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Han Yoohyun knows that he’s different.
He knows that he doesn’t feel the things that most people do.
He isn’t an angry child. He’s heard his parents use that argument with the neighbours, when Yoohyun says things that make them gasp, when he gets into a brawl with a street dog and the dog ends up injured, when he walks over flower beds because they don’t look any different from the rest of the street to him.
He’s adjusting, his parents say worriedly. He’s an angry child. He just needs more time.
They say this in public, and in the privacy of their homes, they worry that Yoohyun isn’t human.
Yoohyun probably isn’t.
If being human means following an arbitrary set of rules that no one can for the life of them explain to him why he needs to follow—then Yoohyun definitely isn’t human.
Neither is he an angry child, because he isn’t angry.
He’s just here.
Where Han Yoojin sees people that he needs to respect and bow down to, Yoohyun sees people who are in his way.
Where Yoojin sees books that they can read together, Yoohyun sees time that his brother is going to spend reading him things he couldn’t care less about.
Where Yoojin sees a tree that they can climb to the top of, Yoohyun sees a tree that he could easily burn down.
Yoohyun knows that he’s different.
He knows that he feels things that make his family afraid.
But it doesn’t mean anything to him.
He can’t understand why it should.
It just feels like another arbitrary rule, that if someone fears the sight of Yoohyun’s face, then Yoohyun needs to change what he’s doing.
An arbitrary rule that he can’t tell the origin of.
There are too many rules like this that Yoohyun can’t keep track of. The strangest one he hears is that a family should love each other. A family should have dinner together, and talk about their days, and do things together that make them happy.
It’s an ideal that Yoojin seems to believe as well.
One day we should all go to the beach together, he’ll say, while he messily peels an orange for Yoohyun to eat. We can play in the water and collect seashells and find crabs on the shore.
It’s before they find out about his allergies, but even then—Yoohyun never understood this wish.
What was this hopeless want for four people who didn’t like each other to briefly pretend that they did?
What was Han Yoojin’s obsession with not seeing the reality of what was around him?
Yoojin denied it at every chance. When anyone asked, he said that their parents loved them, and that he loved his younger brother. When anyone asked, he said that they were an ideal family.
Han Yoohyun knows better.
He knows that their parents don’t love them.
As years go by, they’re home less and less.
And while Yoojin says that he loves his brother—Yoohyun knows that that isn’t true either.
What he does know is that Yoojin desperately wants to.
/
Sometimes he hears his brother crying at night.
It’s as strange as everything else his brother does.
Yoohyun watches him sometimes. He peeks in through the crack in the doorway. Yoojin has always been too afraid of being alone to shut the door while he sleeps, and their parents are too afraid of Yoohyun to let the brothers sleep in the same room.
So Yoohyun watches him in the dark, as Yoojin curls up in bed and tries to muffle his sobs.
Yoohyun doesn’t know why he cries. As far as he’s learned, from the stories that Yoojin reads to him, children cry when something is wrong so that anyone who hears them will help them. But that means that Yoojin has no reason to cry. Their parents would never help him. And neither can Yoohyun.
So what is his brother doing, pouring out his distress, in a world where it doesn’t matter if he’s heard or not?
Sometimes, Yoojin notices him watching him. He glances up through his tears and meets Yoohyun’s stare. His expression always crumbles after that, and he wipes his tears frantically and tries for a wobbly smile.
“Yoohyun-ah,” he’ll say. “Is something wrong?”
Yoohyun still doesn’t know how to answer that question.
He shakes his head instead.
“Do you want to sleep here?”
He shakes his head again.
Yoojin’s expression falters even more, as if he’s about to cry all over again. It puts Yoohyun off a little, so he turns to leave, back towards his own room.
He can still hear his brother crying, but if he muffles the sound by pulling the blankets over his head, sleep comes easy enough.
/
Yoohyun overhears his parents talking about them often.
Especially him.
His father is afraid of him, but his mother is outright terrified of him. She can’t bear to be in the same room that he’s in, she’s long since stopped putting him to bed. It’s Yoojin who fills in and does the things that Yoohyun assumes most parents do.
