That Summer Night at Twenty-One

When he opened his eyes, what he saw was a certain shape.

Even though it was night and the person was covered in blood, making it difficult to verify their identity, Ji An could instantly tell who it was.

Heat surged through his entire body. Why he was like this or where this place was right now did not matter to Ji An at all.

Driven by pure instinct, Ji An drew the sword hanging at his waist and lunged at the bastard.

I have to kill him. Right now, without fail!

The magic arts he had studied and researched all his life did not even cross his mind. There was only the sword. He felt he had to plunge the blade directly into that heart.

The opponent was completely defenseless. There was no telling if an opportunity like this would ever come again. His mind went completely blank, and his body moved purely on instinct.

At the very moment the tip of his sword was about to pierce the bastard’s heart.

“An!”

It was a familiar male voice.

Ji An froze. Except for the bastard in front of him, the only people who called him An were his family members. But all the men in his family were dead. That dog of a bastard had killed them all.

No, I killed them. Because of me, every single man in the family died and every single woman became a s*ave. Because of me…

“An, are you there?”

Ji An suddenly snapped out of his thoughts. He could hear the sound of the person approaching. He threw his sword away into the darkness and quickly backed away from the bastard.

“Ji An, why aren’t you saying… wait, who is that?”

The person who appeared was his second older brother.

Shim Ji Un. A brother who was one year older than Ji An. He was also the sibling who had shielded Ji An the most when Ji An rebelled against their parents after choosing to become that bastard’s companion.

– Father. I, my brother, and my sisters will all follow the will of the clan. So can we not just let this one undisciplined child live according to his own wishes? –

What had become of that brother?

Born as a descendant of the great Shim clan and pursuing the path of a military official, he had watched the family decline. Unable to withstand the bastard’s blackmail, he eventually had to marry the daughter of a translation official. That marriage became a perpetual laughingstock in the capital, and his brother ultimately had to give up his path as a military official. The noble families, tightly knit among themselves, ostracized and tormented anyone married to a translation official’s daughter. Without ever receiving any proper assignments, his brother was constantly framed for things that went wrong. In the end, when their father was framed for the assassination of the Crown Prince and executed as a traitor, his brother ended his own sorrowful life.

That very brother was now walking toward Ji An with a clear, shadowless face, asking, “Are you hurt somewhere?” as he began to inspect his body.

“You’re… you’re alive…?”

“Stop talking nonsense and tell me if you’re hurt.”

As Shim Ji Un examined his younger brother’s body, a cold drop of water fell onto the back of his neck. Thinking something was falling from the clear night sky, he looked up, only to be startled by the tears filling his brother’s eyes.

“Hey, are you really hurt? Where? Let me see. How did you get hurt? Did that guy do it?”

Shim Ji Un’s expression instantly turned fierce. The moment he saw that face, Ji An burst into tears like a child.

The older brother was a military official, and Ji An was a mage. One lived a highly structured life where he would defy death itself if given an order, while the other had lived the free-spirited life of a mage since the age of six, a lifestyle some sneered at as being no different from a troupe of wandering performers. Thus, it was difficult for the two to get along easily.

Ji An, who was as prickly as a pinecone to everyone, didn’t particularly find Ji Un uncomfortable, but Ji Un was always awkward around his younger brother, unable to even treat him like a subordinate despite being a year older. Even so, Ji Un had never once sent a single resentful letter to Ji An. Even when looking troubled, he had always taken Ji An’s side.

That brother was now alive, worrying about him once again.

“You idiot, don’t worry…”

Ji Un was taken custody by surprise at the sound of Ji An sobbing heavily. If one were to describe his younger brother, Shim Ji An, he was the textbook definition of a mage. Ji An possessed every single negative trait people typically associated with mages. He was fastidious, had a terrible temper, had to do whatever he set his mind to without exception, and would frequently shut his mouth in a pout, making his social life an absolute disaster…

Above all, he was a stubborn bastard who looked like he would never cry no matter what happened.

“Look at him calling his older brother an idiot…”

Is he really hurt somewhere? Like his head, perhaps?

Ji Un felt that Ji An would snap at him immediately if he noticed, so he casually pretended to check his body while groping the back of his brother’s head with his hand. It seemed like a plausible idea that his brother, with those slender legs completely lacking in muscle, might have tripped and cracked his head open while walking through the pathless back garden.

However, even when he touched it, Ji An didn’t say it hurt, no lumps were felt, and his hand came away dry, meaning there was no bleeding.

“Why are you worrying about me… Who am I for you to… for you to worry about me…”

I killed you. I caused your death. I caused all of us to die.

Ji An wept, muttering to himself inside. The resentment that had accumulated in his heart came pouring out.

