I opened my eyes, but it felt like I was still half-asleep. There was a dull weight in my body, like I had run a marathon in a dream and now carried the exhaustion into waking.
Every part of me ached in a way that didn't feel normal. Not like soreness from a workout, or bruises from a fall. It was deeper—tiredness that clung to my bones.
Everything was hazy at first. The world around me existed only in streaks of color, smeared together like some abstract painting by a deranged artist with too much time and too little taste.
For a long moment, I just stared, letting the strange hues swirl and shift before my eyes until they began to settle. Slowly, the chaos gave way to form.
Shapes came into focus. Colors fell into place.
And what I saw didn't make any sense.
The ceiling above me soared high, white marble stretching up with artistic carvings etched into its bones—elegant, almost sacred.
Suspended from its center, a grand chandelier hung, glittering like it belonged in some noble's palace rather than… whatever place this was.
Each crystal shimmered with a brilliance that made it hard to look at directly.
In front of me, a middle-aged man stood, gesturing as he spoke in a voice that was calm but commanding.
He stood before a green board, but it wasn't a chalkboard, and he wasn't using chalk.
No—he wrote using something that resembled a pencil, but every stroke it made shimmered in neon light.
Fluorescent symbols trailed behind it, flickering before settling into coherent text. A stylus, maybe? Or something more advanced.
But the man's appearance stood out even more. He wasn't dressed in anything remotely modern.
His clothes looked straight out of a fantasy game—long coat lined with embroidery, sleeves rolled neatly, high boots that clacked faintly against the floor every time he moved.
I lowered my gaze.
That's when I noticed where I was.
A classroom.
Not any classroom I'd ever seen, though. The bench I sat on was wooden, carved and varnished, polished until it reflected a faint gleam.
A matching desk stood before me, its surface cold to the touch. The room was massive—easily big enough to hold a hundred students.
Rows upon rows of seats like mine stretched out ahead, all occupied by students in uniform.
White shirts, black pants, and deep blue coats. Their attire was formal, pristine, almost militaristic in precision.
Embroidered onto their coats and shirts was a symbol—water droplets mid-splash, as if frozen in time.
I didn't recognize the emblem, but it was clearly significant. It looked official. Institutional.
I blinked.
'Where… was I?'
I didn't remember entering a school like this. I didn't even remember walking into a building.
The last clear memory I had—
Kenji's door.
I was standing outside his room. Rambling. My voice had been shaky, my body even more so.
I'd collapsed on the floor, and the creeping, choking sensation of my death had begun wrapping itself around my throat.
That was it. The last thread of my previous life.
I was dying. I knew that. I had come to terms with it—had even embraced it, in a way.
I wasn't supposed to have more than a few hours left. My body had made that clear.
My breath had already started to shorten, the pain in my chest blooming with every heartbeat.
But now, here I was. Awake. Alive.
And this place—this strange classroom, this fantasy-world classroom—wasn't anything close to a hospital room or the cold, cramped floor I had collapsed on.
I let out a long breath.
'Oh…'
Realization dawned slowly, like a sluggish tide.
I was dead.
That was the only explanation that made any kind of sense. I had died—my body gave out, and my mind faded to black.
But then… this?
'A second life?'
I didn't believe in things like reincarnation or transmigration.
I wasn't someone who put stock in metaphysical nonsense.
Ghosts, rebirth, karma—it was all fiction to me. Interesting fiction, sure. I'd consumed plenty of it in anime, manga, light novels, even comics from the West.
But that was all they were. Stories. Escapism. Fairytales for people who hated reality.
Even my favorite series—the ones that really stuck with me—weren't the ones with happy endings or absurd power fantasies.
No, I preferred the ones that told the truth. Or at least something close to it.
Like The Chronicles of the Tragic Prince.
No destined hero. No god-given grace. Just a boy born into nobility then thrown into the ruin, clawing his way up, only to fall again and again.
It was painful to read—but painfully real. Maybe that was why I loved it.
I leaned back in the chair, letting the wood creak slightly under my weight. It was cool to the touch, solid.
Tangible. I wasn't dreaming. Not anymore.
I stretched out my hand, lifting it towards the light of the chandelier. The skin was different—cleaner, smoother.
But the movements felt familiar. Muscle memory carried over.
Still… it wasn't quite me.
As I stared at my palm, memories surfaced. Sluggish, but clear.
Kenji. My brother.
