The Genius Actor Who Brings Misfortune

Chapter 218

“Minho.”

Ignoring the voice beside me, I opened the front door.

As I roughly slipped on my slippers, In-yeong’s blurry figure kept talking to me.

“Minho. I know you can hear me. Let’s talk.”

A resolute voice, determined not to waver despite any hardship.

Even in this crazy situation, the effort to stay composed was just like him.

The slight upward tilt at the end of his sentences was so similar, it almost made me laugh out loud.

‘I must be going crazy.’

I plopped down on the sofa and rubbed my face dry.

“I know you’re scared. But I’m desperate too, Minho. At least look at me.”

Covering my eyes made my brother’s voice sound even more vivid in my ears.

‘This is driving me nuts.’

I felt like tearing my hair out.

As I let out a deep sigh, a gentle voice beside me asked why.

“What’s wrong? Are you sick?”

Yeah, I think I’m sick. But I can’t go to the hospital.

What would I say at the hospital?

That my dead brother is talking to me?

‘It’s not that I’m sick, it’s more like I’ve gone crazy.’

Meanwhile, my brother kept chattering on.

I couldn’t ignore the growing anxiety in his voice.

“Hyung, be quiet. You’re being noisy…”

Desperately, I opened my mouth, and my brother finally smiled with relief.

“Sorry, I got anxious because you weren’t talking. I’ll be quiet now.”

He mimicked zipping his lips shut, looking so much like my brother.

If I hadn’t seen his body with my own eyes, I might have believed he was real.

* * *

My brother was dead.

I desperately wished for the opposite, but it was an undeniable fact, regardless of my hopes.

My brother was dead.

He was hit by a car driven by a heavily drunk person and died suddenly.

When I heard about the accident, I was at school.

My homeroom teacher abruptly entered the classroom during a lesson, and I followed him out, not knowing what was going on.

When I heard the news in the hallway, I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

The feeling of suffocating didn’t stop even after seeing my parents crying in front of the hospital.

‘Why?’

My mind was full of questions.

‘Why did my brother have to die?’

The question was so intense and persistent that I didn’t even feel like resisting it.

It was like being trapped in a deep well from which I never wanted to emerge.

After the funeral, a month passed, then two months.

The question remained, but all I got in return was, “The living must go on.”

After much persuasion from my parents, I started going back to school.

I ate when it was time, talked to friends, and went to the bathroom regularly.

‘Why?’

Even six months after my brother’s death, the question mark wouldn’t disappear.

‘Why am I hungry?’

Why am I hungry, needing to go to the bathroom, and wanting to sleep?

My brother died, everything changed.

‘Why.’

Why is my daily life unchanged?

Maybe I’m not grieving my brother’s death at all?

Otherwise, I couldn’t be living so normally like this.

I found myself disgusting.

“Guys, remember to submit your career aspiration forms by today. Don’t forget to give them to the class president.”

The homeroom teacher’s voice faintly echoed in my ears.

There was a blank form on my desk.

I stared at it with indifferent eyes before shifting my gaze to the window.

‘It’s so bright.’

The dazzling sunlight made me squint my eyes shut without thinking.

The warmth spread across my face.

“Minho, have you finished your career aspiration form?”

The class president’s cautious voice made me open my eyes.

I handed the blank form over without a word, and the class president hesitated.

“Um, the teacher said you can’t submit it blank.”

“…What did you write?”

“Huh? Me?”

The class president, whose face I only vaguely recognized, stammered and said, “I wrote… civil servant.”

I wrote ‘civil servant’ in the blank space and handed the form back.

The class president looked at me for a moment before turning away.

I quietly lay my head down on the desk.

‘I wish time would stop like this.’

Feeling the sunlight on my back, that’s what I thought.

But reality was far from my wishes.

The bell signaling the end of the period rang, and I had to get up.

A monotonous daily routine, an endless sense of lethargy.

It felt suffocating, and then one day…

“…Hyung?”

When I got home, my brother was sitting on my bed.

* * *

At first, I naturally thought it was a hallucination.

I’d heard that people often see hallucinations when they can’t accept the death of a loved one.

I must be one of those cases.

It was a bit odd that it appeared six months later, but…

‘Just ignore it.’

I thought if I ignored it, it would go away.

After that first day of accidentally acknowledging him, I meticulously pretended not to see him, but the hallucination was relentless.

“Minho! Look at me, will you?”

“…”

“I saw you flinch just now! Why are you pretending not to notice?”

Even when he talked to me, I pretended not to hear, and when he hovered in front of me, I pretended not to see him.

‘I can’t be dragged to a mental hospital now.’

But the hallucination was far more persistent than I had anticipated, and after more than a week of fighting it, the winner was decided.

“What? It’s already been half a year since I died?”

“Yes.”

As the loser, I answered obediently.

My brother squinted as if he couldn’t believe it.

“That’s strange. As soon as I came to my senses, I ran straight home. How could half a year have passed… does that even make sense?”

“…Do you think talking to me right now makes sense?”

“Oh, that’s true.”

