The Regressor Only Protects Me [EN]: Chapter 219

219. Finale (6)

As expected of one of the strongest players in the league, Kang Junho recovered quickly.

Of course, his body might have recovered, but he was still trapped in Jin Jaehee’s barrier, unable to move and only able to growl.

“You. I won’t let this go.”

“Stay still. Do you want to get hit again?”

When Jin Jaehee clenched her fist, Kang Junho flinched and lowered his head.

What’s with the ‘love taps’?

Two ‘love taps’ and he’d be a corpse.

As he stepped back, Jin Jaehee unclenched her fist and nodded slightly.

“Yes. Stay still like that.”

Then, another force was felt.

It was a familiar scent and power.

Jin Jaehee turned her head to find him.

Kang Shion, who had been collapsed until now, was standing up before she knew it.

“Shion?”

“Hyung!? Hyung!!! Hyung!”

Jin Jaehee quickly sensed the change in Kang Shion’s emotions.

Jin Jaehee’s heart sank as she looked at Kang Shion.

Shion, who had never shed a tear in his life, now stood before her with tears welling up in his left eye.

Something must have happened.

Jin Jaehee immediately ran to him, rushing over but asking calmly.

“What’s wrong?”

But he only looked around without saying anything. She was worried about him and asked.

“Why… why are you crying…?”

When Shion showed tears, Jaehee didn’t know what to do. If someone who never showed tears no matter what suddenly cried, the worry doubles. But Shion bit his lower lip and composed his complicated feelings.

She doesn’t know how devastated Kang Shion feels right now. Jin Jaehee had no way of knowing the feeling of having to say goodbye to her friend forever, right in front of her.

But Jaehee had to remain unaware. The fate that befell them.

Shion smiled slightly and asked, a clumsy attempt to hide his feelings.

“Am I crying?”

It was a strange answer. In this situation, it would have been okay to gloss over it by saying ‘I’m okay’ or ‘I wasn’t crying.’

Jin Jaehee nodded and said.

“Yeah. You’re crying now.”

“Oh, really? I didn’t know.”

Kang Shion wiped away his own tears. In fact, he didn’t even know he was crying.

“Did you go somewhere again like last time?”

Jaehee brought up what happened in Bitnam. Like that time, Shion fainted, and after that, something changed.

No, it definitely changed.

Suddenly.

Jaehee gently grabbed Shion’s wrist. Her eyelids trembled slightly. She couldn’t feel the power of the artifact from him.

“You…”

But Jin Jaehee couldn’t finish her sentence.

Because Kang Junho, who was trapped in the barrier, shouted.

“Hyuuuung-!!!”

Shion and Jaehee simultaneously looked towards the sound.

Junho was banging on the barrier with his hands.

His eyes and expression were completely different from before.

As the contract with the Absolute Being was forcibly terminated by Kang Shion’s choice, Kang Junho’s mind returned to normal.

Junho’s desire to become a higher-dimensional being, even if it meant killing his brother, was entirely a corrupted emotion caused by the contract.

“Let me out! Please let me out of here!”

Kang Junho hit the barrier even harder.

Jin Jaehee, unable to watch any longer, removed the barrier, and as soon as it disappeared, he ran to Shion.

Junho shouted to Shion as he ran.

“Hyung-! Get away from that woman! That hyung [term of endearment for an older male, used by a younger male] is a contaminated bitch! She’s a demon trying to drag hyung into the abyss, so… !”

Junho ran to Shion.

The moment Junho almost reached Shion.

Slap-!

A sharp sound rang out.

Shion slapped Junho’s cheek as he ran.

Junho blinked blankly with his head turned.

Shion had never laid a hand on Junho in 13 years.

Even if it was clearly Junho’s fault, Shion chose to reason with him.

He thought that was the right way.

But now he realized that it was the wrong way.

When it was time to scold him severely, he had to scold him severely.

Kang Shion was strongly disciplining him now.

“Stop it.”

“…Hyung?”

Kang Junho finally turned to look at Shion.

“I think I’ve raised you wrong so far. When dealing with you, I think I lived too much by burying my own thoughts. Just as there is a person named you, there is also a person named me. And as much as I cherish you… I cherish her too.”

“…Hyung.”

“I’ll decide who should be by my side. And I’ll decide my future. It’s none of your business whether I stay here or not.”

Junho shook his head at his brother’s harsh words.

“If we go back… it’s like a sewer…”

“Was the life we lived together like a sewer?”

At that moment, Kang Junho was startled and strongly denied it.

“N, no! I!”

“Then why are you saying that the time we spent together was like a sewer?”

“That’s!”

Kang Junho glanced at Jin Jaehee.

At this moment, Junho wished that Jin Jaehee would at least cover her ears.

Junho didn’t like it.

He didn’t like strangers who weren’t related by blood interfering in his brothers’ affairs.

As Junho stammered, Shion took another step forward and shouted again.

“I’m asking you why!”

Kang Junho’s expression distorted at Shion’s loud voice, and then he shouted.

“I, it’s obvious. Poor and difficult. There’s no way that life is better than now. This… This isn’t something I’m insisting on, is it? That’s what the world has decided. Our impoverished lives have been decided by the world. Here, hyung is above everyone, and has a lot of money? Th, that’s! It’s something we can’t do if we go back to reality! Here!”

“…Have you tried?”

At that time, Shion’s voice lowered.

Kang Junho was startled and flinched. Shion asked again in a strong tone.

