boys were boys, but they were wrong

by rinovella

Summary:

“How old are you, hyung?” the man asked softly, his voice hesitant, so careful, as though he were coaxing a particularly capricious cat.

“I’m nineteen,” Yoojin said flatly, his voice deadpan. “Yoohyun is fourteen. You aren’t.”

25, a hero. 19, an imposter.

The Hans always did have a flair for fraud.

or: if you take a legend, and word by word, replace it with tragedy, is it still the same story?

Notes:

hello my fellow sctir readers. back again to present this new fic in my au. lowkey idk it's the 'tragic yoojin cinematic universe' in my head but well. anyway so de-aged yoojin! and trauma! and secrets! and truth! tickets to the tragedy are free, bring all your friends along.

for reference i will be referring to some stuff in 'bought for plenty a price' but nothing essential. anyway hope you enjoy!

note: nothing romantic will happen between nineteen yr old yoojin and sung hyunjae. but delicious banter and pull and push and unraveling shall occur.

Chapter 1: nineteen and nothing new

Summary:

tw: mentions of sex work. yoojin is 19 but it started before then as well.

Notes:

oh my god. this was my first time trying to write sung hyunjae. that man is hard to write ok... it's that air of detachment like the rest of us are npcs on a stage like i'm sorry i tried to capture you in mere words on a screen king. anyway hope it came out alright

i haven't read the novel properly so this is just set in some vague area of the timeline. before gyeol but like idk the mana stone is just in storage by the system i guess. yoojin's body and mind have both been reverted.

Yoojin wasn’t unaccustomed to blacking out.

Losing time, waking up in places he didn’t recognize—it had become something of a routine.

At first, it was terrifying. It was the kind of terror that lodged itself deep in his mind and refused to let go, the kind that twisted his body into something small, something to be hidden, ignored, and forgotten. 

But terror dulls over time. It softens into resignation, softens into a quiet acceptance that the world will take what it wants from you. 

All you can do is survive the aftermath.

The world demanded sacrifice, and Yoojin had none left to give but himself.

That’s how it went. Sometimes he’d slip away—his body no longer his own, his mind sinking into oblivion—and wake up somewhere unfamiliar. 

A stranger’s bed. The backseat of a car. A dark alley where the cold concrete bit into his skin like teeth. Sometimes there were bruises, sometimes there was blood, and sometimes there were things he refused to name.

But then his pocket would be a little heavier with wads of cash, or his phone would buzz with a notification: an e-transfer, a number that meant more to him compared to what he had to give up to earn it, and he didn’t chase after those lost minutes.

His body, his memories, his safety—none of it mattered so long as his brother thrived. The gods could carve him into pieces; he would gladly give every shard of himself if it meant his brother remained whole. 

It was always like this. Waking up aching, the taste of something bitter on his tongue, his head full of fog, his hands trembling as they tried to find something— anything—to ground him. 

His mind was hazy. Like someone had switched him off and played to their hearts’ content and then turned him back on again. He’d learned to be numb to it, to get used to the feeling of being toyed with. 

So when Yoojin opened his eyes to another ceiling he didn’t recognize, the first thing he felt wasn’t confusion or fear. It was familiarity.

But that familiarity was its own kind of horror.

He blinked slowly, his chest tight. His body ached in ways that felt too specific, too sharp. His muscles were weak, trembling with every small movement.

Not again.

His thoughts were slow, muddled, slipping through his grasp like water through cupped hands. He struggled to sit up, his arms shaking beneath him, and he gasped at the effort. Every part of him hurt. He could feel the phantom echo of rough hands, whispered words, the suffocating press of a body too close. His mouth tasted sour, his throat dry.

The panic started small, a flutter in his chest, before it began to build as he made out his surroundings. He’d never woken up in a hospital before. 

Hospitals weren’t for people like him. He couldn’t afford this—not the money, not the attention, not the weight of someone looking too closely at him. If they’d found something suspicious, what would they do? 

His mind spiraled: traces of something slipped into his drink? Bruises in places he couldn’t explain? Scars that told stories he didn’t want anyone to hear?

Yoojin swung his legs over the edge of the bed, his feet brushing the cold tile floor. He had to leave. Now. Before anyone noticed. Before they started asking things he couldn’t answer.

The door opened.

Yoojin’s head snapped up, his breath hitching. His instinct was to fold inward, to shrink smaller, to disappear into the shadows before anyone could lay their gaze—or their hands—on him. He wasn’t ready. He wasn’t ready to speak, to justify, to explain his existence to anyone. He didn’t need to be pitied. That was the worst thing they could do—look at him with soft eyes and gentle words that tried to mask their disgust as compassion. 

He didn’t need pity, and he sure as hell wasn’t looking for salvation. 

There was nothing here for them to save.

No. If someone walked in now, he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of cracking him open like that. Yoojin didn’t want their scrutiny. He just wanted to be left alone to ruin.

But when he saw who was standing in the doorway, his resolve faltered.

A man stood in the doorway, his broad shoulders filling the frame. His face was sharp, his build solid in a way that immediately set Yoojin on edge. It spoke of power and a life of excess—good meals, good rest, good living. A life Yoojin didn’t know, but tried to buy for Yoohyun. There was something familiar about him, but it made Yoojin’s heart lurch, each beat frantic and painful, like it was trying to claw its way out of his chest. 

It wasn’t fear—it was the kind of pain that came when something too close to the past suddenly stepped into the present. A dull, throbbing ache, like a bruise pressed too hard.

Was he dead?

For one terrible moment, Yoojin thought it was his father, a ghost finally choosing to greet him now that they were both bound for the grave; only then did his father care enough to speak to his face, to show up after death had already claimed them both. The resemblance wasn’t exact—his father’s face had been heavier, more weathered, a different kind of tired—but it sparked a memory of before Yoohyun, before the darkness had closed in, when his parents still held the charm of young love, when things were simpler, softer.

