Memory Unlocked (1)

“I want to become a real human being.”

It was such a wish that it sounded even more false than a lie would have, and it made me doubt Yang Myeonghyeon.

But to have been this shaken up — that's far too intense for another lie.

The words he finally spilled were even harder to comprehend than what he'd said before.

“Ohh. The peach has ripened beautifully.”

In that moment, astonishingly, a sweet fruit fragrance tickled my nose.

As if time itself were flowing backward, the rotting aura began to drain away from the fruit, and in its place a rich, dense sweetness spread through the air as the flesh swelled back into its plump, full shape.

“I shall never forget the strength of your steadfast resolve.”

Steadfast resolve, he says. Almost enough to make me think he's mocking us.

Shrrk—

The leaflet appeared, announcing the quest's completion.

And then peach blossoms swept over us like the snowstorm from When the Wind Blows, the Stars Answer's famous blizzard scene — so many of them they blotted out my vision entirely.

This place….

When the petals cleared, a new space revealed itself.

At some point I was standing there again, dressed back in the modern clothes I'd stored away inside my leaflet.

It is a new space, right?

Everything around me was so blindingly white I couldn't even be sure my eyes were properly open.

I stood alone in a space so white that floor and walls ceased to be distinguishable from one another.

Unable to tell where the space ended, I simply stayed where I was — and then it came.

The familiar voice rang out in every direction at once, without origin in any particular place.

It felt less like the voice of a person than like the very concept of "voice" itself.

A voice that drills straight into the ear. Completely different in kind from all those other voices I heard from the sky during the quest.

And the owner of that voice — a voice I knew so well it had passed beyond familiarity into pure loathing —

“The Curator.”

Who else could it be?

[Visitor Kim Jisan.]

[Before I introduce the 31st Floor exhibition,]

[You must first make a choice.]

Shrrk—

Just as I was about to lose my mind staring into the endless white, a leaflet appeared, slicing the space in two.

If I could choose only one of the three….

My eyes did drift toward the text bearing Liu Bei's name first.

But there was no need for lengthy deliberation. My mouth moved before my mind could catch up.

“Zhang Fei.”

The instant I spoke the name, the red aura that had once enveloped Ko Gyumin materialized before my eyes.

Fortunately, it wasn't hot — but instead I had the momentary illusion that my blood was boiling.

Is my heart pounding because it looks like flames?

I barely managed to steady my rattled chest and waited for the aura to fade from view.

The energy spread as ferociously as wildfire, then vanished as though someone had doused it with water.

Shrrk—

At last, I possessed a new soul.

This was my third acquisition, after Van Gogh and Beethoven.

[Visitor Kim Jisan.]

[You always do make such delightful choices.]

“I didn't pick it to entertain you.”

I tossed a brusque reply into the empty air, deliberately feigning indifference.

Truthfully, my gaze was still trailing the red afterimage.

He was someone utterly mismatched to me — but for what lay ahead, I had needed to choose Zhang Fei.

General Liu clearly delivered that line about meeting again. If a Three Kingdoms exhibition opens up once more, raw force will be genuinely necessary then.

Guan Yu was strong too, of course, but I was certain Zhang Fei — who shared nothing in common with me — would be the more effective choice to use.

“…….”

When the Soul Rental leaflet vanished, the white void closed over me once more.

I wanted desperately to escape this suffocating space.

[Something you're curious about?]

“Where did the other two go?”

[Ah, you mean your sworn brothers?]

You could just say Ko Gyumin and Yang Myeonghyeon, you know.

The way he deliberately brought up the brotherhood, like a taunt, was repulsive.

[They're each touring their own 31st Floor exhibitions. Do not worry. As brothers bound by righteousness, you are certain to reunite.]

[So long as you survive.]

I know that already — you didn't have to add it.

The last sight I'd had of the two, right before ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the quest completed, flickered before my eyes.

Ko Gyumin, stunned. And Yang Myeonghyeon, grimly gnawing at his lip.

Yang Myeonghyeon….

“Curator. Yang Myeonghyeon is… what, exactly?”

[Ohh.]

[Visitor Kim Jisan, curious about another's information.]

[And even digging for it behind the scenes. How remarkable.]

If the Curator had been standing before me right then, he would no doubt have shrugged his shoulders and worn an even more insufferable expression.

Somehow it was almost better just hearing the voice.

He did just drop that on us and disappear. Of course I'm curious.

"I want to become a real human being," he said.

“If you're not going to tell me, forget it.”

Yes, I was curious about Yang Myeonghyeon. But I decided to simply give up.

I had no intention of stroking the Curator's ego just to wring information out of him.

[In that case, I can offer you a different piece of information instead.]

“…A different one?”

The moment I drew a line, the Curator threw the bait to me first.

[The 31st Floor exhibition is a benefit granted to visitors who honestly confessed their own wishes.]

[Now — walk the path of your unlocked memories.]

“What is that supposed to me—”

I was just about to lodge a complaint at the unhelpful explanation when—

Ziiiip—

The white field of vision split clean in half, and through the seam a new world revealed itself.

I hesitated briefly, then finally stepped through into that new space.

This is….

The layout of an ordinary family home. No — ordinary by my standards, that is.

This gloomy, cramped semi-basement wouldn't have been ordinary for everyone.

This is our house.

I knew it at once. It was unmistakably the home I'd lived in as a child.

The narrow semi-basement where my family had lived when I was young.