My brother chuckled, crinkling his nose in embarrassment. The laugh was so much like him that it felt strange.

We spent the night catching up on everything.

How our parents were doing, how much his friends grieved.

I even showed him the letters sent by the kids from the orphanage where he had volunteered for so long.

The letters were filled with clumsy handwriting, all saying they missed him.

“How touching, these kids.”

My brother’s reaction was exactly as I had expected.

With tears brimming in his eyes, he read the letters I laid out for him over and over again.

I just watched him silently.

‘Am I really crazy?’

Is this really my brother?

I had never seriously considered the afterlife, but I thought ghosts could exist.

If they did, so what? It wasn’t something I had to worry about anyway.

But things were different now.

‘Why do ghosts exist? Is it because they can’t accept their own death?’

But my brother seemed to understand his death all too well.

I had been non-religious all my life, so I didn’t know much.

I thought of words like ‘ascension,’ ‘grudge,’ and ‘salvation’ from movies and novels.

If this was a hallucination, it meant I was truly insane, but if my brother had become a ghost, it meant I had to help him move on.

‘Hmm.’

I pondered deeply and nodded.

‘Let’s just assume I’m crazy.’

The past six months had been terrible. I had wished I could just go insane.

I reached out and touched my brother’s hair.

His form was a blurry figure with no substance, so I didn’t feel anything, but I kept moving my hand resolutely.

“Hyung.”

“Yes?”

“I missed you.”

The moonlight softly enveloped him through the window.

He seemed like he might disappear at any moment, so I stared intently.

I was afraid he would vanish if I blinked.

“I missed you a lot too, Minho.”

I heard the familiar tender voice I had heard so often before.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t say goodbye. I was just so overwhelmed.”

He hasn’t changed.

Whether he’s a hallucination or a ghost, my brother was still kind and lingering.

Even though he died so unfairly, I didn’t understand why he was apologizing.

I wanted to get angry, but strangely, no words came out.

My eyes were hot, probably from being open too long.

“Minho.”

“…”

“What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

My brother touched my eyes with a distressed look.

I couldn’t feel anything, but it was warm enough to burn.

“It’s okay. I’m sorry. Please, don’t cry.”

He whispered gently.

I could feel his concern, wanting to wipe away my tears.

I sobbed silently for a while before finally calming down.

With my eyes still closed, everything was dark.

As soon as I realized how quiet it was around me, I felt cold.

‘Why…’

Why did I close my eyes?

What if my brother wasn’t there when I opened them?

‘Damn it.’

I had lost the chance to see him just because I couldn’t control a few tears.

No, he might still be beside me. He might be watching me.

But when had reality ever gone my way?

I was so anxious that even swallowing felt scary.

Trembling, I slowly opened my mouth.

“…Hyung.”

The one second of waiting felt like a year.

I held my breath without realizing it.

“Yes?”

The response came immediately, and I opened my eyes at once.

“What’s wrong? Do you need a tissue? Oh, right, I can’t… What do you need? What can I do?”

I saw my brother, fidgeting nervously.

The tension in my body melted away, and I laughed softly.

My brother looked puzzled, seeing me cry and laugh by myself, but I had no words to explain.

How could I explain that I was glad to be crazy?

* * *

It might sound strange to say it was a relief, but that wasn’t the only day I went crazy.

My brother kept appearing after that.

### Chapter 218

The Genius Actor Who Brings Misfortune (218)

Only I could see my brother, and only I could hear his voice.

Spending 24 hours a day with him, I started to regain my old self, the self I had lost when he died.

My parents and friends seemed bewildered by my sudden improvement but welcomed it eagerly.

“Minho, you should wear warmer clothes.”

“My ears hurt. Stop nagging.”

“How many times have you caught a cold because you didn’t listen to me? Grab your cardigan.”

“Ah, it’s heavy…”

I managed to grumble, though barely.

Afraid my smiling face would be noticed, I quickly lowered my head.

“Why don’t you ever listen to me?”

My brother kept nagging, unaware of my expression.

‘This is good.’

Good didn’t begin to describe the feeling.

I finally felt like I was truly breathing.

Not just air entering my nose and exiting my mouth, but genuinely feeling alive.

If this was what it felt like to be crazy, I wanted to be crazy 365 days a year.

“Minho, have a good day at school.”

“…Aren’t you coming with me today?”

I hesitated, and my brother chuckled.

“I am coming with you.”

“Then why did you say it like that?”

“It was just a greeting. Once we leave this room, we can’t talk properly.”

My brother smiled bitterly.

Seeing that smile brought me back to reality.

I realized that I hadn’t considered my brother’s situation at all.

The time I could converse with him was limited.

I had to go to school on weekdays, and there was no time to be alone in the crowded school.

Although I spent all day with him, I could only listen to his one-sided chatter, afraid others would find my behavior strange.

When I returned home, my parents were there, and by the time we finished dinner, it was already past eight.

The only time I could freely talk with my brother was from 8 PM to 8 AM, exactly half of the day.

During the remaining time, my brother had to repeat his monologues in loneliness.

I only realized this now.