The return of what had been lost tore open wounds he thought were long scarred over. It exposed the rawness of the years he had spent beneath the weight of the sky; his father’s expectations, the bestowal of too many burdens placed upon him as the eldest, the legacy of never being enough no matter how hard he tried.

His father had been a good man—or so people liked to say. The kind of man who worked hard, who provided for his family; the kind of man who sacrificed his dreams to build a life. But people never saw the cracks beneath the surface—never saw the tight jaw, the clenched fists, the hollow eyes after another long day he spent away at work and not with his family. His father had been a man of expectations—too many, too high, expectations that weighed so heavily they were never spoken aloud, just passed down like an unbreakable chain, an immovable sky, an heirloom handed from one generation to the next. 

And when his father had grown too tired to carry it anymore, he’d shrugged it off and placed it squarely on Yoojin’s shoulders, like a fucked-up inheritance, a cruel patrimony with no option but to accept it, no choice but to bear it.

“We’re both the oldest,” his father would say, as if that fact alone made it all fair; as if being the eldest son meant an unspoken vow to bear the world’s burdens, to be the one who stood strong, never faltered, never broke. “You don’t mind taking care of your brother, right? I did it, too.” He would say it with a tired smile, like it was nothing, like it was a rite, a tradition, an legacy woven into the fabric of their bloodline. As if the responsibility he handed down was some kind of honor, a duty to be passed down. But it was no honor at all—it was a weight, a silent command, an expectation that came with no room to breathe. 

Yoojin had tried to carry it, to live up to it, to be the kind of son who never failed. He still was trying, every moment, every day, as if somehow, if he tried hard enough, the burden would finally ease. 

God, he was trying so hard with every breath, every step, every hour that bled into the next. 

But no matter how much he tried, the weight never lessened. When his parents died, it only got worse. The chain tightened around him, stretched, strained. The sky pressed down on him harder, heavier. When their relatives came by only after the funeral, snatching away what they could before vanishing into the unknown, the last thread of safety unraveled.

Yoojin had been fifteen by then, Yoohyun almost ten. Old enough to understand the betrayal, but too young to stop it.

The legacy of their absence wasn’t just the house, or the debts, or the empty space at the table. It was a legacy of loneliness, of abandoned responsibility, of being left to shoulder a past they never got to live. 

Had he finally died?

Maybe this was it—the final blackout he wouldn’t wake from. Maybe this was it. The price he had to pay, or the ending he never knew he’d wanted. Maybe this was his punishment, his reward, his escape. For a brief moment, he resigned himself to it. 

Death might be kinder than life had been.

But that wasn’t an option. Not for him.

Not when Yoohyun still needed him. Not while Yoohyun’s future had yet to be claimed, even despite how Yoojin’s future had already been condemned. He couldn’t let himself go, not even here, not even now. He would wrestle fate itself if he had to, claw his way back from the brink, again and again, if it meant Yoohyun’s world could remain unshaken.

If the gods wanted to punish him, they’d make him live. 

Let the gods twist the knife deeper; he had been their Sisyphus long enough to know that their greatest cruelty wasn’t in death, but in survival. 

And if they sought entertainment, Yoojin would give it to them; a performance of stubborn defiance, every breath a rebellion.

He had no delusions about the kindness of the gods. 

They didn’t punish you by killing you. They punished you by making you live. Death would be mercy, and Yoojin knew better than to dare to dream of it.

His eyes burned as he blinked. The figure in the doorway came into sharper focus.

“Dad?” The word slipped out before Yoojin could stop it, raw and uncertain. It felt foreign in his mouth, strange and unwieldy, an old title resurrected to address a man who hardly deserved it. 

The man froze mid-step. Yoojin saw it then—the flicker of shock in his eyes, a glint of hesitation buried under layers of tenderness unknown to Yoojin. 

“No,” the man said, his voice gentle. It felt like an apology for some unnamed crime. 

Reality snapped back into place, jagged pieces rearranging themselves into cruel clarity. 

It wasn’t his father. He wasn’t dead.

There were no ghosts here to greet him, no spectral whispers offering answers to unasked questions, no lingering presence to finally lay to rest alongside. 

This was real.

His heart sank, and a different kind of anger bubbled up in his chest.

“Hyung,” the man said softly, the word familiar yet foreign.

Yoojin’s stiffened. No. That word. That tone. Too familiar, too wrong. It clawed at the edges of Yoojin’s mind, dragging memories he’d buried deep into the light. He scrambled to place him, and the pieces clicked together in the worst way possible.

This was no ghost, and yet this man haunted him all the same. 

“Your hyung died four years ago, Uncle,” Yoojin spat, his voice trembling with anguish masked as anger. The title felt poisonous on his tongue, like acid eating its way through him. Fury surged up, raw and unrestrained. 

His uncle’s expression faltered. Yoojin saw alarm flash across his face. He took a cautious step forward, hands half-raised, as if forged surrender could erase the ashes he’d left in his wake.

Bastards like him always pretended. The Hans always did have a flair for fraud.

“What are you saying? Hyung, it’s—”

“Don’t you dare!” Yoojin's voice cracked, sharp and raw, as he lunged forward. His legs wobbled, but rage held him upright where his body faltered.

“Didn’t you have fun?” Yoojin hissed, his hands finding the man’s collar. His grip was tighter than he intended, his fingers trembling as they bunched in the fabric. “Didn’t you have fun looting your hyung after he died? How could you steal the life insurance money and run off? Our parents trusted you! My dad trusted you! I trusted you! How could you? How could you?” His voice climbed with each word, a crescendo rising in pitch, as if the sorrow in his chest were spilling out, each syllable more fragile than the last, cracking with the weight of everything he had lost.

