Unlocking Memories (2)

Really. Even looking at him again, he doesn't feel like a kid at all.

However much of a prodigy he was, my brother carried himself with a maturity that belonged to no child his age.

Back then, all I saw was how impressive my mature older brother was.

Now that I look closer, something seems different.

With adult eyes, I was looking down at my brother now, and a strange dissonance settled over me.

His gaze pierced cleanly through the sky, yet his words and actions somehow missed the mark. The world we lived in and Kim Cheonsan simply did not fit together.

He was born with genius-level talent in far too many fields compared to other people, so even the way he thought was different.

"Oh, Jisan. What's that?"

My brother pointed at the notebook I'd been fidgeting with in my right hand.

For some reason or another, my younger self apparently tried to hide it.

"This? It's nothing."

Young me tucked the notebook behind my back and shook my head awkwardly.

My eyes rolled this way and that, as if I wanted to hide it from my brother but couldn't quite bear to let the subject drop, either.

"What is it? A novel? You said you were writing a novel before."

"...Yeah. It's a novel I wrote."

Young me ran my tongue over my dry lips.

I must have been nervous, because I even touched my burning throat.

I didn't want to show my clumsy, half-baked novel to the brother who had swept every writing competition he entered.

That was why I hid it — but deep down, I also harbored a greedy little wish to be acknowledged by him.

"Ah. I see."

Perhaps because I'd answered in such a shriveled little voice, my brother closed his mouth without much interest.

Did he simply not want to read some novel scribbled out by a brother with no talent?

That's a victim complex talking. He's your brother, but don't read too much into it, Kim Jisan.

My younger self must have worked up his courage, because he shuffled over and held the notebook out to my brother.

"Hyung. W-would you read it? If it's you, hyung, I bet you could give me good advice."

My pronunciation came out muddled — nerves, probably.

The moment I handed it over, my brother opened the notebook right away.

Young me couldn't help stealing glances at his face.

I was always intimidated by the fact that I fell short of him.

Rustle—

My brother turned the pages and began reading the novel I'd written.

Whether he was speed-reading or not, the pages turned quickly.

Huh. He's actually reading it seriously.

My brother read every last word of the story, from the first page of the notebook to the final one.

One page, two pages — every time the paper rustled, young me swallowed nervously.

Gulp.

The sound of my own throat working was loud enough to reach my own ears.

And even now, present-day me was secretly tense.

What kind of verdict will he hand down? Still, if I was willing to show it to him, it must have been a piece I'd worked fairly hard on.

I was only an elementary schooler at the time, so the writing may have lacked depth, but I couldn't help waiting with bated breath for his evaluation.

"......"

Having read my novel down to the last page, my brother finally closed the notebook.

Then, without a hint of lingering attachment, he handed it straight back to me.

"What do you think?"

Young me's eyes shone as I looked up at him.

Even while cowed, I was secretly dreaming of my brother's praise.

It was the period when, even knowing my own limits, I still refused to give up and dreamed of every kind of art.

I think I still had tenacity back then.

I was young enough to believe that there was still one thing — anything — I could truly master.

"Jisan. What era is your protagonist from?"

"Ah. Around the Korean Empire's enlightenment period? I tried to give the dialogue some period flavor."

"...Really? Hmm. Jisan."

"What?"

My brother paused for a moment before opening his mouth again, slowly.

"Do you actually want advice?"

Ah.

That question of his lodged itself strangely deep in my chest.

Watching my younger self blink in confusion, unable to grasp what the question meant, was both pitiful and frustrating.

He was saying it in his own roundabout way: there's nothing here worth fixing.

The novel was hopeless, and I lacked the skill to revise it into anything complete. If it was never going to improve anyway, my brother must have reasoned, it was kinder not to offer advice at all.

"Ah. Ahh."

Young Kim Jisan took the notebook back, face flushed red.

He had clearly caught on that his brother's assessment was not favorable.

Ha. I don't want to watch any more of this.

As the memory unlocked, the emotions of that moment came crawling up along with it.

Whether I wanted it or not, young Kim Jisan's mortification resurfaced in me.

I was so embarrassed I wanted to snatch the notebook away from my younger self and tear it to shreds on the spot.

"Haha... I guess since I wrote it myself, the characters are a little weird, huh?"

I deliberately heaped more humiliation on myself, scratching my head in a fluster.

I didn't want to hear my brother's scathing review, so I cut myself down first and dodged the feedback entirely.

Always the picture of a loser. Making self-deprecating jokes like that — you'll regret it later, you know.

Chiding my younger self, I turned my gaze to my brother this time.

His expression was as impassive as before.

Looking at it again, that really is a lukewarm attitude. Did he even think of me as his brother?

I had loved and resented him, jealousy and admiration tangled together — but to my brother, I truly was no different from any stranger.

"The dialogue is clunky, like a robot's. There's no backstory for the characters, no real arc to speak of."

Only when my face had gone red and blue by turns did my brother finally wave a hand.

He had no interest in me, but he was my brother, and it felt like he was soothing me purely out of obligation.

"Hmm—"

My brother opened his mouth one last time. The end of the exhibition was drawing near.

"That might just be Yang Myeonghyeon's charm."

...?

The name that left my brother's lips — the protagonist of my novel.

The contents of that long-forgotten story flickered across my mind.

"...Yang Myeonghyeon?"

The moment I murmured the name—

Fwoosh—

Pop. With the sensation of something snapping, my vision was forcibly wrenched away.

By the time the Leaflet rolled itself back up, every last frame of the flashback had vanished.

And in the freshly whitened space, a small door had appeared.

A staircase.

The door swung open on its own, revealing steps leading upward.

Without properly sorting through my chaos-filled head, I climbed those stairs almost as if being pushed along.

