Gwak Yoonsang, initially thrown off by the sudden request to meet a Hunter named Kim Sibaek, soon gave a nod.
“Since you’re observing the Dragon Eel raid, you’ll run into him sooner or later.”
As they moved down the corridor, Cloud stared down at his phone. The screen showed a photo of the Hunter—someone Sister Hyoju Agnes had mentioned by name.
“……”
He couldn’t be sure. They hadn’t even met. A few blurry shots taken from afar weren’t enough. Honestly, he couldn’t even remember what his brother looked like anymore.
A bitter taste spread in his mouth. He’d been gnawing on his lower lip without realizing it.
What if it wasn’t him?
What if Sister Hyoju Agnes had just been mistaken? No—what if it was him, but…
What were the odds his brother would recognize him?
It had been nearly forty years since they were separated. Neither of them had even a single photo of the other. Just as he’d forgotten his brother’s face, his brother had likely forgotten his too.
To him, his brother was his entire childhood.
But to his brother… what was he?
Had he, too, wanted to disappear, like their mother who ran away and left her children behind? If his brother had lost the chance to escape because of a burdensome kid brother clinging to him, then Cloud was nothing more than a painful scrap of the past best left forgotten.
A memory flickered—riding a bus together, just the two of them, headed somewhere far. He couldn’t remember the details, but he remembered being caught by their father. If he hadn’t been there—if his brother hadn’t been carrying him on his back—he would’ve gotten away. He was sure of it.
Gwak Yoonsang stopped and knocked on a door. A voice answered right away—calm and clear.
The door opened.
And Cloud saw him. Not the man in the grainy photo, but the living, breathing man standing before him.
“Siwoon.”
The face he thought he’d long forgotten came surging back from the deepest corners of his memory. The boy he remembered had grown into the man standing before him.
Cloud recognized him instantly.
And his brother recognized him.
For Kim Sibaek, who had lived believing his younger brother had died—torn apart by an organ trafficking ring—the recognition was devastating. The hallucination Edokers had shown him, the image of his little brother covered in blood, dismantled and lifeless… it had never left him. Even the dream of his brother being alive hadn’t changed that grim belief.
So now, seeing his brother again, alive and standing before him, hit like a sledgehammer to the brain. And with it came a crushing sense of disbelief.
Edokers. It had to be him. Who else would dare use his brother’s face to mock him?
He tried to stay calm, to remind himself it was just another illusion—but he couldn’t hold back the storm inside. The agony. The terror. The grief. The guilt. The emotions that always consumed him whenever he thought of his brother.
His hand trembled as he raised it to cover his face. Maybe if he couldn’t see, he wouldn’t be tricked again. But once seen, the presence stuck to his mind like tar. What would it take to shake off this illusion? What could he possibly do?
And then—something touched his trembling hand. A hand. Firm, yet gentle. Cool to the touch, yet burning hot to him. Familiar.
That familiar warmth snatched the fuse of his spiraling heart.
“It’s not an illusion.”
The soft whisper broke the silence in the room like a knife. Quiet as death, yet carrying a truth so heavy it struck Kim Sibaek to the core.
His eyes finally focused.
He saw the man—his brother—standing before him. Saw him biting his lip, then stepping forward, slow and unsure.
“……Hyung.”
Just one word—but it trembled, fragile and raw. A voice filled with decades of longing.
His brother. His little brother. The one he hadn’t been able to protect.
Emotion welled up in Kim Sibaek’s eyes, blurred with pain and confusion.
“You… Is it really you? Siwoon, is that really you?”
“……Yeah.”
“S-Siwoon… It’s me. I’m your brother…!”
“……I know.”
Siwoon’s voice wavered, his face going blurry through the tears in Kim Sibaek’s eyes. He rubbed them again and again, but the world refused to clear.
So instead, he reached forward blindly. His racing pulse, his ragged breaths—they poured into the warmth of the body before him. Living proof.
His brother wasn’t dead.
He was alive. Right here. In front of him.
Kim Siwoon. Purchase date. The price paid to their father. What he would take back.
The moment he saw his brother’s name in the ledger, the nightmare he’d carried for decades began to scream inside him. Kim Sibaek let out a cry that felt like it tore his guts apart and stumbled toward his brother.