He shook the man—or tried to, the effort sapping his strength but refusing to relent. The man—this relative—this stranger—this traitor didn’t resist, didn’t fight back. He just stood there, his face frozen in shock and guilt.

And then, Yoojin saw it—something flickered in his uncle’s eyes. Confusion, pain, something too human, too weak to belong to someone like him. Yoojin recoiled as if burned. 

He hated it.

How dare he? How dare he wear an expression like that, as if he were the victim? That expression didn’t belong to him—it was Yoojin’s, carved from years of sacrifice and suffering. The ache, the loss, the betrayal. They were carved into his flesh, his bones, the marrow of his being. This man had no claim to them.

“Hyung—”

“Don’t call me that!” Yoojin shrieked. “Are you on drugs again? We don’t even look alike, you bastard. I’m his son.”

His body shook with the force of his emotions, his breath coming in sharp, shallow gasps. He wasn’t sure what hurt more—the rage or the ache beneath it.

Tears pricked his eyes, hot and unwelcome. His chest heaved as his emotions spilled over, a storm he couldn’t contain. His vision blurred, his hands trembled, his knees threatened to buckle, and yet he stood there, rooted by the weight of it all.

The man—his uncle, this thief, this turncoat—still didn’t fight back. His hands remained raised, his expression—his eyes—softening into something even worse. 

Before Yoojin could lash out any further, the sound of a creak broke the tension.

The door opened.

Golden eyes swept the room, assessing, dissecting.

The newcomer stood in the doorway like he owned the room. His expression held an infuriating mix of amusement and detachment, like the scene before him was a play to entertain him. It didn’t falter as it took in the scene: Yoojin trembling, his fists clenched in fabric, his uncle frozen and silent.

“Well, this is quite the scene, Yoojin-gun,” the newcomer said, with a lilt of aggravating mirth and mild reprimand.  His lips curved into a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, a razor-thin thing that promised nothing but trouble. 

It made Yoojin’s skin crawl. 

“Who the hell are you?” Yoojin snapped, his voice hoarse but defiant. His fury turned to the stranger now, redirected like a wild animal, cornered and desperate. Why was this stranger acting so familiar? Was it manipulation? Did he think Yoojin was someone worth charming? 

The joke was on him. Yoojin had nothing to offer but debt and despair; except for himself. Or whatever shards were still left. 

The man tilted his head, his smile widening just slightly.  “Oh dear,” he murmured, in an imitation of theatrical betrayal. “Have I truly left no impression on you? Tragic. I enjoy being so memorable.”

Yoojin’s knuckles whitened, his grip on the fabric tightening. He eyed the signs of the newcomer’s wealth—his watch, his shoes, the tailored clothes that clung to his frame like a second skin.

Come to think of it, his uncle wore similar things. What was a man like that doing with a man like this? Perhaps this stranger, too, had been swindled. 

“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten me already?” the newcomer continued, his tone teasing. 

Yoojin’s eyes narrowed. Caustic words spilled from his lips like barbs before he could stop them. Perhaps the drugs he’d been slipped were still in his system, loosening his tongue. “What, did my uncle get hitched while I wasn’t paying attention? Is that why you’re here? I guess I missed the invitation.”

The stranger’s smile flickered. It wasn’t much—just the faintest crack in the mask of self-assurance he wore so effortlessly—but Yoojin saw it. Felt it. The satisfaction it sparked in his chest was ugly and bitter, but it was a victory all the same; a triumphant strike in a battle he hadn’t even realized he was in. 

“You have a way with words, Yoojin-gun,” the stranger said, his voice low and even. “That is the cruelest accusation I’ve ever received in my life.” His tone dipped, laced with mock offense, but his golden eyes gleamed coldly. “Please, do not ever imply again that I am romantically involved with Han Yoohyun.”

The name hit Yoojin hard, stealing the air from Yoojin’s lungs. 

His breath caught. His mind reeled.

“Shut up, Sung Hyunjae,” snapped the man in Yoojin’s grasp—his uncle, no, someone else, no—someone he couldn’t place anymore. The words came with a ferocity Yoojin hadn’t expected, a vindictiveness foreign to the brother he knew.

And then Yoojin saw them.

Golden chains slithered around Sung Hyunjae’s wrists, their metallic sheen catching the fluorescent lights. The links moved unnaturally, writhing like living things, curling and uncurling with an alien grace that made Yoojin’s stomach twist. 

Was he still drugged? 

Had this whole scene before him been the product of a hallucinogenic, some new cruel cocktail? Was this something conjured up by his mind, some messed up delusion that taunted him with empty promises of confrontation and comfort? 

“What the hell?” Yoojin whispered, seeing the way the chains slinked about. “What... What is that?”

The newcomer—Sung Hyunjae, supposedly—tilted his head slightly, like the scenes of Yoojin’s suffering were morsels of some gourmet dish for him to savor. 

“That?” he echoed, as if Yoojin had just asked a particularly interesting question. “A gift. Unless you’re referring to what you’re holding. In which case, ‘that’ is the brother you cherish so much.”

The deliberate emphasis on the word felt like a blow, turning Yoojin’s earlier accusation into a pointed declaration of nonsense. It made no sense. None of this made sense. 

Sung Hyunjae leaned against the doorframe, the cold amusement on his face deepening. “Still nothing? You truly don’t remember me. A strange feeling, Yoojin-gun.” He tapped a finger against his chin, mock thoughtfulness radiating from every calculated movement.

Yoojin’s knuckles ached from how tightly he gripped the fabric. “Stop talking like I should know you,” he hissed. “I don’t.”

