Chapter 53: The Search Begins

It’s truly strange.

Now that I’m twenty-two, I can’t understand the version of my brother who was twenty-two in my memories.

Even now, I’m still immature and lacking in many ways.

So how was my brother back then so mature?

He was more reliable and dependable than anyone else.

Despite all the hard work and exhausting days, he never lost his smile.

At least when he was with me, he tried not to show even a hint of how difficult things were.

How was that possible?

At the young age of twenty-two, an age full of dreams and things he wanted to do.

How could he have lived like that?

Only after reaching the same age as he was back then did I realize just how big a heart my brother had while living with me.

“Oh my! You’re finally awake, Team Leader Seon.

You slept very soundly, didn’t you?”

Sound sleep, my ass.

I don’t even know whether I slept or not.

Over the past four years, my insomnia has only gotten worse.

I’ve reached a point where no matter how hard I try, I can’t sleep anymore.

If the one who said that hadn’t been Team Leader Oh Sung-gyu, I would’ve punched him in the face.

“…Team leader, my ass.

It’s awkward, so don’t call me that.”

Seoul Second Special Ability Center.

Unlike the First Center, which protects major facilities and their surroundings, this one mainly defends commercial districts and residential areas.

It’s already been two years since I came here.

Or should I say only two years?

Either way, I managed to reach the position of team leader as quickly as Oh Sung-gyu.

“What’s awkward about it?

You went around clearing out every gate in sight just to get that position.

Why were you so desperate to become a team leader?

Did you really hate working with me that much?”

“You know better than anyone that’s not the case.

If someone can’t find my brother, then I have no choice but to do it myself.”

“…Hey, that’s not my fault.

There’s really not a single trace of Jin Se-hyun.

How does someone live in South Korea without a card or a bank account?

He’s completely vanished.”

When I joined the center, I asked Oh Sung-gyu to help me find my brother’s whereabouts.

But no matter where we looked, we couldn’t find him.

That meant he was deliberately hiding.

Still, I couldn’t just give up and do nothing.

While I was wracking my brain over how to find him, an opportunity presented itself.

“That’s why I said I’d find him myself.

The newly established ‘Special Ability Crime Response Team’ should be able to gather more information.”

The Special Ability Crime Response Team.

With monsters becoming increasingly rampant and gate breaks happening frequently,

criminals with special abilities were becoming a serious problem.

A temporary task force was formed to capture them,

and team leaders were recruited openly.

Using my track record as leverage, I became the youngest team leader.

And because finding my brother was my goal, I showed a bit more of my true ability to secure the position.

“You vicious bastard.

Still, even so—hey!

Your team’s arrest rate is zero.

Zero!

What are you going to do if you kill all of them, seriously….”

“…What’s the point of arresting scum like that?

The world becomes a little more livable when trash disappears.”

The world my brother would return to

had to be clean and beautiful.

It had to be a place without any danger.

“Take it easy.

If you keep following every order from above without restraint, you’ll destroy your own body.

Try sleeping at home once in a while, damn it.”

“I’ll handle it myself.

Worry about yourself, old man.”

“Ah, damn it!

You never let a single thing slide, you little shit.

Hey! Where are you going?

Let’s eat together!”

“Dispatch call.”

– Left entrance, no abnormalities.

– Rear entrance, no abnormalities.

– Sniper position confirmed, no abnormalities.

Reports from my team members came in one after another over the radio.

It was the largest illegal guiding office operating in Seoul.

A place tied to criminal organizations, dealing in drugs and prostitution.

Including me, all seven team members were present.

“Haah….”

Expectation and anxiety coexisted.

What if my brother was here?

Part of me desperately wanted to meet him,

but another part of me didn’t want to find him in a place like this.

If I discovered him in the middle of such filth and crime…

I don’t think I could forgive myself.

Because I would be the reason he ended up living like that.

“I’ll go in first.

Watch for the signal and enter together.”

So I took the lead.

If my brother was here, I had to be the one to find him first.

…Deep down, I wanted to meet him even like this.

We lived together for five years and were apart for four,

but the image of him in my memory hadn’t faded even a little.

That 모습—

I wanted to see it again as soon as possible.

Crash!

I smashed through the second-floor window after rappelling down.

“What the f*ck—!

Run, now!”

“Guards! G-guards!”

The moment I entered, the stench of drugs filled the air.

Using guiding as an excuse, they’d clearly been doing filthy things.

Drugged men and women tangled together naked couldn’t even support themselves properly.

At a customer’s frantic shout, burly men burst in through the door.

“Who the f*ck are you?!

Where are you from, asshole?!

How dare you raid our business!

