“Hyung…”
Silver Tiger got up, his long hair shaking like a silver wave.
My vision was blurred perhaps because of the communication, but Silver Tiger’s movements were strangely clear to me.
“…”
He was looking at me.
Actually, I don’t know if it’s me he’s looking at or White Tiger who was supporting me.
Silver Tiger nodded his head ever so slightly and his mercury-like eyes moved.
The tigers’ eyes opened wide and they all nodded as well.
‘…What does that mean?’
Silver Tiger’s nod and small blink seemed to be some sort of signal to the Tiger Clan.
Shortly after, Silver Tiger called Cheon Dongha.
It was Cheon Dongha whom he called his hyung.
“Dongha hyung.”
“…Eunha? Eunha-yah? Are you okay?”
Cheon Dongha can’t seem to process the situation.
His brother was suddenly kidnapped by people of royal lineage and brought to an underground facility of the school, there’s no way he wouldn’t be flustered.
Still, Cheon Dongha endured everything.
He looks worried about Cheon Eunha as he called his name.
His perceived calmness might be because of his naturally calm personality, but he seems to just be forcing himself to stay strong for his brother.
‘In this situation where a powerful energy wave suddenly erupted and a sleeping tiger suddenly woke up and called his name…’
Considering Cheon Dongha’s personality, I tried to understand his position better and think of excuses or countermeasures to this, but I couldn’t think further because my head was spinning.
I tried to concentrate, but the aftereffects of the communication were too much.
I took a deep inhale and focused on Silver Tiger’s voice.
He kept speaking to Cheon Dongha in a gentle voice.
“Thank you. If it weren’t for Dongha hyung, I wouldn’t be here.”
“How… So… You’re Tiger Clan…?”
“Yes. I’m a tiger who fell into a deep sleep. I became a human being, oblivious to who I was, and I became your brother.”
Silver Tiger was telling the truth, but he seems to be omitting a lot of things.
The part where he lived as Cheon Sungheon, who existed in another world where PMH world was simply a game, was completely omitted.
Putting together the pieces of the puzzle, the situation seems to be this way.
Silver Tiger fell into a deep sleep.
He was reborn in the world where I existed.
Cheon Sungheon came to this world.
The transcendent universe prepared a new identity, the body of Cheon Eunha, in this world, but Silver Tiger’s body still existed.
‘That must be the error that’s being mentioned.’
And as a result of the transcendent universe intervening through me, a two-dimensional future transformed object, the error was corrected.
‘The system message said it will confirm the intention of the candidate. Does that mean this is the situation that Cheon Sungheon chose?’
I looked at Cheon Sungheon’s, no, Cheon Eunha’s body.
He was still wrapped in the red fog, but his eyes were now closed.
He was still paralyzed, but he strangely felt lifeless compared to before.
Perhaps because Silver Tiger’s soul already went back to his body.
Cheon Dongha looked bewildered as he alternately looked at the body in the red fog and the silver-haired young man in front of him.
“It was a short period of time, but I am indebted to you as your half-brother. Thank you.”
Silver Tiger politely thanked Cheon Dongha, his palm facing each other.
His hands were trembling a little, perhaps an effect of just waking up.
Cheon Dongha couldn’t react for a while after being thanked.
His sharp mind would’ve understood what was happening in that short sentence, but understanding is different from acceptance.
Silver Tiger and all the others waited patiently without exerting pressure on Cheon Dongha.
“So, who are you right now? Are you my brother? Are you a tiger who was asleep in here just now? …I don’t know how to take in this situation.”
Cheon Dongha finally spoke.
His last words were filled with complex emotions.
Silver Tiger looked at Cheon Dongha and spoke softly, his sincere voice containing gratitude and apology.
“I am Silver Tiger, a member of the Tiger Clan who lived in the age of myth with my friends here. Yet I am also Eunha, Dongha hyung’s younger brother who you took care of for about a year. And…”
Silver Tiger, who had been staring at Cheon Dongha all this time, finally looked at me.
“I am also Euishin hyung’s hoobae, Cheon Sungheon. A temporarily disconnected body and memory do not mean I am a separate personality.”
Silver Tiger confirmed that he was Cheon Sungheon.
As his sunbae, I was happy, but I was also conflicted.
Still, I decided to bury the negative feelings for now.
Cheon Sungheon took a big risk to come to this world because he was worried about me.
I don’t want to find his true identity a fault or a negative thing.
‘I should be happy that Cheon Sungheon came to this world and safely moved to Silver Tiger’s body.’
I would have to call this being in front of me as Silver Tiger instead of Cheon Sungheon, but my happiness was bigger than anything else.
‘I don’t have to ask anyone how Cheon Sungheon is doing, and I don’t have to worry about him not being able to move his body.’
His being Silver Tiger and protected by his clan is better than being Cheon Sungheon, a hoobae of Jo Euishin.