Again, something flickered in Sung Hyunjae’s expression—amusement curling into something sharper, deeper, just beneath the surface. “Forgotten,” he repeated softly, almost as if savoring the words. “Well, well. I never thought I was so easy to forget. A new feeling. I’m not quite sure how I feel about it.”

Yoojin’s face twisted into something darker, a mix of confusion and fury, but Sung Hyunjae pressed forward as though unbothered. “Do you find my chains distracting?” he asked smoothly. “They have that effect on people. Though, between us, I wouldn’t get too close.”

Yoojin frowned. “Why?”

Hyunjae’s smile deepened, his gaze sharpening like the edge of a blade. “Because, Yoojin-gun,” he said, voice light and airy, “they might decide they like you.”

The comment sent a chill down Yoojin’s spine. He shifted his gaze to the chains again, watching them slither and curl, their movements serpentine and hypnotic.

“That isn’t normal,” Yoojin muttered, mostly to himself. “What is going on?”

“Ah, still confused. How unfortunate.” Sung Hyunjae feigned a sigh, as though disappointed in Yoojin’s failure to piece things together. “Perhaps your memory isn’t quite as sharp as it used to be. I wonder, does the past seem so far away in this state?”

“Leave him alone, Sung Hyunjae,” the man—still in his grasp—hissed. “Can’t you see whatever changed him also changed his memories?”

He looked back at the man—no longer a ghost of the past, but the future—who he held. He let go. His brother? No. That wasn’t possible. His Yoohyun was fourteen, smaller and skinnier, still undergoing the awkward metamorphosis of puberty. 

This man—even if not his uncle—wasn’t his brother. He couldn’t be.

“How old are you, hyung?” the man asked softly, his voice hesitant, so careful, as though he were coaxing a particularly capricious cat. 

“I’m nineteen,” he said flatly, his voice deadpan. “Yoohyun is fourteen. You aren’t.”

How could this stranger, who didn’t even know his age, expect him to believe they were related?

Yoojin took offense to this whole situation. How could anyone—anyone—attempt to replace his baby brother with this? This blustering bastard who couldn’t even hold his composure, whose every stuttered breath felt like a mockery of the precious, precocious child Yoojin had scarred his soul, scattered his self, to raise?

The man finally spoke, his voice cracking under the weight of something Yoojin couldn’t place. “Nineteen? But you look…” The words trembled, breaking like glass. “So young.”

It wasn’t admiration. It was an accusation. The way the words left his lips—fragile and trembling—made it sound like an apology he didn’t know how to give. His eyes, so piercing and familiar yet utterly wrong, flickered with something Yoojin couldn’t name. 

“I never remembered you this young,” the man said, his voice a rasp, the edges fraying with grief he couldn’t hide.

The words hit like a backhanded compliment. Yoojin bristled, offense and pride flaring in equal measure. He knew the truth about himself. He’d spent years surviving on it, banking on it. Short and starving, his body still a mirage of boyishness even at nineteen. His claim to fame, his currency in the world’s cruel economy, was his youth, even as it kept dwindling. It was what kept him alive. What got him paid. What he spent on Yoohyun.  

And yet—he hated the way this stranger said it, like it was wrong, like Yoojin was some mistake carved out of time.

Yoojin retorted, voice sharper. “What’s wrong? I am nineteen. Shouldn’t you be the one sitting in this hospital bed instead of me?” 

Sung Hyunjae’s lips quirked upward once more in a facsimile of a smile. Calculated. Like it wasn’t meant to be a smile at all but some approximation of one, something strategic to set him at ease without actually succeeding.

The joke was on him. Yoojin could never be at ease. Ever. 

Ease was something he couldn’t afford, a luxury he couldn’t indulge in.

“No,” Sung Hyunjae said simply, answering on behalf of the man. “Nothing is wrong. Just… unexpected.”

Yoojin’s hands twitched, his body trembling with barely-contained rage. He wanted to shout, to demand answers, but the words lodged in his throat.

Sung Hyunjae’s gaze softened—or perhaps it only appeared that way. “You seem so fragile now,” he mused almost absently, like an omniscient narrator to some unknown audience. “It’s fascinating, really. The fire’s still there, but it’s... different. Dimmed, perhaps. Burned out, even.”

Yoojin’s breath hitched at that, his hands loosening at his sides. He knew men like this—polished and pristine, with words as smooth as silk and smiles that hid something sharp beneath the surface. The desire to tear apart and feast upon youth. He knew how to handle them. 

He’d have tipped his head just so, let a coy smile curl at his lips, his lashes fluttering as he leaned in closer than necessary. “Oh, did you think I was younger?” he’d have said, his voice teetering between teasing and inviting, pitched just right to walk the line between innocence and provocation. 

That was the version of himself he knew how to wield, the one who could slip into another role like a second skin. It was armor, sharp and glittering, polished until it blinded. But right now, that armor was gone, stripped away by whatever cruel joke had landed him here. He felt raw, exposed, and painfully out of his depth. And with this man—this stranger—claiming to be his brother standing here watching him, the idea of even attempting that act felt ridiculous.

“Unexpected?” Yoojin repeated instead, his voice sharp with disbelief. 

“Hyung, you should…” The man hesitated, his gaze flickering to the stranger before returning to Yoojin. “You’re… supposed to be older.”

Sung Hyunjae’s smile widened, his attention shifting to Yoohyun. “Ah,” he said, his tone light but laced with something dangerous. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d let me play with your precious hyung for too long.”

What?

“Older?” he said, voice faint. “What are you talking about?” 

He knew that couldn’t be true. He still felt the ache of scraped knees. The burn mark on his wrist from a man too careless—or perhaps, too cruel—with his cigarette was still there from last week, fresh and unfaded. 