I’ve got ties with the police chief—ghk!”

Ah.

I should’ve listened to who was behind him.

That way I could’ve dealt with them together.

Blood poured from the gangster’s mouth as he spouted nonsense.

His shocked eyes didn’t seem to understand what had happened to him.

I’d gotten quite good at controlling my power.

By injecting particles too small to see into the body, I could cause internal explosions without leaving external wounds.

Despite appearances, his organs had already ruptured,

and he would die within seconds.

“Don’t move.

If even your eyelids twitch, I’ll kill everyone.”

I quickly scanned the faces in the room.

And then I relaxed.

Truly… thankfully.

Jin Se-hyun—my brother—was not in this filthy den.

Filled with gratitude, I decided to grant them peaceful deaths.

I spread the fragments of Light Bomb that had been orbiting around me throughout the room,

and detonated them.

Bang—! BOOM! Bang!

A chain of explosions echoed,

and when the light filling the room vanished, nothing remained.

– Team leader, we need help on the first floor—ahh!

Damn.

Another team member got hit.

Forming a team from such a ragtag bunch really showed in their poor skills.

“Take care of the injured and block the entrance.

I’ll handle the inside.”

I gave the order through the in-ear device and went down to the first floor.

More than a dozen rooms.

Dozens of criminal guides and espers.

None of them resembled my brother.

So I passed immediate judgment.

It was within the authority of Special Ability Center agents.

When criminal charges were clear and arrest was difficult, execution was permitted.

“P-please spare me!

I—I….”

But in one room, there were people who didn’t belong.

Guides restrained with shackles on their hands and feet.

Barely clothed, bodies covered in bruises.

I understood the situation instantly.

As they begged for their lives in terror at the sight of me,

someone else overlapped in my mind.

What if—

by some one-in-a-thousand chance—

my brother was waiting for me like this?

I clenched my teeth as anxiety and irritation surged.

“Stay still.

…I’m here to rescue you.”

For the first time since taking this team,

I saved lives.

Because my brother’s face kept overlapping with theirs.

“…Gangwon Province?”

“They’re short on manpower there.

What can we do?

Seon, you go handle it.”

Is this what happens when you work too well?

Just yesterday I cleared out five illegal operations,

and now they’re sending me outside my jurisdiction first thing in the morning.

“Haah… understood.”

“Good, good.

When you work like this, I don’t have anything to worry about.

Upper management’s been praising your results nonstop lately.

Don’t forget the press briefing before you go.”

The workload keeps increasing.

Still, I need to push myself a little more.

I need to secure a stable position.

Create a place lacking nothing.

…For my brother.

Was it because four years had passed?

Whenever I thought of Jin Se-hyun—my brother—countless emotions surfaced.

Sometimes I felt unbearably guilty.

Sometimes I missed him to the point of madness.

And other times, I resented and hated him for leaving me behind.

How could someone be so cruel?

Were the five years he spent with me really something he could cut off and discard so easily?

Was the reason he left truly because of me?

There were so many things I wanted to ask.

Honestly, if I met him again now, I didn’t even know how I should treat him.

Should I grab him by the collar and vent my anger?

Or pull him into an embrace and express how glad I was to see him?

None of those felt like the right answer.

“Team leader, we’ve arrived.

That building there—”

Ah.

Even a brief moment of downtime like this fills my head entirely with him.

I’d completely forgotten we were moving.

Forgotten we were in Gangwon Province for an illegal office raid.

At my team member’s words, I looked at the building outside the window.

“…That?

Isn’t it too small?

That’s just a shop—wait.”

Then something caught my eye.

A person sitting by the first-floor window of a small commercial building in a quiet neighborhood.

Bright, well-kept hair.

Just long enough to brush the eyebrows.

Fair skin.

A sharp, well-defined nose.

Pouting slightly, lips pushed forward as if lost in thought.

He sighed softly,

then took a long sip of an iced Americano filled with ice.

The open window let the wind blow in.

His fine hair fluttered, revealing a round forehead.

Yet he didn’t even react,

staring blankly out at the street.

“…Hyung.”

He was here.

I’d finally found him.

My brother—Jin Se-hyun—was here.

Still radiant.

Still shining.

Still beautiful.

Still… lovable.

Just seeing his face again caused my world to regain its color.

Red.

Blue.

Pink.

Light flooded back in.

The answer had always been clear.

I can never live without Jin Se-hyun.

Even if he rejects me,

my brother belongs to me alone.

“Request backup.

Two—no, three teams.”

“…Sir?

D-do we really need that many…?”

“Do it.”

I would protect his side in a different way than before.

No—

I would make him stay by my side.