Work Text:
r/AITAH
/Lee_Music
"Am I an asshole if, before my older brother's suicide, I yelled at him and told him it would be better if he never met his omega?"
Hi everyone, I'd like to say right away that I understand that I'm a jerk and all that. But I need at least the opinions of people I don't know.
I'm Heeyeong (24), and my older brother Heeseung (26) have been inseparable since childhood. We went to the same school, had mutual friends, and also shared a lot of interests. We both love music and dancing.
During my last year of middle school, I met Chaeyoung.
Chaeyoung is a very sweet omega. When she developed a scent in high school, I smelled cotton candy. It was a bit too sweet, but some people liked it.
Heeseung was already a senior at the time, and he started to distance himself from me.
He started coming home at night. I often smelled the strong scents of Alphas. I could tell from the smells who he was with. He has a group of friends from middle school. I know them all, so I calmed down afterward.
Heeseung always bought us some delicious breakfast in the morning after such evenings, so that Mom wouldn't have to cook. He bought it with his own money, which he was saving for an apartment near the university he wanted to attend.
And one day, Chaeyoung came to me and asked me to set her up with Heeseung. I told her I couldn't, because my brother didn't even know her by sight. She replied, so what, you introduce him, and then he'll find out.
I denied it for a long time, and Chaeyoung eventually found another Alpha.
Two or three years later, he found an Omega. My brother welcomed him.
The Omega was so beautiful and delicate. And he smelled like vanilla. The Omega's scent perfectly matched Heeseung's almond scent.
During dinner, we learned they were real. Our parents were also real, so they were very happy.
His omega was studying to be an elementary school teacher, and Heeseung was studying to be an IT specialist.
During Heeseung's fifth year, a company hired him, and even then, he was earning 5 million won. Creating websites was always a joy for his brother.
His omega was in his third year of university, so even though they rarely saw each other, they only saw each other at home in the evenings.
But they were always together.
They cooked together, slept together, shopped for groceries together, bought trinkets for the house together, and bathed together.
They did everything together.
Heeseung graduated when he was 23. His omega was 21, so he had two more years of school left, and his partner went to school to work.
His omega always loved children. He lived for them. At the time, our aunt had a newborn daughter, Hanim.
When she came to visit her mom and dad, his omega always picked the baby up and sat with her. He fed her, gave her water, played with her, put her to bed, changed her clothes.
He did everything so our aunt could rest.
And Heeseung always looked at him with eyes full of love. My brother always wanted a child. A girl, especially. He wanted to braid her hair and dress her in swaddling clothes. And watching his beloved omega fawn over Hanim so tenderly brought tears to his eyes.
But he never cried. Never.
When his mate graduated from university, he went to his old school.
There, he was given a form-master. The kids immediately took a liking to him, as did the parents of those kids.
Three months later, they had a small wedding. Only close friends and relatives were there. It was summer. At a beautiful restaurant.
Four months after our wedding, when Heesung was already 26, he called me late at night and asked if his omega was at my place. After all, his mate and I were very good friends.
I said no, and then I asked what happened, and he said his omega hadn't been home for 6 hourse.
And by then, it was already the middle of the night.
We were scared, I told my parents, and they started looking too.
Heeseung searched the streets, my mother called the hospitals, I called the police, and my father decided to go to the morgue.
Two hours later, my father's face changed dramatically; he turned completely pale. He called Heeseung, and he arrived 15 minutes later.
Mom and I also came into the kitchen, and Dad took Heeseung's hands and told him that his omega was in the morgue. He was dead.
And when his brother heard the news, Heeseung cried for the first time in his life. Really loudly. He sobbed. Then Mom and I started crying.
They called us from the morgue and told us to come and identify the body.
When we arrived, Heeseung saw the clothes his omega was wearing when he left the house. His white sweater, stained with blood, his blue flared jeans, torn near the groin. But his face was clean, without a bruise or a scratch.
Heeseung confirmed that it was his mate, and he stood over his omega's body, which lay on the cutting table, crying, his face buried in the bloody sweater.
The coroner told us they tried to rape him, but it didn't work, so they stabbed him six times and left him to die in an alley. A young couple returning home from a date found him there. They'd brought him in two hours earlier.
My brother had just dyed his hair black from his dirty blonde. Heeseung liked colorful hair, and his partner dyed it all the time. They'd just buy the dye and dye it. At the time of his death, his partner had dark red hair.
We talked with the coroner some more, and then a police officer came and gave Heeseung Omega's things.
They had a phone, a wallet, and a bag.
And what Heeseung saw in the bag made him squat down by the cutting table and start crying again.
