"…Sharper than I thought.
Or maybe, because he’s a child, he can pick up on other people’s feelings more keenly.
"…Haram."
"Mm? What is it, Hyung?"
"If."
On impulse, I asked him:
"If Wooheon… Seolheon turns out someday to be a rotten kid who does bad things to you—"
The novel’s plot.
What’s going to happen down the line, and…
"Could you… not be friends with him?"
My hope.
"Huh? Not be friends? Why?"
"I mean, don’t even say hi. Could you go your whole life without seeing his face?"
"Hyung…?"
Haram hesitated—
Then suddenly snapped his head up and shouted.
"Weird!"
"Huh, weird?"
"Seolheon is a baby who can’t even talk! How could he do bad things to Haram?"
"N-no, I mean, when he’s older, maybe he could…"
"How does Hyung know what happens later?"
Because I read it in an R-rated novel, you brat!
…Which I obviously couldn’t say, so I fudged it.
"Anyway, I know."
"How?"
"I’m older than you, so I know everything."
"Hmph! Then Hyung! What snack is Haram going to eat tomorrow?"
"W-what, out of nowhere?"
"Hurry, guess!"
And just like that, a quiz started.
"Uh, cookies?"
"Wrong!"
"Then sweet potato or something?"
"Wrong, wrong! The answer is yogurt!"
"…How am I supposed to know whether you’ll eat yogurt or a yogurt drink tomorrow."
"See! Hyung doesn’t know either. So how do you know Seolheon is a bad kid?"
He doesn’t get it. That this world is inside a novel, and he might not be able to break free of the plot.
"Haram. This is like a weather forecast. Like how it’ll rain tomorrow…"
"It might not rain!"
But Haram keeps shaking his head.
"If it rains, we can open umbrellas!"
He even offers a counterplan.
"So Geonho hyung should give him a spanking!"
"S-spanking?"
"Seolheon’s the little brother, so if he’s bad, Hyung spanks him!"
Spanking, he says! Do you even know who you’re talking about!
"Even if I scold him, I doubt that’ll work on—"
I cut myself off and looked toward the baby in the cradle.
The Wooheon Baek in the novel is terrifying. Bloodless, tearless—a psychopath blinded by love and jealousy who committed murder and torture. The "obsessive mad top."
But the one lying there…
"Whether he’s the kind you can… deal with…"
Is a tiny baby.
Only a month old, downy and warm, unstained… a pure white baby.
'…Hold on.'
That internet post pops back into my head.
If Hitler were a newborn, do you "handle" him or let him live.
Separately, there’s the theory that failing to get into art school butterflied him into a war criminal. A comment floated up in my mind.
[Anon1: Just do hardcore early education from childhood and it’s solved.]
└ Anon2: ??? What kind of education
└ Anon1: Get him into art school and he’ll never become a war criminal. I’m upvoting. gg
Like Anon1 said… what if you sent him to art school? What if you backed him from early on so hard he became a master painter?
If you erased the very possibility that he’d lead war and genocide…?
"Ugh!"
A familiar headache suddenly struck.
[It wasn’t enough to steal my family and my position… and now you dare steal Haram, too?]
Wooheon Baek saying he’d been "robbed" by Geonho Baek flashes back.
"What! And Wooheon Baek’s archenemy, his older brother Geonho Baek, turns out not even related by blood?! An adoptee trying to swallow Baekil Group pulled that kind of heinous crap?! What a bat-s**t family…"
Then the muttering I did back when I read the novel comes back.
"The one who broke me like this… it was all because of you. Geonho Baek!"
And a new line streaks through my head!
'Right, that’s it! Wooheon Baek turned crooked in the first place because of his adopted older brother, Geonho Baek!'
The novel hinted that from childhood on, Geonho Baek secretly abused and gaslit Wooheon, the biological son, to keep him down!
He was a sly, vicious character, so Wooheon’s warped personality was basically a foregone conclusion…
Sure, that pathological obsession with Haram was partly inborn, but remembering the vast hatred Wooheon held for his brother, it’s not wrong at all.
