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It hits Yoojin out of nowhere.
He's helping Yoohyun pick a hanbok for Chuseok while Yerim has gone off somewhere with Sooyoung and Gyeol. Seol is sneakily giving Byeol all the candy she wants. Hwangrim came along, for some reason. It's a normal day.
But then, the tailor who took Yoohyun's measurements comments with his assistant that Yoohyun is taller than average, two meters tall. The assistant hums, a little impressed. Hyuna hears it and makes a joke about it. Yoohyun ignores it as usual.
Yoojin—well, he doesn't really hear anything.
"Hyung?"
He looks up. Naturally, he wouldn't notice it. Yoohyun has been much taller than him for years. Yoojin barely remembers the last time they were eye-level, even; how would he have noticed that Yoohyun has grown even taller? Yeah, right.
"Hyung," Yoohyun says again, urgency warming up his voice. "Did something happen?"
Everyone immediately crowds around him. Yoojin is thankful for the concern, but part of him wants to flee. He can't stop staring at Yoohyun. His brother has grown again, taller than when he—taller than before. Something sticky and burning hot lodges in his throat, scratching at him.
"It's fine," he blinks, turning his gaze away. "It's alright."
Gyeol's golden eyes are big with worry. Right, the children. He picks up his son and, avoiding looking at Yoohyun directly, he asks the tailor.
"Could you measure him again?"
…
The nightmares come like a wave. Yoojin's been avoiding sharing space with Yoohyun for the past few days, but when night comes, he drags his little brother by the hand and tucks him between him and the kids. Yoohyun doesn't utter a single word of complaint. Yoobin sometimes tries to climb on top of him, but Yoojin quickly takes him back.
As soon as Yoohyun closes his eyes, Yoojin opens his. Sometimes he sleeps after a few minutes, but those are only when he's too exhausted to persist. Most of the nights go with him keeping a watchful guard.
He knows the others noticed it. But this time, Yoojin really doesn't want to talk about it. There's only one person whom he wants to talk to, and that person is gone. While the kids are at the school, Yoohyun and Yerim are at work, and Peace is spending the day doing at Dodam, Yoojin sits on the floor and stares at the spear his brother left him. He doesn't cry. He doesn't even think about Yoohyun, stuck at twenty-five forever, and even that, only in his memories; he just watches.
"I…" he starts, but the rest of the words don't come out. He waits patiently.
Yoobin eventually starts crying. That's when Yoojin stores the spear in his inventory and moves on with his day.
…
Yoohyun, trying to be helpful and not invasive, obediently pretends nothing is wrong until Yoojin is so crippled with lack of sleep that he starts to have dizzy spells during the day.
"Something is happening," he says, ferocious. "You're absent the whole day, hyung. You walk around the house like a ghost."
A ghost. The word strikes a chord. Yoojin flinches back from his brother.
"A ghost," he repeats, the word coming out as a hiss.
He doesn't remember any recent fights he had with his brother. There was no reason to. The days have been peaceful; it's the life Yoojin always wanted. And now he's got it.
At the cost of Yoohyun.
"You know nothing about ghosts! Nothing!" he yells, feeling the words rattle inside him. That's right. The one with ghosts is Yoojin, always left behind. "Han Yoohyun, I'm your older brother, you have no right to—"
And then he starts crying. Not out of sadness, he's just so angry. At himself, at what the last few years have been. At the injustice of it all. His brother, Yoohyun, who fucking died.
Yoojin doesn't check Yoohyun's expression. He stares at his feet. He's wearing socks with Peace's paw prints. Thank god it's only the two of them at home. The children don't need to see their guardian scattering like a dandelion.
Yoohyun, not far from him, finally starts speaking.
…
He dreams of his brother often. The one from before.
There's a clear line that separates his brother now from back then. A Yoohyun who's cold like steel hardened by fire, totally different from his brother, who's warm like fire itself. Yoojin doesn't really have a preference, though. He just wishes he had clung to his brother's sharp blade a little more, even at the cost of a few cuts. Maybe today, he would have better memories.
Yoohyun from TV was as handsome and capable as Yoojin knows him. But there's a touch of deep indifference, a lack of life that made him almost unrecognizable. Yoojin remembers telling someone that he was just a brat playing pretend as a grown-up. Half of it was resentment speaking, but most of it was concern.
During the initial days of Haeyeon, when Yoohyun didn't have the luxury of delegating tasks and had to be at every hunter event to sell his guild as the real deal, his styling was overly serious. The clothes are too big, too dark. No one seemed to agree, looking at Yoojin with pity, the few times he brought it up.
But damn, that's what it was, wasn't it?
Being tall and strong didn't turn a child into an adult.
But that Yoohyun was also someone Yoojin wanted to bring back home, just like the Yoohyun who shut him out, and the Yoohyun who humiliated him, and the Yoohyun who sat back in their old home all by himself.
Yoojin can't help it. For as long as he's Han Yoojin, he'll be Han Yoohyun's older brother, and he'll love him. Whatever shape he may come.
And that's why—
…
"Am I the problem, hyung?"
"It's not," he says, immediately. "It's not you. It's me."
I can't look at you.
"Hyung is just surprised how big you've got, that's all."
Yoohyun stays silent for a moment, then says, very quietly. "Are you scared of me?"
"What? No!"
Instinctively, he looks up, staring his brother in the eye for the first time in days. There are a few differences; his hair is slightly shorter because of the summer. His eyes are warm, bustling with life.
Yoojin finally admits to himself that Yoohyun has grown past the brother he knew.
The Yoohyun who died in his arms, and the Yoohyun in front of him are not the same. They're torches of the same fire, but one is extinguished, long gone, while the other will hold strong, ever burning.
He tries telling Yoohyun that he's fine. He tries explaining himself, but it feels pointless.
His eyes are so hot that the tears dissipate.
"Yoohyun-ah," he starts and then pauses. He thinks of the spear, still in his inventory.
'My little brother,' he says it only in his head, only to himself, 'I still miss you so much'