Family Reunion
“I told her that both you and Yeon-seong would definitely come back, so she shouldn’t worry and just wait… Still, three years is way too long!”
“Yeah. I’m really late. Where are Mom and Dad?”
“Dad’s out working, and Mom went to her stepmothers’ meeting.”
Working?
When Tae-sung turned to look at his youngest brother, Yeon-seong simply shook his head with an expression that said there was nothing he could do about it.
“We told him to rest, but he wouldn’t listen… Still, it’s a decent place. He’s not doing any dangerous labor. It looks like he’s just managing machines. Han-seong hyung went to check it out himself out of curiosity.”
“I see.”
Tae-sung fell into quiet thought, remembering how their father used to say that even as you got older, you had to keep working and moving to stay healthy. Just then, the sound of something running—tap, tap—echoed from the alleyway in the distance.
When he turned his gaze that way, he saw someone leaping clean over the front gate.
“Brother!”
The person wore tight-fitting leather clothes that looked relatively light, and the pants were made of a highly elastic material. It seemed like he did a lot of running for his job.
“If you saw the message, you could’ve at least replied.”
“I saw it, so that’s enough. You came in person anyway. You got off work early today.”
Kang Han-seong answered his youngest brother like that, then gave Kang Tae-sung a firm hug. After stepping back slightly, he looked his older brother up and down.
“You’re exactly the same. Still wearing the same outfit from that day?”
“Now that you mention it…”
The youngest brother spoke as if he had only just noticed.
“For me, those three years you experienced never happened.”
“Ah, damn.”
At Tae-sung’s words, Han-seong clicked his tongue softly and shook his head.
“You’re back, that’s what matters. But why do you look so down?”
“It’s probably because… he thinks he failed to protect us,” the youngest brother said carefully, glancing at Tae-sung after having walked with him the whole way.
“Failed to protect us?”
Han-seong’s face stiffened for a moment, but he immediately let out a short laugh and lightly punched Tae-sung’s arm.
“Why are you thinking so complicatedly? We’re the ones who came back.”
“……”
“It’s not that that place disappeared. We returned to the past. That’s all there is to it.”
Han-seong laughed again, saying that once you started overthinking things, there would be no end to it.
“Even if you say that, at the time, our oldest brother…”
“I hereby revoke the youngest’s right to speak. Shut it.”
With his mouth covered like that, the youngest brother raised both hands in surrender before he was finally released. Tae-sung then followed his brothers into the house. A room had already been prepared for the eldest son, whose return date no one could have known.
Some of the furniture that had once been nothing but rubble beneath a collapsed house was now placed there to help him recall the past. Even the combat uniform, soaked in blood and later burned, still remained inside the wardrobe.
“Want to get some sleep? You looked really tired when you first got back.”
“I’m fine.”
“Then do you want to eat something? It’s a good world now. Delivery still works perfectly. So… don’t sit there hurting alone while missing weird things, hyung.”
“I’m sorry.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for. But why are you staring like that? Is the eldest son some kind of beast?”
“No… wasn’t our oldest brother originally a bit… no, quite skinny?”
Kang Yu-ri, who had been secretly peeking her head through the door, spoke up after overhearing them.
“When he takes his shirt off, does he have muscles? Like Han-seong oppa or Yeon-seong?”
“……”
At her following words, even Han-seong—who had been smiling—froze, as did Yeon-seong, who had been fiddling with the phone in the living room.
“Don’t be too interested in a man’s bare body.”
Han-seong replied with a deliberately playful expression and quietly closed the bedroom door.
“You should at least wash up, hyung.”
“Yeah. He should at least wash up.”
“We deliberately prepared a room with its own bathroom. We put some thought into it. Well, you probably won’t mind… but that kid was always a bit soft-hearted. Right now, he’s still in the state where he hasn’t really experienced any hardships. We need to look after him for a while.”
“You don’t have to worry.”
Tae-sung knew they were talking about the horrific scars etched across his body. When Han-seong pulled out new underwear and a t-shirt from the drawer—clearly prepared in advance to match his current size—Tae-sung told him he would handle it himself.
“You don’t have to go that far.”
“No, I want to do something for you, but there’s nothing much I can do. Want some Chinese food after so long? If we order now, it should arrive right after you finish showering.”
“Sure. Let’s do that.”
“Okay. I’ll head out then.”
Han-seong nodded and left, making sure to close the door properly behind him.
“……”
Everyone was trying their best.
Just from hearing their voices, Kang Tae-sung could tell how hard his siblings were working. So, with the gentle smile they were hoping to see, he headed toward the bathroom.
“Got it.”
At Han-seong’s voice from the living room, Tae-sung turned on the electric instant water heater installed in the bathroom.
When he saw the fairly spacious bathtub tucked in one corner of the bathroom, he briefly thought about filling it with water and soaking his body. But that was something he could do later, after seeing his parents and having some free time. For now, he took off his clothes and stepped under the pouring hot water from the showerhead.
“Mm. Filthy.”
More murky water flowed out than he expected. If you traced the dark, dirty water swirling down the drain, its source was, of course, his own body.
It had been so long since he last stood under a showerhead.
In the royal city, he had used water freely, but since there were no showerheads, he had either poured water over himself or simply soaked in a tub.