"Haram."
"Mm?"
"Thanks! You just made me remember something insanely important!"
"Uh, o-okay?"
Why did you forget this, you idiot!
Why was I only thinking about running away. All I had to do was choke the cause first!
'If I—Geonho Baek—just do a good job, this is basically solvable!'
Suddenly I didn’t have to weigh the possibility of fleeing the psychopath and praying my next adoptive family would also be upper class.
Courage sprang up. Courage that I might actually coast and enjoy this life…!
"Haram, you’re a genius!"
"Whoa—Hyung! Why all of a sudden! I’m dizzy!"
I scooped Haram up and spun him around.
I felt like smothering him with kisses, but that would cross a line for Geonho Baek, so I held back.
Then—
"Uu…!"
Crying came from the cradle.
Those dark-blue eyes that had been watching us scrunched tight.
"Hyung, I think Seolheon doesn’t like that we’re playing without him!"
Haram stared at the baby, then blurted at me:
"Hyung, you hold Seolheon too!"
"N-now?"
"Yeah! Spin like before!"
"…He’s too little for spinning."
"Really? Then just hold him!"
That was hard too. Once I realized Seolheon is Wooheon, I’ve avoided even touching him.
But now it’s different.
'He is Wooheon Baek, but…'
At least the baby in front of me doesn’t spew curses, throw punches, or act coercive like that mad-top brat.
'He’s not the Wooheon I know—yet.'
He’s a life just born,
stained by nothing,
white as fresh canvas—
Snow.
"Seolheon. I’m going to be a good older brother."
I carefully lifted the baby—"Seolheon Baek"—and met his eyes.
"I will never torment you."
"…"
"When it’s hard, I’ll be your strength."
"…"
"If you do something bad, I’ll scold you—spank you if I have to."
"…"
"So you can’t become a bad person, okay?"
Did he understand me? He’s barely been born—no way.
And yet, as if in answer, I think Seolheon’s eyes glinted once.
Maybe I imagined it. Even so, relief seeped in, and a smile came on its own.
"Hyung! Then we’ll all play together, right?"
From the moment I heard young Haram’s innocent voice,
I decided to erase the name "Wooheon Baek" from my mind.
"Yeah, let’s play together. Haram, Seolheon!"
From the instant I gave this tiny snowball his name,
I believed the fate of the three of us would change.
[crashing surf]
A rough, foreign pier with waves pounding.
"Seolheon Baek."
"Haram Lee."
Two tall, beautiful young men faced each other—
And traded punches straight into each other’s faces.
Wham!
Watching a scene like something out of a noir film, I wept inside.
'I didn’t think it would change this much, damn it…!'
This is more than twenty years later—when I’m crying bitter tears of regret.
Time: early spring, before even the buds have set.
"Next, we’ll have a welcome address from the student council president."
Young students stood in neat rows in the school auditorium.
Kids wearing uniforms for the first time whispered in excitement—then fell silent, eyes shining, as a certain student stepped up to the podium.
"Whoa, is this real?"
"H-he’s crazy handsome…"
"Bet he’s a model."
"Idol trainee?"
The chattering freshmen shut their mouths when the student rapped the mic to test it.
Black hair, gray eyes.
A sharp jawline, shoulders spread wide, and long legs—despite the middle-school uniform, he looked like a twenty-something in a suit.
"He’s a one-hundred-percent Alpha, right?"
"Is that even a question."
"At that level, honestly he might be dominant Alpha."
Anyway: an insanely handsome Alpha male!
All as one, they stared, dumbstruck, at the student on the stage.
Then he smiled and spoke.
"Hello, freshmen. I’m a third-year at Sanok Middle School, and your 32nd student council president—"
His voice was low with weight, yet warm and kind, filling the hall.
"—I’m Geonho Baek."
"S-student president Geonho Baek!"
Another freshman came running.
"Please go out with me!"
I smiled and answered:
"Sorry. Physiologically, guys just aren’t for me."
"…Huh?"