The air was damp, and the wallpaper, soaked with years of old moisture, had peeled up in subtle places.

“?!”

I was wearing shoes, so at least my feet weren't sticking to the tacky floor.

The moment I crossed the entryway into the house, new figures appeared before me.

No — they're not strangers at all.

At the sight of the two people ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in front of me, I shouted in a voice that trembled.

“Mom! Dad!”

My body reacted before my judgment could — I cried out to my parents.

Sitting across a small table from each other, they were talking, their faces bright.

“Mom! Dad!!”

No matter how loudly I called, my voice never reached them.

It felt as though my desperate cries were simply absorbed into somewhere in the space and swallowed whole.

An illusion, then — fine. I still want to talk. Even for just one second.

But my outstretched arm passed clean through my mother's body.

In this exhibition of memories, a visitor cannot so much as touch anything.

To see my late parents this vividly before my eyes — and to be allowed only to watch.

“Honey, I honestly don't know which direction Cheonsan should choose for his future.”

“That's a happy problem to have. That boy could do anything he set his hand to. Let's just let him try it all.”

And then, like a bucket of cold water, my head went chillingly clear.

…This is the past I've been forgetting?

I dragged both hands down my face and heaved out a sigh.

Petty as it might be, I couldn't help thinking it would have been better if I'd simply gone on forgetting.

I didn't want to see the expectant light in my parents' eyes as they looked at my brother.

Where did people like us get the luxury of giving their son things to pursue?

People with no money to spare and no credit to borrow against — dreaming dreams that didn't match their reality.

It was all my brother's fault. Of course it was. He had to be born something extraordinary, and that made the family forget its own place.

Ugh. Why did it have to be this memory that got unlocked.

“Honestly, with Cheonsan, I just know he can become anything!”

My mother declared her hope with an innocent, beaming smile.

She was always worn down, always crushed by reality — which was exactly why a smile that childlike from her was so rare a sight.

Why had my brother been born a genius, planting that thing called hope in Mom and Dad?

Not a genius of a single field — someone who'd mastered every art there was.

Somewhere deep in my chest throbbed a dull ache, like an old wound being disturbed.

I gazed at my parents with a bitter taste in my ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mouth. They were praising my brother, and even so, just seeing their faces stirred something in me.

“Huh…?”

But had the Museum noticed the sting in my eyes?

My parents' figures dissolved into mist almost at once.

And in their place spread a beautiful landscape, like watercolor paint bleeding across paper.

A sky stained with sunset.

Between the tall, narrow buildings of the neighborhood, the red light that had barely filtered through stretched out in long ribbons.

That's my brother — and me.

I could see my young self squatting there beside him.

We were always slipping out of the house whenever the chance arose, crouching wherever we could.

Even if the ground was damp, it was still more open than home.

We liked getting out of that suffocating air and feeling the outside wind on our faces.

This is before he disappeared.

Only now did I notice how utterly expressionless my brother's face was.

Buildings blocked us in on every side, and the sky seemed trapped inside a square frame of concrete.

My brother stared in silence at that scenery he saw every single day — that tiresome, suffocating view.

“I don't feel like doing anything today. It's boring.”

A voice so flat you could scarcely detect any texture of emotion in it.

It wasn't the surging intensity you'd expect from a boy deep in the turbulence of adolescence.

It was the tone of someone so utterly jaded he couldn't bear it.

“Huh? Why?”

My young self, unable to understand, asked with a start.

Well — no wonder I was surprised.

This was a brother who could conjure a breathtaking work of art the instant he wanted one.

The younger me would never have grasped how someone like that could say something was boring.

“Jisan. You've climbed to the top of a mountain. The very highest peak, with nowhere left to climb.”

“…?”

“What would you do then?”

My brother's gaze wasn't fixed on my young self at all.

He was looking through me, at somewhere far more distant.

“You'd come back down to the ground, I guess.”

My young self puffed out his cheeks, mulled it over seriously, and answered brightly.

A simple answer. A hopelessly practical, boring answer.

“Haha.”

Was he laughing at me?

He produced the sound artificially, like a laugh that had been calculated and manufactured.

Even the way the corners of his mouth turned up looked somehow off.

What did my brother actually think of me?

Did he not think I was worth talking to, because I was just a little kid?

…No. Maybe age had nothing to do with it.

Maybe the depth of my thinking was hopelessly shallow compared to his — and so he simply laughed.

“I'm going to climb somewhere even higher.”

My brother let the corner of his mouth fall and spoke again.

Higher still. I tilted my head.

Everything he said was far too difficult for me to understand.

“You said you're at the mountain's summit — that there's nowhere left to climb.”

My young self lifted his head and questioned him.

At that, my brother smiled once more, calm and faint.

Then, gazing at the sunset that barely showed between the buildings, he continued.

“There's the sky, isn't there.”

While I chose, as a matter of course, the path back down, my brother looked up at the highest place of all.

The realm no one else could ever reach — and he dreamed of it as easily as breathing.

I really will never catch up to him, no matter how old I get.

I'm an adult now, nearly ten years older than my brother was in that moment.

And still, I am Kim Jisan — the ground. And my brother is Kim Cheonsan — the sky.

If it had been any shameful, ugly memory of my parents, at least it might have healed in time.

Meeting my vanished brother after so long, and feeling this — I must not be in my right mind either.

Beside my brother, even that good heart I'd once been quietly proud of was something I could never put on display.