Big Brother (3)
The night sky unfurled around us in a vast, sweeping expanse.
“Wow…!”
A small gasp escaped Chae-rin's lips. Her already huge eyes grew even wider, drinking in the glittering cityscape below. It was like a galaxy spilled across the earth.
“H-how did you do this?”
“There's always a way.”
I shot Moss a subtle signal, and the flight smoothed out beautifully. The wide-open view gifted us a strange sense of liberation.
“It's so pretty… Way prettier than it ever looked from a plane.”
After gazing down at the city lights for a long while, Chae-rin fidgeted and finally turned her head. Up here, there was no one to overhear us. This space belonged to me and Chae-rin alone. Maybe that thought gave her courage, because her small lips slowly parted.
“Have you really… come back?”
For an opening line, it was quite the riddle. After all, I'd never gone anywhere—I'd always been right here.
Not that Chae-rin has any idea I'm a regressor.
I tossed the question right back at her.
“Come back from what?”
“…From who you were back then.”
When I made it clear I had no idea what she meant, the corners of Chae-rin's eyes flinched.
“You really don't remember?”
“Uh… hm.”
No matter how hard I tried to dig something up, there was genuinely nothing there. Maybe it was because the time before she left for the US was just too long ago. Aside from a few fragmented memories, it was all a blank.
Which is… strange, honestly.
It felt as if that entire era of my memory had been cleanly carved out. I'd never paid it much mind before, but with Chae-rin in front of me, the wrongness of it hit me all at once.
“Sorry, I really don't remember.”
“…That's okay. I remember enough for both of us.”
There was a flicker of disappointment, but she didn't seem truly hurt. The night wind blew crisp and cool. After a stretch of silence, Chae-rin began to tell her story.
The higher a bird flies, the more it fears the fall. Lee Chae-rin had come to understand that truth earlier than any child her age.
'She's a prodigy. At this level, she ranks among the top 0.01% of geniuses in South Korea.'
'Perhaps because she takes after her father, her aptitude in hunter studies is remarkable. She shows extraordinary promise in every other field as well…'
'If she'd only been born a little later, she could have conquered the world as an athlete! The day she awakens, Korea might just produce a World Ranker!'
A child wonder hailed as a genius in everything her hands touched. A prodigy born bearing a wealth of gifts. The future of Cheonseong.
Those kinds of modifiers had trailed behind Lee Chae-rin like a tail since childhood. By the time she came to her senses, she had already climbed too high. Everyone's expectations of her pierced the heavens, and a single mistake had become unforgivable. The image she'd shown until now had simply been too perfect.
'It's fine.'
Chae-rin swallowed her resolve. If mistakes weren't permitted, then she simply wouldn't make any. If the expectations were heavy, then she'd meet them. That was how it had always worked so far.
Complaints, tears, admissions of struggle—those things only made a person weak.
'I have to do it alone.'
Without leaning on anyone. She had to solve everything herself.
'I must never be satisfied.'
She had to keep showing growth. Rest on a single success, and applause would sooner or later return as disappointment.
Chae-rin whipped herself on without end. And every time she did, people were satisfied. Delighted. With how poised and mature she was. With the picture of a genius born to talent.
But no one can be perfect forever.
Lee Chae-rin slipped—exactly once. She got a single problem wrong on a nationwide standardized exam. For a girl who had always held the top seat, that one missing problem loomed impossibly large. Her ranking plummeted in an instant.
'…It's still fine.'
So she'd lost the top spot. She could just reclaim it next time. She worked hard to dismiss it, to bury it in memory—but a mind that had wavered once did not so easily right itself.
'Have you been pushing yourself too hard lately? You keep making mistakes.'
'Hmm… could you try that once more?'
'Tsk….'
Losing the top seat seemed to have been the turning point. Chae-rin began to crumble, one failure after another. No matter how desperately she beat her wings, the fall wouldn't stop. Only then did she finally understand—how far she'd been overextending herself. That her wings had long since worn thin and tattered.
'…….'
And yet even that, Chae-rin refused to let show. She hid it with something bordering on obsession. I can't possibly complain about something this small. I can't lean on anyone. I have to manage on my own. By myself, no matter what…
“…You okay?”
Then, out of nowhere, someone had asked her that.
“Wh-what do you mean?”
“Nothing, really. You just looked like you were struggling.”
“Me? Struggling?”
Chae-rin was thrown. Had her feelings been leaking out without her even noticing?
“How could you possibly know that….”
“Hm?”
“How do you know I'm having a hard time?”
“Well… it's not something you see with your eyes. How should I put it.”
Her counterpart thought for a long moment, then snapped his fingers.
“I'd say it's kind of like looking in a mirror?”
“…?”
“You're trying hard at something, but it won't go right. All you hear from everyone around you is disappointment. When you're trapped at the bottom of that pit of despair, you give off exactly that kind of vibe.”
What is this person saying right now? Was he seriously suggesting the two of them stood on the same ground?
“…What would you know, Oppa?”
It couldn't be. She was Lee Chae-rin, the treasure of Cheonseong—and he was Lee Tae-hyun, its dullard. Was he trying to lecture her just because he happened to be a few years older?
Crunch! Chae-rin's teeth ground together. It was a rare emotional outburst, truly one for the record books.
“You've never felt like this, Oppa. Being let down. Falling. You never had anything from the start, so no one ever expected anything of you.”
The first words spilled out before she could stop them. And as if that had shattered the dam in her heart, a flood of emotions came surging through.
