The Lawyer Who Reads Tomorrow - Chapter 129

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 129

 

Mulhoe in this weather.

 

I looked at the bright red mulhoe placed in front of Sung Tae-jun and me, one bowl each, and thought of 404.

 

[404]: Yeah, have a safe trip~~~~

 

[404]: The consul will be bored thoughㅠ

 

Well, that was roughly the last chat.

 

Finding a caregiver seemed like something I’d need to look into more.

 

There wasn’t really anything I could do anyway.

 

I had left my guardian card with the hospital staff, including Han Kyung-ho, the attending physician.

 

“Let’s just have one meal together.”

 

That’s what Sung Tae-jun had said.

 

He had urgently grabbed me as I was about to leave the guardian rest room, and that was all he said.

 

Sung Tae-hyun’s heart was pounding erratically.

 

It couldn’t be helped.

 

So, this was truly something like an act of God.

 

“…Not eating?”

 

Sung Tae-jun stirred the abalone, sea cucumber, and fresh sashimi piled on top of the red thin ice and glanced at me.

 

“I remembered what hyung used to like… You always said we should come to this restaurant whenever we came to Gangwon Province.”

 

Did I?

 

Even if that were true, I had no way of knowing.

 

I’m Kim Wook-han, and I don’t know anything about Sung Tae-hyun’s past.

 

However, Sung Tae-jun’s face looked so pale as he said this that I had no choice but to nod.

 

“You remember all sorts of things.”

 

“…Hyung.”

 

The restaurant was bustling.

 

It seemed Sung Tae-jun wasn’t the only one looking for mulhoe with thin ice in this weather.

 

The sashimi on top of the cold ice was slightly frozen, neither fully frozen nor refrigerated, but I actually liked the chewy texture.

 

So Sung Tae-hyun liked this. Maybe it’s really true.

 

“Why.”

 

I looked at Sung Tae-jun while swallowing the sashimi that melted in my mouth as I chewed.

 

He was the one who suggested we come eat first, but he hadn’t taken a single spoonful.

 

Watching him just stare at the mulhoe that was slowly melting in the warm atmosphere of the restaurant, I pressed him.

 

“Why aren’t you eating? You must be full.”

 

When I asked casually, Sung Tae-jun let out a hollow laugh despite his extremely tense expression.

 

“…I know you’re still angry with me.”

 

Is that supposed to be words?

 

I was now chewing on sea cucumber.

 

He said this was a restaurant that Sung Tae-hyun liked. It really suited my taste.

 

When I started eating in earnest, Sung Tae-jun followed my lead and picked up his spoon.

 

Even so, he continued to watch my reactions.

 

“Tae-jun.”

 

“Huh? Yeah.”

 

“You said let’s eat. Let’s eat comfortably.”

 

“…Sorry.”

 

“I’m not asking you to apologize, just eat. We can talk later.”

 

However, whether my words sounded like pressure to hurry up and get to the point, Sung Tae-jun gulped.

 

Sung Tae-hyun was quite tall too, but seeing Sung Tae-jun, who was even taller and bigger in build, carefully watching my mood made me feel a guilt as if I was doing something terribly wrong.

 

Ah, that’s right.

 

This must also be Sung Tae-hyun’s emotion.

 

Sung Tae-hyun, who despite being cast out by his family, cared more about others.

 

“I just, I did that. Hyung.”

 

“What did.”

 

Sung Tae-jun put down his spoon again.

 

As if he had truly made up his mind, he looked at me with his gaze averted at about a 45-degree angle and carefully opened his mouth.

 

“I was too young back then.”

 

Ah, this is really.

 

“…So, hyung. You were like that….”

 

“….”

 

“Like that… I didn’t know you were suffering so much.”

 

Those words felt like the sound of forcibly prying open a door that creaked from not being oiled for so long.

 

* * *

 

“Are you going to make Mother suffer too?”

 

The sound of hyung getting beaten could be heard from the living room.

 

On such days, Sung Tae-jun would hold his breath like a half-dead person.

 

So the sparks wouldn’t fly his way.

 

So Mother’s gaze wouldn’t turn toward him.

 

“I really want you to die. How many hits will you take. You decide. How many.”

 

“….”

 

Hyung’s voice couldn’t be heard well.

 

Sung Tae-jun always huddled in the corner inside the room, trying not to listen to hyung’s voice coming from outside the door.

 

Groans or crying sounds, or if not that, pleading sounds.

 

Multiple sounds mixed together made his head feel hot.