In one of the bag's pockets were all the Polaroid photos they'd taken of each other on their anniversaries. There was a keychain with a hamster and a deer still unpacked. There were also a lot of children's drawings from his class. And when my brother picked up all the drawings, he saw a piece of mango cheesecake. And that's what made him cry. That morning, Heeseung told his partner that he wanted some mango cheesecake and wanted to buy one for himself after work but forgot. But Omega didn't forget and bought him the cheesecake.
Heeseung cried for so long that when he left the morgue, he was simply heartless. And when we got in the car, I looked at Heeseung, and he was completely lost. He was staring at his feet.
When we got home, we asked my brother to stay with us. But he took Omega's things and went to his apartment.
We don't know what he did there, since he didn't call or write to us before the funeral.
Arriving for the funeral, we saw everyone who had been at the wedding. But it wasn't just us; even the parents of the Omega students had come.
Heeseung looked neat and tidy, even wearing a suit. But it wasn't the suit he'd worn at his wedding; it was a different one. A new one.
When we entered the funeral hall, or as we call it in Korea, "zhang-ne-sik-zhang," we saw the coffin itself. It was a delicate white, with lots of flowers and wreaths behind it. And on the coffin was a photograph of his Omega with a black ribbon at the bottom. In the photograph, the couple were smiling.
When the ceremony began, I realized everyone was crying, even my brother, who I thought had cried his heart out.
Traditionally, the farewell ceremony should last three days, but my brother simply couldn't hold out.
So, a week later, we learned that the murderer had been imprisoned.
We hadn't seen my brother for three months, and we went to visit him. Honestly, when we walked into his apartment, we expected bottles on the floor. We expected Heesung to go on a drinking binge, but that didn't happen. My brother simply fell into a severe depression.
He went to work, shaved, washed, and cooked by rote.
We tried to persuade him to move in with his mom and dad, but Heeseung refused. And when his parents left, I yelled at him and told him it would have been better if he had never met his omega, and this wouldn't have happened. Heeseung looked up at me then for the first time, and I saw dark bags under his eyes. Realizing what I'd done, I quickly apologized and left.
And finally, two weeks later, we went to Heeseung's house and found him dead on the bathroom floor, his arms cut off.
He couldn't stand the loneliness. He simply killed himself.
We buried Heeseung next to his omega, as he requested.
And right now I'm really struggling; I'm afraid my mom or dad might die too. I don't think there will be any updates here. I don't know if I can.
Responses:
Silent_Philosopher_42 - 2 hours ago
You're not an asshole, we understand you. You lost someone important to you, and on top of that, these were emotions.
Professional_Procrastinator - 1 hour ago
You're not an asshole, you love your brother, and all this is just emotion.
Cyber_Raven - 1 hour ago
You're not an asshole, honey, these are all your emotions. You need to talk it out.
Lunar_Echo - 29 minutes ago
You're not an asshole, you need to talk it out with someone, or maybe even see a psychologist.
Tactical_Kitten - 12 m ago
You're not an asshole, I agree with the people above you. You should go to a psychologist or somewhere where people with the same problems as you gather.
Turbo_Hamster - 10 m ago
You're not an asshole, you're a good sister. You were just in shock and didn't know what to do, so calm down.
Update 1.
I don't even know where to begin.
Firstly, it's been two days since my first post. Following your advice, I went to see a psychologist. My first session was today, and I felt a little better. I was able to talk things out.
But after I returned from the psychologist's office, my mother called me over.
When I approached her, she told me that she had taken Omega Heeseung's bag to their place. She found something there. It was a pregnancy test. It turned out that his mate was pregnant, and he wanted to tell him on the day of his death.
And when they called the morgue and asked them why they hadn't told them about it, we were told that the pathologist had simply forgotten to tell us.
She also showed me a baby jumpsuit, a light blue one.
And there were wet stains on that jumpsuit.
And then we realized that Hisung had seen it and cried for a very long time. Sometime in the evening, while Mom and Dad were making dinner, I got a call from Jay, Heeseung's friend.
Heeseung was grooming himself because he said his mate wanted him to be handsome.
He said that before his death, brother didn’t drink only because his omega always said he didn’t like the smell of alcohol.
In fact, my brother didn't believe his omega had died the whole time before his death.
And before he died, Heeseung talked to Jay and said he was getting better, that he was beginning to understand that his mate wouldn't come back to him.
And then, half an hour after that conversation, he killed himself.
I miss my brother and his mate so much. So much. When I'm alone in my apartment, I can't sleep properly. I dream of them.
I see their wedding again, I see my first meeting with his mate.
I just can't take it anymore.
But for my brother and his omega, I will control myself. And I will recover.
There definitely won't be any updates, as I understand I simply won't have time for them all the time.
Thread closed by the author.