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The gun is cold and heavy on his hands. He tilts his head at the sight of Cha Young and Vincenzo on the floor. The lights are too bright, he thinks. It’s too bright for something so gruesome as this. The safety clicked and he was ready to shoot right before he sees Han Seo moving in his peripheral vision. He spares Vincenzo some thought right when his brother grabs the gun and points it at his chest.
Just the sight of the other makes him want to explode. After everything they’ve been through together - from their father’s death, Babel’s rise, and all the way to the watches he has kept as a trophy of his endeavors - he betrayed Han Seok. It stung. The idea fills him with so much contempt and blinds him with rage. It was all he could think about while in prison. He was going to kill Han Seo the moment he gets out of captivity. He has half the mind to shoot right then and there.
“You really shouldn’t have been born…”
The younger says, blood still dripping from his temple. It stops him in his tracks. It takes control of his head and he could laugh. He expected the betrayal at least. He knew Han Seo’s loyalty was as fickle as his brain. Han Seok feels a certain happiness, smug about being right. It was only for a second, one split second of being correct on his assumptions. And then all he could feel was pain .
The lights are too bright, he thinks. But so are Han Seo’s eyes.
Suddenly, he was seven years old again, meeting Han Seo for the first time while their father introduces him. And then he was seventeen, leaving for the US with Han Seo crying to their father and begging him to let Han Seok stay. To let his Hyung stay because they were best friends and he needs his brother. Now, he’s leaning over his father’s hospital bed and he thinks he could kill Han Seo - cut off every single family member he has. But he didn’t, he has always wondered why.
Now, he’s standing on a cliff of doubt, he couldn’t move his fingers long enough to pull the trigger and kill the younger from where he stands. There was a ringing in his ear that makes his eye twitch. Then Vincenzo was tackling him to the ground and in the midst of all this chaos, he fires the gun blindly. He doesn’t see anything after. Only Cha Young’s gasp and Vincenzo's swearing take over his mind. He wants to see, wants to know what the bullet hit when he notices his brother clutching his chest. Red takes over his vision.
Han Seo is falling to the floor. Han Seok can’t escape Vincenzo’s grip, can’t hear the mafioso telling Cha Young to call the cops, can’t see past Han Seo’s tear-filled eyes silently asking him to stay and not leave. But Han Seok doesn’t know what he meant by those tears. Is he crying for the time his Hyung left for Stanford? For the time he was diagnosed with a mental condition at 16, one they knew they could never fix? For all the years they have spent side by side? Or was he crying for love and how it has made a mess of both of them?
Han Seok doesn’t know the answer because sirens are blaring outside the building, cops are holding his arms, paramedics are helping Cha Young onto a stretcher and Vincenzo was hugging his brother’s body. The lights are too bright, he thinks, don’t let the light take Han Seo away.
*
The interrogation room has seen better days. It was different from the one he was in right before he got out and had Atty. Choi take his place. He was expecting her to open the doors, but deep inside he knew the game was over. That he’s lost the fight to Vincenzo, lost Babel, and perhaps lost the one thing ( person ) that truly mattered. The detectives read him his rights and the words enter one ear, out the other. He knew he’ll never win his case in trial, the best thing to hope for is to lessen his sentence (though he thinks capital punishment is better than staying in prison). He was staring at the white paper cup on top of the table when Vincenzo enters the room with blood on the collar of his otherwise impeccable suit.
“How is he?” Han Seok asks, because what can he say when he’s on the verge of falling down the precipice of anger and despair?
The Italian stays silent, looks at him, and tilts his head. “You don’t have the right to ask that,” he answers after a few minutes. There was nothing again before he continues, “He’s in the hospital, the doctors are doing everything they can but they are not sure he will make it through the night.”
This causes a lump to form in his throat. He didn’t understand why he cared. If anything, he’ll be getting what he wants by finally getting rid of the unloyal bastard but he asks, “Can I see him?”
*
Han Seok doesn’t know how he did it or what strings the mafioso pulled but he’s standing outside a hospital door wearing handcuffs, four policemen on guard, and Vincenzo waiting for him to enter. He turns the knob and walks inside the room.