This was the same body he’d always known: nineteen, nothing new.

“You’re supposed to be twenty-five,” the man said, his gaze steady but tinged with unease. “I don’t—I don’t know why you’re… like this.”

The room spun, the air growing heavier by the second.

And then Sung Hyunjae stepped forward, his chains rattling softly with the movement. His voice, when he spoke, was calm and unyielding, as though the weight of the world rested in his words.

“The world has changed, Yoojin-gun,” he said, golden eyes boring into him. “And so have you.”

Notes:

please kudos and comment and bookmark i go feral over each one. and feel free to check out 'bought for plenty a price' and my other sctir fics. thanks for reading this! <3

Chapter 2: counterfeit star

Summary:

tw: brief mentions of roofied drinks, underage prostitution, starvation

Notes:

woah this fic got so much attention so fast wow... i will suggest reading "bought for plenty a price" if you like this but yeah. anyway please enjoy this is a bit of a filler chapter tbh sorry.

enjoy the beginning! tried to make it comedic. let me know if you spot the alt accounts in the comments

r/OutOfTheLoop

Posted by u/cowgirlbebop [A-Rank] - 4 months ago

Got knocked out for a while. Who the fuck is Han Yoojin, and why is some random Korean F-rank trending worldwide? [Awakened-centric]

I overused my skills during a raid and long story short ended up in the infirmary. Why are there so many posts about him on the r/huntermemes subreddit about this guy? From what I found, he’s a F-rank but people are still losing their minds over him.

I’ve seen that he can raise S-Rank dungeon beasts, that Guild Leaders are fighting over him, and so many different edits? Oh and since that wasn’t enough he also apparently supported that Korean whistleblower guy, Song Taewon?

How does a F-rank even get involved in all of this? Can someone explain what I missed? Is all of this even true?

24.9k comments | 43.7k upvotes | 7.1k downvotes

---

u/steponmequeenhyuna [C-Rank]
Han Yoojin isn’t just any F-rank. He’s a beast-raising specialist, and I mean specialist. Moon Hyuna’s mount? Yoojin raised it. He’s also behind several other dungeon beasts being used by S-rank hunters. His skills make him a legend, even though he doesn’t fight.

15.2k upvotes | 300 downvotes

u/kfc4mkc [B-Rank]
He’s famous because his little brother is Han Yoohyun, the Haeyeon Guild leader. If your younger sibling was an overpowered S-rank, you’d be trending too. Nepotism moment. Next.

7.4k upvotes | 3.9k downvotes

reply to u/kfc4mkc
u/iceprincessqueenboss100 [Unranked]

stfu rn loser stanning a loser guild. han yoojin doesn’t even work for haeyeon you bitch. sung hyunjae wants him. all the guilds want him. nobody wants you tho. it’s giving daddy issues.

9.1k upvotes | 899 downvotes

u/the_mostcunninglinguist [Unranked]
I’m just here from the fancams. They’re everywhere. My favorite is the one where he walks out of that one building after calming the berserk beast. 

3.1k upvotes | 200 downvotes

u/coupforchristmas13 [A-Rank]
Yoojin’s work with the Korean Hunter Association is insane. He helped expose corruption and had Song Taewon’s back when no one else would. This is why people respect him beyond just his beast-raising. He’s changing the game from the inside.

17.4k upvotes | 400 downvotes

reply to u/coupforchristmas13
u/the_mostcunninglinguist [Unranked]
ngl wish song taewon would blow my back out tbh

28.6k upvotes | 21 downvotes

u/bratbutsummerisgone [D-Rank]
Imagine being an F-rank and still more famous than half the S-ranks out there. Meanwhile, I’m barely scraping by in D-rank raids. All men are not created equal. 

7.3k upvotes | 1.1k downvotes

reply to u/bratbutsummerisgone
u/sigmadeohio [A-Rank]
L rank loser

1.1k upvotes | 11.2k downvotes

reply to u/bratbutsummerisgone
u/grind_till_amex [F-Rank]
Right? While we’re grinding to get one decent piece of gear, this guy’s making dungeon beasts more powerful than some of us. Dude’s got the same rank I do but doesn’t need to step foot in a single dungeon.

770 upvotes | 200 downvotes

u/gunsaregod69 [Unranked]
Maybe it’s because I’m not from Korea, but I don’t get the hype. Sure, beast-raising sounds cool, but how much impact can one F-Rank really have?

3.2k upvotes | 2.4k downvotes

reply to u/gunsaregod69
u/t_h_e_honggildong [A-Rank]
Okay, so I just checked my contract and this is what I can tell you.
His beasts are smarter, faster, and stronger than most combat hunters. That’s a game-changer in every dungeon. You’re underestimating how much of a difference it makes in lives lost.

13.2k upvotes | 600 downvotes

reply to u/t_h_e_honggildong
u/dankruto2112 [Unranked]
You forgot the part where he’s unaffiliated. Every guild is panicking because whoever can sign him first will dominate the dungeon scene.

3.0k upvotes | 82 downvotes

u/wishiwasanonlychild7 [A-Rank]
Han Yoohyun literally simps over his “hyung” even though he’s a S-Rank and his brother is a F-Rank. Meanwhile I’m A-Rank and my unawakened younger brother calls me “dumbass.” 

10.1k upvotes | 120 downvotes

reply to u/wishiwasanonlychild7
u/frogsareharmless [C-Rank]
mood man

100 upvotes | 2 downvotes

u/givemethegold [Unranked]
What’s crazy is that he turned down Sung Hyunjae. The richest guildmaster in Korea. Do you know how terrifying that guy is? But Yoojin was just like, “Nah, I’m good.” Absolute madlad.

