Chapter 23: The Brother Who Suddenly Disappeared

When I woke up from mana breathing repeated all night long, the mansion had already been submerged in silence.

“Preparations are complete, Butler.”

“Tommy, did you pack everything without forgetting anything?”

“Yes, Butler.”

“Then let’s depart.”

Listening through the door to Paul, who only gave a stiff answer instead of a friendly greeting, Philip, who packaged his words in a strict tone but couldn’t fully hide his tension, and Tommy’s voice ringing incomprehensibly cheerfully, I looked into the mirror.

Even after the footsteps of the three people grew distant and faded away, I couldn’t take my eyes off the mirror.

It wasn’t an illusion.

My right eye was now a deep dark brown.

Contrasting distinctly with the green left eye, it was a dark brown deep enough to be mistaken for black at a glance.

It was a typical eye color for Asians, so I was familiar with it, but here, where light eye colors were the norm, it was rather a rare color.

It was the same color as when I was Han Jay.

I had definitely seen my body’s eye color change before.

Although it was for such a short moment that I thought it was an illusion.

When I barely recalled the memory stuck in a corner of my mind, I ended up sighing.

A little over a year ago.

I remembered it was around the time the leaves were just starting to turn, not when they were falling like now.

It was the day the King’s Brother’s Rut, which I experienced for the first time, began.

Is it a coincidence that my body’s eye color changed on the day the King’s Brother’s Rut started again?

My face beyond the mirror was sneering.

As if asking if I really believed the clumsy reason of simple coincidence.

Right, it couldn’t be a coincidence.

Is it because of the King’s Brother’s pheromones after all?

I wondered if the reaction to not being affected usually was manifesting like this.

Just like the King’s Brother’s eyes turn red when he uses pheromones strongly.

I knew nothing about my body.

There was no one to ask either.

The King’s Brother had advised me, to hide it desperately.

Perhaps there really was a secret that had to be hidden.

Even though I, using this body, don’t even know what that is.

It was a scrawny and grubby child.

When I opened my eyes, this body was buried in a smelly pile of straw.

Wearing rags that were embarrassing to call clothes.

Even those had sleeves and pant legs hiked up short.

Evidence of not being cared for properly was everywhere.

My body was lying on a pile of straw even though the bed was empty.

That bed wasn’t a hygienic sleeping place either, but it still looked much better than the straw pile.

The house was full of the sour smell of vinegar.

It was because alcohol had fermented excessively and turned into vinegar.

The broken branches rolling on the floor were damp raw wood, broken not long ago.

They were items useless as firewood for making a fire.

It was clear they had another use, and I could easily guess where they were used.

There were multiple long bruises overlapping on the arms and legs of my body.

Similar traces must have remained on my throbbing back.

That’s why I didn’t bother looking for the hunter who reportedly disappeared with the sound of a wild beast.

Even now, I don’t think that choice was wrong.

Truth unknown to anyone cannot become a secret. It just gets forgotten.

I watched as my right pupil slowly returned to green.

The mansion was still submerged in silence, and the change in my body reflected in the mirror faded away.

****

At lunchtime, I cleanly emptied the meal given as my portion and prepared the King’s Brother’s meal.

After packing hot brewed coffee, I stepped out with the tray.

As I walked down the silent hallway like that day about a year ago, vibrations were constantly ringing on my wrist.

The watch the King’s Brother gave me was pressing my left wrist painfully.

He is an employer who keeps promises very well, but it seemed one thing was still incomplete.

Recalling the voice saying he would protect me even from himself, I stopped the watch that was shaking as if it would explode any moment.

The bedroom door was firmly shut as expected.

The King’s Brother, who locked himself in, was intermittently letting out weak groans that I could barely hear only after pressing my ear to the door.

I lifted my hand to knock on the door but hesitated.

The watch, with its function stopped, was still giving a heavy weight on my wrist in a beautiful form.

This, too, must be the only one in the world. Like the King’s Brother’s watch.

My employer had a lot of money to begin with and is earning even more now, but there was a corner of worry that he might be ignorant of how the world works.

What employer pays incentives straight away to an employee who generated profit for the company?

It was something absolutely impossible in Korea.

This watch is the same.

What if I put this up for auction, or rather, open the inside of the watch, copy the magic circle he personally added, and then show it to other watchmakers?

