There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)-Chapter 764: Side Story 4. Endless Journey - 47

Byul was a good actor; he had also been trained in PR handling, especially how to answer leading and trapping questions like relationships.

However, it was different facing people who didn’t know you with someone who knew you before you could even babble your first word.

"W-what are you talking about?" Byul tried to remain nonchalant, but how he could do that in front of a pair of eyes identical to his mother’s?

Calmly, Nari replied without breaking eye contact. "Byul, if you can’t be honest with your noona, who will you be talking to?"

"Ugh..."

The boy bit his lips and lowered his head, frowning in a dilemma. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be honest with his sister, but...it was hard for him to open up in general. Especially for something like this...

Maybe if it was just someone else who no one knew but him--but this...this was about someone who everyone in his main circle knew. Someone who his sister and his parents knew. He was even scared about his feelings getting found out by them, so to talk about it?

Absolutely terrifying.

Looking at the troubled expression on his baby brother’s face, Nari couldn’t help but sigh. "Listen to me," she grabbed the boy’s hand--making sure she wasn’t using too much strength. "From now on, you have two options."

"Huh?"

"One; move on."

Byul blinked at the sudden ’advice’ coming out of nowhere. "W-what?"

"Just move on, forget about him. You have lots of people out there who want to be with you," Nari twirled them around, looking at the many pairs of eyes stealing a glance at them--well, at her younger brother, to be exact, who had been appearing in several dramas and advertisements, albeit nothing major. "Maybe not as good as him, but it’ll be better than hanging on to something you don’t even know will go somewhere."

"That’s..." freewёbnoνel.com

Byul frowned deeply, and Nari stopped their dancing, dragging the boy out of the dance floor after making sure their parents were too busy talking with other parents. She swiftly took him to the outdoor hallway where they could see the Academy’s beautiful park.

She took a deep breath and turned around, staring at her brother with a serious gaze. "Look; you don’t even know when he’ll be back. Even after he does, you know what his goal is, right?"

"...Deathzone," Byul bit his lips, grabbing the end of his suit tightly although he knew his mother would be livid.

"Yeah; Deathzone," Nari looked away, staring at the sky.

Eastern Federation was still the only state that managed to clear the Deathzone, even two decades later. But there was a rumor that the Northern Alliance had planned to make an expedition, as well as the Western Republic. It was only a matter of time before a call for support would be made.

"He’ll go away again, someday, for who knows how long. Even if it’s not that, you’ll have to brace yourself every time he goes into the dungeon," Nari continued. "Appa is a healer, but even then, Mama still worried about him all the time. Do you understand me?"

"I do..." Byul frowned, clutching his suit even harder. Even without his sister spelling it out to him, he knew it was inevitable that the path he took and everyone else around him would be different. "I know...I know I’m not part of your world, and--"

clap!

Byul stopped and looked up with a start as his older sister cupped his cheeks. The crisp sound was loud enough in his ears to drown the music from the hall. "That’s your problem," Nari scowled.

"H-huh?"

"You kept bringing yourself down," she clicked her tongue. "You’re not part of our world, you’re not as strong as us, you’re not as cool as us--you kept telling yourself this when none of us gives a fuck."

Byul widened his eyes and pressed his hands over his sister’s mouth, looking around worriedly. "Noona, you can’t curse!"

"Shut up!" Nari swatted the hand covering her mouth, poking her brother’s chest with her finger. "Byul, if you keep this mindset, you better stop with your feelings. You’ll just keep on hurting yourself if you go around carrying your feelings while acting all inferior all the time."

Byul blinked in surprise. Nari had always been outspoken, but this was the first time she scolded him like this. Well, it didn’t feel like a scolding, but the boy could feel the exasperation behind her hardened gaze.

"Just stop and move on; get on with someone who is not part of the sentinel community. Just forget about that guy and--"

"I don’t want to!"

Nari widened her eyes. When was the last time she heard her shy, quiet, soft-spoken brother shout aggressively? Byul frowned so deeply that his cute face scrunched up. The dark eyes that usually sparkled were glazed with unshed tears.

"I don’t...I don’t want to..." the boy repeated quietly, almost like a spell.

Nari asked sharply. "You don’t want to, or you can’t?"

"I don’t want to!"

Again, the shout came. The boy’s hands were trembling, both in anger and fright--after all, he was still a little brother. What should he do if his sister got offended by his tone?

However, Nari patted the boy’s hair gently and smiled in satisfaction. "Good."

"H-huh?"

"If you want to pursue him, then you have to pursue him with conviction," Nari smacked the boy’s arm, making Byul wince at the stinging sensation. "You can’t just wait around, hoping he’ll catch on your feelings."

Well...he knew that. But knowing that and knowing what actions he should do was different. In the first place, he didn’t even know how to spend more time with an esper who would probably get very busy in the future, saving people from dungeons. He was not that shameless to ask someone he wanted to attract for random meet-ups as if he was entitled to that person’s time--

Clap! Nari clapped her hands loudly in front of her brother’s conflicted face.

