Passion Novel - Volume 6 - Chapter 135

Dreams that seep into the dark night melt away from memory without a trace. He sat stiffly on the bed and soon felt his memories dissolving. The dream quickly faded in his mind. He would probably forget whose name he called out when he woke up in a few more minutes.

Jeong Taeui looked down at his hands.

His hands, carelessly tossed onto the soft, pleasant duvet, were faintly visible in the darkness.

From the window, set slightly away from the bed so that sunlight wouldn’t directly enter, moonlight poured in. Still one, two o’clock. Perhaps just past midnight at the earliest. Somewhere in the deepening night.

It was strange how it happened whenever he suddenly woke up in the middle of the night. He could guess the time by how his body felt. Roughly, but usually it was accurate.

Perhaps it was because he had fallen asleep early. That he suddenly woke up vividly in the middle of the night.

Haa…, Jeong Taeui quietly sighed. In the perfect stillness, his quiet breathing sounded unusually loud. He felt as though he could fall asleep again if he just lay down and tried. But seeing the dazzling moonlight streaming in, he felt a strange regret and got out of bed.

Had everyone fallen asleep? At this hour, everyone would be asleep, and the estate would be steeped in silence, save for a few guards occasionally patrolling inside.

He got out of bed. And went to stand by the window.

The moon wasn’t clearly visible. It was high above, obscured by the window. He had to press his face close to the window and look up to see its pale blue light on his face.

What he saw were stars brighter than the moon.

Thick, swirling white streaks were in the sky. The Milky Way. The most beautiful sea of stars in Seringe, flowing overhead.

Jeong Taeui let out another quiet breath.

He turned around. He would go outside. To lie in the central courtyard and look up at the sky.

Suddenly, a memory from his childhood came back. A very early childhood. But it remained in fragments, glimpsed here and there in his memory.

It was said to be the day of a meteor shower.

After waiting for days for the predicted meteor shower, his parents took him and his brother into the mountains that night. It felt like they drove for hours, a tedious journey, but perhaps it wasn’t that far in reality, an exaggerated memory from childhood.

They drove into the dark mountains, parked the car at the base, and then walked uphill for a long time.

He remembered feeling happy, like they were going on a picnic. Excited, preparing snacks, the young children finally arrived after a long, tiresome journey at a hollowed-out, open space on the mountainside. It was a clearing in the middle of the forest, completely open, with no tall trees or small trees, only rustling grass underfoot. A few other people were already there, milling about. They too seemed to have come to see the meteor shower.

He remembered shivering and constantly asking, ‘When will the stars fall?’ even though they were bundled up in thick clothes, because the mountain grew very cold at night. Meanwhile, Jeong Jaeui silently gazed at the sky, lost in thought.

Jeong Taeui too, after asking several times when the stars would fall, eventually swallowed his question.

The sky was dense with stars. And faintly, yet clearly discernible, was the Milky Way.

He even felt a vague fear. What if all those stars poured down? But at the same time, a small part of him wished for it. How beautiful that would be! To be covered by those cold, shimmering, beautiful things.

Looking at the stars that filled the sky, he remembered his chest feeling very hot and constricted. Now, he would call that feeling感动 (emotion) or 감격 (deep emotion/excitement), but that sensation was stronger and more poignant than language itself.

“…Then I fell asleep and ended up missing the meteor shower…”

Jeong Taeui let out a small laugh and mumbled.

He thought he had just dozed off, but when he opened his eyes, he was in the car on the way home. When he sulked and asked why they hadn’t woken him, his family all insisted, ‘We woke you up, but you didn’t get up.’ When Jeong Taeui pouted because he had missed the meteor shower he had been looking forward to, Jeong Jaeui, who hadn’t slept a wink and had gazed at the sky, quietly told Jeong Taeui that if he waited, he would see a meteor shower like that again.

“Where could that place have been?”

Jeong Taeui mumbled to himself, recalling the memory. All he remembered was that it was quite a long drive from home.

Was that place still there? More than twenty years had passed already. Perhaps the place had already been developed and flattened, leaving no trace. Still, the suddenly remembered memory made him want to find that place.