Though the profit I could gain by doing so would be peanuts compared to the profit share I am already receiving monthly.

Thinking silly thoughts, I sat leaning my back against the door.

“Duke, you didn’t see this morning’s newspaper, right? A quite interesting article was published.”

At the voice I deliberately raised a tone, silence fell beyond the door.

I focused all my nerves on the ear pressed against the door.

I thought I heard a low breathing sound.

I imagined the King’s Brother glaring at the door with his brow heavily furrowed.

Soon a long breathing sound was heard.

It sounded like a mix of suppressed groan and sigh.

“Jay, you really have no fear.”

A completely hoarse voice resonated low as if trying to scare me.

“Thanks to the watch you gave me, Duke.”

“…Is that, protecting you?”

“Yes.”

I nodded with a business smile.

Twenty-eight-year-old Han Jay was, if not a master of sales, at least skilled.

Therefore, there was no hesitation in my answer.

At that moment, heuk, a sound of suppressing pain rang out.

It resonated loudly as if digging directly into my ears.

Instead of asking if he was okay, I held my breath and waited for the sound to subside.

Because he wouldn’t want me to pretend to know he was in pain.

In the hallway like a dark cave blocking all sunlight, I couldn’t feel the passage of time.

It felt as if time had stopped just like the watch I stopped.

“You…”

The King’s Brother’s voice moved time again.

“You are good at, so many things, but you are really bad at, lying.”

It was a very harsh remark as an evaluation of sales skills that opened the wallets of newlyweds hesitating due to budget overruns wide open.

However, I couldn’t refute it.

It seems I was caught eventually pitying the boy beyond the door.

****

That night, I had a dream.

In the dream, I was a child even smaller than now, so thin that bones were exposed gauntly.

I recognized that unfamiliar body as myself.

The dream was very vivid. As if I had experienced it personally.

The child, I, hid my body desperately.

The hunter, who played the role of a blunt father well until dinner started, had become a beast drunk on alcohol before I knew it.

The household goods I barely repaired were smashed by his hands and rolled on the floor.

When there was nothing left to break, he threw the liquor bottle.

The terrible smell of alcohol made my head spin.

Having destroyed the liquor to drink with his own hands, the hunter sat on the floor and began to cry.

“Young master…”

I don’t know who the young master the hunter calls so sorrowfully is.

I only know the fact that I absolutely must not catch his eye right now.

If I show myself when he misses the young master, I had to be punished with a switch I broke off with my own hands.

Because everything is my fault.

It’s because of you. If only you weren’t here. Everything is your sin. So you must reflect.

Those were the words he said while wielding the switch.

I had to become a bad child.

Without knowing what my sin was.

I waited desperately for the hunter to fall asleep drunk on alcohol and his own emotions.

I had to hide in the straw pile without even putting half a potato in my mouth.

Afraid my hungry stomach would make a sound, I clutched it desperately and didn’t move until sensation disappeared from my legs.

Only after the hunter, who cried and looked for the young master for a long time, finally made snoring sounds, could I come out of the straw pile.

Ignoring the tingling pain felt in my legs, I scanned the floor.

Mashed potatoes and hard, tough pieces of meat were rolling on the floor covered with liquor flow marks and dust.

I ate them hurriedly, yet trying not to make a sound.

Checking the hunter’s sleeping figure again and again. I remembered that desperate sensation. The child was me.

Another me that Han Jay didn’t know.

My body was, mine.

****

When I woke up from the dream, I looked up at the ceiling blankly.

My heart beat wildly as if my body was still trapped in the dream time. I consciously exhaled slowly.

The blue light of dawn entered through the window.

It was quiet all around as if underwater. I felt like I was submerged alone.

Chirp! What broke my sentiment was the cry of a bird whose name I didn’t know.

Once I became conscious of the outside sounds, chirp, chirp, loud noises filled my ears. Laughter came out naturally.

The place where I am is not underwater, nor the cabin in that distant fishing village. Nor Korea.

The light entering through the window became brighter and brighter.

Just because I remembered another me, the sky didn’t fall. Just like nothing happens even if I came to pity the King’s Brother.

Above all, it was something already over.

The person called young master might be one of my parents, or I might have been abandoned because I was born a Beta from an Omega, but there was no way to find that the young master.

I had no intention of finding him either. Family who haven’t spent time together couldn’t be family.

I know that fact well.