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I used to think all houses breathed.
Not like lungs, nothing creepy like that, but the way sound settled into walls, the way footsteps echoed differently depending on who was walking. The manor always knew who we were. It creaked more when I was upset, groaned when Heeseung hyung pretended not to worry, and stayed perfectly quiet when Jungwon hyung was thinking too hard. It loved us. It cared about us.
I learned that early.
I also learned that my family was strange.
Other kids noticed before I did.
Why does your dad look so young?
Why is your house so big?
Why do you call them hyung?
I never had good answers. I just knew that when I woke up from nightmares, someone was always sitting outside my door. When I scraped my knee, Jungwon hyung kissed it better and Heeseung hyung hovered like the world might end if I cried too hard. When I fell apart, they were there to put me back together. Always. That love was never something I had to earn.
So maybe strange didn’t mean wrong.
<><><><>
When I was seventeen, I found the room Heeseung hyung had sealed up.
It was an accident. Mostly.
I’d been looking for an old photo album Jungwon hyung swore existed, proof that Heeseung hyung once wore sweaters that were aggressively ugly, something Heeseung hyung protested until he was red in the face. I found the album eventually, but not before discovering the door at the far end of the west wing. A big brown doorway I hadn’t noticed before.
No dust. No handle.
Just magic humming low enough I felt it in my teeth. It felt like witch’s magic, which wasn’t surprising at all.
I shouldn’t have opened it.
I did anyway.
Inside was history. A lot of it.
Paintings stacked against the walls. A lot of people I didn’t recognize and a few of someone I did. Weapons I’d only ever seen in books. Letters written in languages I couldn’t read but somehow understood. Time pressed into objects, heavy and aching. It was like stepping into a time capsule.
And in the center of the room was a portrait of Heeseung hyung.
Not the Heeseung hyung who burned toast and complained about his knees when it rained. This Heeseung had sharp eyes and no smile, standing untouched by time while everything around him blurred into insignificance.
Immortal.
“So you found it,” Heeseung hyung said softly from behind me.
I didn’t turn around. “You were never going to tell me.”
It wasn’t an accusation. Just a fact.
Heeseung hyung sighed. The sound carried centuries in it. “I was waiting until you were ready.”
“I grew up with magic in the walls and a witch as a hyung,” I said. “I think I figured it out.”
Heeseung hyung laughed quietly at that, stepping beside me. “Still.”
We stood there together, looking at the man Heeseung hyung used to be.
“Does it bother you?” he asked.
I thought about it.
“No,” I said. “It explains things.”
Heeseung hyung blinked. “That’s it?”
“You chose to become human,” I added. “You chose us. I don’t care what you were before that.”
Something in Heeseung hyung’s expression broke, just a little.
He pulled me into a hug that was too tight, too sudden.
“You were never a mistake,” he whispered, like he needed me to hear it out loud.
“I know,” I said, hugging him back. “You’re really bad at hiding how much you love people.”
From the doorway, Jungwon hyung sniffed. “Both of you are going to make me cry.”
<><><><>
Jungwon hyung got sick when I was twenty-three.
Not dramatically. Not all at once.
Just small things.
He started forgetting words. Got tired faster. Laughed it off.
Heeseung hyung didn’t.
I caught him watching Jungwon hyung like he was counting breaths, like he was afraid to blink. At night, the manor went quiet again. The bad kind of quiet. The kind it used to have when I was little and cried myself to sleep.
One evening, I found Heeseung hyung on the porch, staring at nothing.
“You okay?” I asked.
Heeseung hyung nodded too fast. “Of course.”
I sat beside him anyway.
“You don’t have to be strong for me,” I said. “I’m not a kid anymore.”
Heeseung hyung exhaled, long and shaky. “I know. That’s the problem.”
Jungwon hyung joined us, leaning into Heeseung hyung’s side like he always had. “You raised a good one,” he said lightly. “I think we did okay.”
We.
Heeseung hyung gripped his hand like it might disappear.
Later, Jungwon hyung asked me to promise something.
“Don’t let him pull away,” he said quietly. “He does that when he’s scared.”
“I won’t,” I told him. “He’s stuck with me.”
Jungwon hyung smiled, tired but real. “Good.”
<><><><>
When Jungwon hyung died, it was peaceful.
That mattered.
Heeseung hyung held him the entire time, whispering things I didn’t think I was meant to hear. I sat on the floor beside them, grounding myself in the sound of their breathing until one of them stopped.
The manor didn’t creak.
It mourned with us.
Heeseung hyung didn’t leave like I half-expected him to. He didn’t retreat into silence or disappear into old habits. He stayed. He broke. He let me see it.
Grief looked different on someone who chose mortality.
It looked like staying.
Years passed.
I got older. Heeseung hyung did too, slowly, stubbornly, beautifully. We argued about stupid things. We fixed the roof together. We burned Jungwon hyung’s pancake recipe on purpose every year, because tradition matters.
Sometimes I caught Heeseung hyung smiling at nothing.
“You miss him,” I said.
“Every day,” he answered.
“But you don’t regret it.”
Heeseung hyung looked at me then. Really looked.
“No,” he said. “Loving you both was worth every ending.”
<><><><>
I don’t know what comes after this.
I just know that when I walk through the manor now, it feels full. Not loud, not empty, just warm. Lived in.
And when people ask me where I come from, I finally have an answer.
“I was raised by love,” I say.
And that’s the truth.