“Brother might know.”

I’ll ask him tomorrow morning, but I wonder if I’ll even remember until then, Jeong Taeui mumbled as he moved towards the central courtyard.

However, as he stepped into the corridor, he stopped. The moonlight dimly illuminated the courtyard in the darkness.

It stood still, nothing moving. Even the flower petals, floating forlornly on the pond, remained motionless, unswaying.

Beside it, there was a back.

The back was Jeong Jaeui’s, sitting quietly by the pond, gazing up at the sky as if lost in thought. Jeong Taeui paused, standing in the shade of the corridor’s eaves, and silently watched him. He seemed to still be awake.

He started walking again. Tap, tap, the sound of his feet on the stone floor echoed softly. Jeong Jaeui didn’t turn around, even though he must have heard the sound. Jeong Taeui approached him and stopped a few steps behind him, remaining still.

“When we were little, we went to see a meteor shower…”

The moment he sat down, Jeong Jaeui quietly opened his mouth. Jeong Taeui flinched, only turning his head to look at him. He felt a strange sensation.

The story Jeong Jaeui was telling might have been the very moment Jeong Taeui had just been recalling. No, that was the only memory of seeing a meteor shower as a child, so it probably was that time.

Did they see the same thing and think the same thoughts? Jeong Taeui smiled faintly, feeling a strange joy. Jeong Jaeui’s words continued.

“The meteor shower was very beautiful, but there were so many stars that the sky itself remained more memorable than the meteor shower.”

Jeong Taeui flinched again.

Jeong Jaeui wasn’t someone who talked to himself—Jeong Taeui himself occasionally mumbled to himself to the point of slightly doubting his own sanity—nor did he sleepwalk. It seemed those words weren’t meant for Jeong Taeui.

“……. ……. …Uh…”

Jeong Taeui hesitated for a moment, then replied ambiguously.

Then Jeong Jaeui seemed to shrug slightly, then looked back at him, a little surprised.

“It was Taeui.”

“Hmm.”

“What are you doing up at this hour?”

“I just woke up suddenly. Were you with someone else?”

“Huh? No.”

Jeong Jaeui looked at Jeong Taeui with a puzzled expression, as if asking what he meant. Jeong Taeui also looked puzzled and tilted his head.

“No, it sounded like you were talking to someone else just now.”

“Huh? Oh, right. I thought it was Raman. He sometimes visits at night. He said this place, this courtyard, is the highest point among the buildings on the estate, the closest to the sky within the residence. So the night sky looks closer, he said.”

“Even if it’s only a few meters difference in elevation, how can it make stars thousands of light-years away look closer?”

Jeong Taeui grumbled, sulking. Jeong Jaeui smiled calmly.

Jeong Taeui lay down as he was. The stone floor, which had been warm from the sun during the day, was now chillingly cold. As Jeong Taeui lay down, Jeong Jaeui lay down beside him. They lay perpendicular to each other, their heads aligned, and for a while, they silently gazed at the sky.

Suddenly, Jeong Taeui chuckled. Jeong Jaeui stirred slightly, as if he heard his breathing.

“No, the meteor shower I was just talking about.”

“Ah…”

“I missed it because I was sleeping.”

“Yeah. We woke you up, but you wouldn’t get up.”

“Right. But there was a meteor shower two years ago, wasn’t there? I was in the military then, and I watched it with my platoon mates without sleeping. It was beautiful. …But, I also thought then that the starry sky I saw as a child was more beautiful.”

Jeong Taeui mumbled with a comforting smile.

The empathy of emotion softly caresses the heart like this. The memory of having the same experience and feeling the same emotions as someone else became a small nourishment in life. Perhaps that’s why old friends are so precious.

Jeong Taeui knew. Jeong Jaeui must be thinking something similar to him. He felt good and said with a small laugh,

“…Looking at it this way, the sky here somehow looks just like the sky I saw back then.”

“That can’t be… Our country is in the Northern Hemisphere, Tae-ui.”

“……”

He had forgotten for a moment. His brother sometimes said things that completely broke the mood, unfitting his quiet and calm demeanor. Just like this, he could suddenly shatter the atmosphere.

