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Rok Soo opens his eyes and sees an unfamiliar room.
He frowns. It is not the familiar plain ceiling of his apartment, or the ceiling of his office. His eyes look around, slowly scanning the expensive-looking room.
It is bigger than his entire apartment. Spacious and luxurious. Ivory walls with intricate designs along the seams between the wall, ceiling, and floor. Beautiful and expensive furniture is placed around the room in such a way that it could have come straight out of an interior design magazine.
Two large windows are covered by thick curtains that were slightly parted to let natural sunlight into the room. Particulates of dust float within the sun's beams. The bed is in the middle. The material of the bed is softer than anything he's ever felt before. Soft, plush, and a whisper of fabric on his skin. The room carries the gentle scent of flowers.
He pushes himself up from the heavenly bed, the soft sheets that had been covering him pool around his lap. He notices that he is wearing a comfortable, loose white blouse that feels soft to the touch. It is definitely not the clothes he wore last time.
...Is he kidnapped?
Rok Soo frowns, searching his memories for the last thing he had done.
He was on his day off, reading a novel series he had borrowed, "The Birth of a Hero", and fell asleep while reading it.
So... where is he?
The kidnappers must be rich to put a prisoner inside an expensive room. Though he is sure he isn't in Korea. There are no buildings like this after the apocalypse. He doubted whether they were even there before the apocalypse.
The design looks very Western. It reminds him of the fantasy settings in novels.
He looks to the side and spots an expensive vase atop the bedside table.
Inside the vase are freshly picked flowers.
A thick bouquet of red spider lilies, with a few scattered sweet pea flowers.
Rok Soo frowns.
Something feels wrong. Not just the kidnapping, but there is something… unsettling.
His instincts are telling him that something bad has happened.
Rok Soo slips out of bed and toward the bathroom. Catching sight of a flash of red in the mirror, he steps forward and stares.
That is… his face. But everything else is wrong.
He looks younger. Paler skin, sunken cheeks from malnutrition, tired eyes, and a decidedly younger face.
And his hair. It is long, reaching towards his shoulders, yet falling like silk as if it were washed regularly. Long, soft, and red.
Did somebody go through the effort of dyeing my hair red?
Rok Soo brushes a hand through his hair.
It doesn't feel like it. Perhaps an Ability? Something that had turned him back to his 18-year-old self and changed his hair colour.
He hopes this is just someone's twisted fantasy. It wouldn't be very good to explain this to his team. If they got past the initial introduction/explanation, then they would endlessly tease him with jokes about being small.
Not his fault that he was a small child. Even as a young adult.
Right now, his body shape is similar to the one he had before his Team Leader found him. Thin, feeble, and he looks like a breeze could knock him down.
Rok Soo looks around the bathroom.
Strangely, it doesn't look well-used. Used, yes. In the sense that it is clean, with toiletries atop a marble counter sink. Yet it seems too clean. Like somebody doesn't use this place very often.
A guest room, perhaps? But the soaps on the counter look used, indicating that somebody has been here regularly.
Deciding to take advantage of the situation, Rok Soo searches for a clean change of clothes and a towel.
During his bath, a maid will come into his room. She will be shocked and horrified, voice shaking as she stammers out "Young Master Rok Soo".
When Rok Soo meets her, he sees the expression of shock on her face. The horror and fear that spreads through her eyes.
And then, right after, a bitter sense of sorrow. As if she is looking at both a miracle that came with a price.
And Rok Soo… will soon come to understand why. After Deruth— Count Henituse from the novel he had read before falling asleep— bursts into his room, sobbing into his hair as he clung onto Rok Soo with desperation and… grief.
Rok Soo will understand when he catches sight of Ron— the assassin disguised as a butler— standing by the doorway with a stiff expression. Tense lines of muscles that keep him stiff, brought on by a mix of emotions that are desperately trying to be suppressed.
Rok Soo understands when he asks a question, after piecing together where he is and who these people are.
"Where's Cale?"