7.1k upvotes | 2.3k downvotes

reply to u/givemethegold
u/daddyshj_ [Unranked]
I wouldn’t mind being tamed by Hyunjae…

4.3k upvotes | 2.1k downvotes

reply to u/givemethegold
u/gobtheguilder [Unawakened]
People are sleeping on the fact that Yoojin turned down two of the most powerful guilds in the world. If that doesn’t tell you how serious he is about being independent, I don’t know what will.

2.1k upvotes | 123 downvotes

u/looksmaxxing_king_14 [F-Rank]
Man I love that one meme with Yoojin with the caption “F-rank? I run the ranks.”

5.1k upvotes | 972 downvotes

u/dragonloverbigirl [Unranked]
omg if you don’t know who han yoojin is. that one edit of him to THRICE’s new song. mwah mwah mwah. no other explanation needed.

1.1k upvotes | 30 downvotes

u/wintendo [C-Rank]

I still think the hype is a bit overblown. Sure, he’s good at what he does, but is a F-Rank really worth this level of attention?

Why are people acting like he’s a miracle? He’s a low level ranker that just happened to get famous. I’m not buying it. Something’s suspicious here.

12.2k upvotes | 3.1k downvotes

reply to u/wintendo
u/yoonaurnoona [D-Rank]
oh no! the upper ranks are scared the letters are just… letters! your rank doesn’t determine your worth. ugh i hope more folks like han yoojin get popular

20.7k upvotes | 7.1k downvotes

reply to u/wintendo
u/forgemaster360 [Unranked]
You should try telling that to the B-Rank, A-Rank, even S-Rank hunters who rely on his beasts to survive dungeons. His work saves lives.

15.2k upvotes | 800 downvotes

u/cashlandingonme [Unranked]
Han Yoojin’s life is a K-drama. F-rank with god-tier skills, an S-rank brother, powerful beasts, reforming the system, and guild leaders fighting over him? 

I need the adaptation ASAP. 

RemindMe! 1 year.

8.6k upvotes | 202 downvotes

---

Between the rise and fall of the moon and sun, Yoojin felt as if he were adrift in a void, somewhere beyond the edges of the world he once knew.

Six years.

Nearly a third of his life. Yet, it felt like a whole new lifetime had slipped past him, a cruel illusion that left him grasping at the remnants of what once was. Time had played its tricks—an unforgiving sleight of hand—and Yoojin was its unwilling witness. As if the clock had leapt forward mercilessly, hourglass sands spilling without pause, leaving him stranded in a reality that refused to wait. The present unfurled before him, stark and unrelenting, a puzzle of moments that neither asked for his consent nor his recollection.

The journey of his life had become an illegible map, its ink smudged and roads erased.

It felt, absurdly, like the plot of one of those shitty webnovels he used to pirate way back when. Late nights at the convenience store, its ceiling weeping rainwater onto the shelves, and its owner dragged away in cuffs for some scandal too sordid to speak of. Yoojin would crouch behind the counter, legs trembling from hours of standing, gnawing at his hunger because every scrap of food was for Yoohyun.

Fantasy was his only refuge back then.

Those stories were always about boys like him: poor, discarded, carrying the weight of the world on shoulders far too small to bear it. Boys whose lives changed by miracle, accident, or divine intervention—luck finally smiling upon them. A twist of fate, a hidden bloodline, a deus ex machina written to rescue them from the jaws of despair.

Protagonists born from tragedy, bound for greatness.

He had despised those boys, their too-perfect escapes and their too-destined lives. And yet, he had devoured their stories anyway. Pretending to love them while seething in his hollow heart. Because beneath his bitterness, there was something hauntingly familiar in those tales: the scrape of desperation, the ache of wanting more, the silent anger at gods who had never once turned their gaze to boys like him.

Yoojin had always known he wasn’t a protagonist.

And yet.

The world now seemed intent on pressing that role into his reluctant hands, shoving aside the anonymity he had worn like armor. Inspiration, they called him. A muse. An icon. He had become the subject of reverent awe, the kind of admiration that choked rather than exalted.

They painted him into myths, sculpted his likeness in marble, immortalized him in words that twisted and refracted like the light through shattered glass.

The weak looked to him for salvation, their eyes begging for deliverance. The strong knelt, asking to be forged into something greater.

But who was this version of him that they praised? This phantom, this specter that shared his name and wore his face but towered over the frail figure Yoojin knew himself to be? A shadow stretched long and cruel, obscuring the weary boy he had spent years becoming—a boy bent and bitter, too hollowed out by survival to stand beneath the weight of the world’s adoration.

The pressure was suffocating, and Yoojin could feel himself sinking beneath it.

The world around him felt askew, like a painting hung at the wrong angle. Or maybe it was just him—out of place in a story that didn’t seem to be his.

His phone sat in his hand like a foreign object, shiny and unblemished, too new, too sleek. It was a device that belonged to someone else, someone who wasn’t him. The smooth, seamless glass felt wrong beneath his fingers, and the motions he made to scroll through it—intuitive, practiced—felt like someone else’s instincts, not his own.

It wasn’t his phone—not really.

His phone had been a battered survivor, a relic of desperation. Its plastic back warped, its screen cracked into a spiderweb of fractures. The peeling protector curled away like dead skin, a fragile patchwork of tape holding it together—clinging to its battery the way Yoojin clung to life.

That phone had been his.

This phone was nothing like that.

The latest model, pristine in its design, encased in glass untouched by scratches or grit. Its screen protector was flawless. The case was beautiful and new, chosen with care by someone who could afford to pick something for its beauty and not just its utility. Even its weight felt alien—solid and balanced, like it belonged to someone with that sort of life.

Not someone like Yoojin.