As though my body and my mind had been completely severed, my footsteps never stopped — and still—

Yang Myeonghyeon.

The final memory of the 31st floor exhibition kept churning through my skull.

By the time I finished the stairs and set foot on the next floor, bright sunlight was jabbing at my eyelids.

Where is this...?

The space had changed.

A blue sky, unfamiliar air, and far in the distance, medieval-era buildings.

No — not the medieval era, this is...

Ancient Rome, maybe.

I couldn't say for certain yet, but the structures carried ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the flavor of ancient Rome.

I wondered briefly whether this floor was another Greco-Roman mythology world, but no god appeared.

Perhaps this spot was on the city's outskirts — buildings stood visible in the distance, and the ground beneath me was an unpaved dirt road.

No pedestrians walking about, either. ...What is this?

As I scanned my surroundings, I noticed something odd.

The staircase I'd climbed up still hadn't disappeared.

As if the landscape around it were a wall, a square hole had been punched clean through it.

Shouldn't that door close before the people of this floor saw it?

"!"

Just then, I spotted a figure climbing up the stairs.

Another Visitor, or someone connected to this floor? I waited, tense.

And the moment he set foot fully onto the 32nd floor, my pupils blew wide.

"Mr. Go!"

The man climbing the stairs was Go Gyumin.

Out of breath, whether from the rushed climb or not, Go Gyumin heard my voice and looked up.

Waving a hand, he came running toward me.

"Jisan! How do we keep running into each other?!"

"I know, right? After the last quest scattered us all over the place, I thought I wouldn't see you on this floor."

Not having expected a reunion, Go Gyumin's face brightened at once.

A joint quest again this time? Either way, I'm glad it's Mr. Go, someone I know well.

Progressing through a quest alongside a fellow climber you already knew did wonders for one's peace of mind, after all.

Then, mid-conversation, wrapped in the warmth of reunion, Go Gyumin and I shut our mouths at exactly the same moment, as if we'd rehearsed it.

Go Gyumin ran his fingers through his sweat-damp hair and brought it up first.

"Myeonghyeon... is he...?"

"I think he went to a 32nd floor exhibition in a different time and space."

"I see."

Neither of us tried to make it obvious, but the air between us grew heavy in an instant.

Go Gyumin let out a faint sigh and gestured at the ground.

"Hey, Jisan. Should we sit down for a bit?"

"Here?"

"Yeah. I'm feeling drained, honestly."

Go Gyumin plopped down onto the bare dirt first.

Forget chairs — there wasn't even a rock on this empty plain of packed earth, but I sat down beside him anyway.

The gravel dug into me a little, but it was tolerable enough.

"......"

"......"

An uncomfortable silence stretched on and on.

Both of us had gone quiet, lost in thoughts of Yang Myeonghyeon — because neither of us could forget the words we'd heard in that final scene of the Oath of the Peach Garden.

"D-did you know? About Myeonghyeon?"

"No. Not at all."

I shook my head at Go Gyumin's question.

How ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠could anyone have known about an identity that surreal?

I did think he was an unusual person, of course.

He didn't seem like a man in his twenties these days, and his slow reactions marked him as somehow different.

His faint emotions always felt subtly out of sync with this world.

I just never imagined that dissonance was the sense of an existence from an entirely different dimension.

"Not human. Does that even make sense?"

Go Gyumin was groaning like a man about to tear his own hair out.

"...They said we all entered this tower from separate spaces and times."

"Yeah, but even so — this goes beyond time and space. His whole existence was different from the start!"

Just as bewildered as Go Gyumin, who was shouting at the top of his lungs — no. Having known Yang Myeonghyeon far longer than Go Gyumin had, I was probably far more shaken.

"Honestly, what is he, a bear or a tiger? Good grief, even saying it out loud, I can't keep a straight face."

"He could be a fictional existence — a character from a created work."

"A created work? That's absurd, but..."

Go Gyumin tried to force a hollow laugh, then soon found himself touching his mouth.

What made it worse was that neither possibility — neither one — was truly impossible.

"Well, this is a tower where every kind of madness happens, so I suppose a fictional character isn't beyond the pale. No, wait — even so—"

Leaving Go Gyumin to mutter to himself, I sank into thought.

It was possible that I had created Yang Myeonghyeon — but I couldn't honestly say it out loud.

A character from a story I wrote...

Just as the tower had stolen my memories of Yang Myeonghyeon, it seemed his own circumstances had been ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠much the same.

Otherwise, it would have shown the first moment he met me. Meeting his creator, of all people—

Kim Jisan. Enough with this 'creator' nonsense, no matter what.

I snapped back to my senses at my own arrogance, that grandiose title.

The novel I wrote was hollow — it didn't even have a proper beginning, middle, and end.

I had set Yang Myeonghyeon up as a young man dreaming of becoming a writer in a harsh era.

I never depicted what he actually wrote, or what precisely went on in his heart.

Back then, all my writing amounted to was refusing to stray from the character sheet I'd scribbled out, dutifully keeping inside its lines.

Because ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I was projecting my own psychology into it, it turned into something that was neither one thing nor the other. How did I end it again...?

I gently sifted through the reassembled memory once more.

Yang Myeonghyeon the writer — he lived out his life without ever revealing his true wish to anyone.

But even so, it was an ending where he kept his passion for art locked away in his chest to the very last.

There was never any设定 about wanting to become human, obviously.

Of course there wasn't — within that novel, Yang Myeonghyeon was human.

And there'd been nothing about healing, either — nothing that would become his Perk.

So how on earth did Yang Myeonghyeon come to long for humanity — and why does he wield medical power?

If Mr. Yang realized, too, in that exhibition of memories... that I'm the author who created him...

When we meet again — what face will he make?