 

“Hyung is really stupid too.”

 

Sometimes he would say such things.

 

When Mother left after leaving hyung collapsed.

 

Because it was frustrating to see hyung getting beaten without even being able to resist.

 

“Fight back. Talk back to Mother and say you don’t like it. Hyung. If you just put in a little effort right now, Mother would fall down. Why are you just taking all those beatings?”

 

He even yelled out of frustration.

 

Hyung never answered him even once.

 

He just obediently studied as Mother told him to, kept curfew hours, and got beaten again.

 

In the endless cycle, hyung looked like a slave performing his role.

 

That’s right. Like those slaves that would appear in textbooks.

 

“Because hyung just goes along with everything Mother wants, that’s why Mother acts even worse.”

 

“….”

 

“Because of hyung, I have to rebel even more if I want to go out too!”

 

Back then, I said things like that too.

 

Requests to extend curfew time never worked from the start.

 

Ironically, Mother was more cruel to hyung than to me when I came home late without notice.

 

Hyung never said anything.

 

He acted like a machine, doing whatever he was told.

 

Did hyung know that watching him was even more frustrating for the observer?

 

“Fuck, this is really frustrating. I heard other families’ older brothers step up first and break through those damn rules.”

 

At my contemptuous words, hyung muttered just one phrase.

 

His voice was so quiet I could barely hear it properly.

 

“…cause.”

 

“What?”

 

“…you’re pitiful, because.”

 

Who. Me?

 

But hyung didn’t answer.

 

“Sung Tae-hyun!”

 

At the end of each day, Mother’s voice, like an outburst of anger, always rang in our ears.

 

Sung Tae-jun always blocked his ears.

 

He would take out earphones and listen to music at maximum volume, or wear earplugs that completely blocked his ears.

 

That was the only way he could avoid hearing Mother’s high-pitched vibrations.

 

It was some form of torture.

 

Sung Tae-jun swallowed his curses as he watched hyung, who received the pouring violence without a single act of rebellion and then fainted.

 

Mother was absent.

 

“Stupid bastard.”

 

What’s the point of being good at studying?

 

Even after getting beaten like that, come morning he’ll stupidly smile while reading Mother’s mood, trying to cheer her up.

 

I can’t live like that.

 

Hyung, who grew up that way, couldn’t escape Mother’s grasp even after becoming an adult.

 

Slap-.

 

Even when my fully grown hyung returned after passing the bar exam with top honors, Mother struck his cheek without a single word of praise.

 

What was it that displeased her so much.

 

Hyung, who was hit for no reason, froze with his head bowed.

 

When I looked at hyung, yes. I was overwhelmed by the feeling of returning to that powerless childhood.

 

It was then that my body moved first.

 

“Please stop it.”

 

When I first stood in front of hyung to protect him, what kind of expression was he wearing.

 

“You… Tae-jun, you…”

 

Even so, hyung didn’t say thank you.

 

And what was Mother’s expression like.

 

Betrayal, or something deeper… no, I can’t tell.

 

Sung Tae-jun let out a sigh.

 

His entire childhood was like that.

 

Memories filled with emotions like guilt, frustration, and resentment from avoiding Mother’s violence by offering hyung as a sacrifice.

 

“Don’t do that anymore.”

 

On the day I first protected hyung, he said that.

 

That I didn’t need to do such things.

 

Right. Anyway, hyung is stupid, and it has nothing to do with me.

 

If he wants to get beaten, let him get beaten alone.

 

Being obedient to Mother without any resistance.

 

Even after getting beaten like that, saying things like “pitiful.”

 

All of that was hyung, not me.

 

And one day, after what felt like a very long time had passed.

 

“I lost my memory.”

 

Hyung changed.

 

Thanks to hyung, there were days when I didn’t have to receive Mother’s calls.

 

But from a certain point, hyung changed.

 

Mother’s phone calls telling me to do something about hyung piled up dozens of times every day.

 

When did it start? When did hyung change so drastically?

 

The last time I visited him. Hyung was. Sung Tae-hyun was.

 

“So now go home. It’s late, so be careful.”

 

A tired-sounding voice.

 

Despite having severe wounds on his neck, he wore an indifferent expression as if it belonged to someone else.

 

…He really had a face I’d never seen before.

 

* * *

 

“…I thought I hated hyung.”

 

Sung Tae-jun’s voice flowed out like a whisper.

 

Despite his large build, he was trembling without living up to his size.