Sometimes Yoohyun enters a room while his mother is still in it, and he sees her visibly shake.
It doesn’t bother him.
It bothers his brother, but it doesn’t bother him.
Han Yoohyun knows that he’s different. He knows that that makes him unlikeable. But it works fine for him, since he doesn’t see the perks of being liked to begin with.
It’s easy enough for him to adjust to, but it’s harder for his parents.
Because his parents hate him, and wish he was never born—but they also hate themselves for feeling that way.
“It’s not us,” his mother is crying, as she often does when she speaks about Yoohyun. “It can’t be us, you’ve seen how everyone else looks at him. There’s—there’s something wrong with him.”
“I know,” his father says, just as miserable. “I know. But what can we do? What could we possibly do?”
“We can’t let him go,” his mother says. “He’s still our son, he’s still—”
“You don’t believe that.”
“I do. I don’t know how or why he turned out like this, but he’s still our son.”
“Maybe it’s kinder to him if we let him go. He knows that we don’t—that we can’t—you know.”
“How is it kinder?”
“We can’t even look at him. Maybe someone else would care for him.”
“They’ll kill him.”
“They wouldn’t.”
“They would. You know they would.”
There’s a silence, and Yoohyun almost turns to leave. But then the voices speak up again.
“Yoojin loves him though,” his mother says quietly. “I don’t know how.”
“I don’t know.”
“Why is he able to love him, when I can’t? My own son. I can’t stand the sight of my own son—”
“It’s not our fault,” his father says. “Honey, I think—I’m afraid that Yoojin isn’t normal either.”
/
One thing that Yoohyun learns fairly quickly in life, is that while his parents hate the sight of him and scratch his face out in photographs—Yoohyun is still cared for.
Not by his parents.
Never by his parents.
But by his brother.
Han Yoojin is still a child himself, but to Yoohyun he looks so tall. His brother makes him breakfast in the mornings, packs him fruits for a midday snack, helps him button his shirt down and brush his hair, and drops him off at school with a wave and a grin.
He pretends he doesn’t see the way the other children hurry to get out of Yoohyun’s way.
When he comes back to pick him up at the end of the day, and finds Yoohyun on a bench two streets away from the school because he hadn’t felt like sitting through classes that had even more arbitrary rules—Yoojin scolds him, but still stops at the bakery to buy Yoohyun something to eat because he’s worried that Yoohyun is sad that he doesn’t have friends.
When Yoohyun’s clothes don’t fit him anymore, it’s his brother who takes him to the store.
When the seams come apart, it’s his brother who tries to stitch the fabric back together, stabbing his own fingers on the needle too many times.
When Yoohyun trips over his own shoelaces and comes home with bloody knees, and doesn’t cry because he still doesn’t understand why people do—it’s his brother who bandages him up and starts tying his shoelaces with double knots.
Yoohyun is cared for, because Yoojin wants too badly to be a family.
But Yoojin isn’t cared for, because no matter how much Yoojin wants it—they’re not a family.
So Yoohyun lets him care for him. He lets Yoojin tell him stories, take him out for walks, buy him treats, show him the sky.
He lets Yoojin treat him like the brother he wishes he had.
But Yoohyun can’t do the same for him.
/
The strangest thing that Yoohyun notices about his brother is that he never gets angry at their parents.
He never feels like the way that they live is wrong, no matter how many times he comes home to an empty house.
Instead, he forces a smile, and starts searching the refrigerator for something to make them both dinner with.
“What do you want to eat, Yoohyun-ah?” he asks.
Yoohyun shrugs. It never matters to him.
Yoohyun thinks he could chew on a block of wood and have that be enough. But Yoojin insists that he’s a growing boy who needs his nutrients, and puts it upon himself to make sure he gets them.
Sometimes, on these days when the house is empty—Yoohyun still hears the crying, but it comes from their parents’ room instead.
He finds Yoojin curled up in their double bed, under their blankets, just a miserable heap that Yoohyun can’t even see in the dark.
He leaves him be, and falls asleep in his own room without much trouble.
The thing is, his brother wants to be loved.
