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There’s nothing Rang can do about it. Wasting away like this and trying to drown his pain in intoxication is not going to lessen the load on his chest. All his life, he’s been granting wishes. If only someone could hear his heart cry…
If only there were a way to stop hyung from leaving…
Like a man in a trance, Rang walks down the near-empty street, barely conscious of his surroundings. Why did Yeon have to come back into his life like this? He was living alright, looking upon his brother as an enemy. He was content with loathing him - at least, he didn’t have to endure this ache in his chest. His axe and Yeon’s neck - they could make a fitting pair, so why then could he not do it, despite a part of him deliberating it?
He is not the man who abandoned you, his heart tells him.
Rang wants to believe it. He knows it’s a dream that will end soon. He knows he should shatter the illusion and break out of it, but he also longs to live it for as long as it lasts. All his life, he’s been making others’ dreams come true. If only someone could hear him right now and never let him wake up…
Inside the gates of Myeoyeongak, he trudges up the stairs, dragging his feet along. To go in would mean he’d see Yeon again. And that would nudge him again that the clock is ticking. He stops right outside the door. He could leave and never come back. That way, he’d never have to wake up every morning to the nagging truth that his brother is withholding something from him, that Yeon is only counting days until his return to the only one he loves.
But running away would also mean going back on his promise. He had promised his hyung a month and—
The door opens before he can knock, and there stands the man who has always meant the world to him. “You’re past the 10 p.m curfew.” He catches Rang in a stern gaze. “Where were you this late?”
Rang pushes past him and stops by the clothes-stand to take off his coat. “None of your business.”
Yeon closes the door, but doesn’t return to bed. “You’re upset. That becomes my business—”
“Since when?” Rang wheels around, all his frustration, his indignation, his pain, everything else demanding to rush out. “What right do you have to question me?”
“Something’s bothering you.” Yeon touches his arm. “Tell me. You don’t have to suffer alone—”
“I have always suffered alone,” Rang snaps, angrily blinking back unexpected tears that are threatening to expose his weakness to his brother. “And I don’t want to talk to you, so spare your lecture and allow me this moment of peace. Unlike you, I’m not going anywhere soon, so let me get used to staying alone again because I’m not going to have you around me forever, am I?”
Yeon gapes, stunned at the outburst, and Rang takes out his anger on his tie, roughly pulling it off his neck and flinging it on the hook. Uncuffing his shirt sleeves and rolling them up to his elbows, he walks without another word to the bedding that’s already spread out for him. Suddenly suffocated, he opens the top button, and glad for some air, he takes a deep breath.
When he sits down, his back to his brother, his childhood after Yeon left him, all his youth and everything he’s endured comes back to haunt him. But he swallows it all and shuts his eyes, pushing it away where it won’t bother him. He won’t let Yeon see it. He won’t let him rip his emotions to shreds.
He’s inclined to get up and disappear into the dark again, when his brother sits down behind him, but something in his voice stops Rang, when Yeon says, “Look at me.”
Rang’s heart pushes him to, but he resists it. A part of him reminds him he’s supposed to hate the man who is the cause of what he is today, wanting to push him away and shrug this off as a dream that’ll break in a few days, but the wine in his blood rises from under its hood, nudging him towards what he really wants, and what he’s been craving for all through these lonely centuries he’s lived.
No, he continues to resist, but when Yeon shifts closer, when his fingers gently squeeze Rang’s arm, he crumbles just a little.
“Look at me, Rang-ah.”
“I have done things I shouldn’t have,” Yeon gently goes on. The layer of pain, deep within his words, surprises Rang, and he shifts, turning to face his brother. “By the time I realised it, it was too late,” Yeon laments. It’s as if, like Rang, he has been keeping it down, masking it with his sunny smiles and stupid jokes. “Or—” He affectionately touches Rang’s cheek. “Maybe it’s not. Maybe this is a chance for me to make amends and repair the damage I’ve caused.”
Rang is tempted, but knows he shouldn’t fall for it. “Says the man who has always placed his woman over me.” The pain in his chest doubles in intensity. “How do I know you won’t leave me for her again?”
“Every minute with you is a gift,” Yeon says, deflecting the question. “I want you to know that I—”
“Enough!” Rang feels like he’s been tossed into a chasm. “Then why make a show of affection? Why act as if I’m important to you—”
“You are.” Yeon’s eyes brighten, as if he too is holding back his tears. “That’s one thing I can assure you of.”
There’s something about the way Yeon says this - the tenderness in his eyes conquers Rang, and he caves in and collapses in his brother’s arms, burying his face in the crook of his Yeon’s neck. Is this him surrendering to his weakness? Is this good? He doesn’t know. All he can feel is what he has been deprived of all these years, when Yeon’s arms wrap tightly around him, the reassuring comfort when Yeon holds him close.
“I should’ve been more considerate towards you,” comes Yeon’s muffled whisper in his hair. “I should’ve treated you better in the future—”
Rang springs back from the embrace. “Future?”
Yeon slowly nods, then begins telling him about how he ended up here. “Here—” He holds out the little black box full of pictures that lights up when he touches it. “This is something you left for me. Your—” He sounds as if he has a bad head-cold. “See it for yourself.”
When Rang does, the affection in his eyes for his brother moves him. “So… I die for you in the future.”
Yeon hangs his head. “I’m sorry. I should’ve protected you better.”
Oddly, the eventuality of his sacrifice doesn’t bother Rang. Something else does, though. “So you will be leaving soon.”
Yeon looks deep into his eyes. “I don’t know.” Rang can see he’s being honest about it. “I want to stay here, with you, but I—”
“You belong elsewhere,” Rang understandingly reconciles to it.
“But I’ll do my best to see to it that the future changes for you,” Yeon goes on, gently patting Rang’s head. “You deserve to be wanted and loved and—” Yeon pulls him back into an embrace. “I’m sorry,” he says, and Rang can feel those words in his heartbeat. “For everything I did to cause you this much pain.” Rang can feel his regret in his breath. “For not being there, for neglecting what I should have done for you, for—” His voice breaks. “For failing to be a good brother.”
“Hyung—”
“I care for you, Rang-ah,” Yeon gushes. “But I should’ve done better. I should have—” Rang can feel his brother’s heartbeat picking up. “Maybe - maybe I can find a way for us to stay together?”
“If not, we will meet again, hyung,” Rang says, his tears flooding out at last. “I promise you that.”
Yeon doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t have to. His soft sniffing, those tears that follow Rang’s, carry his remorse. They make vows Rang knows he won’t break; vows that assure him that he will be a better brother now and in the future. That he will love and cherish his dongsaeng forever.
Rang closes his eyes and eases in his brother’s arms. There might come a day when they’ll have to part company, but he doesn’t have to think about it right now.