Chapter 1 Part 2

Watching his uncle, who mumbled as if troubled and tapped his forehead with his fingertips, Jeong Tae-ui muttered to himself. “He likes experiencing misfortune, huh. A person who conveniently disappears just before such misfortune arrives without warning, what misfortune could he possibly experience? Indeed. That brother of mine will never even see the ‘m’ of misfortune his entire life.”

Jeong Tae-ui had an older brother born on the same day, at the same time.

Though they branched from the same root, his brother, who looked as unlike Jeong Tae-ui as a complete stranger, was terrifyingly intelligent. The word ‘genius’ wasn’t even enough to describe him.

If his brother hadn’t been so laid-back and somewhat indolent, if he hadn’t been someone with no interest in his surroundings or any ambition, to exaggerate a little, he could have blown one of the continents off the face of the Earth.

His brother, coveted even by UNHRDO, possessed exceptional talents ranging from humanities to science and technology, and even the arts.

Jeong Tae-ui, on the other hand, was ordinary. It would be more accurate to say he was slightly better than ordinary. In any case, he never fell below average in whatever he did. In some fields, he even heard himself described as excellent.

However, if Jeong Tae-ui was ever called excellent, it was the result of his own efforts. This was unlike his brother, who achieved top scores with less than a quarter of the effort others put in.

But Jeong Tae-ui had never envied his brother in that regard. While he might have thought it would be convenient, he never wished to possess his brother’s talents.

What Jeong Tae-ui envied about his brother was not his intellect, talent, or abilities.

What he envied was his brother’s luck.

Jeong Tae-ui’s brother, Jeong Jae-ui, was exceptionally lucky, to an extent that even his intellect, described as that of a genius among geniuses, couldn’t compare. To say he was born under a lucky star wasn’t enough; his good fortune was truly extreme.

Beyond the point where even if he was caught in a major accident, Jeong Jae-ui would miraculously emerge unscathed, not a hair harmed, to what extent did his luck go? When he was a student, he never properly received pocket money. Because he never needed it.

He generally had no materialistic desires, so he didn’t often need money. But if he suddenly needed to spend money and had none, Jeong Jae-ui would borrow a few coins from people around him and buy a lottery ticket.

That lottery ticket would then bring him precisely the amount of money he needed.

Everything was like that.

Beside Jeong Jae-ui, for whom such unbelievably extreme and absolute good fortune was a normal part of daily life, Jeong Tae-ui experienced an ordinary amount of good luck and a similar amount of misfortune, just like any typical person. It would be a lie to say he didn’t envy his brother’s good fortune in such a life.

As a child, he envied him so much it hurt his stomach, but once he grew older, it wasn’t to that extent. It was merely the general envy one feels for something wonderful and unobtainable.

Even if it was just ‘that much,’ for Jeong Tae-ui, who rarely envied anything, it was the only envy he felt towards others.

He sometimes felt envy and occasionally jealousy, but nonetheless, Jeong Tae-ui liked his brother.

That irritatingly fortunate individual, who had an incredibly brilliant mind, an excellent ability to use it, and even immense luck, didn’t even have an equally irritating personality. Though he had a detached, capricious, and enigmatic side, as a brother, he was normal. Normally affectionate and normally dependable.

He thought they were good brothers in their own way. …even if his brother remained enigmatic after living as siblings for over twenty years, perhaps all geniuses were like that, he couldn’t know. But maybe his brother hadn’t liked Jeong Tae-ui all that much.

Four days before his brother left, the night before that.

As he often did, staring intently at some complex blueprint that Jeong Tae-ui couldn’t understand, scribbling chemical formulas and molecular model diagrams beside it as if something had just occurred to him, then falling back into thought, even when Jeong Tae-ui approached right next to him and stared hard at the blueprint over his shoulder, he didn’t notice for quite some time.

Looking at the unfamiliar chemical formulas and numerical sequences, Jeong Tae-ui thought, “My brother has gone into some unknown world again,” and climbed onto the sofa next to him, taking out and opening an ordinary humanities book that he could understand.

It was a quiet and comfortable night, just like any other. After staring at the papers for a long time, as if exhausted, his brother pushed them aside, lay down on the wooden floor with a vacant expression, and gazed at the ceiling.

Perhaps a tired sigh escaped his lips then. He suddenly went and sat next to Jeong Tae-ui, who was on the sofa reading a book, and abruptly took Jeong Tae-ui’s pinky finger, saying,

“This here…”

And then he spread out his own pinky finger and continued,

“Here, between these two, there’s a red thread. Since we were born on the same day, at the same time, from the same belly, it’s natural, unavoidable even… But let’s cut it now.”

“…What?”

What was this sudden, incomprehensible talk? Even though his brother often swam in realms beyond his understanding, he had never before spoken such bewildering words to him.

It was a well-known fact that his brother did not possess an ordinary intellect, but at that moment, Jeong Tae-ui briefly wondered if his brother might not even possess a normal intellect.

However, his brother, with his usual calm gaze, spread his fingers into a scissor shape and made a snipping motion between his and Jeong Tae-ui’s pinky fingers. As if cutting the invisible red thread of fate that connected them.

And then his brother, as if nothing had happened, looked back up at the ceiling. Jeong Tae-ui stared blankly at him, still holding up his pinky finger. Then he blurted out a question.

“Brother… did you actually dislike me?”