Jeong Taeui grumbled, looking resentfully at his brother who was still gazing at the sky, wishing he could just be moved for once. Then Jeong Jaeui calmly chuckled and suddenly whispered to himself.

“Gangwon-do.”

“Huh?”

“It was Hongcheon. …Let’s go there someday.”

Jeong Taeui quietly looked at him. After staring at him for a long time, whispering about going there someday, Jeong Taeui chuckled. Alright, he mumbled, and also turned his head to the sky.

There were truly many stars. Gazing at the undulating Milky Way before his eyes, Jeong Taeui suddenly recalled Jeong Jaeui from some time ago. At dawn, with a bluish hue, sitting quietly in the cool air, listening silently to some sound that humans couldn’t hear.

Even now, it was like that time. He seemed to be hearing some sound. A sound that Jeong Taeui couldn’t hear, but that would ceaselessly whisper in his ears, Rustle, rustle, rustle, if he immersed himself in that distant sky—the sound of those brightly shining stones.

“You, brother…”

Jeong Taeui suddenly opened his mouth. His words, after a brief pause, continued after Jeong Jaeui’s silence.

“Sometimes, you don’t seem human.”

“…Me?”

“If there really was someone who could bring luck… or some other mysterious person like that, you’d be closer to that than me.”

Silence lingered for a while.

But truly, it might be so. Come to think of it, hadn’t Jeong Taeui experienced countless hardships after separating from Jeong Jaeui? Meeting an uncontrollable madman, being pursued, being caught, and now, even being confined here, doubting if there was something wrong with his own mind.

“I think you brought me good fortune.”

Jeong Taeui said softly. A hint of gratitude faintly colored his voice. Whether it actually brought good fortune or not was irrelevant. Jeong Taeui had received countless things from Jeong Jaeui for which he was grateful. Just having him beside him now brought such peace.

How much time had passed? The silence continued for a long time. It seemed endless, like the boundless stars, but at some point, a low voice broke the silence.

“Taeui.”

On the cold stone floor, beneath the sky that seemed about to pour down, Jeong Taeui, feeling sleep approach faintly from a distance, quietly listened to his brother’s voice.

“If you’re not here, I’ll die.”

“…Why are you saying strange things again? It’s not pleasant to hear.”

A soft chuckle was heard for a moment.

“Whenever something happened, you always found me first. Even when I was kidnapped, or abducted, or even when I almost got into a car accident. On those days, you always found me first. We were in different classes and hung out with different friends, so we were always separate at school or after school, only together at home at night. But sometimes, you’d suddenly just miss me, and you’d peek into my classroom, give a bright smile, and leave, and then something would always happen that day.”

“…I don’t remember that.”

Jeong Taeui mumbled, frowning.

Indeed, as he said, they only sat side by side and had somewhat serious conversations after entering middle and high school. When they were younger, their personalities were different, and Jeong Jaeui was already in a situation that couldn’t be described as normal for a child, so they mostly played separately. Only in the evenings would they sit side by side, reading books or occasionally playing pranks.

Sometimes, when he was running around the corridors playing with friends, he would suddenly think of his brother and rush to his brother’s classroom to check on his face. Only then would he feel satisfied. If his brother wasn’t in the classroom, he would rush to the bathroom, the faculty office, other classes, searching for him. Then, when he saw his face, he would just feel relieved, grin, and then rush back.

But he didn’t remember anything happening to his brother on those days.

“When you were sick, I was sick too. When I was sick first, I was just sick alone.”

Jeong Jaeui continued. Jeong Taeui thought for a moment and nodded, assuming it was true since his mother always said so, even though he didn’t remember it from such a young age.

“Were you resentful?”

“No, I wasn’t. But from a very young age, yes, from a young age I can’t even remember, I thought: you and I are connected by something. I don’t know what it is, but I felt you had some thread connecting you to me. …Before I grew up somewhat, I even wondered if you were my Yeoksin (bringer of misfortune). Because when you’re sick, I’m sick too, and when you suddenly come to see me for no reason, something bad always happens that day.”

