A Brother's Offer
Yang Sun-il couldn’t hide his confusion when he saw the unfamiliar man standing in front of his house.
“……Who are you?”
The man was holding something in both hands, and his appearance was so strikingly handsome that it felt almost unreal.
Sun-il checked the house number on his door before asking again.
“Are you sure you have the right place?”
“Hello. I’m Kang Tae-san, the Smile cleaning manager who cleaned your house today.”
“Ah.”
Kang Tae-san introduced himself briefly. He explained that he had brought some things because there were many discarded items and probably things that were needed. He lifted what he was carrying to show him.
When Yang Sun-il looked unsure what to do, Tae-san suggested they set everything down inside and talk there.
What Tae-san had bought were immediate necessities: a frying pan, bowls, cups, and simple food items like canned tuna, cooking oil, instant rice, and eggs.
Tae-san unpacked everything and arranged it neatly, as if it were his own home. Yang Sun-il watched with a still-bewildered expression.
“Um…… First of all, thank you so much for cleaning. I never expected you to make it this spotless.”
“I just did what I was supposed to do.”
“But those things…… I’m fine without them……”
“I’ve lived on my own for quite a while. To be honest, my cooking skills weren’t great before, so I mostly just boiled ramen or skipped meals altogether.”
Tae-san explained several simple dishes a single person could make with the ingredients he had brought.
“Even just doing this much saves on food costs and gives you a sense of accomplishment. You don’t need anything fancy—just one proper meal a day, made for yourself. It’ll feel pretty rewarding.”
“……”
“Also, your blanket had mold on it. I didn’t think it would survive a trip to the laundromat, so I ordered a new one.”
“A blanket……?”
While tidying up the packaging from the new items, Tae-san continued.
“Separate the trash properly—plastic with plastic, paper with paper. Anything with food residue can’t be recycled, so rinse it like you would dishes before throwing it away. It’ll help you save on the volume-based trash bags too.”
They say the thriftiest people are also the best environmentalists. Tae-san freely shared his life tips, teaching Sun-il how to live alone as if he were a younger brother.
“Um, excuse me…… Why are you going this far for me?”
Tae-san quietly looked at the visibly intimidated Yang Sun-il. The way Sun-il’s shoulders hunched like a shrimp felt strangely familiar.
In real time it had only been about ten minutes, but those three years of high school had felt like an eternity of nightmares. Now that this friend was finally taking his first steps out of that hellish tunnel, Tae-san wanted to do something for him. It wasn’t some grand act of kindness—it was simply the kind of personal remedy only someone who had lived through it could offer.
“Have you eaten? Aren’t you hungry?”
“?”
Tae-san led the flustered Yang Sun-il outside. There was no way to logically explain the situation he had experienced, and it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Naturally, they ended up at a Korean barbecue restaurant. Tae-san ordered a variety of dishes and spoke casually.
“Order whatever you want. I’m paying today.”
“Uh…… Yeah…… But why are you suddenly buying me dinner too?”
“It’s just that it’s mealtime. Aren’t you hungry? What’s good here? Should we start with the assorted platter and add some nice cuts?”
Sun-il still couldn’t wrap his head around the reality of this incredibly handsome man cleaning his house, buying him things, and now treating him to dinner. Even though the man had introduced himself as a cleaning manager, there was no reason for someone in that line of work to be this kind. Even someone as sheltered as Yang Sun-il could tell that Tae-san grilling the meat for him while keeping the tongs out of his reach was strange.
“I’ll grill the meat. I’m the ace at the barbecue place I used to work at.”
“You said you were a cleaner.”
Tae-san smiled awkwardly at the question.
“Ah, I only recently started making decent money. I used to do tons of part-time jobs—barbecue restaurants, wedding buffet halls, factories, cafés, laundromats—anything that paid. I worked at a barbecue place until recently.”
Sun-il nodded silently, half-listening, but kept glancing around nervously. Finally, he spoke up with difficulty.
“Um, but…….”
“Yeah?”
“If you came here to take my money…… I don’t have any. The cleaning fee I paid was basically my entire savings.”
“……”
“I don’t believe in any religion either. I don’t have money to waste on that. I saw it on TV—how cults lure people in and drain their money. But I’ve got nothing worth taking, so you should just give up.”
When his voice rose without him realizing it, Sun-il quickly covered his mouth and looked around like a frightened lamb, worried someone might have overheard. Tae-san nodded heavily. Seeing Sun-il unable to meet his eyes, fidgeting with his toes, made his chest ache.
“I guess it’s understandable you’d suspect that. Showing up out of nowhere, acting friendly, offering to buy dinner…… It does look weird.”
Tae-san cut the nicely browned meat into bite-sized pieces and placed them on Sun-il’s plate before continuing.
“I just thought it was about time something good happened to you, Sun-il.”
“Why would something like that happen to me?”
“Things like that happen when you live long enough. They say good fortune comes in threes, or you meet an unexpected benefactor and your life turns around. I never really believed in that stuff either, but……”
Looking back on everything he had been through, the Smile app—strange as its methods were—had brought a huge change to his life. The people he met while filming movies and dramas had all been benefactors who showed him a new path as an actor.
“Turns out there’s some truth to it after all.”
The two of them had something in common. During their teenage years, when they should have been focused on learning and growing, they had been robbed of the chance to enjoy their youth. Whether crushed by someone else or denied the right from the start, neither Kang Tae-san nor Yang Sun-il had a high school experience that would help them in life. So for the first time, Tae-san decided to meddle.
“I saw a video of you a while ago.”
Sun-il immediately understood that Tae-san was referring to the clips of Jo Tae-man forcing him into humiliating performances.