"Again with that useless thought," she clicked her tongue. "You have to stop looking at this bubble and start looking around."

Byul, who was still startled by the loud clap, could only blink and look at his sister in a daze.

"Byul, you are a star," Nari held her brother’s shoulder. "All you have to do is shine bright."

Byul tilted his head, and his sister grabbed his shoulder, turning his head toward the clear summer sky. It was filled with twinkling stars, looking like scattered diamonds.

"Shine so bright that the only thing he can see is you, and you alone," Nari said. "Not as a cute little brother, but as a star that can be his anchor."

"A star...to be his anchor..." Byul muttered dazedly.

Could he?

No--it wasn’t whether he could or not. To know that, he should try first, right? To shine brightly, so brightly that the moment Kar got out of the tower, the first thing he heard about was a rising star called Byul.

* * *

Or so he thought at first, while clenching his fists with fiery determination.

But as he was facing his high-school graduation, Byul wanted to cry. He wasn’t that much of a bright star yet, but could his hyung come back just once? It had been four years since he saw Kar’s face, and there wasn’t even a peep.

But it wasn’t like he could whine at anyone since not even his family had seen him. Byul heard the Tower’s administration give Uncle Bas an update on the progress now and then, but nothing more. So how could he even whine without the lack--or rather, the absence--of contact?

Haa...maybe it would be easier to just move on and forget about his feelings, but...

No. Byul didn’t want to. Even if it was difficult, for him, there was no one else but Kar for him. No matter how many students and celebrities he met, no one could tickle his heart and occupy his head like Karna Ishtera could.

What could he do? Unless Kar rejected him, Byul would not give up. And wasn’t that why he tried so hard to be a good actor? To be a shining star? He wanted to be able to stand proudly in front of the man he had admired all his life.

"Boo!" A pair of hands grabbed the air where Byul’s shoulder should be. Unfortunately, the boy already shifted away to avoid it. The girl who owned the hands pursed her lips in annoyance. "Why are you so good at avoiding surprise attacks?"

"You have to do that much with an over-energetic sister around," Byul shrugged nonchalantly.

"Is that why you were so good in Time Turner, mister Best Supporting Actor?" a boy poked Byul’s cheek from behind, grinning from ear to ear.

Byul told himself not to feel too proud of it--after all, he hadn’t even acted as a lead yet. But still...receiving an award before he even finished school...he couldn’t help but feel happy. It was like he finally took the first step on the long stair toward becoming that shining star he wanted to be.

The corner of his lips twitched as he couldn’t hold back a smile, and the girl who failed to surprise him managed to pull his cheeks instead.

"See? You should smile like this during graduation, so why are you making a long face so early in the morning, huh?" the girl asked, before gasping for her own skewed conclusion. "Could it be...are you sad to be separated from us?"

Byul flicked the girl’s forehead, prompting her to shriek and groan while clutching her head.

"Ouch! Your flick is as mean as always!"

"What a delusional girl; what are you talking about when we end up in the same college, anyway?" the boy rolled his eyes, before shifting his gaze to Byul. "But I’m curious too--why the long face? You’re one of the hottest newcomers these days."

"Right! Why the long face when you finally landed a solo advertisement?" the girl nodded. "Aren’t you going to star as the lead for the winter drama?"

Kar pressed his lips and looked out of the window. "Nothing," he said. "...nothing you can solve, anyway."

The girl gasped. "I know this look!" she pointed at Byul while widening her eyes. "This is how you look when you play that love-stricken character last spring!"

The boy narrowed his eyes and, following the girl, leaned closer to scrutinize Byul further. "So it’s a love problem?"

Ugh...was it that hard hiding his feelings from people close to him? He only met these two in high school, and they were the only ones who didn’t call him ’nepo baby’, so they quickly became close. He had been hanging out with them more often even since his sister started to get active in the guild--of course, it was Trinity.

Perhaps that was why, they had been filling the emptiness that his childhood friends and sister left behind, and it was hard for Byul to hide things from them.

"Oh my, oh my--our rising star Han Byul, caught in a love scandal~" the girl whispered scandalously--of course, after making sure no one was eavesdropping around them. Most students had been moving toward the assembly hall anyway.

"What love scandal..." Byul pursed his lips.

It would be better if it was a scandal. But how could it be a scandal when the other person wasn’t even here? Not to mention...it wasn’t like there was nothing more between them aside from being childhood friends.

Byul exhaled heavily, making his friends glance at each other in worry. Before they could ask if the boy was alright, however, Byul’s commlink vibrated.

"Hmm? Is it Appa?" he glanced at his commlink, thinking it was a message from his family, only to freeze.

"Byul? What’s wrong?" the boy poked Byul’s upper arm, but Byul was still staring at his commlink without blinking.

After all, a message just came from an account that hadn’t been active for four years.

[Are you at school?]