He has a good hyung, White Tiger, and he had good friends who care about him so much that the buildings in their territory were named after him.
It would be a much better life than having a senior who made a grave mistake with his family and then unable to pick himself up afterward.
‘I guess this is the best for Sungheon.’
I decided to look at Silver Tiger in that light.
No one else spoke again when Red Tiger unknowingly began to open his mouth.
“Jo Euisuin and Cheon Dongha are your…’
In the eyes of Red Tiger, it would be strange for a tiger aged thousands of years to call some teenagers “hyung”
Seeing a golden energy wave move before Red Tiger finished his words, Hwang Jiho must’ve blocked his mouth.
“Yellow Tiger-nim, Red Tiger-nim and his son, and White Tiger hyungnim. I have been asleep for a long time, and I know how long you’ve been waiting for me. However, I wish for you to be considerate to Dongha hyung and Euishin hyung here.”
“…I know. Didn’t you signal us ‘wait’ before you first spoke?”
The first thing he did was really a signal.
Silver Tiger smiled softly.
“Thank you for understanding. Yellow Tiger-nim, I don’t think this place is conducive for humans to stay for long.”
“Let’s move. It’s going to take a while, but I will hail an air shuttle.”
The tigers reunited after a long time but they were still naturally in sync.
While the tigers were talking, I quietly wiped the blood on my sleeves and tried to stand up on my own, but Silver Tiger suddenly looked over and spoke.
“White Tiger hyungnim, Euishin hyung is very exhausted right now. Please block him from using physical strength or energy wave.”
“Alright.”
Silver Tiger looked at me and Cheon Dongha.
“Dongha hyung, Euishin hyung, I want you two to come with us and listened to my story.”
There was no way that Cheon Dongha would refuse.
Even if he was in a different body, he’s still my dongsaeng.
The same is true for Cheon Dongha.
We nodded.
***
Inside the air shuttle headed to the Hwangmyeong Mansion.
Cheon Dongha examined the body of Cheon Eunha carried by Red Tiger.
That body was still alive.
He was breathing, and all his vital signs were normal.
The only thing different was that he wasn’t opening his eyes.
‘His soul really left his body. It went to Silver Tiger.’
Cheon Dongha still looked conflicted.
He wanted his brother to be able to move again.
He’s been wishing for this for such a long time.
He was even desperate enough that the thought of borrowing power from the Demon Race crossed his mind.
If Cheon Dongha’s brother hadn’t desperately blinked at him and noticed his intention, he would’ve taken the wrong path.
It’s true that he was surprised by the unexpected identity of his younger brother, but this Silver Tiger called him his hyung.
‘I guess this is much better than my halfbrother being bedridden all his life and then suddenly dying one day.’
Adults of the Cheon family with outdated ideas placed priority on making the next generation succeed on their behalf, so they did not discriminate against illegitimate children.
It is said that Cheon Dongha’s father, who passed away before he turned to high school, had more hidden children.
However, only Cheon Eunha received the last name “Cheon” and the name “Eun”.
‘My other brothers must be…’
Cheon Dongha, who found his halfbrother Cheon Eunha, had no choice but to look after his brother.
He thought that this situation was better and far from the worst possible scenario.
‘If Eunha is really of Tiger Clan, there will be very little I can do for him. Well, now I don’t have to worry so much anymore.”
He always had bad thoughts before going to bed.
He would worry that Cheon Eunha would leave him.
Leave this world.
And so he used his light skill to watch over Cheon Eunha whenever he had time.
A single year isn’t really a long amount of time, but he was glad to discover the things that Cheon Eunha liked and he loved that they’ve become closer little by little.
‘He did call me ‘Dongha hyung’…”
Silver Tiger calling him hyung didn’t immediately make his heart set to recognize the young man as his brother.
He was happy to think that his brother can now freely talk and move and call him hyung, but it wasn’t easy to accept that his brother was the same person as Silver Tiger from the Tiger Clan.
‘…I need time to process and accept things.’
Cheon Dongha turned his head and saw Jo Euishin and White Tiger sitting across from him.
Jo Euishin looked exhausted after being caught up in an energy wave so powerful that it made him vomit blood.
It’s amazing that he didn’t faint.
‘I don’t think Euishin is a tiger or a descendant of them.’
Silver Tiger referred to Kim Shinrok as ‘Red Tiger-nim’s son’.
That means that the Professor Shinrok he knew from school was definitely a descendant of the Tiger Clan.
On the other hand, hearing the tigers speak makes it obvious that Jo Euishin was the only other human here.
The reason why Jo Euishin was mingling with the tigers in here, but the important thing to Cheon Dongha was that he’s a human too.
He’s somewhat relieved that his hoobae, who he got close to while playing chess, was in the same position as him.
‘But how, what, and just how much does Euishin know?’
Cheon Dongha looked at Jo Euishin, half curious and half worried.
