Seo Hoyun was kind to me.
When Seo Hoyun was in his twenties and Seo Hojin in his teens—
after disappearing for a few days, he suddenly showed up looking exhausted and handed me the latest model of a cell phone.
When Seo Hoyun was in his thirties and Seo Hojin in his twenties—
he came back from military leave and suddenly brought walnut cookies.
All those gifts he gave over the decades had piled up neatly.
Noise-canceling wireless earphones so I could concentrate, a watch so I wouldn’t get looked down on anywhere, a luxury pen to reward me for studying well....
So there were moments when Seo Hoyun gave Seo Hojin gifts.
It was as if Hojin’s habit of not overspending somehow provoked him.
Every time, Hojin felt a bit embarrassed, but since it also made him happy, he accepted them without a word.
When he once said, “Why would you buy something so expensive?”, he got hit by a barrage of nagging—but in any case, those were days of brotherly affection.
However—
every once in a while, there were dangerous moments.
Those days could come with a creepy storm, or sometimes the sky would be perfectly clear.
Seo Hoyun would be tired or cheerful, but sometimes, his mood would drop like a free fall on a gyro drop.
When?
When he felt that he had ‘failed to do something.’
Especially when he drank—a man who normally didn’t even like alcohol—those were times to stay utterly silent.
Once, he had talked back, and Seo Hoyun had... (omitted)... anyway, he almost died.
“...You’re not going to do it?”
And now was ‘that time.’
A stinging smell of alcohol.
Toy parts rolling all over the floor.
Seo Hoyun sitting on the sofa, unmoving, just watching.
“...I’ll do it!”
Instead of saying, ‘Right now? Seriously right now? Sorry, I’m tired,’ or, ‘How can you throw a toy set at a twenty-seven-year-old and tell him to build it?’, Seo Hojin immediately sat down on the living room floor.
His survival instinct had kicked in.
Looking closer, he saw Hoyun had even bought assembly gloves so he wouldn’t hurt himself.
Gritting his teeth, Hojin put them on and quickly scanned the box.
It felt like it had been decades since he last touched Lego, but the old sensation came rushing back.
‘Seventeen hours. For a beginner, it’d definitely take longer.’
He reached for the pieces.
The instruction manual was nearly five hundred pages long, and his mind went blank, but he forced himself to stay focused.
‘There’s got to be a shortcut somewhere.’
Pretending to just flip through, he secretly opened the last page.
He wanted to see what the completed model looked like first.
If the outside looked fine, it didn’t matter how the inside was built—and if he skipped the inner parts, he could save time.
Just as Hojin began to get the hang of it, the smell of alcohol stung his nose.
“......!”
Before he could lift his head, a shadow fell over him.
Seo Hoyun had approached at some point.
He extended his long fingers, flipped to the front page, and whispered softly,
“Why are you looking from the back page?”
Goosebumps spread down his spine.
“...W-wow, I just wanted to see what the finished one looked like!”
Suppressing a scream, Hojin quickly answered and began assembling the first piece.
He resolved to do it properly, but his hands were trembling so much that he kept dropping the parts.
‘Stay calm, Seo Hojin.’
Just wait until he sobers up.
Once Hoyun’s mind clears, he’ll tell me to stop.
He might be insane, but he’s not someone who wastes time on useless things.
Or maybe he’ll doze off and collapse himself.
Clinging to that hope, Hojin kept assembling—until, an hour and a half later, realization hit him.
‘...I built it wrong.’
He had left out a piece that was supposed to go inside.
His fingertips trembled.
A glance at the manual made him despair.
To fix it properly, he’d have to take it apart and start... all over again.
‘Should I just pretend I didn’t notice?’
Thinking that his brother wouldn’t know what a spaceship was supposed to look like anyway, he glanced upward.
“.......”
“.......”
Seo Hoyun was staring at him through lowered lashes.
Without blinking.
He knew.
‘Damn it!!’
There had been countless times when Hojin had been proud of how sharp and intelligent his brother was—but right now, it was terrifying.
And judging from that glint in his eye, this wasn’t the alcohol talking.
That meant... his brother was completely sober.
His brother had lost it completely.
As he began briskly dismantling the pieces he had just put together, Hojin nearly burst into tears.
‘Is there no way out? Do I really have to finish this whole thing?’
Even the normally quick-witted Hojin couldn’t think straight in this disaster.
Desperately racking his brain, he finally came up with an escape.
“I... I’m hungry.”
If there was one thing his food-obsessed brother couldn’t ignore, it was that.
He looked up with the most pitiful expression he could manage—
but then, ding-dong, the doorbell rang.
“......!”
The sudden sound froze him, but he went to open the door anyway.
...There was takeout food waiting outside.
“Of course. We have to eat first.”
Blankly setting the food on the table, he glanced at Hoyun.
“Eat.”
Creak, creak—his movements were so stiff now he couldn’t even tell if his hands were still human or made of Lego.
He trembled as he shoveled food into his mouth.
Across from him, Seo Hoyun just rested his chin on his hand, staring silently.
“You’re... not eating, hyung?”
Afraid he’d choke, he asked cautiously.
Hoyun smiled faintly.
“Just watching you eat makes me full.”
“.......”
Every hair on Hojin’s body stood on end.
And so, he surrendered to fate and endured the torturous death of time.
Three hours in—
‘I should’ve killed that cousin bastard years ago....’
Five hours in—
‘I shouldn’t have even looked at that Lego in the store....’
Seven hours in—
‘Maybe I’m the one who’s wrong? Maybe he’s doing this for me?’
...Eleven hours in—
‘Assembling block toys is truly a magnificent invention! To make something like this—what a lucky man I am!’
