Chapter 105 – The Core of the Past (5)
“Would you like some water?”
Stion asked.
The purpose was to ventilate the atmosphere.
Whoever could see Starchis was excited,
In a state of excitement, it was impossible to have a straight conversation.
From now on, they had to share their stories about their parents.
It’s an emotional story, but
The more that happened, the more Stion wanted to talk without emotion.
“Didn’t you hate my parents too?”
Starchis asks, lightly ignoring his brother’s suggestion his.
“I hate you.”
Naturally, he replied.
Stachis didn’t understand.
“Then why… “
“Why do you know their information?”
“…Okay.”
-Smart
-‘Stion, can I prepare some tea for you?’
Sayra asks outside the door.
“Two drinks, please.”
Stion answered toward the door.
As if he forgot Starchis, who was impatient in front of him.
Starchis felt his patience his running out.
The anger he experienced the day before is welling up again.
It was a strange feeling.
Stachis thought he was rather patient with his anger, but he was trying to feel similar anger two days in a row.
In particular, even though he was more careful because he knew what kind of regrets the anger of the previous day had made him feel, he naturally couldn’t deny the feelings.
Maybe it’s because he’s been stabbed in the weak spot two days in a row.
Feelings of loneliness that originate from parents.
He did not like this weakness being touched in this way.
Stachis looked at his brother with cold eyes.
The older brother who received that look said the obvious truth.
“Information… I looked for it, so there is information.”
“…Brother.”
“Ultimately, it’s for us.”
“If it’s for me…!”
After calming down the once loud voice, Starchis continued.
“…I’d rather not hear from them for the rest of my life. So that I can forget…!”
“…That doesn’t make sense.”
“What?”
“Do you think you will forget?”
“…”
“It’s been 10 years or more since we left our parents’ arms, have you forgotten?”
Stion’s words reminded him of his father that his walking towards him with his fists clenched.
The thickness of his eyebrows, the mole on his face, even his angry expression.
Rather, it seemed to become more vivid as the days went by.
“We are imperfect, brother.”
Stion scratched his head shyly and said.
“I only admitted it a few years ago. After losing all of my party members and being nicknamed the ‘King of Survival’.”
“… Hyung, that’s… “
Stachis tries to spit out words according to his feelings of his, but becomes cautious.
If loneliness is Starchis’ weakness,
Stion’s weakness is the incident in which he lost all of his party members.
He digests his words once in his head and then speaks softly.
“What the hell does that have to do with my parents… That… Wasn’t your fault…”
“… At first I thought so too. There was nothing I could do differently. Even thinking about it now, yes. No matter what I did, the results wouldn’t have changed much. I would have survived.”
Stion shrugged his shoulders.
“But you can’t think like that. Everyone, died and I was the leader. I’ve been thinking a lot about my problem. It’s starting with the little things. Why did you become a gatherer? Why couldn’t I live contentedly? Why did I keep wanting a higher grade…”
Staring blankly at the table, Stion continued.
He was slowly rubbing his hands together.
“Until now, when someone asked that question, I answered, ‘Because it was possible,’ but there are many things in the world that are possible but not done. Even so, why did I only receive more difficult requests, and why did I have to lose all my old friends?”
Stion speaks after a brief silence.
“…Well… It was because of my parents.”
“…That’s…What…Is…Reckless…”
Stachis was disappointed by his brother’s words.
It seemed that he was blaming others for his pain.
How should I come to that conclusion?
He still couldn’t understand.
“… Does that sound like..?”
Stion admits he left out a lot of things.
It’s a bit sensitive topic, so if he can
I didn’t want to talk.
Forcing his brother to face his weaknesses
He doesn’t even get it right yet.
I was ashamed.
It’s a weakness, but that’s what it is.
Stion added an explanation.
“I think I wanted to tell my parents.”
Opening his arms, he speaks proudly.
“Look at me.”
Something burns in his eyes.
Anger, or resentment.
“Look at how successful the child you abandoned has become. Look what kind of person I was. Please see, I beg you, regret it.”
Stachis was unfamiliar with his brother’s true intentions.
He thought he did n’t think of his parents anymore.
He thought of himself as an independent person who was not bound by anything.
Then, suddenly, I remember how much he had taken care of me and how carefully he had been.
“Didn’t you know I was like this?”
Stion asked as if he had read his mind his.
“Wounds, the more important people are, the more they hide them.”
Was it embarrassing to admit his weakness in front of his younger brother?
He rolled his eyes and stroked his chin once.
“I looked for my parents once. When I asked the agency, it was done right away.”
Now, he looks into the distance and shakes his hand.