Tae-sung washed his hair so thoroughly it was almost like he was scrubbing it clean, removing all the grime. He gratefully used the bath towel that someone had thoughtfully prepared and dried himself off.
After finishing his shower and changing into underwear and comfortable clothes, he gathered the leather outfit he had been wearing earlier, emptied its contents, and carried it outside.
“Whoa? I told you to shower, not peel your skin off.”
Han-seong was grinning as he spoke. In the living room, there was a massive sofa that could seat the entire family with room to spare, and a 105-inch TV mounted on the wall.
The TV was currently broadcasting the news.
Most of the stories were about violent crimes and the measures being taken against them.
Ding-dong—
“Maknae. It’s here.”
“Yes, hyung.”
“You help out too.”
When Tae-sung smiled and patted Han-seong’s shoulder after noticing that only the youngest had been ordered around the whole time, Yeon-seong—who had been heading to the door—turned around with a deeply moved expression.
“Finally, an ally…”
“Ally my ass. Hurry up and get it! You too!”
“I’m a powerless woman!”
“I’ll go too, so stop complaining.”
Since they had ordered such a ridiculous amount, two delivery drivers had shown up.
With that much food, one might expect a confirmation call to check if it was a prank order, but apparently it wasn’t their first time receiving such a large order. The delivery drivers seemed quite used to it.
“I’ll bring the dishes out a bit later. There’s quite a lot.”
“Take your time. Just give us a call and we’ll come pick them up.”
After paying with a card, Han-seong and his siblings carried the terrifying quantity labeled ‘2 black bean noodles, sweet and sour pork, and dumpling set x8’ into the house. Tae-sung also lent a hand, once again looking around the yard and garden.
“Did you buy this house?”
“It was a property that went into compulsory auction. Some gangsters were involved and messing with the bidding, so the price dropped a lot. We jumped in and snatched it up.”
“Didn’t it get noisy?”
“We took care of it quietly. These days, there are a lot of idle mines in the old North Korean territory, so they’re sending most serious criminals there.”
At the story of how they had swept them all up and sent them away, Tae-sung said nothing and simply carried the dishes. On the large table in the center of the spacious living room, plates of sweet and sour pork and black bean noodles were stacked like copy-pasted duplicates.
Yet no one commented on how there was too much. Even the youngest was already displaying his divine ability by emptying an entire bowl of black bean noodles in just a couple of chopstickfuls.
“Oh. There it is. I thought it wouldn’t come up.”
At that moment, another crime report appeared on the news.
It was a tragic story of a woman who had been murdered by an assailant.
Along with the anchor’s statement that the perpetrator had been shot dead on the scene, the neatly arranged crime scene was shown on camera.
“Do you know about this?”
At Tae-sung’s question, Han-seong dipped a piece of sweet and sour pork into the sauce, took it out, and nodded. His expression wasn’t particularly good, but it soon returned to normal.
“I’ve been helping out here and there lately. In the past, I helped the National Tax Service seize tax evasion funds. Recently, I go help the police when they need backup… It was yesterday. That one.”
He’s an awakened.
Han-seong said it casually as he put the sweet and sour pork in his mouth and chewed, continuing to speak.
“If you know the story, it’s a bit bittersweet… In the past—no, in the future—they were lovers who couldn’t live without each other. After the reset, it took him over three years to find her, but of course she’s a complete stranger to him now. When she treated him like a stalker, he completely lost it.”
“He lost it?”
“There are a lot of people among the returnees who developed mental problems. Not everyone is as sane as us. There are those who live normally, those who are moderately crazy, and those who have gone far beyond moderate craziness… and among them are the ones who do things like this. They can’t accept what era they’re in or what situation they’re facing.”
Han-seong added that those who had been lawless in the other world especially struggled to adjust. He pointed at the TV screen, which had already moved on to the next story.
“Looks like he was one of those lawless types too. So he probably thought nothing of it… but in this world, murder is an unforgivable felony. He was shot dead on the spot. I helped out with that one too.”
“I see.”
“It’s already been over three years, yet there are still people who can’t adapt and are wandering lost. It doesn’t matter for ordinary people, but the police can’t do anything about awakened ones. Shooting them would be simple, but there are procedures… This time too, after three police officers died and five were injured, they requested backup.”
“……”
Han-seong glanced at the youngest brother, who was already emptying his third bowl of black bean noodles and peeling the plastic off the fourth. He pointed at him with his chopsticks and joked.
“You, you. You be careful, kid. You damn bastard who seduces innocent girls who don’t know anything.”
“Huh? No, I…”
The youngest trailed off, muttering almost inaudibly, “She didn’t seem like she didn’t know anything…” before ultimately getting a smack on the head from Han-seong.
* * *
“Anyway, now that oldest hyung is back, are you going to start preparing for expeditions again?”
“I was thinking about it.”
“How about resting a bit more and going together once I finish my work? I don’t really know much about expeditions.”
Since Han-seong rarely hunted monsters and mostly helped with government work, it seemed the youngest actually knew more about the hunting side of things. Though they were small experiences and knowledge—such as which portal led where and what was in which region—they were not to be underestimated.
“Do you know anything about… moving rifts?”
When Tae-sung suddenly asked, both his second and youngest brothers shook their heads.