 

As if noticing my gaze, he lowered his hands under the table.

 

Somehow he looked like a child confessing his sins.

 

Such a big guy, at that.

 

“Because Mother said so. That hyung did everything wrong, that hyung was the bad one, so if only hyung stayed quiet, we would all be… okay.”

 

“…”

 

“I knew it wasn’t true. Because hyung was always… kind. Yeah, I know. Hyung always lived quietly without ever rebelling once.”

 

I looked at Sung Tae-jun, who was gritting his teeth to avoid being swept away by his emotions.

 

How would Sung Tae-hyun have reacted if he heard these words?

 

I don’t know his life, but I can roughly infer from multiple experiences.

 

But would Sung Tae-hyun from that isolated childhood accept Sung Tae-jun’s apology?

 

“When I stood in hyung’s way. That too… even then, I was being brave.”

 

“You stood in my way?”

 

“…You forgot. That too.”

 

Sung Tae-jun smiled bitterly.

 

“Yeah… I suppose so. It was too long ago.”

 

Sung Tae-hyun couldn’t believe that his family was on his side.

 

He couldn’t have. Because that was the truth.

 

But Sung Tae-jun was different.

 

If he had stood by Mother’s side and just watched, it would have been peaceful for a while.

 

The peace that came at the cost of sacrificing Sung Tae-hyun might have been quite precious to young Sung Tae-jun.

 

“Still, hyung. If it’s not too late…”

 

Sung Tae-jun looked at me with desperate eyes.

 

The first thing I noticed was the mulhoe bowl that had completely melted in the restaurant’s warmth.

 

Unlike my bowl, which was somewhat emptied, Sung Tae-jun’s bowl looked barely touched.

 

“I wanted… to talk.”

 

“…What if I say you’re too late?”

 

Too late. That was the truth.

 

Because Sung Tae-hyun was already dead.

 

The person who should hear Sung Tae-jun’s apology and choose whether to accept or reject it was no longer in this world.

 

No, he did remain in the diary.

 

Whatever that was supposed to mean.

 

But at least I knew I couldn’t think like the real Sung Tae-hyun.

 

“…”

 

Sung Tae-jun slowly hung his head.

 

“If that’s hyung’s answer…”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“…I’ll accept it. I’m sorry, hyung.”

 

Sung Tae-jun kept his head down for a long time without saying anything.

 

I was the one in an awkward situation.

 

Choosing Sung Tae-hyun’s body wasn’t my will.

 

Getting caught up in this damn family history and receiving an apology that wasn’t even meant for me wasn’t something I had chosen either.

 

Still, I looked at Sung Tae-jun.

 

What would Sung Tae-hyun have done?

 

If this irregularly beating heart continued to evoke emotions akin to guilt.

 

Then perhaps continuously pushing Sung Tae-jun away wasn’t Sung Tae-hyun’s will.

 

“Tae-jun.”

 

I looked at him with the same feeling I had when I first met Sung Tae-jun.

 

He had suddenly come to the office.

 

Sometimes he would worry about Sung Tae-hyun.

 

Enough to abandon his work and come running after 404’s ridiculous text message like today.

 

“…Huh?”

 

Sung Tae-jun slowly lifted his head.

 

Damn, he really was just like a child.

 

Sung Tae-jun, who roughly wiped his reddened eyes with his sleeve in a way that didn’t match his age, looked like an abandoned dog.

 

“Too much time has passed.”

 

He nodded at my words.

 

“As I already said, I have no memory of it.”

 

“…Hyung. But I-”

 

“So an apology isn’t necessary.”

 

Child abuse creates other victims too.

 

Another child who watches the child being abused.

 

So Sung Tae-jun is also, in another sense, just another victim who couldn’t properly choose his own life.

 

“…”

 

Sung Tae-jun’s expression hardened completely.

 

He sighed and looked at me.

 

“…Sorry. I won’t bother you anymore, hyung.”

 

Look at this.

 

Even so, you should listen to what someone has to say until the end.

 

This time I grabbed the wrist of Sung Tae-jun, who was trying to get up with a hurt expression on his face.

 

“Don’t contact me just about Mother’s matters.”

 

“…!”

 

“That’s the most annoying thing.”

 

So, perhaps for the sake of Sung Tae-hyun who might still remain somewhere.

 

Leaving behind this much meddling.

 

“…Hyung….”

 

It’s just a kind of maintenance that I, who am unauthorized borrowing Sung Tae-hyun’s body, should do.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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