The hitch of Deruth's voice and the shattered sob right after tell Rok Soo everything.
Somehow, Rok Soo has transmigrated into the world of the novel "Birth of a Hero".
And somehow, Cale isn't here.
Poison.
Cale had been poisoned.
At least, that's what Ron says. It was Ron who had found Cale, dead on his bed, as if he had just left the world peacefully. Rok Soo didn't know what to make of the man. He was Cale's butler. The Head Butler of the family, even. He was the one who raised Cale since he was a child. The one who had been close to Cale, even during his trash phase.
Ron doesn't seem to know how to react when Rok Soo asks to see his brother. They hadn't moved his body. Not yet. They just found out, not a minute after the maid entered Rok Soo's room. Knights have been called to search the perimeter for any sign of breaking in. Any sign that the killer would have left traces that could be tracked down.
A logical conclusion to think that somebody with a vendetta against Cale would try to assassinate him. But it also does not make sense.
Cale was a minor villain. He only had one appearance in the novel, very early on. One interaction where he was callous with his words, then promptly beaten by Choi Han for it. He was an angry drunkard who threw things at people, usually thugs and criminals who dared cross his path. But aside from property damage, he didn't hurt anybody.
There was no reason for anyone to want to kill Cale. This world, with all of its hardships, is the type of world where murder can be covered up, and the perpetrator would go unpunished. Usually out of family disputes.
So it doesn't make sense for Cale to be targeted. It doesn't make sense. Why?
Deruth tried to stop him. Tried to tell Rok Soo that he shouldn't see his brother in such a state. Likely under the belief that Rok Soo is fragile, and seeing Cale— his twin brother— dead would hurt him. Possibly send him back to whatever state he had been before he woke up in this body.
Rok Soo pulls away. Not harshly. Calmly. A cool slab in the face of Deruth's panicked grief.
"I want to see him," Rok Soo insists.
He has to. He needs to see Cale.
Ron leads him to Cale's room. Knights are guarding outside. Maids and servants linger in the hallway, hovering but not daring to come close. Their eyes catch sight of him, and they whisper. Rok Soo stares.
They look sad. But not… in grief. Not sorrowful. Not wretched as if they had lost somebody precious.
They look similar to the faces of the people who attended the funeral, but do not truly know the dearly departed. Surface-level sympathy. The shared sadness of a lost life, but not the grief of losing a person.
Rok Soo ignores them. He reaches out for the doorknob; the door is left ajar. A hasty act, yet there was an attempt at privacy.
Opening the door, he sees an opulent room. It is exactly as the novel described it.
On the bed, lying on top of the sheets with his eyes closed, is Cale.
Exactly as the novel described him. Short red hair, an angular face, a fit body, and is overall very handsome. The sharp edges of his face have softened, making him look like a young adult. His skin is pale, completely devoid of life. It makes him look almost doll-like. A porcelain doll, as if he is a life-sized marionette that had never breathed in the first place.
There's no injury. No sign he had been in a fight. The date confirms it. This is before Cale would meet Choi Han and get beaten up by him.
So why is he dead?
Rok Soo stares at the serene face of the man he had read about in a novel. The man who is his brother in this world.
Something inside his chest, a space behind his ribs, writhes.
It claws. It scratches his insides like a monster trapped behind a veil of skin and bones. It snarls, screams, and shrieks as it drags nails across the inside of Rok Soo's body.
Outwardly, his calm expression remains unchanging, even as his body thrashes in agony.
It is not a physical pain. Those, while he hates getting hurt, are something he can just wave off. Pain is pain.
But this? This hollow feeling carving its way through Rok Soo's stomach and chest? This uncontrollable wave of agony wants to escape but cannot, because Rok Soo is defective. He is incapable of reacting to pain the right way.
Distantly, he wonders if this is the real Rok Soo Henituse, reacting to the sight of his brother's body. If this pain is him, trapped inside of Rok Soo, unable to cry for his dongsaeng.
Rok Soo inhales through his nose, filling his chest with air. He turns to Ron.