It’s too obvious, in how desperate he is to be a good son. How he tries so hard to keep himself together when the weight on his shoulders is too heavy for any child to carry alone. It’s too obvious, in how he wipes his tears whenever he knows Yoohyun can see him, and makes him food, and tucks him into bed, and sings him lullabies if Yoohyun looks tired.
His brother wants to be loved so badly that it’s probably killing him.
Yoohyun has never understood him.
Why would someone hope this much for a feeling that he’s never even felt?
But the thing that Yoohyun knows is—if it wasn’t for him, their parents would love Yoojin just fine.
The thing that he knows is—his being here is the only thing making Yoojin cry in the middle of the night.
And yet, Han Yoojin keeps reaching out for him, keeps taking care of him, keeps spending time with him, keeps holding on to him with a death grip in hopes that if he holds tight enough, Yoohyun will want to be his brother.
In hopes that Yoohyun will want anything.
In hopes that somehow, in some way, Yoohyun will finally have a feeling in his chest.
/
Yoohyun knows what’s about to happen even before they leave the house.
“Let’s just take a walk, Yoohyun-ah,” Yoojin says softly.
There’s guilt in his voice already. There’s pain. There’s a ton of emotions that Yoohyun doesn’t think he’s ever felt, all directed towards him.
It’s freezing cold outside. It’s not a good time to take a walk.
Yoohyun instantly knows what’s going to happen.
But he lets Yoojin wrap him up in his winter coat—a coat that Yoojin had bought for him by saving up his allowance. He lets Yoojin wrap his own scarf around Yoohyun’s neck. He lets him pull his hood over his head with sad eyes.
He lets Yoojin put his hand in his and lead him out the door.
Yoojin rambles on as they walk, trying for cheer in his voice but sounding too distressed. He tells Yoohyun about how winters are getting colder every year, how the show he’s watching on TV has turned out to be boring, how maybe one day Yoohyun will have fun playing in the snow with his friends.
He rambles on and on, and Yoohyun lets him, because he knows that after this he will never hear his brother again.
When Yoohyun breathes out, he can see his breath freeze in the air.
He watches the snow fall gently, and barely listens to his brother’s nervous spiel.
Yoojin finally stops at a bus stop. Not the one they usually wait at, but another that he doesn’t recognize. They’re too far from their house for Yoohyun to find his way back without help.
“Yoohyun-ah,” Yoojin says, voice cracking. “Will you wait here for a second? Hyung will be right back.”
Yoohyun stares at him.
At the guilt in his eyes, the fear.
He nods.
“Okay,” Yoojin says, pushing him gently to sit. He wraps Yoohyun’s scarf tighter around his neck, and pats him on the head. “Just wait here, alright?”
Yoohyun nods again.
Yoojin takes a step back.
And another.
And then he turns and leaves hastily.
Yoohyun knows he will never come back.
The snow falls gently around him, making the deserted bus stop seem even quieter. Yoohyun watches it fall, swinging his legs slowly on the bench, wondering what he should do now.
He knew this would happen soon.
He knew it would happen, because Han Yoojin tried too hard to love him when Yoohyun wasn’t even human.
Yoojin cared for Yoohyun, but who cared for Yoojin? The only way for their parents to love him again was if Yoohyun was gone.
So this was how it had to end. Yoohyun had always known. Yoojin wanted a family, and for him to have a family—Yoohyun had to disappear.
But Yoohyun isn’t sure what to do now.
There are no more arbitrary rules to follow.
No one telling him to be home by 6PM, to not wander around at night, to eat three meals a day, to tie his shoelaces when he walks.
To go to school, to come back home, to clean up after himself, to go to bed.
There’s nothing left telling Yoohyun what to do.
He swings his legs some more, staring into the distance. He could do anything, then. But Yoohyun doesn’t know what that means.
It’s cold.
He does know that.
Yoohyun doesn’t feel a lot of things that he’s supposed to—but he does know that he’s cold.
The minutes tick past, and Yoohyun watches as adults hurry through the streets. They all look cold as well, hands buried in their pockets, scarves wrapped tight, deep frowns on their faces as they stalk past.