“You've never even tried, never worked hard at anything, so don't you dare treat me like I'm the same as you! I study day and night without rest so I never, ever disappoint anyone!”
“…….”
“You don't do any of that! So what gives you the right to say you understand? Do you have any idea how much I…!”
Chae-rin bit her lip. Her shoulders trembled violently, and at last, the truth she'd buried deep in her chest broke free.
“It… it hurts….”
The words were practically a tantrum. Yet even after taking that verbal lashing from his much younger sister, Lee Tae-hyun's face showed no offense. If anything—
“Oh. You finally said it.”
—like a detective who'd just found the decisive clue, he lifted the corners of his mouth into a sly smile.
“What…?”
“Chae-rin, you're way too stiff. Like a little adult.”
“What's that supposed to mean….”
“Here's the thing. I don't hold a single expectation for you. No faith that you'll become some genius who changes the world. No conviction that you'll raise Cheonseong into a world-class giant.”
“Not this again—!”
Tae-hyun cut right in.
“So act like a kid sometimes. If you're hurting, say you're hurting. If you want praise, show off the things you did well.”
“…….”
“You're not like me, remember? It might be a little cringey to say, but you already matter to this family more than you know. You're treasure number one in this house.”
Even if you ranked dead last in the whole country, those two wouldn't care one bit, would they? Tae-hyun added with a careless grin.
“If you keep hiding your wounds like you are now and they fester—that's the real disaster.”
The Chae-rin of moments ago had looked genuinely on the edge. A self-loathing and gloom almost impossible to believe in a girl that young. That was exactly why Tae-hyun had poked at her on purpose. So she could burst it open herself.
“I'll say it again—I expect nothing from you. I'm confident I wouldn't even blink if you told me one day you were quitting school and going off to do whatever you wanted.”
What Chae-rin needed right then wasn't expectation or recognition. It was having even a little of the weight lifted off her shoulders.
“So don't push yourself too hard. Got it?”
With those parting words, Tae-hyun vanished in a blink.
“Wha…?”
Chae-rin sat still, doing nothing but staring after her big brother's retreating back.
What she learned afterward was that Tae-hyun, in his own way, had once carried his share of expectations too. Born the eldest son of Cheonseong, he'd been expected to show talent in many fields—only to fall short of even average in all of them, earning nothing but harsh criticism and disappointment. And to this day, he was still floundering to escape that reputation.
That hellish place where she herself had been struggling to death—Tae-hyun had already been trapped in it for years.
'I never would have survived that.'
From that day on, Chae-rin judged him differently. As someone who excelled in ways she herself did not. As the one big brother with whom she could finally show how much she was struggling. As someone who didn't give up, and kept trying.
“…And then you suddenly changed, Oppa. Your personality got weird out of nowhere, and all you did was go out and play. So I was disappointed in you.”
And then, seeing the old me again recently, she'd come back to Korea—that was the story. Driven, perhaps, by the hope that I'd returned to being the person who had once comforted her.
'Fuzzy, but… I think I remember something.'
It was like recalling a dream from long ago. I couldn't remember what I'd thought or felt back then, but the situations themselves lingered faintly. How could something that vivid have been forgotten?
'And why did I change so suddenly, anyway?'
From a hardworking dullard to an unhinged delinquent. There had to have been some catalyst for the shift.
'…Still blurry.'
I shoved the questions surging up inside me right back down. Now wasn't the time to be agonizing over any of that.
“So, seeing me in person—what do you think?”
“Mm-hm. You came back. To the Oppa from back then. No wait—you're even cooler now.”
Chae-rin wore a pure, unguarded smile. A smile that shone brighter than the city lights spread out beneath us.
“Because now you seem free of that place too.”
The swamp of self-loathing that swallowed a person whole. Both of us had been freed from that distant abyss. Chae-rin drew in a deep breath.
“…This feels amazing.”
It was a night when the sky seemed to sparkle more than usual.
“C-Chae-rin…! Won't you come hang out with your little brother too?!”
“No.”
“Hrk—!”
After our walk, we headed back to where the family was waiting. Chae-rin had been clinging to my arm, holding my hand tight, ever since the flight.
“What on earth did you do to her, hyung-nim?!”
“It's your karma, Si-hyun. Accept it.”
“What did I even do…!”
Si-hyun swallowed his tears. But Chae-rin's grip showed no sign of loosening. Watching the scene with a fond smile, our mother spoke up.
“I'm glad Chae-rin has someone to lean on.”
“Better late than never, right? Gotta earn my keep as the older brother.”
Mom didn't press us at all about what we'd talked about up there.
“When do you head back?”
“Can't stay long. I'll have to go back next week.”
“That's a shame.”
Now that I was here, I'd have liked to stay longer—but every single member of our family was busy. Me most of all, since I still had to prepare for that thing drawing near.
'Tsk.'
Just as I was consoling myself over it, Chae-rin suddenly planted herself in front of me. Then, with a dead-serious face, she declared:
“Oppa. I'm going to join your guild someday.”
She was announcing her intent to enlist in my guild.
“…You're serious?”
“Yep. Dead serious.”
Chae-rin clenched both fists tight, firing herself up.
“I'll study extra hard. So I can definitely be a help to you.”
“Then you'd better work even harder.”
Shinseong was going to be the best guild in the world, after all. Though honestly, at Chae-rin's level, she'd make a superb non-combat member already.
I rested a hand on top of her little head.
“I'll be waiting.”
“…Okay!”
Chae-rin nodded, her eyes shining.