The sobbing younger brother was now even trembling.

Ji Un tried to help his brother up and glanced down at the form sprawled on the ground. Looking closely, the chest was faintly rising and falling, so the person didn’t seem dead.

However, if left like this, a beaten corpse might be discovered in the back garden. And that would be quite troublesome. The responsibility for patrolling the back garden tonight lay with the Shim brothers, so what if a body appeared during their watch? It would become a problem the family would have to clean up.

“An, I should take this person to the royal infirmary. It will be a massive disaster if he is found dead here. Are we not the only two brothers on patrol duty today?”

Ji An snapped out of it at those words. Only then could he look around through his tear-stained eyes.

Even though it was night, it was reasonably cool, neither chilly nor freezing. The sound of nocturnal beasts crying could be heard from afar. The tall trees of the back garden blocked the moonlight, and the soil retained moisture from the rain that had fallen during the day.

Ji An knew exactly when this was. It was that very night he had so desperately wished to return to—the summer night of his twenty-one years.

After looking around, he looked at his brother Ji Un’s face one last time. A face younger than he remembered.

During the final year, Ji Un’s face had deteriorated significantly. The areas under his eyes were always dark, and he rarely spoke. In Ji An’s memory, he had been a cowed and gloomy man.

Yet, Ji Un’s current appearance could not be fully described by the word dashing alone. Unlike Ji An, his older brother was tall, broad-shouldered, and stoutly built. Wearing a lacquered dark brown hat and a red military robe, he looked both manly and beautiful. His wide sleeves were tucked and secured into arm guards, and he wore a sword fastened with a red leather belt. Since Ji Un belonged to the royal guard unit, he did not carry a bow, but Ji An knew his brother was quite skilled in archery as well.

‘Is this a dream?’

If not a dream, is it an illusion seen right before death?

Whichever it was, if this was just a fleeting flash of his past life passing before his eyes, there was no need to go out of his way to kill the bastard. Whether it was a dream or an illusion, if he could live a slightly different life within a space that felt this realistic, Ji An did not want to waste even a single moment on that bastard. Instead, he wanted to see this foolish brother and his affectionate family just a little more.

In the first place, this was a relationship that would have amounted to nothing if he hadn’t saved him and felt pity for him.

Within the Shim clan, which had been a powerful family for over a century, Ji An was uniquely eccentric, while everyone else lived according to the natural order. Therefore, everything would be fine as long as Ji An stayed away from that mass of calamity.

“Brother, I think I feel a bit sick.”

“Where does it hurt?”

Ji Un checked Ji An’s complexion. Lifting the lantern he brought to illuminate his brother’s face, Ji Un asked with a serious expression, “Can you walk?” The brother, who had just been insisting that a corpse must not turn up in the back garden tonight, completely lost interest in the half-dead form the moment his younger brother said he was sick. He looked at Ji An and immediately tried to carry him on his back.

Because he was so grateful and apologetic, and because his regret over irreversible things was so vast, Ji An felt tears welling up again.

“I can go by myself. I think I just need to lie down for a bit.”

“Where does it hurt? Why can’t you just tell me?”

“My whole body hurts.”

In reality, his entire body did hurt. It was painful and difficult to endure. His body shook. While he was so glad and incredibly sorry to see his brother Ji Un that he didn’t know what to do, he simultaneously could not tear his eyes away from the bastard’s shape collapsed behind him.

He could not kill the bastard in a dream that felt this real. He could not cause that kind of trouble.

“I can go by myself. So please take good care of that person and escort him to the royal infirmary.”

Ji Un, who was worrying, froze at the mention of returning to the lodging alone.

That person?

“That person? Do you know who… no, do you know who that is?”

Though it was hard to see clearly because he was covered in blood, he was definitely wearing a scholar’s robe. While Ji Un briefly looked at ‘that person,’ Ji An had already moved far away. Even while thinking it couldn’t be, Ji Un thought Ji An’s retreating figure looked like a boy running away in fear after seeing a ghost in the mountains at night. A boy pretending otherwise but so startled that his heart dropped, quickly descending the mountain while bluffing to put on a brave front.

Of course, Ji An was not afraid of ghosts. Ji An was a mage who dealt with spirits, and to him, ghosts were merely servants to be tasked with chores. Then what was Ji An running away from?

Ji Un turned his head once more. The blood-drenched form whose face was still invisible. Was he afraid of that? Why? Who on earth was he?

“Shim Ji An! I asked who that person is?!”

When Ji Un shouted once more, Ji An, who was moving further away, came to a halt. He hesitated for a moment as if he didn’t really want to say, before answering.

“The third prince, Prince Hae Won.”