"You said he was poisoned?"
Ron, looking composed but obviously shaken and angry, hiding behind the mask of professionalism, answers.
"Yes. The young master had been healthy last night. He had visited his— your— the late Countess' grave before returning home. No sign of harm or anybody stalking him. He had been safe until he reached the estate."
Safe. Was he truly? How much time had passed between Cale returning home and the assassin sneaking in to poison Cale?
Rok Soo looks around the room, eyes sweeping through everything with focused observation. There is a bedside table. Solid wood, with elegant carvings that showcase a master's craft. Atop it are specs, as if there had been something there before it had been taken away.
Green, red, and purple.
Petals and leaves.
"How can you be sure he was poisoned?"
Ron doesn't react to his calm, borderline toneless voice.
"There are plenty of poisons capable of a clean death."
His own voice is calm as he speaks.
Rok Soo's eyes roam to a shelf. There are books on it, an assortment of it that doesn't appear to have a set theme. He steps towards it.
His feet hardly make a sound as he walks on the carpet. It is soft and plush, with his feet sinking into the material and sucking every sound from his body. Adjusting his gait, his steps turn silent. Soundless.
Rok Soo stops in front of the cupboard, eyes staring at a section of the books. The books are typical of those he expects to find in the room of the heir of the household, yet strange at the same time.
A couple of plain spines that look untouched. A journal that has been used a few times. Some textbooks. A novel.
Yet it feels so… hollow. Impersonal.
It had been disturbed recently. A section of it that isn't as dusty as the others.
He pulls out the books, holding them in his hands as he stares at the shelf. At the back is a wall of wood.
Rok Soo reaches forward and brushes his cold hands along the back of the shelf.
"Young master?"
He pushes his hand in the middle of the wood, right over a knot in the grain.
Click.
A section of the wood clicks open. Rok Soo pulls it out to reveal a small compartment. Inside is a single opened glass vial, the size of his thumb. There is a hint of something purple sitting at the bottom.
He takes it out and turns toward Ron.
The butler has turned a shade of white.
Rok Soo holds the vial between his fingers, staring silently at the butler as his mind rushes to fill in the blanks in the puzzle. His eyes flick over to the soft carpet that absorbs all sound, to the shelf that hid an open vial of mysterious liquid, and the crumbs atop the bedside table. He looks at the body that has been untouched the entire night. The young man that had died peacefully in his sleep.
Painless. Silent. Undiscovered until the next day, when it is too late to save him.
The room feels hollow and cold. Yet it is so loud.
Or is that his mind screaming at him?
"Ron," Rok Soo feels his throat is dry as he speaks quietly. "What is the significance of red spider lilies and sweet pea flowers?"
Ron chokes. No sound came when his knees failed him. The carpet absorbs all sound like a hungry void.
Rok Soo doesn't react as the screaming in his mind grows tenfold.
Subtle symbolism had never been his strong suit. Yet somewhere, deep in his mind, he knows the answer to that question.
Sweetpea— Farewell, gratitude, pleasure.
Red spider lily— final goodbye.
Another thought slides into his mind. A detail of this world that he had read about in the novel. In this world where magic exists. Where people get transmigrated, gain powers through sheer force of will and skill, and where deities are worshipped as real entities instead of abstract concepts.
"Ron, the God of Death is real, isn't he?"
A choked sound escapes the butler.
Rok Soo remains silent as he stares at the vial in his hand. Fragile. Cold. So damning in what it represents.
"What did you do?" he hears Ron's horrified whisper. "Cale, what did you do?"
He paid the price.
Rok Soo clenches his hand around the vial, just shy of breaking the fragile glass as something in his chest cries out in agony.
He paid the price. He made a deal, and he paid it with his life!
Not for the first time, Rok Soo hates himself for being incapable of shedding a single tear.
His soul cries anyway. A piece of him hollers out into the empty voice, unheard as it screams out in agony and despair. It screams for a lost soul that he loved more than anything. For the soul that was traded so the other could live.