just happened?’
No matter how hard he racked his brain, he couldn’t make sense of what had just happened. He remained standing, not even bending down, and when he swept the back of his hand across his chin, he found it soaked with cold sweat.
Faced with a physical reaction he couldn’t possibly ignore, Seo Yutae fell silent once more.
And then he sighed internally.
‘…Damn it.’
Seo Yuseong had stabbed him.
Not anyone else. Seo Yuseong.
The moment he finally recognized it, his frozen brain seemed to scream. A sharp heat spread through his lower abdomen, and as the immense pain followed, Seo Yutae clutched the wound with his hand and muttered, half in a groan, half in something like a laugh.
“Ha, this bastard…….”
As blood flowed out, soaking his clothes completely, his complexion turned rapidly pale. When he could no longer endure and staggered slightly, Seo Yuseong’s hand flinched, then, almost as if driven by instinct, he reached out to support Seo Yutae’s back.
Seo Yutae leaned against Seo Yuseong’s shoulder with a hand resting on it, his breathing ragged as he drew in and let out harsh breaths over and over. His long hair kept sticking to his skin, irritating him, and after feebly waving a hand in an attempt to brush it off, he gave up and let his forehead sink against Seo Yuseong’s chest.
“How … haah, is it that every time I let my guard down for just a moment, you always cause trouble? This … is why I could never relax while raising you, you damn rascal.”
The way he spoke didn’t quite suit someone who had just been stabbed.
No, perhaps it was more fitting to say that the situation itself was bizarre.
The one who did the stabbing was frozen in place, holding onto his victim, while the one who was stabbed, though collapsing physically, was much more stable mentally.
Perhaps Seo Yutae was acting that way on purpose.
Even after being stabbed, he felt no hatred, only the sting of being wronged. And even at a time like this, what weighed on his mind was the trembling of Seo Yuseong’s hand.
Seo Yutae, who had been desperately holding on, let out a groan, then forced himself to mutter, “Ah, it hurts like hell.”. He struggled to lift his head to look at Seo Yuseong’s face, stroked the back of his head, and then asked in a weak voice.
“…Why are you making that face? You’re the one who stabbed me.”
And with those as his last words, he slipped from Seo Yuseong’s arms and collapsed to the floor.
Han Seungbeom stood frozen on the spot, witnessing the entire scene.
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
The more his eyes took in the blood pooling on the floor, the faster his heartbeat pounded, like a drumbeat quickening, until it seemed to take over his eardrums.
“…….”
It didn’t feel real.
He could hear nothing but the groans escaping Seo Yutae’s lips.
He could see nothing but the fallen body and the blood spreading across the floor.
Is this a dream?
The moment that thought crossed his mind, his vocal cords twisted, and a hollow sound slipped out.
“…Uh?”
And then a dreadful sense of reality rushed in like a tide.
“…Dad.”
He called out to Seo Yutae, but no answer came.
At that, Han Seungbeom lifted his shaking hands to cover his ears.
“Dad, aah … aaahhh! AAAAAH!”
A wretched, twisted scream burst from his lips.
Turning away from Han Seungbeom, Seo Yuseong fixed his gaze on Seo Yutae, who lay collapsed on the floor, and spoke.
“Goodbye, 100th brother.”
As his consciousness faded, Seo Yutae recalled the words he had once seen on the status window.
[Would you like to restart SEO YUTAE (100)‘s life from the beginning?
(YES/NO)]
Seo Yuseong’s purpose in coming to this world was to kill Seo Yutae before he could save Han Seungbeom, and start everything over from the very beginning.
“This time, I’ll definitely save you.”
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Translator’s Corner:
^^ Back when we haven’t even reached chapter 200 yet, I got lot of questions asking if I have favoritism toward Choi Jeokhyeon because I kept saying I found cutie Yuseong scarier than him … now you guys understand right…..
And while tling this chapter, I wondered why CJH is there muttering wedding vow, but well …. the author really wrote it like that so what can i do
talking about wedding vow, taylor swift going to get married … as someone who knows every lyrics of her songs … i’m still shocked … even the person who wrote champagne problem is going to get married T_T guys, maybe love is indeed real…..
it makes me crave for romance, should i pick out romance series next? but nowadays, all BLs and rofans I like already got picked up by another translators, there’s nothing to translate asdfghjkl I’m busy reading novels to find something new that I like (that’s why the updates so late), but so far no healing romance found T_T okay guys gather and help me decide which direction to go for my next tl project
Not pretty sure about the BL since lately I only read novels with red banner on cover and at least 10 trigger warnings, so I don’t know any available healing ones. Rofan is the roman-fantasy with (mostly) female lead. And idol, well showbiz like this. No actor novel impressed me….. but if I do idol novels back to back, won’t I get idol PTSD…..
Actually there’s already a title I’m eyeing … but I feel like it will get picked up by another translator soon …. but I also feel like even if it already got picked up, I probably will still do it anyway just for my own reading …. I’m also considering making this my last project too, since side stories still ongoing so we won’t say goodbye to Yutae soon (and I’m pretty paranoid about getting burned at stake. Adding new novel means adding the risk, after all), but lately I’ve been hearing indirect praises from the unnies and I’m someone who likes getting recognized by cool unnies …. guess my mental age is still 13 years old. I started using internet ever since I was in elementary school and back then I was always the youngest in every community I joined, and as a child, I used to think the adults were cool and I wanted them to like me …. old habits die hard
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