If I said I wasn't concerned about him, I'd be lying.
I was concerned—genuinely, deeply, to the point it gnawed at my insides like a slow, steady burn.
So much so that this second chance at life didn't feel like a blessing. It felt like a curse.
A cruel joke from the universe.
Because in gaining this life, I'd lost the only thing that ever truly mattered to me.
I had done everything—everything within my power—to make sure his life was comfortable, safe, full of possibilities.
Our parents… they were long gone. Dead. Lost in an accident that felt more like a distant nightmare than a memory now.
Since then, it was just the two of us.
He was my only family.
And as his older brother, it had been my duty—no, my reason for existing—to look after him.
To be there when he needed someone.
To be the anchor in a world that had already taken too much from us.
I tried. God knows I did.
I worked. I sacrificed. I scraped together every opportunity I could find, even if it meant leaving him alone sometimes while I traveled for shoots or projects.
But I always came back. No matter where I went or how long I was gone, I came back.
Because that's what big brothers do.
They come back.
But now?
Now I wasn't coming back.
Now I wasn't even in the same world.
What would he think when he found me? When he saw my body—lifeless, cold, alone in front of his door?
Would he cry?
Would he scream?
Would he fall apart?
I didn't want to imagine it, but I couldn't stop the thoughts. They kept creeping in, one after another, stabbing at the edges of my heart.
Maybe he'd shut down.
Maybe he'd stare for hours, waiting for me to wake up.
Maybe he'd call out my name, not understanding that no one was going to answer anymore.
And then… what?
He'd be alone.
I had left enough money in that account I set up for him. It was under his name, tied to his ID—meant to support him till college.
I'd calculated it carefully, accounted for living expenses, school fees, emergencies.
I did everything I could to give him some kind of foundation.
But after that?
He'd have to figure it out on his own.
I clenched my fists on the desk. The wood was hard, solid, pressing against my palms as if to remind me this was real. That I wasn't dreaming.
I was here.
And he was there.
Alone.
Sure, he had managed by himself when I was away for long stretches.
He cooked his own meals, did his own laundry, made sure the house didn't fall apart. He was strong in ways he didn't even realize yet.
But back then, he had something else, too—the promise that his brother would return.
Now even that was gone.
Even if I had died back there in that world, he might've held onto the hope that I'd come back one day.
That I'd just gone missing or gotten hurt. That somehow, someday, the front door would open and I'd step through like nothing had happened.
But this… this was different.
This was final.
And I hated it.
I hated that I wouldn't be there to watch him grow older. To see him laugh with friends, fall in love, graduate, find a job, get married, maybe even have kids of his own one day. I'd miss all of it.
Every milestone.
Every moment.
And he would have to face those moments with the shadow of my absence following him.
Tears blurred my vision before I even realized they were falling. They slid down my cheeks silently, warm trails of sorrow dripping into the hollow of my palm.
I sat up straight, trying to blink them away, but they kept coming.
Unstoppable.
'He'll be okay… won't he?'
That thought haunted me more than anything else. The uncertainty. The not knowing.
Would he move on?
Would he heal?
Would he be strong enough to carry the weight I left behind?
I buried my head in my arms, pressing my forehead to the table.
My shoulders shook with every breath, the sobs ripping through me before I could even try to suppress them.
I cried.
I cried harder than I had in years.
Not for myself. Not for this strange world or the unknowns it held.
But for him.
For Kenji.
'I'm such a bad brother…'
The words echoed in my skull, on repeat like a broken record. I hated myself.
Hated that I had left him behind. Hated that I wasn't there when he'd need me the most.
Why?
Why did it have to be this way?
Why couldn't I just move on cleanly? Why couldn't I have been reborn without any memories—just a blank slate in a new world?
Why not as a baby? A new person? Hell, I wouldn't have even minded being reborn as a bird, or a worm, or a goddamn bug.
Anything.
Anything but this—this twisted half-life, where I had the mind of my past self and none of the means to return to the one person I loved most.
'Why did I have to remember everything…?'
I couldn't lift my head. I didn't want to.
I stayed like that—curled over the desk, tears dripping silently, breath shallow, mind flickering with image after image of my brother.
Kenji laughing.
Kenji yelling.
Kenji smiling through tears as he handed me a drawing of us from when we were kids.
Kenji hugging me the day I told him I'd be fine.
Kenji—standing alone, staring at a lifeless body outside his room.