#126

“No, Cheon. Absolutely not.”

I strongly denied Cheon’s words. But she couldn’t accept my denial at all.

“Don’t say no. I’m the one who brought that thing, and I’m the one who gave it to you. The result is right here, and how is this not my fault?”

“Cheon……”

I sighed and called her name, pulling her toward me. Her body, which had clearly become much thinner compared to a few months ago, weakly came into my arms.

“You didn’t know.”

“Not knowing doesn’t absolve me from everything. No matter what anyone says, this is all my fault……”

“Cheon.”

I tightened my arms around my little sister, stopping her from continuing to murmur that everything was her fault. I felt her body, which had always been so confident, trembling slightly in my arms, and I squeezed my eyes shut. Then, carefully, I voiced the suspicion I had been holding since earlier.

“……You know something, don’t you?”

Cheon flinched at my heavy voice, which felt like it was choking me.

I slowly pulled her away from me, staring intently at her face. Her pale, terrified face was still filled with an unidentifiable guilt.

As expected, it was an exaggerated reaction.

Of course, she might think this all happened because of the game she gave me and might feel guilty about it. But right now, Cheon was acting as if something irreversible had happened.

Seeing that, I was certain.

……She knows something.

“What do you know?”

“Oppa, I……”

“Tell me the truth. What do you know?”

At my quiet question, Cheon averted her gaze and looked down. I didn’t hurry her; I just waited quietly.

Eventually, Cheon would tell me. There were no secrets between us. We had promised that a long time ago.

After a long wait, Cheon finally spoke.

“You…… could die, and to avoid that completely, you’d have to do something.”

The words that came out of my little sister’s mouth were exactly what I had expected. But what followed was something I hadn’t expected at all……

“And I know that you, from what I know of you, would never do that.”

I was slightly, suffocatingly stunned.

“Cheon……”

I couldn’t deny the accuracy of her prediction, so I quietly watched her, gauging her reaction.

“……Are you going to be mad?”

At my cautious question, Cheon’s face twisted.

“Am I going to be mad? No! I can’t! I would’ve done the same thing in your place! In the same situation, I would’ve made the exact same choice as you! That’s why I can’t even get mad! And that makes me even angrier! The fact that I understand your choice and can’t get mad at you!”

It was almost a scream.

Cheon’s face, which was filled with intense agitation, turned bright red. I quickly rubbed Cheon’s back as she huffed and puffed.

“It’s my fault. If I hadn’t given you that game, none of this would’ve happened.”

“No, Cheon. It’s not your fault.”

“How is this not my fault? How is this not my fault……?”

In the end, Cheon’s voice began to crack with tears. My heart ached seeing her eyes, which were filled with tears.

It would’ve been better if she had just yelled at me. If she had gotten angry at me, asking how I could make such a choice, my heart wouldn’t hurt this much.

“It’s not certain that I’ll die yet. So don’t worry or be too upset……”

“Shut up. Whether it’s certain or not, the fact that your life is in danger doesn’t change.”

Hmm, I should’ve just stayed quiet. I ended up making Cheon more upset by trying to comfort her, so I decided to just keep my mouth shut. I carefully wiped away the tears falling from her eyes and tried my best to calm her down.

After a long time, once Cheon had calmed down enough to catch her breath, she spoke.

“……Yeah, you’re right. It’s not certain yet.”

Her voice was calm now, as if she had poured out all her emotions after crying. I nodded quickly in agreement.

She looked at me with swollen eyes and sniffled. With a small smile, I pulled a few tissues from the box on the side table and handed them to Cheon. She took them with a sheepish look and wiped her tears and blew her nose. She looked so cute doing that.

“There must be a way.”

As I tossed the crumpled tissues into the trash, I spoke, and Cheon exhaled slowly and answered.

“Yeah. There must be a way. I’ll have to find it. Or maybe I’ve already found it.”

Wait? She might have already found it? I stared at Cheon, my eyes wide in surprise at the unexpected words. Cheon sniffled again and continued.

“You asked me how I got here yesterday.”

“Yeah.”

“I told you I came the same way you did.”

“Right. And you also said it wasn’t the same game, though.”

Cheon blinked her swollen eyes at my quick add-on. She wiggled her fingers and hesitated for a moment, then cautiously spoke up.

“Actually, the reason I was able to come here is because that person told me the way.”

“That person? Who’s that person?”

Seeing me urgently press her for an answer, Cheon bit her lip. This is getting a bit ominous. I furrowed my brows again, feeling that uneasy premonition creeping up inside me.

“……You.”

“……”

“To be precise, the Goo Won who was here in this world.”

Yeah. As expected, my bad feeling was never wrong. I face-palmed to calm myself down, trying to steady my mind in the face of this shocking revelation.

“How?”

I withdrew my hand from my face and asked the question calmly. Cheon shook her head.

“I don’t know. One day, that person just came to find me.”

“When?”

“About three months after you disappeared.”

“……”

“That person told me how to get to this place, saying that you and I could make this place ‘real.’ And if we did, everything would be over.”

……Cheon and I could make the world in the game real? How is that even possible? I couldn’t understand Cheon’s words. Did my confusion show on my face? Cheon furrowed her brows.

“Don’t look at me like that. I’m just relaying what that person told me. If you ask me how such a thing is possible, I can’t explain it exactly.”

“……”

“But think about it. The reason you could die is because this is a world inside a game, and if the game isn’t cleared, it resets, right? But what if, really, what if this place becomes reality……”

“……You mean, even if we don’t clear the game, it won’t reset?”

I muttered quietly, and Cheon, who had pressed her lips together, met my gaze. I was the first to look away.

“There’s no proof that what you’re saying is true.”

“Oppa.”

“He is the one who told me to make Tartarus miserable if I wanted to return to reality. How can I trust anything that person says? He might have said it with some hidden agenda.”

At my negative words, Cheon’s face darkened. I felt bad for shattering the hope she held, but honestly, I couldn’t trust what the Goo Won in the game had said.

“But we don’t have any other information. Right now, the only thing we can hold onto is those words……”

“Cheon.”

“……”

When I called her gently, Cheon pressed her lips together tightly. I looked at my little sister with a sad expression, then slowly stood up. I walked over to the dresser in the bedroom and pulled out the metal box that had been hidden there.

“Could it be……?”

Cheon’s face lit up as she saw the metal box in my hand. I returned to my place and handed the box to her.

Cheon, carefully handling the box, began to fiddle with the lid. I smiled faintly as I watched her linger a little longer on the crooked names—hers and mine—written on the lid of the box. It reminded me of when I first saw that box and did the exact same thing.

“So it was here too. But why are you giving this to me?”

Cheon looked down at the metal box with longing, as if seeing something dear to her. I simply gestured for her to open the lid.

Cheon looked at me curiously as I silently motioned. Without any hesitation, she opened the lid of the box. When she saw the leather notebook from the game’s Goo Won inside, she raised an eyebrow.

“I have a bad feeling about this.”

I quietly admired my sister’s sharp instincts. Truly, she was my sister. As I nodded to myself, Cheon carefully pulled the leather notebook from the box and began to read it.

With each page she turned, her face grew colder and colder. The coldness reached its peak when she saw the threatening letter disguised as advice from the game’s Goo Won.

“……Is this bastard really threatening you right now?”