The lights are too bright, he thinks again, Han Seo hates sleeping with the lights on.
He turns the light down and opens the hanging lamp on top of the bed. He walks until he’s standing by the bed with the beeping heart monitor in front of him (he doesn’t want to read his brother’s vitals, it only makes everything seem more real). Han Seo is awake, but he could tell from the way the younger is breathing that it was taking all of his power to keep his eyes open for the most important conversation of their life.
“It’s 11:21 pm now. They say I have 15 minutes before I have to go back.” Han Seok says off-handedly and the younger doesn’t say anything in return. The older sits on the bed by Han Seo’s thighs.
They stare at each other for a few minutes. Han Seo seems to be blinking in and out of consciousness, breathing deeply and slowly. The wound on his temple has stopped bleeding. Han Seok thinks they’ve already wasted four minutes of the time. He only has 11 minutes left.
“Hyung…”
The lights are still bright, Han Seok thinks again while waiting.
“...are you okay?”
“What do you think, dongsaeng? If you weren’t such an unloyal asshole, we might be okay now.”
Han Seo is quiet but the older can see the effort he puts into answering him.
“I swear, someplace out there, maybe in an alternate world where we’re living normal lives, this all works out in the end…”
The world has tilted out of its axis and Han Seok can’t see past the emotions taking over his senses. There’s that ringing in his ear again and he wants to punch the cardiac monitor. He is dizzy for a few minutes and Han Seo is talking again.
“In some different universe, we sit on a small couch and go over the bills. Talk about what to eat for dinner and how we’re overdue for grocery shopping sometime on the weekend,” Han Seo breathes deeply for a beat before continuing quietly. “ You told me once that I was too much. I wanted to ask you how little you want me to be… I think we’re the wrong people to know each other this well. It’s sad I think. While I was bleeding out on the floor after you shot me, the only thing I could think of was that you would probably kill me for ruining the carpet. And I have to say, I hope you think of me from time to time. My favorite flowers are white tulips.” He whispers slowly and Han Seok can only look at him, look at what he took for granted.
The lights are too bright from the lamp and I have 6 minutes left, Han Seok thinks.
“Why did you say that? Back there before I shot you?”
Han Seo is quiet and tugs at his sleeve lightly. “Hyung, I hope we don’t cross paths in our next life… I forgive you.”
Han Seok holds the hand gripping his sleeve and waits for Vincenzo to open the door. He looks back on his life and how his younger brother knew him too well. Thinks about his diagnosis and everything that went down after the fact. When the mafioso enters the room to tell him his time is up, the first thing Han Seok says is:
“The time is 11:32 pm,”
“It’s 11:36 pm and it’s been 15 minutes. Your time is up. You need to go back to the precinct.” Vincenzo approaches him slowly like he’s a spooked animal, oblivious to everything else inside the room.
“I meant Han Seo took his last breath at 11:32 pm. I’m sure the doctors will want to know.” He could almost see the panic form in Vincenzo’s eyes before he starts calling for the nurses. For the first time in a very long time, he kisses his brother’s forehead and cries silent tears.
*
The trial occurred a month after Han Seo’s death (Han Seok thinks they expedited the process due to public outrage), and the defense team is almost speechless. There was an avalanche of evidence that come from surveillance footage, paperwork, witnesses, and the Guillotine file. The prosecution secures a conviction and the jury gives their final verdict: Guilty.
When they ask him if there was anything he would like to take into prison. A kindness on their behalf, surely. He understands the pity. He would be, after all, spending the rest of his life there. Han Seok asks for a collar pin, the one he knows Vincenzo has taken as a token of Han Seo's admiration for him. Of how Vincenzo loved Han Seo as a brother better than Han Seok ever could. They rejected it, they say he might hurt other people with the pin. So he tells them to look for a photo, the only one he has of Han Seo when the other was first introduced to him at five years old.
Later on, he finds out Vincenzo has killed Atty. Choi and Han Seung-hyuk. He was tempted to ask why he spared him during Vincenzo’s visit to the prison. Instead, he asks him to bring white tulips if he ever goes to the cemetery.
The light is too bright, he thinks, but it doesn’t matter because Han Seo is sleeping forever now.