Chapter 20: The Family Breakfast and a Vivid Dream

“Seo Yoo-han, what kind of behavior is that at the dinner table! You impolite brat.”

Grandfather’s scolding was an added bonus. True to his old-fashioned ways, he placed great importance on table manners. He also believed that the family should have breakfast and dinner together at least once a week.

Seo Yoo-han glared at Seo Yi-han with a murderous look, his crescent-shaped eyes sharp, but perhaps due to Grandfather’s scolding, he didn’t add more.

Actually, their brother had always been soft on his younger sibling, even if he prided himself on being a strict older brother.

He picked a grain of rice off his tie and grumbled in a sulky voice.

“I took a day off for the first time in a while to come down and have breakfast with Grandfather and my brothers, and this is what I get…”

“If you took a day off, why are you wearing a tie?”

His brother was dressed in a perfect suit. Anyone would think he was about to grab his briefcase and head to work.

But he said he took a day off. So where was he going at this early hour in that outfit?

Lee Jae-yoon and Seo Yi-han stared intently at his overly neat suit, then exchanged glances. The thought ‘Not again?’ flashed through both their minds.

Seo Yi-han spoke first.

“Hyung, are you going on a blind date?”

“How long has it been since your last spectacular failure?”

“You little brats! I dressed up because I have a meeting with some high-ranking officials, okay!”

Their teasing questions finally made him explode. But as soon as he raised his voice, Grandfather gave a warning “Tsk,” and his anger had nowhere to go.

The brothers, reunited after a while, bickered endlessly. More precisely, whenever their brother tried to nag Seo Yi-han, Seo Yi-han would deftly evade and subtly provoke him.

“Agh! Jae-yoon, how have you been friends with that guy for ten years?”

“He doesn’t act like that with me.”

Seo Yi-han didn’t use his annoying tone with me, unlike with his brother. So in those ten years, he had never bothered me—actually, not at all.

But hearing my answer, his brother got even angrier. He went on a long tirade about how he had raised his much younger late-born sibling.

Of course, Seo Yi-han just ate his rice, pretending not to hear, and showed zero interest.

Finally, Grandfather intervened, tapping the table with his fingers to end the brothers’ fight. With Seo Yi-han shrugging and his brother sullenly picking up his spoon again, Grandfather spoke sternly.

“Yoo-han, make sure you finish your discussion with Assemblyman Yoon well today. That man is too rigid… Tsk.”

“Don’t worry.”

When his brother answered confidently, Grandfather looked pleased and turned the conversation toward us. Fortunately, this time the target was Seo Yi-han, not me.

“So, Yi-han. Have you seriously thought about college? Like Yoo-han, going abroad…”

“No.”

Before Grandfather finished, Seo Yi-han cut him off with a bright face, smiling sweetly.

Whether he meant he wasn’t going abroad or he hadn’t seriously thought about it at all, his ambiguous denial made Grandfather frown as he continued.

“Going abroad would be good for many reasons. There’s the military issue, and if you plan to get an MBA later.”

“You can get an MBA even after attending college in Korea, can’t you?”

“Is there a specific Korean university you really want to go to?”

At that, Seo Yi-han stared at me, not Grandfather. I had been eating my rice, listening as if it were someone else’s business. I stopped my spoon and met his gaze.

“Jae-yoon said he’s aiming for Anam University, right? Business Administration.”

“Uh.”

Why bring me into this? Maybe he was trying to deflect Grandfather’s nagging onto me.

But his eyes were too calm for that. It wasn’t the mischievous expression he sometimes wore.

Everyone held their breath, waiting for his answer. Unfazed, he took a bite of salad, chewed slowly, and only after swallowing did he speak.

“I want to go to Anam University too. Business.”

“…Why?”

His tone was as if he were asking, ‘Should I buy a flowerpot tomorrow?’—indifferent and trivial. Grandfather ended up clutching the back of his neck.

Instead of Grandfather, who put down his spoon with a rough sound, Yoo-han hyung voiced the question. I agreed a hundred times. With his grades, he could easily go to a better school. Why?