By the time Hojin had become one with the Lego, dawn had broken—but he no longer knew if it was today or tomorrow.
“It’s... done! It’s done! Finally finished!”
“.......”
“Hyung! Look at this!”
Amazingly, Hojin, who wasn’t even bad with his hands, had finished after thirteen hours.
Behold—the eleven thousand two hundred and thirty-seven beautiful, grotesque, dizzying pieces he had completed!
“Yeah?”
And more grotesquely still, Hoyun, who hadn’t blinked once during those thirteen hours, nudged the leftover pieces with his foot.
“But why are there still this many parts left?”
“.......”
Honestly, who could possibly know if all eleven thousand two hundred and thirty-seven had been used or not?
Even Hojin was speechless.
Then Hoyun flicked the pieces one by one and tilted his head, puzzled.
“Did you build it wrong?”
If he tried to brush it off, Hoyun might tell him to dismantle and redo everything.
“Wait, here—here! It says so here!”
Hojin hurriedly found the manual that said [Extra pieces are included!] and held it out.
Hoyun let out a quiet hum, reading him.
“...You’re right.”
“See?! Hahaha, right?”
Thank god.
If he’d had to rebuild all eleven thousand two hundred and thirty-seven pieces, it would’ve been better to just swallow the leftover ones and destroy the evidence.
His brain completely fried from nonstop assembly, Hojin leapt up, feeling a violent urge to go outside and smoke—
“......Wow!”
—but seeing Hoyun watching him expectantly, waiting for a reaction, he forced a bright grin like a ten-year-old child.
“—That was fun! It’s been so long since we played together like this! I feel like the emptiness I’ve had since childhood has finally been filled!!”
“.......”
His emotions slipped out, and his words turned sarcastic near the end.
Hoyun muttered,
“...Emptiness?”
“——Unity! Uni! Ty! Look at these tiny blocks, once scattered, now connecting to be born again as one huge spaceship! It’s so beautiful! Maybe there’s a truth of life in here somewhere!”
He lifted the spaceship with trembling hands, cradling it like something sacred.
“...Pfft.”
Then Hoyun’s eyes curved in satisfaction.
To outsiders, it might’ve looked like a warm, affectionate smile.
“Do you like it that much?”
“.......”
Hojin almost swore out loud.
‘Mom....’
Why didn’t you give birth to me sooner...?
***
After sending Hojin, dark circles under his eyes, off to his room, Hoyun, now sober but exhausted from staying up all night, dozed for a while.
Then he got in the car and drove three hours from Seoul to the countryside.
“Ah, my head.”
He parked the SUV near a greenhouse.
Raindrops pattered softly outside as he looked at his phone.
[Why’s Seo Hoyun carrying around Lego lately?]
[No idea lol, can’t believe the stingy Seo Hoyun bought something that expensive...]
[Hoyun, you’re still weird and funny as ever, impossible to figure out.]
Ding!
[Do you... usually act stubborn when you drink?]
“No.”
His head pounded; he pressed hard on his forehead.
“I sobered up early on.”
[Right.......]
“But once I started watching him do it, it was kind of nice.”
[What, really?! Seo Hoyun!]
The system window popped up with cheerful sounds.
[I-I’m touched! You cared for your brother that much...!]
“No.”
He dug through the glove compartment, pulled out a candy, and said,
“Watching him hate it relieved my stress.”
[...]
He’d learned that Seo Hojin hated Lego.
Sinking deep into the seat, he chuckled faintly.
The image of Hojin sweating as he fitted the pieces together kept replaying in his head.
‘He’s just the same as he used to be when I see him like that.’
Feeling good, Hoyun hummed a tune, ordered another toy set, and opened a news portal.
【The Dawn’s Renewal Contract Approaching... WH/Daepaseong Remain “Silent”】
Teasing his brother had been enough fun. Now it was time to harvest fruit.
【What Happens to WH Stock if They Lose The Dawn’s Full Group?】
【WH Repeats “Still in Discussion”】
As expected, a storm was brewing after uploading the self-composed track.
Articles about The Dawn’s contract renewal poured out nonstop, and everyone involved was on edge—but...
“They’re trying hard.”
The one person who should’ve been present wasn’t.
After WH’s acquisition, the Daepaseong CEO had become a puppet, pressured and cornered by management interference.
Neither Hoyun nor any of the staff had seen him recently.
In other words, he was avoiding the situation.
Closing the portal, Hoyun rested his chin on his hand and looked at the message the leader had sent yesterday.
[Kim Sunghyun: Found the CEO]
[Kim Sunghyun: We’ll get things ready in Seoul]
[Kim Sunghyun: Drive safe, it’s raining]
At that moment, lights turned on in a modified container house near the greenhouse.
The tarp covering it kept the rain off well.
Inside, a man poured hot water from a pot, savoring the peaceful atmosphere.
“Well, well.”
Looks like he’s doing fine.
Feeling a flicker of amusement, Hoyun flashed his headlights once or twice in greeting.
From afar, the man paused and looked in his direction.
For good measure, Hoyun blinked the ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) lights once more, then grabbed an umbrella from the passenger seat and opened the car door.
“...What’s this?”
Squelch, squelch—
Stepping through the heavy rain, he approached the container.
The man froze in surprise rather than delight at seeing him again after so long.
“...Seo Hoyun?”
Hoyun looked down at the CEO and smiled.
From the look of him, he seemed to want nothing more than to sit comfortably and keep collecting money—
“You’ll get wet out here, sir.”
Unfortunately for him, Hoyun was a master of chaos.
Lowering the umbrella, he slowly, deliberately looked the Daepaseong CEO up and down and asked with a gentle smile,
“Have you been thinking about me a lot?”
