PASSION Chapter 1 Part 1

Chapter 1 Part 1

When the doorbell rang, Jung Tae-ui froze. The soy-braised black bean he was holding between his chopsticks fell and rolled. It took less than a few seconds for the black bean to roll off the plate, leaving a sticky trail before coming to a stop, but the doorbell rang again impatiently in that short span.

Tae-ui tapped the table nervously with the end of his chopsticks while casting an anxious glance toward the entrance. He had had a bad feeling since hearing the faint footsteps coming up the stairs.

No, to be precise, he had been in a bad mood since waking up early that morning with an aching knee due to the rain. Though his knee always hurt when it rained or the weather was bad, days when it throbbed particularly badly like today usually meant his luck wasn't good.

It was when he had laid out a simple breakfast and taken just a couple of bites, feeling as gloomy as the drizzling rain outside, that he heard the footsteps from outside.

The old multi-family house, built over 20 years ago, was the kind of building where even a cat's entrance would echo all the way up to the rooftop.

And from the third floor right below the rooftop, Tae-ui had a bad feeling from the moment he heard those footsteps entering the building and climbing the stairs at this ambiguous time just past 7 AM.

And when the doorbell rang, that bad feeling became a stark reality.

There were almost no visitors to this house. His brother—the only person living here with him—who had left four days ago and hadn't been heard from since, had keys and wouldn't ring the doorbell.

The stiff, heavy presence that had stopped outside the door rang the doorbell once more while Tae-ui was deliberating. Thud—another footstep sounds. An angular, heavy sound. Similar to military boots.

The moment the word 'military boots' crossed his mind, his ominous feeling intensified, and the doorbell rang three, four times in quick succession. He had barely taken a few bites of his meal, but his appetite vanished and he put down his chopsticks.

The person outside the door bringing this foreboding feeling showed no signs of leaving. Without knocking or calling out, they just kept persistently ringing the doorbell, and Tae-ui's mood grew even gloomier as he thought of who it might be.

"..."

Tae-ui went to the entrance and unlatched the door after exactly twelve rings of the doorbell. The person standing outside took a step back as the door opened. Those shoes making the angular sound were spotlessly clean military boots.

And above those boots was a perfectly pressed, immaculate black uniform. Strictly speaking, it wasn't a military uniform but rather an official or service uniform, though the place this man belonged to wasn't all that different from the military.

The small silver badge on his collar somehow looked particularly hateful. It wasn't because countless people in the world were desperate to wear that badge.

Not once had anything good happened when this man visited this house wearing that badge—wearing his full uniform. Though saying that, this was only the third or fourth time seeing him in uniform.

Black gloves removed a black hat. The man smiled smoothly as he met Tae-ui's eyes.

"It's been a while. Everything alright?"

It had been about 3 years since he last met this man. If by "everything" he meant notable events, there had been plenty.

He had nearly died while clearing landmines, nearly died again from rejection during surgery, endured having his life threatened three times by someone who tried for a fourth, and ended up being discharged before serving even half of his mandatory service period.

Tae-ui looked at the man with a complicated expression for a moment before saying with a sigh,

"What notable things could I have that Uncle wouldn't know about? Though you might have something notable to suddenly visit at this hour without notice... Come in."

Somehow he had a bad feeling about this.

It wasn't that he disliked this man, but it was quite unsettling when he visited in this attire. But thinking about it, he had probably come looking for his brother, so there shouldn't be anything for himself to feel ominous about.

Nevertheless, Tae-ui stepped aside feeling as though he were letting a plague into his house. Seeing his expression, the man's eyes curved slightly in apparent amusement without any trace of displeasure. As the man entered first, Tae-ui asked while closing the door behind them.

"When did you get back?"

"Two hours ago. Came straight from the airport."

"Ah, I see... You could have called first though. Brother isn't here."

The man, who had thrown himself onto the sofa in a casual manner ill-fitting his crisp, perfectly pressed uniform, paused briefly and stared at Tae-ui upon hearing those words.

"He's not? When will he be back?"

"I don't know. He left four days ago and there's been no word from him. Did you come back just to meet him? Then you've made a wasted trip."

"No places you could try contacting him?"

"If he were easy to contact when someone tried, he wouldn't be Jung Jae-ui. You know that."

Tae-ui said indifferently as he perched on the stool across from the man.

Tae-ui's brother was someone who lived a relatively regular life. When he had overnight stays for a day or two, he would usually at least briefly announce his plans before leaving. However, sometimes he would leave abruptly without any promise of return and stay away for days—this was one of those times. Sometimes he would return after three or four days, but other times there wouldn't be any word from him for over two months, so this time it was impossible to guess when he might return.

But this time, Tae-ui had a feeling he might not return for quite a long while. When his brother left four days ago, he had said something cryptic.

'Life gets boring if you're too lucky all the time. I should experience some misfortune too.'