“…Gilsangcheon then Yeoksin (bringer of misfortune)…? That’s a very sudden shift in direction.”

Jeong Taeui clicked his tongue bitterly and scratched the back of his neck. The idea that he brought his brother good fortune was merely unbelievable, but the idea that he brought his brother misfortune was something he didn’t even want to believe.

“Then, when I was twelve, I think. You fell while picking persimmons from the persimmon tree behind the school and broke your leg, and you were hospitalized for a while.”

Jeong Taeui mumbled, “Ah, that.” He remembered that. Jeong Taeui hadn’t suffered from colds or other illnesses since he came of age, but he often injured himself playing with friends in such ways. There was never a day his body wasn’t bruised.

He remembered that time clearly. Before that, he had been seriously injured and underwent surgery, and there was a rejection reaction. Even then, groaning and crying on the way to the hospital, he worried. What if I die like this? Fortunately, the bone was broken very cleanly, so they just needed to set it neatly.

The reason that memory remained unusually vivid wasn’t because of the pain. While Jeong Taeui was in the hospital, Jeong Jaeui was once again caught up in a kidnapping incident. Even then, with his incredible luck, he returned unharmed, without a single scratch. That seemed to be the last of the kidnappings or abductions surrounding Jeong Jaeui.

“I don’t know if you remember… but Mom, who was staying with you in the hospital to nurse you, suddenly called in the morning. She said you were pestering her, insisting on seeing me, and even though she tried to persuade you, you kept throwing tantrums. She asked if I could stop by before going to school. But I was class monitor then, so I didn’t have enough time to stop by the hospital. Besides, you weren’t dying, just had a broken leg, so it wasn’t a big deal if I visited in the afternoon.”

“…I don’t remember.”

“Yeah. I asked you about it much later, and you didn’t remember.”

Here is the English translation of the passage you provided, aiming to preserve the original writing style and emotions.

At Jeong Jaeui’s words, Jeong Taeui clicked his tongue awkwardly again. Of course, this man lying next to him claimed to remember even his first steps, but that just meant this man was strange. He, who couldn’t remember trivial things well, was perfectly normal.

But if the flow of this story was to be believed…

“Was that day, by any chance, the day you… got kidnapped?”

“Yeah. That day, on my way to the hospital to see you.”

“But you came back fine even then, didn’t you? Even without meeting me. Luckily.”

No answer came back for a while.

Jeong Jaeui remained silent for a long time, as if lost in thought, but then quietly continued.

“That morning, I was short on time because I was the class monitor, but the moment I got the call from my mother, I honestly got scared. At the time, I thought you might be my harbinger of bad luck. Because something bad always happened whenever I met you. So, when you, who never used to act like that, suddenly insisted on seeing me, I thought, ‘Ah, it’s happening again.’ So, I didn’t go. And then on my way back from school… I was kidnapped.”

“……”

Jeong Jaeui closed his mouth again. Jeong Taeui also recalled that day.

One day, while Jeong Taeui was hospitalized, news came that Jeong Jaeui had been kidnapped again. However, since it had happened so many times before, and he always miraculously returned safely, his family, while worried, also felt a little relieved. And just like any other time, Jeong Jaeui returned that evening, looking perfectly normal.

Then, perhaps, it was that day.

He had woken up in the hospital to find Jeong Jaeui by his side. Neither his mother nor father were there; only Jeong Jaeui had entered the hospital room.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Jeong Jaeui gazed down at Jeong Taeui. Just quietly, without a word. Jeong Taeui, for some reason, also said nothing. As if in a daze, or a dream, he simply met Jeong Jaeui’s gaze.

After staring for a long time like that, Jeong Jaeui left the room, and Jeong Taeui seemed to have fallen back asleep.

“That’s when I realized, on my way home that day. That you were the one who offset the misfortunes that befell me.”

“……I don’t know.”

Jeong Taeui murmured softly. Jeong Jaeui paused for a moment before chuckling softly.

“It’s not something you can explain with words. Honestly, it’s not because of that incident, or how I collapsed unconscious at home when you got injured right before your discharge from the military and almost died during surgery, or countless other things like that. It’s something that can’t be spoken, but it exists there.”

