Chapter Text
‘What do you do at the end of the world?’
It was one of those questions that most people asked themselves at some point, that might even come up in late night conversations and drunken ramblings. Whether it was natural disaster, manmade ruins, personal tragedy, or an apocalyptic fantasy, most people had some concept of what the end of the world would be, and many had their thoughts on what they would do when it came.
At thirty years old, Han Yoojin already knew his answer.
Twice now, Han Yoojin had been asked the question. Twice now, the answer had been the same.
‘You lose your little brother.’
That said, he vastly preferred the first version - his younger brother a cold and distant figure, back turned and with the world at his feet - than the second. The version which Han Yoojin now cradled in his arms. Whose blood was still warm against Han Yoojin’s skin even as his own began to burn and boil with each notification from the system.
Somehow, time kept passing. The dungeon continued burning around him. Dust and ash drifted through the air while broken stone struck the ground. Somewhere behind him, the surviving heads of the dragon screamed.
The world kept spinning. Didn’t it know it should have stopped with the body in his arms? Life kept on, but the world had ended.
Han Yoojin had also learned his little brother’s response to this same question twice-over.
‘You protect your older brother.’
But Han Yoojin was the older brother, and he had no one left to protect. What he did have was the monster that killed his little brother, that hurt his Yoohyun-ie, and his brother’s memories seeping through his. Grief and loneliness, a longing so fierce it hurt more than his injured leg and other wounds combined, suffocating beneath eight years of silence and loss. A love so vast that Han Yoojin’s body almost felt too small to contain it. And beneath it all, another impulse, a quiet, steady drumbeat that matched the pounding of his heart.
‘Burn.’
Han Yoohyun’s secondary answer to that question, the one he had first thought the day the dungeons broke before remembering his older brother waiting for him. It sparked and grew in the back of his mind, a steady tempo through his skull, his chest, his throat, a second heartbeat alongside his own.
‘You can burn it all down. Burn everything.’
Han Yoohyun’s last wish, nestled alongside his impossible desire to protect his useless older brother.
And after everything, after knowing all the ways he hurt and failed his poor little brother, how could Han Yoojin deny him?
So he gave into it. Into the black fire sparking and writhing within his heart, his veins. Into the memories of grief and fear and lovelovelove that burned through him more than the flames themselves, stripped of every restraint Han Yoohyun had placed upon it during his too-short life. Into the last fading echoes of his little brother, fanning them back to life within himself, sacrificing his own self to do so.
The last fading echoes of his little brother clung to Han Yoojin, and Han Yoojin clung back.
If keeping them - keeping him - meant feeding himself to the fire, so be it. Han Yoojin would fan the flames with his own life if he had to.
He wasn’t long for this world, anyway. He’d rather keep Yoohyun-ie with him until he left, in whatever form he could.
With double an S-class’ powers burning through his F-rank body, the dragon didn’t last long.
One head opened its jaws. Black flame poured inside the gaping maw before it could release its poison, the monster recoiling with a pained roar. Another lunged, only for Yoojin to move with speed he’d never had before, easily dodging as a spear born of black flame and blood formed in his hand. He knew how to shape the fire, where to strike, how much strength it would take to tear through scale and bone. He would know even if he hadn’t obsessively studied every single moment of his brother’s life these past eight years, every interview and video clip and news article.
Han Yoohyun knew. And so, for these last few minutes, Han Yoojin knew too.
When the dragon finally collapsed, Yoojin let its poisonous blood run beneath his feet as he returned to his brother, each step painfully slow despite his new speed.
He was the only F-class in the world who had ever slain an L-rank monster. So what?
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, nothing except the bloody form of his little brother, smiling slightly for the first time in eight years even as he lay cold and still. Han Yoohyun should never be cold. It was wrong, wrong, wrong. Why was Han Yoojin still warm when Han Yoohyun was growing cold? Why was his useless heart still beating when the better of them lay silent?
The blaze within him soared higher, the drumbeat louder.
Lovelovelovelove.
What was the point without his dear little brother? What was this guy thinking, leaving him all alone?