Then, softly, he squinted his eyes.
It seemed that he was not looking at a window, but at some scene.
“…I heard that they both died. I didn’t even hear how he died. Just… Dead. And as if the answer I gave was true, the desire to go higher as a gatherer has disappeared… Isn’t it futile?”
After saying that, Stion looked at Stachis with clear eyes as if he had come to his senses.
“The reason I don’t do dangerous quests anymore… It’s also true that I didn’t want to lose any more party members. But more than that, it was the lack of a sense of improvement. Because no one wanted to brag about my success anymore.”
“…”
-Smart.
Seira came into her room with two cups of her tea.
She watched them carefully,
She patted Starchis on the shoulder and asked for a favor.
“Whatever he said, know that Stion had no ill intentions.”
Curiously, her words softened her excitement slightly.
Maybe his excitement subsided when his older brother his, who was like his second parent his, confided in his weaknesses and inner feelings his.
Seira carefully closes her door and leaves.
Stion’s eyes his, enjoying the scent of tea, looked somewhat confused.
For Stachis, who chose silence, he asked softly.
“What do you have?”
“…What?”
Losing his voice that initially caused him anger, he answered as if in a whisper.
“What was your heart when you heard this news? You don’t know if their existence was your shackles.”
“…”
Starchis is well aware of his weaknesses.
Loneliness.
However, the news of his parents’ death does not fill the empty seat next to him.
It’s the same even if you think about it apart from the confused emotions.
Someone is missing, but loneliness cannot be filled.
Thinking of the lonely days and the hungry and cold nights makes me cry again.
“No.”
Stachis replied. There is no change whatsoever in him.
I wanted to say it firmly so that I could believe it, but my voice cracked before I could finish.
“Hey.”
Stion says.
“A festering wound needs an end. Even if you cover it up, it won’t disappear.”
For the first time Stachis hated his brother’s sermons.
He gets up and says
“I’ll take care of it.”
Turn around and head for the door.
“Starches.”
His brother’s calming call ignites his anger.
He wanted me to just let him go without touching him
It got harder and harder.
“Stop it!!”
He bites his teeth
Stion was pumping up the feelings he had forcibly buried.
“Brother…!! Yes, I know you cleaned up your wounds. He’s been helpful to his brother, so he understands what he told me. But, you know, your wounds and mine are different, right?”
Stion’s eyes trembled.
Even this was the first Starchis to see.
A pity appears on his brother’s face. It may be a pity
He couldn’t look at his brother’s wounds with an expressionless expression.
“Hyung, since we lost our purpose due to the death of our parents, things must have been sorted out. I!! Nothing has changed just because they died! My childhood is still a nightmare. It was cold, hungry… And lonely. Just because they died, how does my past change!!”
He kicks the chair with his foot.
The flying chair hits the wall and breaks
I heard the sound of Ade’s party members gathering in front of the door anxiously.
“Please just leave me alone… Huh? Just once, brother..!”
“…”
Stion also rose from his seat.
He slowly approaches and grabs the trembling Stachis’ hand.
“…I told you. It was a few years ago that I found out information about my parents. I left you alone for years.”
“…”
“… Are you going to get angry whenever you talk about your parents like this?”
“What?”
“I see this kind of violent reaction every time, so why don’t we put an end to this?”
“…”
“I’m okay. Even if you show such a strong reaction. We…You know? But who else will you talk to? I think you brought up the topic of your parents and suddenly you got angry.”
Stachis couldn’t resist.
Until recently, when Rose and the party members finished their first meal,
There was a time when Rose subconsciously gave off a feeling of intimidation when she asked about her parents her.
“I didn’t ask you to forgive me.”
Stion’s hand, which had been holding his, slowly came up and grabbed his brother’s shoulder.
“Let’s finish. So that you don’t get hurt anymore.”
****
– ‘If you don’t know how to live. Follow my brother He… Lives well alone.’
It was frozen that she would never see the face of her mother, who she left without regret.
I didn’t know it would be like this.
She was buried under the dirt and covered with green grass.
There were several flowers in front of the tomb, but they were not the ones Stion or Starchis had placed.
More than 10 years have passed.
She seemed to have made many connections during that time.
Otherwise, there would be no flowers in front of the grave like this.
She thought that if she was alive, she would have lived a miserable life, and if she died, she would have died on her way her and the body her was abandoned.
Starchis wanted to knock over the tombstone.
She ate garbage on the road and lived a dirty, stinky, lonely life. Unlike her, she seemed to have lived a happy life.
Far from ending, it only upsets her heart her.
“I’m fine.”
