He waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark before stepping forward quietly. Steady breathing filled the room—deep and even. Was he asleep? Sibaek hesitated, unsure whether to wake him, then called out softly.
“Woon-ah, are you asleep?”
If there was no answer, he planned to turn back. But Tae Woon stirred, rolled over, and faced him. His eyebrows twitched a few times before a pair of eyes opened—dark, deeper than the night itself. Before Sibaek’s reflection could even form in those black pupils, a soft smile curved across the boy’s face.
“You’re already here? I thought you’d be sleeping with Siwoon hyung.”
“I kind of kicked you out of the room. I didn’t even get to grab your things. Sleeping in a strange place must’ve been uncomfortable, right?”
“This room or that room—either way, it’s unfamiliar.”
Tae Woon let out a quiet yawn and lifted the blanket. Sibaek slid under it and sat by the pillow. Tae Woon rested his head on Sibaek’s thigh instead of a cushion. He hadn’t noticed in the dark earlier, but now he saw the boy was wearing only a bathrobe. He reached down and gently combed his fingers through damp strands of hair.
“It’s a relief Siwoon remembered everything.”
“Yeah… Do you think he’s like Sister Hyoju Agnes or Mom?”
Was it the blood connection? As happy as the reunion made him, Sibaek couldn’t shake the unease settling deep inside him. As if sensing that tension, Tae Woon shifted the conversation.
“How is Siwoon hyung doing? Didn’t you say something bad happened to him before?”
“You were still a kid then—I probably didn’t go into much detail. The ledger where I found Siwoon’s name… it came from an organ trafficking ring.”
As he smoothed out the boy’s damp hair, Sibaek began to speak slowly—how Siwoon had survived, what he’d been through, and how he’d come to meet his adoptive parents.
“They kept him well-fed and rested to preserve his organs. His first adoptive parents didn’t care much, but they were rich, so the babysitters handled everything. He said he was never hurt or physically mistreated.”
Siwoon had spoken of it lightly, but there was no way a child could go through that unscathed. The thought made Sibaek sigh quietly, thinking back on the past he couldn’t touch.
“…But the truth is, I already knew what happened to him.”
Tae Woon, still lying with his head on Sibaek’s thigh, shifted slightly at those words.
“I saw him in a dream once—Siwoon, all grown up, just like now.”
“In a dream?”
“Yeah.”
If Tae Woon had laughed it off, Sibaek would’ve followed suit, pretending it had been a joke. But the boy said nothing, holding his breath instead, as if waiting.
“He looked exactly the same—same age, same build, even the hairstyle and clothes. And everything he told me today matched what I saw in that dream.”
The organ trafficking ring, the transplant recipient’s death, the first adoptive parents, the abandonment, the second set of parents… Sibaek counted them off one by one, recalling Siwoon’s teenage years and school days, all the way to his job at the research lab. The only detail that didn’t match was his major.
“And what about you? What were you like in the dream?”
“Just an ordinary middle-aged guy. I never went to Mak Slechth—kept fencing instead. That’s how I ended up running into Siwoon.”
“You stayed in fencing?”
“Yeah. Kind of embarrassing, but I apparently beat Karl Werner and won four straight Olympic golds. Maybe my subconscious got a little carried away.”
Even though it had just been a dream, the memory made him self-conscious. He scratched the bridge of his nose. Tae Woon chuckled quietly.
“If I were you, I’d have dreamed about six wins. So what about me? Was I in the dream too?”
The question, rising softly from the darkness, made Sibaek’s hand freeze in the middle of stroking his hair.
“The final victim, the mutilated remains of little Tae…” The voice of a panelist on TV echoed in his mind. Back then, he’d dismissed it as nothing more than a dream. But now, with his brother grown exactly as he had been in that vision, he couldn’t ignore it anymore.
Which meant… in that dream, Tae Woon—murdered at five, his body defiled—had been…
“Of course you were. You didn’t cause trouble, studied hard, got into a good university, and grew up tall like this.”
“Did I have big boobs too?”
“Yeah. You did.”
“Guess I must’ve worked out hard in that dream to look good for you.”
Tae Woon’s playful teasing made Sibaek laugh, though he could still feel the cold prickle of dread scratching at the back of his skull.
