Chapter 9: I Am Not Your Brother
771 Words
They didn’t speak in the car.
Not during the ride back, not as the doors closed behind them, not even as Min-woo wordlessly dismissed the staff and led her into his private study, locking the door with a soft, deliberate click.
He turned, slow, silent.
The room was dim. Lit only by the fire licking at the hearth and the soft amber glow of a reading lamp.
“Talk,” he said.
Yena didn’t move.
He studied her—not as a brother. Not as family. But like a man staring down a puzzle that could burn him.
“I’ve watched you every day since you woke up in that bed,” he said. “And I’ve known—known in my gut—that something was wrong. That the boy I raised is gone.”
He stepped forward.
“But this… tonight? That woman? Her eyes when she saw you? She wasn’t looking at her friend. She was looking at a ghost.”
Yena clenched her jaw.
“Who are you?”
She didn’t answer.
Min-woo’s voice dropped lower. “You’ve been walking like someone who’s survived a war. Talking like someone twice your age. You don’t blink when people scream. You don’t flinch when people bleed.”
Another step.
“You’re not him.”
Yena raised her eyes slowly.
“I’m not.”
Min-woo stilled.
“I’m not your brother,” she said. “Not in the way you think. Not in any way.”
She stepped closer, each word falling heavier than the last.
“My name was Kim Yena. I was thirty-five. I lived in a world torn apart by fog and fire and red rain. I fought every day for ten years. I was a woman who died alone on a rooftop, ribs split open, hands covered in blood.”
Min-woo’s breath hitched.
“And when I woke up… I was in this body. His body. Your little brother’s.”
He didn’t speak. Just stared.
“I’m not possessed,” she said. “I’m not crazy. I’m just someone who remembers a world that hasn’t ended yet.”
Min-woo’s eyes darkened.
“You’ve been pretending all this time.”
She shook her head. “I’ve been trying not to break.”
He moved toward her again—something different in his face now. Not fury. Not horror.
Desire.
"You’re not a boy,” he said, voice low.
“No.”
His eyes dropped to her mouth.
"And you’re not mine."
"No."
But his hands reached anyway.
One cupped her jaw, slow, reverent. The other pressed against her lower back—warm, steady, unbearably male.
Yena sucked in a breath.
It had been so long.
So long since anyone had touched her with care, with intent, with hunger that wasn’t survival.
And now, in a body that wasn’t hers, she burned.
She reached for him like a starving woman—fingers threading into his shirt, clutching it, dragging him down.
Their mouths met hard.
Not soft.
Not sweet.
His lips were warm, commanding. Hers desperate. It wasn’t a question—it was a demand.
His tongue parted her lips and she let him. Let him in. Let him devour. Let him take.
She moaned against his mouth, low and shocked at her own reaction—how her whole body ached under this touch. How this frame—this stolen skin—craved him like a match craved flame.
He pressed her back against the bookshelf, and she arched into him.
Yes.
God, yes.
This.
This is what it means to be touched.
This is what it means to be alive.
His hands roamed her sides, her ribs, like he didn’t know where to worship first. Her legs trembled.
She pulled back only when air became a necessity.
They stared at each other—both of them breathing hard, stunned, wrecked.
Min-woo’s voice was hoarse. “What happens now?”
Yena didn’t answer.
Because outside, through the floor-length windows behind them, the sky split like it had the night she died.
A bloom of red unfurled behind the clouds, silent and massive—like something waking from a long, angry dream.
Min-woo turned slowly to look.
Yena watched the color flood his face, not from the light—but from realization.
“It’s started, hasn’t it?”
Yena nodded once.
“Yes.”
He turned back to her. His voice was low, dangerous, reverent.
“Then stay close. Whatever you are. Whoever you are. I’ll burn for you.”
She let out a ragged breath.
And in her mind, the memory of death was finally, momentarily silenced.
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- Writer