Then Seo Yi-han smiled brightly and said something utterly absurd as if it were nothing.

“Grandfather and our parents all did their undergrad at Anam University, right? And other universities are too far from home. Anam is just right.”

“If you care about that kind of thing, follow your brother and go abroad!”

“It’s too far. Right, Jae-yoon?”

“Don’t ask me.”

If I were Grandfather, I’d be clutching my neck too. Instead of applying upward, he wanted to apply downward because of his parents.

And if he were any other child, wouldn’t they jump at the chance to go to the US for an MBA? Kicking away such a golden opportunity just because it’s far from home—this guy really wasn’t normal.

‘He’s been like that since childhood.’

Sometimes I thought his head was in a flower garden… His face certainly suited a flower garden, but from his family’s perspective, it was infuriating.

They had raised him to be a jack-of-all-trades, but he had a problem with the most important part—his mind.

“If you go to college in Korea, what about the military? Will you serve as active duty?”

His brother asked with a face that showed he was completely fed up with his younger sibling. His eyes clearly revealed his agony over what to do with that damn brat.

Seo Yi-han tilted his head and turned the topic to me again.

“Jae-yoon, do you want to go to the military?”

“Who would want to go? But I have to.”

“Really? Then after college graduation, we could go abroad together for an MBA.”

Having wrapped up my future planning without even designing his own, he smiled contentedly and drank some water.

Me, Yoo-han hyung, and Grandfather were speechless at his carefree face and severely optimistic plan.

I was the first to come to my senses and asked in a reluctant voice.

“Why would I do that…? I’m not going to be a professional manager, and I don’t have a company to inherit like you do.”

“Come on. It’s good to learn. And you can just work at our company. With me.”

“You and Yoo-han hyung might look the other way because of connections, but if I join, it would be a hiring scandal.”

That guy was saying dangerous things. Lately, the news is full of wrongful hiring and nepotism scandals. Isn’t he scared?

Besides, I am the son of a shaman whom Seo Yi-han’s grandfather frequently visits. If that got out, what kind of rumors would I face? It wasn’t hard to predict.

Even Yoo-han hyung, the official successor, was targeted on the company bulletin board when he first joined, with people asking, “Is it okay for a guy in his late twenties to be a team leader?” That really hurt him, and he started working even harder afterward.

Anyway, I didn’t want to be labeled as a parachute hire who got in through a friend’s backing. Even more so as the son of a shaman.

And what ordinary employee comes in after getting an MBA? My goal was just to get a decent job at a normal company and retire as a department head.

I was about to say that, but I knew it would be useless to tell that flower-headed guy.

In the end, I joined the neck-clutching group and finished my meal in small bites. Seeing me like that, Seo Yi-han annoyingly asked why I had no appetite.

***

It didn’t feel like I slept that long, but what kind of weird dream was that? No, rather than weird, it was so vivid that my head was throbbing.

Seo Yi-han waking me up in the morning, Seo Yi-han tidying my room with familiar movements, having a cozy breakfast with Seo Yi-han’s family, future plans where we naturally included each other.

All of this felt unfamiliar. Moreover, Seo Yi-han’s grandfather, who was only mentioned in passing in the game, and Seo Yi-han’s brother, whose existence I didn’t even know, were extremely vivid.

Their appearances, speech, and habits stuck in my mind as if I had known them for a long time.

Even for a dream, it was impossible to describe people I had never seen so vividly. And dreams usually fade after waking, but strangely, this one was crystal clear.

I could draw the faces of that guy named Yoo-han and the grandfather right now if asked.

It felt less like a dream and more like looking directly into my own memories. Recent memories at that.

‘It’s just random thoughts.’

Maybe after experiencing so many bizarre things in a row, I’ve become unsettled. That makes sense—none of this makes sense. If this dream were my memory, what would I have been before entering the game?

Of course, entering the game is itself unrealistic, and characters who were just NPCs now moving and living beside me is also fantasy… But my memories still contain a daily life spent with that guy, who was just a character.

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