“I had that dream about my brother, and then Siwoon found me through some weird email.”
He took his time explaining, revisiting everything Siwoon had told him. Going over it slowly helped clear the lingering sense of doom.
Tae Woon, who had been lying sideways, rolled over to lie flat. Even in the near-pitch darkness, Sibaek could feel the weight of the boy’s gaze—piercing, sharp, like it could cut through skin. His quiet breathing was almost too soft to hear.
“You already have a guess about who sent that email to Siwoon, don’t you?”
“It had to be the System.”
No matter how he looked at it, that was the only explanation. The System had led him to Sister Hyoju Agnes. There was no reason it couldn’t do the same in reverse.
“But how would the System send an email?”
“Same way it gives me quests. I think it gave one to him too. I mean… who else out there would even remember me?”
The System had erased him—wiped out his very existence—then turned around and demanded he fulfill its quests. Deciding to save the world had been his choice, born entirely from his own will. Yet even that, it seemed, had been predicted, manipulated. It had dangled the one thing he couldn’t resist—an irresistible path back to Mak Slechth—and Kim Sibaek couldn’t shake the bitter feeling that he was being played.
His voice grew sharper, more agitated with each word, until he heard it—Tae Woon quietly swallowing, as if startled by the intensity.
“…Aren’t you happy your brothers are alive? Especially Siwoon hyung—you were devastated when you thought he’d died.”
“Of course I’m happy he’s safe. And I’m relieved we finally know where Mom is. But in the end, Siwoon and Sister Hyoju Agnes… they’re both being used by the System.”
“……”
“Because of me.”
If the System had truly meant to help him—if it had wanted to ease his suffering—then back when he first discovered he’d been erased, when he was lost and spiraling, it would’ve shown him his siblings were alive. It would’ve offered that hope to steady him.
But it hadn’t. It had tossed him meaningless, hollow quests. Then months later, only after he’d endured all that silence, it threw him another hook—his brother.
Everything the System had asked of him so far had been insignificant. Aside from what happened at the Management Center and the amusement park, the quests had been nothing more than everyday slices of life—trivial tasks anyone could’ve gone through.
He used to think the purpose was to help him reintegrate—to blend his life into the rhythm of this world. But now, the true intent was clear.
It had never been that simple.
The System had predicted his choice long before he made it. It knew him—his values, his temperament. It understood just how deep his love for his brother ran.
“It’s crude, but… it feels like the quests weren’t enough. So it glued me here using Siwoon. Used him as emotional adhesive to keep me from walking away.”
A brother he’d believed dead had turned out to be alive. That fact alone had changed everything. This world, once so empty, suddenly had meaning again.
He could see the System’s intent now. But it only made the questions grow.
Why? Why go to such lengths?
If he’d refused the quest, maybe it would’ve made sense—to use Siwoon as bait. You’d let the world where your brother lives fall into ruin? But he hadn’t refused. He’d agreed to save the world on his own.
So why bring this up now? Why add the weight of family again?
“I don’t get it. What does it want from me now? It erased me from existence, pushed me out, then dumped my brothers back into my life. And you’re the only one who even remembers me. Even that—you’re just a tool—!”
His voice cracked under the pressure of rising emotion, but the chaos didn’t burst.
It dissolved.
Just like that.
The darkness shifted, and a familiar warmth closed over his lips.
Tae Woon moved before he could even react. The kiss pressed against him—not rough or greedy, like usual—but soft. Careful. As if he were trying to take all that rage and confusion into himself. His tongue brushed gently, smoothing over the sharp edge of Sibaek’s bitterness. Every touch was slow, patient, like he was absorbing every ounce of that turmoil.
The heat that had flushed his cheeks from anger softened into something quieter. His shoulders, tense and coiled, began to loosen.
Only once he’d passed all that chaos to Tae Woon could he finally exhale. And with that breath came a different kind of weight—a crushing, quiet shame.
What was he doing? Falling apart like this in front of someone so much younger?
“Sorry. That was… pathetic of me.”
“You had every right to be angry.”
Tae Woon murmured the words as he kissed Sibaek’s lower lip again—soft and deliberate. The sweetness threaded between the cracks in his heart, curling inward in a way that felt dangerously comforting.
“Still… I’m glad.”