And what about the world outside, the world that had pushed them into this situation, that caused their eight years of suffering and his little brother’s death? The world that would blame him for living while his brother died, that had no idea what his brother had suffered and sacrificed all these years. Why should that world exist when his brother-?
[You have performed an impossible achievement!]
Han Yoojin blinked, still clutching the limp form of Han Yoohyun to his chest, fingers and clothes sticky with cloying blood.
What?
[You have single-handedly hunted a dragon!]
Single-handedly? Had the system slept through the beginning of the battle? Did they mean ‘single person to survive the dragon’? How could they miss Han Yoohyun’s contribution - the head he gave his life to destroy, all because of his foolish older brother -
[You’ve earned a Legendary Title: [Dragon Slayer]]
Great. Make it an epitaph on his tombstone and bury him with his brother, then. It could be a new attraction for hunters once this dungeon was reset.
[As your reward, you will be given ten gate stones, five tier-1 enchantment drafts, the Red Dragon Greatsword, Bane’s Egg, and a Wish Stone that grants any wish once!]
…Any wish? Anything?
That was another question most people had wondered about in their lives. If you could have anything, what would you wish for? What should you wish for? Money, power, ending poverty, common answers that everyone considered.
If asked before today, Han Yoojin might have been one of the many that said world peace. After all, a safer world meant a safer Han Yoohyun.
But that only worked if there was a Han Yoohyun in it. And at the center of every wish Han Yoojin had ever made, there had only ever been one thing, one person. My brother, happy and healthy. My brother, my brother, my brother.
“Give me back my brother.”
[Anything but bringing back the dead!]
“Then what use are you?” Han Yoojin scoffed, strangely hot tears still leaking from his eyes, vanishing into steam as they dripped down his cheeks. “He’s all I want. If you can’t give me that, then burn and rot for all I care.”
More than an hour had passed since Han Yoohyun’s death. Unnoticed by the grieving hunter, Han Yoojin’s blood still burned black.
Something, the administrators realized slowly, was very wrong. Han Yoohyun’s transferred abilities should have disappeared. Final Thanks had completed its function. Yet, the black fire still burned, winding itself more tightly around Han Yoojin’s soul.
Not that Han Yoojin would have cared, even if he had noticed.
“Then turn back time,” Han Yoojin declared, glaring at the screen before him as though he could see the administrators through it. “Send me to before my brother died - no, before I ever awakened. I’ll stay away from the dungeons from now on and live quietly. Han Yoohyun will never need to worry or get hurt again because of me.”
[Are you sure you wish to turn back time?]
“Yes. Anything, just let my brother live.”
[Your wish will be granted.]
Han Yoojin bent over his little brother’s body, holding more tightly even as his hands began to fade. For one impossible moment, even knowing it was impossible, he felt his brother holding back.
Then, in a flash of light, Han Yoojin vanished.
In the world left behind, before a dragon could steal him, before a white bird could arrive, both Rauchitas and Han Yoohyun’s bodies were consumed by the still-burning sea of black flame.
Elsewhere, a group of system administrators watched as code interwove with code, as the last embers of Han Yoohyun clung to Han Yoojin instead of dying, and hoped that their last minute recalibrations would be enough.
When Han Yoojin next opened his eyes, he was lying on the sofa of his younger brother’s office.
For several seconds, he couldn’t breathe.
His hands were empty.
The weight that should have rested against his chest was gone, There was no blood cooling beneath his hands or sticking to his clothes, no black fire consuming his veins, no ruined dungeon around him.
Only a familiar room he hadn’t expected to see again.
Han Yoojin knew this sofa. He knew the ceiling above it, the stylish furniture, the faint scent of smoke that had always trailed after Han Yoohyun. He tried summoning the system with a thought, but nothing appeared.
Impossibly, the wish stone had worked. He had turned back time five years, to before he ever entered a dungeon with those crooked awakening brokers and become an even greater burden on Han Yoohyun.
The faint ‘click’ of the lock was the only warning he had to announce the entrance of his little brother as Han Yoohyun burst into the room. His brother was lecturing him, but that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, except the young Han Yoohyun before him, alive and still burning bright.
Everything Han Yoojin had intended to say disappeared. All he could do was reach for his brother, and cling with all his might.