“…Have you tried? Have you tried in that world? Did you fail? Couldn’t you achieve your dream? A life like a sewer? A loser’s life? Have you made money? Have you starved? Even if I couldn’t feed you expensive things like others, I raised you by feeding you good things, things that are good for your body. Was it not enough? Back then, you were only thirteen. You want to make a lot of money…? Do it. Do it. Fame? Power? Anything! Do it. Hyung will help you. You said you would send you to college? Did I lack anything? Enough to describe it as a sewer?”

“…”

“Can you be sure that you can’t do it without even trying? Can you be sure that that life is more unhappy than this life? You haven’t done anything, Junho. You haven’t even entered society yet, and you haven’t even started studying? Have you taken an exam? Have you had an interview? Have you failed in business? The fact that it’s absolutely impossible to reach this position in that life… is not what the world has decided, but what you have decided yourself?”

At Shion’s words, Kang Junho was stunned as if someone had hit him in the back of the head.

In fact, Kang Junho was only trying to choose the easy path.

Even if it was the wrong path, it was easier, and he was already walking that path because he had already achieved it.

But this world is wrong. That was a fact that Kang Junho also knew. And Shion clearly pointed that out.

“If you think like that, I have nothing more to say. …Let’s go.”

Shion turned away coldly, grabbing Jin Jaehee’s wrist. Kang Junho despaired at the sight of his brother.

“…”

Junho sat down on the floor and stared blankly at the floor. Jin Jaehee, who was walking beside Shion, looked at Kang Junho and asked Shion again.

“Are you okay?”

“…”

Shion didn’t answer. He just kept walking forward silently. In fact, he couldn’t be okay.

But it was a necessary process for the two brothers. Especially for Shion.

At that time.

“The bathroom that day!!!”

This time, Kang Shion, who was walking away, was surprised at Junho’s words. Shion turned around and looked at Junho, who was sitting there in despair.

The incident in the bathroom.

That was when Shion tried to end his life alone. In the end, Kang Shion stopped the act because Junho came out in his sleep.

The next day, Kang Shion asked Junho out of guilt.

To forget what happened last night. But Junho, who was young at the time, said to Shion.

‘What happened?’

So Shion thought that Junho wouldn’t remember because he was asleep.

But no matter how young he was, Kang Junho always remembered that memory as if it were yesterday.

Kang Junho’s face was distorted with sadness.

“You thought I wouldn’t remember…? I remember… Every night… Every morning! It comes to my mind. Since when… I opened the bathroom door whenever hyung disappeared. Morning and evening. Even after the league started, it became a habit!!! I was afraid hyung would die…”

Junho wiped away the tears that were pouring down like a waterfall. Moreover, his words were slurred with sobs.

That memory was Junho’s trauma.

A trauma that can never be erased.

Junho thought that the reason why his brother had no choice but to make such an extreme choice was because of money.

Because he had no money, because his social class was low, because he was at a loss for what to live for, because the future was too scary.

So Junho desperately tried to raise his social status and make a lot of money.

To prevent his precious brother from making such a choice again.

“I… I… have never been unhappy living with hyung for a single moment. I was happy. But… But I just thought that this world was a better world for our brothers. That’s all… Hyung, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I’m sorry for swearing back then. I’m sorry for complaining about nothing. I’m also sorry for treating hyung’s precious person carelessly. Back then. I’m most sorry for making hyung bear everything… for making him take all the responsibility… Hyung must have had a hard time back then too. But I…”

Suddenly-!

At that time, Kang Shion hugged Kang Junho.

Kang Junho opened his eyes wide and looked at his brother in his arms.

“I’m sorry.”

It was just a short sentence.

But for the two brothers who shared the same past, it was a word mixed with rich and complex emotions.

Kang Shion hugged Junho even tighter. And he said again.

“I’m sorry.”

Junho’s arms were limply dropped to the floor. Shion confessed his true feelings to his younger brother.

“I shouldn’t have left you alone in that room. I didn’t even know that you were going to the bathroom because of the trauma you had as a child. How hard it must have been. I’m sorry for showing you a bad side. No matter how short of money I was, I should have taken you out of that house full of trauma. I only thought about money too much. My petty thoughts made you like this. It’s my fault. It’s my fault. I regret not buying you a common smartphone and not giving you pocket money. I should have bought you chicken at least once a month. I should have bought you jajangmyeon [Korean-Chinese noodle dish]. I should have bought you good sneakers and good clothes. Junho. I don’t want you to be oppressed by money anymore. Both of us. Let’s just… live happily without any worries… Money is not important. Neither is honor nor power. Can’t we just be satisfied with the life we’re given and live happily? Hyung. I’m a really incompetent hyung, but. This hyung will do well.”

Kang Junho composed his emotions in his brother’s arms.

Not at all. No. It’s not enough.

Rather, he has a brother who is too much for him. In fact, money is not a problem for Kang Junho at all. In fact, Junho wanted to help his brother’s life, who was always worried about money.

He wanted to save his brother, who was exhausting himself because of money, by making a lot of money.

He wanted to save his brother, who was succumbing to power because of money, with the same stronger power.

He wanted to save his brother, who was despised by others because he had no honor as a middle school graduate, an orphan, and a day laborer, by gaining higher honor.

That’s all.

How great of an evil emotion would a thirteen-year-old Kang Junho, who only had his brother in the world, have had?

Thirteen-year-old Kang Junho only created the current Kang Junho.

Kang Junho then hugged his brother even tighter.

He began to sob, putting his nose on his brother’s solar plexus like he did in those days.

(To be continued in the next episode)