It bores him quickly, so he looks back to the falling snow.
He should probably find some place with heating to spend the night.
He doesn’t even know why he’s sitting here anymore.
It’s cold, but Yoohyun can’t bring himself to move.
And then—
The sound of hurried footsteps.
Yoohyun looks towards the sound, and—it’s his brother.
It’s Yoojin, holding his jacket tight around him as he rushes back towards the bus stop.
Yoohyun’s eyes go wide.
“Yoohyun-ah!” Yoojin calls, voice shaky. “Hyung is so sorry, I took longer than I expected.”
Yoohyun just stares at him.
Yoojiin was never supposed to come back.
They both know this—as long as Yoohyun is here, Yoojin will never have a family.
Yoojin places his hands over Yoohyun’s shoulders, gripping them tight, as if trying to take in that he’s still in one piece. And then, without warning, he pulls Yoohyun into a hug.
He holds him tight against his chest, and Yoohyun can feel him shaking—as if afraid that if he lets go he might lose him.
“Hyung is so sorry,” he whispers again. “I’m so sorry. I never should have left you alone.”
Yoohyun stays frozen.
There’s something he can’t recognize rising in his chest.
Yoojin was supposed to leave him here. Yoohyun isn’t human. Yoojin wanted to be happy and this was the only way.
But Yoojin came back.
He came back for Yoohyun.
It doesn’t make any sense.
The feeling in his chest grows more and more intense, into something that Yoohyun can’t pull together. Yoojin holds him tighter, tears dripping onto Yoohyun’s shoulder.
“I’m so sorry,” he says again. “I’ll never let you go again.”
Yoohyun’s fingers twitch.
He raises his hands slowly, carefully, unsure of what he’s doing. This was never supposed to happen. All of this is wrong.
Yoojin was supposed to forget that he existed, but he’s crying into his shoulder instead.
Yoohyun carefully holds his brother back.
He’s never hugged someone before. He’s never wanted to.
But he isn’t sure what else to do.
He hears Yoojin’s breath hitch, as the feeling in his chest grows worse and worse, and he understands with a start what the feeling is.
“Hyung,” he says slowly. “You feel so warm.”
Yoojin holds him tighter, cries harder, and Yoohyun finally realizes—
This is warmth.
This is what humans feel.
Maybe this—this is what Yoohyun could feel, if he learned to be more like them.
He digs his fingers into his brother’s coat, desperate for more of this warmth. He doesn’t know where it’s coming from. He doesn’t know why he wants it so much.
But the moment he feels it he knows he can never live without it again.
He could never again live with all that emptiness in his chest, now that he knows what it’s like to feel something inside of it.
“Yoohyun-ah,” Yoojin says into his shoulder. “I love you so much.”
And for the first time—Yoohyun knows that he means it.
Yoojin loves him more than he loved the hope of ever having a family.
He loves him enough to come back for him, even when he knows that he’d be much happier if Yoohyun just died in this cold.
“Hyung,” Yoohyun says, trying desperately to get closer. “Hyung, you’re so warm.”
Yoojin rubs his hands up and down Yoohyun’s back, trying to warm him up, because he doesn’t understand. He thinks he’d left Yoohyun in the cold and that that’s it.
He doesn’t know that the cold had been inside of him.
That Yoohyun’s chest had been frozen solid.
But Yoojin is so warm. So warm. So warm—
Yoojin loves him.
“I can be your family,” Yoohyun says, trying to press himself impossibly closer to his brother. “Okay, hyung?”
Yoohyun doesn’t know what a family is.
Just that it’s another set of arbitrary rules, that for some reason Yoojin dreams of following.
He doesn’t know what a family is, he couldn’t care less what a functional one looks like—but if his brother wants it, and couldn’t let himself have it, then Yoohyun will build him one.
“We’re already family, Yoohyun-ah,” Yoojin says, in his broken voice. “What are you talking about?”
But he holds Yoohyun tighter, and lets Yoohyun hold him back.
The snow falls around them, harder and harder every moment—but the warmth never leaves Yoohyun’s chest.
/