“It’s too vague… Hyung. I’ve never once felt like I was some mystical, great person. Isn’t there anything I can understand?”

“I must have seen it wrong,” Jeong Taeui sighed.

The more he listened, the stranger he felt. It was like listening to a supernatural program or a mysterious experience; it just didn’t feel real.

Jeong Jaeui fell silent. In that silence, Jeong Taeui realized that Jeong Jaeui had more to say.

But even after waiting a little longer, Jeong Jaeui showed no sign of speaking, and Jeong Taeui felt that he had said all he intended for the day. He let out another light sigh.

But what if.

What if, by some chance, his story was truly real?

If none of it was coincidence, and he, Jeong Taeui, truly influenced Jeong Jaeui. How astonishing, and terrifyingly heavy, would that connection be?

Suddenly, a corner of his chest felt crushed. That pressure, utterly unlike pain, gently pressed down on his heart, lending it weight.

“That’s about it. There’s nothing more—In fact, it was a story you didn’t even need to know.”

Jeong Jaeui whispered, as if concluding his words. A faint hint of not wanting Jeong Taeui to know was mixed in. Perhaps if Jeong Taeui hadn’t heard the term ‘Gilsangcheon’ from his uncle or anywhere else, Jeong Jaeui would never have spoken of it first.

“There was no need to acknowledge a relationship formed like that. That heavy, awkward bond.”

His voice continued, almost to himself.

Jeong Taeui remained silent at that regretfully fading voice. Suddenly, a thought vaguely surfaced in his mind.

“—…I’m not like that.”

“……?”

“I still don’t understand or accept this ‘Gilsangcheon’ or whatever, but even if it were true, I don’t feel heavy or awkward. Why would I feel hyung is heavy or awkward, or distant or alien, because of something like that? On the contrary, I like that we have an extraordinarily strong bond stuck firmly between us, more than anyone else.”

Jeong Taeui grumbled discontentedly.

“What, so hyung has been thinking of me like that all this time? Damn it, then was I having a one-sided love?” He grumbled, pouting his lips and frowning.

Even while muttering like a joke, a part of him thought.

He perceived this relationship in that way. It was a different issue from whether he liked or disliked Jeong Taeui. Jeong Taeui didn’t think he disliked him. He probably loved him as much as Jeong Taeui loved him. But regardless of that, he found this relationship heavy and difficult.

No matter how he was involved with him, Jeong Taeui would treat situations as heavy, but he would never consider the relationship itself as heavy.

“Damn it… What is this? I’m getting angry. That red string or whatever that hyung cut, reconnect it, reconnect it. Why did you cut it arbitrarily and run out of the house? Because of that, I’m trapped like this now.”

Jeong Taeui abruptly sat upright. When he turned his head, he saw Jeong Jaeui looking at him with a strange expression. He blinked slowly, staring intently at Jeong Taeui, then raised his hand to look at his palm and murmured.

“It doesn’t seem… to be cut at all. There’s no way something like that could be cut.”

“That’s because it wasn’t the connection you cut, but your own heart.”

Jeong Taeui pouted. Jeong Jaeui looked at him again with a strange expression as he sullenly grabbed and pulled his hand.

“Give me your hand. Let’s tie it again. Wait, was it the pinky finger?”

“Huh? Oh… but you can’t tie it again.”

Jeong Jaeui, his hand still held, awkwardly sat up. And still with a somewhat strange expression, he continued to look at Jeong Taeui. Jeong Taeui raised an eyebrow.

“Of course you can’t tie it. How do you tie a string you can’t see? But if you could cut it with scissors, you could tie it. Let’s try tying it.”

“It’s not that… …No, I guess it doesn’t matter…”

Jeong Jaeui started to say something, then seemed to think for a moment before quietly murmuring to himself. Jeong Taeui glanced at him quizzically, fiddling around his pinky finger. He briefly wondered what he was doing, mimicking picking up a thread from an empty space, but soon it didn’t matter. This was a symbol.

—A symbol is belief.

Suddenly, a phrase he had heard sometime before came to mind. Yes, it was what Ilay had said.