This phone radiated affluence, an unmistakable kind of ease that was so foreign it almost felt hostile. There was no story in its unmarred surface, no scars of survival etched into its edges. 

Untouched by the wear of desperation, its screen sharp and vivid, it gave him clarity that felt almost novel to someone used to piecing things through cracks.

The longer Yoojin held it, the more it seemed to vibrate with wrongness. It was a stranger’s possession, masquerading as his own. If he closed his eyes, he could still see his old phone—half-shattered, taped together with resignation and willpower. That phone had been a reflection of him. Bruised, battered, but functional. A relic of necessity that carried far more weight than it should have, but carried it all the same.

This one wasn’t.

It was a thing built for someone deserving, someone who had earned it.

Yoojin wasn’t that person.

This phone, this apartment, this entire world—everything felt the same. Shiny and sharp-edged, new in ways that he didn’t know how to hold onto. Polished, unfamiliar, and fundamentally at odds with the boy he had been. It was as though he’d stumbled into a life that wasn’t his, a narrative where every prop, every costume, every set piece whispered that he didn’t belong.

He wasn’t sure he was allowed to breathe inside it at all.

And yet, here he was.

His chest tightened as he stared at the phone’s screen, his reflection faint and distorted across its surface. Who was he looking at now?

The world had changed, but not in the slow, predictable way time usually worked. This change had been violent, abrupt—a sudden rupture in the fabric of reality. It was like flipping through hundreds of thousands of pages of a story, only to find yourself at the end without knowing how you got there.

And somehow, Yoojin was the protagonist.

The world had become unrecognizable, a kaleidoscope of fractured truths and impossible wonders. It wasn’t the threadbare existence Yoojin had once known—nineteen and exhausted, slogging through endless shifts beneath flickering lights, his hands trembling as he clung to roofied drinks and whispered prayers to wake up whole. That world had been grim and raw, a place where survival came in jagged fragments.

But this? This was something else entirely. A world where hunters walked boldly among monsters, their shadows stretching long and sharp. The fairy tales Yoojin had once spun for Yoohyun—soft, careful stories meant to soothe a restless child into sleep—had come alive.

He could still see it in his mind’s eye: Yoohyun curled up beside him, his small frame rising and falling with each breath, as Yoojin spoke in hushed tones. He had made the stories gentler than the books told them, smoothing out the edges, weaving happy endings where none had been written. The huntsmen always triumphed, the dragons always slumbered, the wolves were never so sharp-toothed that they couldn’t be tamed.

And now, those same tales had sharpened into the headlines he could hardly bear to read. Heroes moved through the streets like myths brought to life, their stories carved into the fabric of the world, bright and terrible. Where Yoojin had once softened the world for Yoohyun, this one refused to be tamed—it was wild and cruel, both beautiful and merciless. 

A fairytale, yes, but not one he’d ever dared tell.

He had no idea how he had ended up inside it.

He turned the phone off, its screen blacking out with a quiet finality, and set it down as though relinquishing a weapon.

Yoojin’s fingers drifted to the hem of his shirt, rubbing the fabric instinctively, his hands searching for the worn edges and thin threads that always threatened to come undone. But this fabric didn’t fray. It didn’t carry stains worn in by years of sweat and struggle, nor did it threaten to unravel at the seams. It was soft, smooth, unyielding—a material so luxurious it made his skin itch with discomfort.

The shirt didn’t belong to someone like him. It was too perfect, too clean, too light.

His old clothes were his father’s oversized button-ups, handed down not with love but with the indifference of death. They had been relics of another life, too big and heavy for his teenage frame as they hung off his frame like old promises. Yoojin had worn them anyway, rolling the cuffs up over his forearms, tugging them tight so they wouldn’t get in the way. He could still feel the weight of them, his father’s ghost lingering in the folds, as if his father had pressed himself into the fabric and made sure Yoojin would never forget him. 

This shirt wasn’t like that.

This one was impossibly light, free of burden or history. It didn’t carry the weight of someone else’s life. It didn’t sag with history or regret or expectation. It simply existed, fresh and new and impossibly clean, and it made Yoojin’s chest tighten because he didn’t know how to wear something like that—didn’t know how to move in it without ruining it.

He laughed, the sound bitter in the empty apartment. The shirt wasn’t that much bigger than his frame, but it was enough to feel like it belonged to a version of himself who didn’t exist.

Someone slightly taller, someone slightly stronger. 

Someone who didn’t measure their worth in hunger pangs and sleepless nights.

Someone who wasn’t Yoojin.

Yoojin dragged his hands down his face, his palms rough against his skin, as if trying to scrape away the lingering haze. The itch in his fingers remained, a restless pull born from muscle memory. Years of survival had trained him well, taught him the habit he couldn’t unlearn: checking the price of everything. Calculating worth against need, weighing cost against survival.

Instinctively, he reached for the phone again, the polished thing still cool in his grasp, and searched for the brand stitched into the shirt’s collar.

The number stared back at him, stark and obscene.

It mocked him.

He had sold himself for less. Much less.

How could he wear this without defiling it? How could he drape this pristine, tailored fabric over a body steeped in the filth of who he was, of who he had been? The shirt didn’t just sit against his skin—it resisted, as though refusing to belong to him, to be marked by the stink of desperation and degradation.

His mind drifted back to the rooftop bar last week, to the man with the too-sharp smile and the drink that had tasted bitter in ways no alcohol could explain. The way his body had felt heavy, foreign, a puppet on strings, as though someone else had commandeered it while his soul hovered in the aftermath.

He remembered waking up somewhere unfamiliar, his clothes crumpled, his wallet heavier than it should have been. Enough to buy Yoohyun’s textbooks, enough to keep the lights on for another month. Enough to survive.

That was always the pattern: survive now, worry about the price later.