Recalling his brother's face as he left with a smile as cryptic as those words, Tae-ui became lost in thought. Though his brother had always been somewhat difficult to understand, even now it wasn't clear what he had meant by those words then.

But...

"Hmm, what to do..."

Watching his uncle tap his forehead with his fingertip while muttering as if troubled, Tae-ui mumbled under his breath. Likes experiencing misfortune, does he? What misfortune—disappearing so conveniently right before this unexpected trouble shows up. Just like this. That brother of his would never even catch a glimpse of the letter 'M' in misfortune for his entire life.

***

Tae-ui had a brother born on the same day at the same hour.

Though they came from the same root, his brother, who looked nothing like Tae-ui—as different as a complete stranger—was frighteningly intelligent. Even the word genius wasn't enough to describe him.

If his brother hadn't been so leisurely and somewhat lazy in nature, if he hadn't been someone with no interest in or ambition regarding his surroundings, to put it a bit dramatically, he might have been capable of wiping out an entire continent from the face of the Earth.

His brother, whom even the United Nations Human Resources Development Organization coveted, possessed outstanding talent in everything from humanities to science and technology, and even the arts.

In contrast, Tae-ui was ordinary. Or perhaps slightly better than ordinary would be more accurate. At any rate, he never fell below average in anything. In some areas, he was even called exceptional.

However, when Tae-ui was called exceptional, it was the result of his own efforts. Unlike his brother, who could achieve top scores without even putting in half the effort others did.

But Tae-ui had never envied his brother for such things. Though he might have thought it would be convenient, he never wished to have his brother's talents.

What Tae-ui envied about his brother wasn't his intelligence, talent, or ability.

What he envied was his brother's luck.

Jung Jae-ui, Tae-ui's brother, was so exceptionally lucky that it couldn't even be compared to his genius-among-geniuses intellect. His luck was truly extreme, beyond what could be described as being born under a lucky star.

Beyond simply emerging unscathed without even a scratch when caught up in major accidents, Jae-ui's luck was such that he had never properly received pocket money as a student. There had been no need.

While it was partly because he inherently had little desire for material things and rarely needed money, when situations arose where he suddenly needed to spend money but had none, Jae-ui would borrow a few coins from those around him to buy a lottery ticket.

Then that lottery ticket would bring him exactly the amount of luck he needed.

Everything was like that.

Living beside Jae-ui, who had such unbelievably extreme and absolute luck as a natural part of his daily life, Tae-ui experienced an ordinary person's share of both luck and similar amounts of misfortune. It would be a lie to say he hadn't envied his brother's luck while living such a life.

When he was young, he had envied it so much it hurt, but at least after he grew up, it wasn't to that extent anymore. It was just the usual envy one might feel toward something amazing and good that one couldn't have, exactly that much.

Though even that much was significant for Tae-ui, who rarely envied anything about others, as it was the only thing he ever envied in another person.

Though sometimes envious and even jealous, Tae-ui liked his brother nonetheless.

That irritatingly gifted individual, who was not only incredibly intelligent with unparalleled ability to utilize that intelligence but even possessed overwhelming luck, wasn't quite so irritating in personality. Though he could be indifferent, capricious, and had some inexplicable aspects, as a brother he was ordinary. Ordinarily caring and ordinarily reliable.

He thought they were relatively close brothers. ...Though even after living as brothers for twenty-some years, there were still puzzling aspects about his brother, but perhaps all geniuses were like that, who knew. But perhaps his brother hadn't liked Tae-ui very much.

Four days ago, the night before his brother left.

As he often did, he had been intently staring at some complex blueprint that Tae-ui couldn't understand, occasionally jotting down what looked like chemical formulas and molecular structure drawings beside it as if suddenly remembering something, then falling back into thought. Even when Tae-ui came right up beside him and peered over his shoulder at the blueprint, he didn't notice for quite a while.

Looking at the unfamiliar chemical formulas and strings of numbers, thinking 'Brother has crossed over into some incomprehensible world again,' Tae-ui had climbed onto the sofa nearby and pulled out an ordinary humanities book he could understand.

It was a quiet, comfortable night like any other. After staring at the papers for a long while, perhaps tired, his brother pushed them aside and lay down on the floor, staring at the ceiling with a blank expression.

Perhaps a weary sigh had escaped his lips then. He suddenly sat down beside Tae-ui on the sofa, and unexpectedly grabbed Tae-ui's pinky finger and said,

'Between here...'

Then showing his own pinky finger, he continued.

'And here, there's a red thread. Since we were born on the same day at the same time from the same womb, it's natural and unavoidable but... let's cut it now.'

'...What?'

What was this suddenly incomprehensible talk? Though his brother often swam in realms Tae-ui couldn't understand, he had never before spouted nonsense that Tae-ui couldn't comprehend.

Though he had long known his brother wasn't the owner of an ordinary mind, at this moment Tae-ui briefly wondered if perhaps his brother wasn't even the owner of a normal mind.