“Th-that…… I guess it’s still online. I thought it had all been deleted…… Haah……”
At the memory, his fists clenched so tightly that his palms turned white with anger and resentment.
“Watching that video, I wondered how much pain, humiliation, and despair that person must have felt. How much he must have wanted to die. And then, by chance, I came to clean and met you, Sun-il.”
Yang Sun-il felt uncomfortable knowing that Tae-san was aware of the past he wanted to hide. He started to rise from his seat, ready to leave the meat and everything else behind, when Tae-san spoke.
“I’ll be your hyung from now on.”
“……What?”
The unexpected words made Sun-il freeze in an awkward half-standing position.
“I know better than anyone that saying ‘it’ll get better’ after everything you’ve been through is just empty words. That kind of shallow sympathy and false encouragement only hurts people who’ve hit rock bottom even more.”
Tae-san, who had spent his days barely scraping by while looking after his younger sister without any guardian, knew this all too well. That was why he didn’t want today’s meddling to be just another fleeting act of kindness.
“But when I saw you today, I just felt like being your hyung.”
“You want to be my hyung?”
“It might sound ridiculously convenient, but sometimes life really does work out that way. Look at this.”
Tae-san pulled out his phone, searched for Jo Tae-man’s name, and showed Sun-il the results. A video clip of the BJ being “educated” was playing, with thousands of comments and over two hundred thousand likes.
Sun-il recognized the face in the video instantly. It was Jo Tae-man, the one who had beaten him throughout high school. Now the bully was groveling, terrified, and begging for forgiveness from an unidentified man.
While some might have mistaken it for simple assault footage, most comments exposed Jo Tae-man’s past misdeeds. People from the same area and school added their own accounts, detailing his crimes even further. On top of that, viewers already uncomfortable with the sensational and violent content of “Yaking” BJ videos rallied behind this act of “education.” Similar “education” content was already spreading, with the hashtag “education delivered” appearing on dozens of new posts in real time.
In the end, Jo Tae-man’s address and family information had been exposed. Looking gaunt, he had uploaded an apology video and then completely disappeared.
Sun-il didn’t fully understand what was happening, but he knew that all of this was exactly what he had once desperately imagined.
He stared at the changed world for a long time.
Sizzle—
The sound of meat hitting the hot stone plate filled the air. Kang Tae-san placed more meat on the grill as if it were nothing special.
“Is this…… by any chance……”
“?”
“A dream?”
“A dream?”
“Everything feels so unreal right now. You suddenly appearing, all these impossible things happening in my life—the house, Jo Tae-man……”
Tae-san smiled at the stammering Sun-il. That warm smile made Sun-il think, This really must be a dream. An angel came to make me forget reality. But then Tae-san spoke.
“Try it.”
He placed a piece of meat on Sun-il’s plate.
“It’s not a dream, so eat up. And call me hyung like I told you.”
Tae-san wrapped a generous portion of meat in ssam and chewed contentedly. He had been through too much lately and needed the energy.
“Um, but……”
Once the mood lightened, Sun-il began asking questions over a glass of beer, and Tae-san answered vaguely where needed. Even though many answers were ambiguous, to Sun-il they were simply light.
A single ray of light reaching someone who had been trapped in a cave, losing the will to live.
“Hyung, so your job is cleaning? That face of yours is too good to waste.”
By the time they finished eating, Tae-san felt oddly proud watching Sun-il follow him around calling him “hyung.”
“I’ve been doing a bit of acting lately too.”
“Oh. I knew it! Right? It’d be a waste if you didn’t act with a face like that.”
“What about you, Sun-il? Is there something you want to do?”
“Me?”
For the first time, Sun-il was at a loss for words. His dream…… What had it been? It had been so long since he’d forgotten.
“I’ve never really thought about what I want to do or become.”
“You, hyung? If I had your face, I’d want to try everything.”
“I was too busy just surviving.”
“Ah…… I see.”
“Since we’re brothers now, let me nag a little. It’s not too late. Try whatever you want. If there’s anything I can help with, I will.”
Has anyone ever cared about my life this much? Overwhelmed by the generosity, Sun-il reached an absurd conclusion.
“Hyung, is your little brother…… someone who looks a lot like me?”
He had decided that Tae-san was being kind because Sun-il resembled his sibling.
“My sibling is a girl.”
Tae-san showed him a photo from his phone gallery.
“Oh, right…… Huh?!”
Sun-il recognized the face of So-yeon instantly.
“Isn’t that Kang So-yeon?”
“You know So-yeon?”
“Yeah! She’s the trainee on Planet on Air, right?”
“Ah. You watch that?”
“Wow. No way. I’m a huge Kang So-yeon fan. I even vote like crazy with text messages.”
Yang Sun-il excitedly showed his phone’s message history to prove his fandom.
“So you’re Kang So-yeon’s brother. Wow. Those genes are insane. Hyung-nim, you’re the best.”
Tae-san immediately sensed the shift from “hyung” to the more formal “hyung-nim.”
“Hey, just in case you’re getting any ideas……”
Sun-il caught on right away.
“Oh, hyung-nim? No way. I don’t have any ulterior motives. It’s pure fan admiration, I swear!”
“Yeah? That’s it?”
“Of course! You said you’d help me earlier. So…… could I just get one autograph…… hehe.”
“That’s what counts as help?”
“It does! Kang So-yeon is the light of my life! If I have her autograph, this Yang Sun-il can dream again and do anything!”
“Good grief.”
Before long, Yang Sun-il had shed the shadow of a victim and was radiating the bright energy of a healthy young man in his early twenties.
“Okay. I’ll get it for you.”
“Thank you!!”