He didn’t know if the words leaving his mouth made any sense. Didn’t know how his arms moved to hold him. All he knew was that he clung with everything he had—like if he didn’t, this miracle would vanish all over again.
“In the ledger… your name was there…! I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I’m sorry, Siwoon. I’m so sorry…”
The words spilled out, rough and broken. Cloud, stiff with tension and anxiety, finally bowed his head low.
“……You looked for me? Even though I was just dead weight… did you not hate me?”
“You’re my brother!”
The words were soaked in tears, the voice a mess—but the one part that rang out crystal clear was my brother. It struck straight through to Cloud, who had been subconsciously bracing himself for rejection. And it hit Tae Woon, too—who, despite expecting this, was still struggling to contain the violent surge of emotion ripping through him.
“……Hyung.”
It was the same word as before, but everything inside it had changed. Cloud leaned into Kim Sibaek and wrapped his arms around him. His brother’s shoulder, where he rested, soon turned damp.
The weight of those arms, the firmness of the embrace—Kim Sibaek clung to his brother, sobbing uncontrollably. That little boy had grown up this much. He’d grown up so much… and Kim hadn’t even known he was alive. He’d become a man, out there somewhere, in a life Kim had never seen. The sorrow and the joy were so overwhelming they crashed through him like a tidal wave.
A world where his brother hadn’t died.
A world where Siwoon had survived.
A world that only existed because of Tae Woon. Without him, this reality might’ve remained undiscovered, lost. Now, the scales that weighed both lives—both versions of truth—shook violently. Just as Tae Woon had hoped.
***
Even after Tae Woon walked out, dragging the limp and stunned Biendeoé by the scruff and stuffing her into his jacket pocket, Gwak Yoonsang still hadn’t collected himself. It wasn’t until he heard the door click shut behind him that he finally snapped back to awareness.
“W-what was that just now? D-Did he just call him hyung? That’s what I heard, right? Hyung? What’s the English word for hyung again? Brother? Big brother? Brr—”
“Quiet.”
Tae Woon raised a finger to his lips.
Gwak, flailing in a panic, shut his mouth on reflex. From behind the firmly closed door came the sound of muffled sobs—harsh, gut-wrenching cries that sounded like flesh being ripped apart by a blade.
He wasn’t supposed to witness this. He had no right to.
Still dazed, Gwak shook his head and hurried to catch up to Tae Woon, who was already halfway down the hall.
“Guildmaster Tae—wait. When you say brother… does that mean… Dr. Carter is really his brother?”
Tae Woon said nothing, but Gwak didn’t need an answer anymore. It all made sense, and the realization only left him more rattled.
A man who’d spent the past 21 years in another world—not even in Korea—just suddenly runs into a younger brother presumed dead for forty years? A brother who was supposed to have no ties left in Korea magically appears… from America?
How the hell does that make sense?
Gwak didn’t think Tae Woon had faked his past as a former NIS agent or anything, but still—this went way past coincidence. It was completely unbelievable.
“No… no, that’s not it. That’s not what I should be thinking.”
He pulled himself out of his spiraling thoughts. This wasn’t the time to speculate. No matter how small or strange, anything related to Kim Sibaek had to be reported to Director Noh.
Gwak pulled out his phone—but before he could dial, a gloved hand pressed down on it.
“Planning to spread rumors?”
“I have to report this to the Director!”
“Report it if you want. Just keep your mouth shut otherwise.”
“S-sorry, what?”
“Cloud Carter is American.”
That one sentence froze Gwak in place. Only then did he fully register the calm, flat tone Tae Woon had spoken with this entire time.
Everyone involved—Kim Sibaek, Cloud, even Gwak himself—was an emotional wreck. And yet Tae Woon alone stood steady, as if this outcome had been laid out in his mind from the start.
The question almost burst from his lips: Were you the one who made all this happen? But he forced it down. He couldn’t ask. He shouldn’t. The chilling darkness in Tae Woon’s triple-white eyes warned him off with razor-sharp clarity.
Gwak swallowed hard, then chose a different question.
“……So why is it a problem that Dr. Carter’s American?”