Stachis sarcastically tells Stion.
“Poof.”
And as if her brother’s behavior she was cute, the older brother burst into laughter.
Starchis sighs.
“Ehh.”
For some reason, it seemed like she was getting caught up in her brother’s flow of her.
Stion laughed for a long time, then wiped away his tears and patted Stachis on the back.
“Looking at you talking, it seems like you went back to the 6-year-old you?”
“…”
“I’ll give you some time, so let’s talk.”
“I have nothing to say-“
“Please, share a moment.”
Again, Stion said with an apologetic smile.
His face his looked as if Stachis’ wounds were his own fault his.
Seeing his expression like that, I could n’t say I did n’t like it.
If it was just pretending to have a conversation, that would be enough.
As I turned my head away from Stion to look at his mother his, Stion kicked and stomped away from the grass.
“…”
He was silent for a while, looking for something to say,
I feel Stion turn his head again and look at him.
“…How are you?”
Stion is still within hearing distance, so he raises his voice.
It was a question I didn’t care about or put my heart into.
The wind blows and caresses the grass and Stachis’ hair.
“I’m fine… Well… “
Starchis immediately realized that he had fallen into a trap.
Even if all that remains is the traces of my mother,
She couldn’t tell her that she was doing well even with empty words.
The days when I succumbed to the threat of the alley leader when my brother was away
The days when I was caught stealing,
And the self-loathing and misery I felt along with it all.
In an instant, it really becomes as sincere as her chatter with her.
Could it be that the bond of being a child was so sticky?
I didn’t know that the object I hated could elicit these emotions.
“…Well..”
One moment I feel fine, and the next moment my throat hangs.
He didn’t want to cry, so he untied his neck and looked at the distant mountains.
It was really annoying, but it was a good place to live.
Blinking my eyes to swallow the tears, I look around.
Stion was already distant.
He won’t hear him.
Starchis squatted down and whispered.
“…I was having a hard time.”
Take a deep breath.
“Huh…You abandoned me…It was hard enough to die. I know?”
The grave does not answer.
“How did you do that? How did you abandon me when I was just a child? My father left, and my brother also ran away, so how did you leave me in a situation where you don’t know when you’ll be back home?”
Thinking about that, it was as if her mother had left her to die.
She felt… Sick that she was the child her parents could die for.
“I almost died then. If my brother hadn’t come home just in time, I’d be dead.”
Imagine what her reaction would have been if she were alive.
She wondered what kind of emotions she would have abandoned herself and lived with.
Would I have completely forgotten about it and started a new life?
Would I have lived with regret?
I tried to speak, but my throat kept choking, and it was not easy.
He bows his head. An ant runs over his shoe.
The sunlight warmly caresses your neck.
It was quiet.
“… Were you happy? I prayed that you would be miserable, but if you were really miserable, there’s no reason why I would have been abandoned like that…”
Swallows saliva and cries at the same time.
“At least we lived well enough to selfishly abandon us, right? It should have been. If you did something that even animals would not do, you should benefit from it.”
It was also for himself.
It is for your own salvation.
If it was abandoned for no reason, it would be painful as it is.
He scratched his head.
Suddenly I wondered what the point of all this was.
After telling his brother that he didn’t do that, he was getting serious by himself.
He got up on his knees.
“…Only as much as I suffered in that statue…No. I hope you suffer in the other world as much as we suffered.”
Knowing the pain of that time, there was no curse worse than this.
But cursing didn’t make her feel better.
It seemed like all I had to do was do it.
I still didn’t know what the ending Stion was talking about was.
There is no change in thoughts or values.
He turned his body around and prepared to go back.
I could see my older brother’s back in the distance.
His back his, which he always tried to follow…
It still looks wide and sturdy.
Finally, she thought of something to say to her mother her.
“… I lived as you told me … Following his older brother.”
I followed everything he did.
Like she said, my older brother knew how to live, even the great position of A-class gatherer.
Obtained by his own strength his.
My brother somehow filled his wounds.
Stachis looks back at himself.
His wound his still had a huge hole in it.
-‘Hyung’s wounds and mine are different! Know?’
He remembers what he said to his brother.
Maybe the way I had to live was different, just like the wounds were different.
Maybe I’ve been wearing the wrong pants for too long to keep up with him.
My brother has been living in a way that allows him to heal his wounds.
Starchis himself doesn’t seem to be like that.
It seems he has n’t lived as far as his wounds and he will heal.
Just like my mother said,
It seemed that only Hyung followed the chaotic world.
At the little realization, he smiled.
“You only cursed me until the end.”
With that said, he approached his brother.