But this world—the one he’d somehow stumbled into—didn’t care about those textbooks. Here, the lights never flickered, never dimmed. The shirt on his back cost more than Yoojin had earned in a single night.

What was he supposed to do with that?

He thought of Yoohyun, the image sharp and blinding, like staring into the sun. Not the boy Yoojin had known, the fourteen-year-old whose voice still cracked when he spoke too soon. Yoohyun was twenty now, a man where a child had stood.

Not a university student hunched over textbooks, his head full of theories and deadlines. Not a young man clutching a cup of coffee, laughing with friends, losing himself in the soft mundanity of campus life.

No. Yoohyun led raids. He fought monsters. He wielded power Yoojin could barely comprehend, his name echoing in guild halls and news reports alike. One of the most powerful men in the country. Maybe even the world.

And yet, that image twisted something in Yoojin’s chest until it splintered.

Yoohyun should have been worrying about essays, not enemies. He should have been studying for finals, not slaying beasts. His hands should have been ink-stained, not calloused from wielding weapons.

At twenty, Yoohyun stood at the pinnacle of the world.

But Yoojin couldn’t stop thinking about what it had cost.

When Yoohyun was sixteen, he left home with fire in his veins, charming and commanding, swaying old men and women to his tune. He had forged a path through the world, shoulders unbowed, as though he had never doubted he belonged among the elite. When Yoojin was sixteen, he had been selling pieces of himself—body and dignity alike—to keep his eleven-year-old brother fed, clothed, and sheltered. He remembered the exhaustion, the gnawing hunger he ignored so Yoohyun wouldn’t have to feel it. The sting of hands that didn’t belong to him, the coldness of rooms that weren’t his.

And all for what?

Every sacrifice Yoojin had made had been a foundation, an offering meant to create something secure for Yoohyun. But what his brother had built wasn’t a life of quiet safety. It was something entirely different.

Something greater, yes. But greater didn’t mean kinder.

Yoojin stared at the ceiling, his mind heavy with the weight of that thought.

All those nights bent and bruised, trading himself away to buy textbooks and shoes that fit, food that wouldn’t rot in his stomach—what had it amounted to? He had imagined Yoohyun’s future as something soft, something secure. Instead, his brother carried a different weight: power.

Power came with its own burdens. Its own chains.

Had Yoohyun ever really needed him?

The question felt like a betrayal, the kind that came with no easy answers. 

Yoohyun had survived, yes. Thrived, even. But this wasn’t the life Yoojin had wanted for him. There were no warm comforts, no serene stability. No safety net.

Yoohyun’s life was a fight, a relentless battle against forces Yoojin couldn’t begin to fathom.

Maybe, Yoojin thought bitterly, this had always been Yoohyun’s path.

Their parents had seen it, hadn’t they? That quiet unease in their eyes whenever they looked at him, the way their hands hovered before pulling back, too reluctant to linger. Yoohyun had never been theirs, not really. He was something otherworldly, something too vast and divine to belong to mortal hands.

Yoohyun had been born with a quietness that was more than stillness—it was absence, an emptiness that filled the room and made others uneasy. Their mother had cradled him with trembling hands; their father had lingered in doorways, hesitant, unsure whether to cross the threshold. They had searched Yoohyun’s eyes for something familiar, something human, and found only reflections staring back at them, distant and unknowable.

He was too quiet, too self-contained, too perfect in his lack of need. He didn’t cry. He didn’t reach for them. He didn’t demand anything from the world around him.

Yoohyun came to them fully formed, and that was the problem.

They had expected a baby, soft and unpolished, a child who would wail and giggle and cling to them. Instead, Yoohyun was a mirror, reflecting back all the ways they fell short. He needed nothing they could give.

And so, they had turned away. Slowly, at first—an uncertain step, a hesitant glance. But distance has a way of growing when left unchecked, and soon, they didn’t look at him at all.

Yoojin had seen it too.

He saw the way their mother’s hands shook as she wrapped the blanket tighter around Yoohyun, whispering to herself that this child wasn’t hers. He saw the way their father lingered in silence, as if waiting for the child to prove otherwise, to break the illusion.

But where their parents hesitated, Yoojin stepped forward.

He hadn’t been asked to. No divine voice called him to action, no grand decree handed him the role. It was simply instinct, as natural to him as breathing. If their parents could not love Yoohyun, Yoojin would. If they flinched, he would stay.

Where their parents saw a burden, Yoojin saw salvation.

Yoohyun’s quiet wasn’t a void to him—it was weight. Heavy, yes, but not unbearable. Their mother whispered that Yoohyun wasn’t hers, their father muttered that Yoohyun wasn’t theirs, but Yoojin whispered to Yoohyun that it didn’t matter.

He would take their place. He would carry the weight.

Yoohyun didn’t cry, so Yoojin cried for him. Yoohyun didn’t reach out, so Yoojin extended his hands. Their parents had let go of their responsibility, but Yoojin clung to it, his grip firm even as it cut into his skin.

He became the first to recognize the light within him, the first to accept the weight of it—something so pure, so blinding that it made everyone else avert their gaze. He didn’t shrink from it; he embraced it, willingly bearing the burden of a greatness that was not his to claim, even when it left scars. If his brother was a divine promise, untouched by the flaws of the world, then he was the humble servant, offering himself fully to the task of protecting it, no matter the cost. Yoohyun wasn’t a child; he was a gift from the gods, an offering too radiant to exist in their bleak little world. 

Their parents couldn’t bear to stand in the presence of it. 

Yoojin knelt before it. 

He stayed, kneeling, at the altar of what was beyond him, holding onto the belief that even in the shadow of such divinity, he could offer something meaningful, something pure. If his brother was something sacred, then Yoojin was its servant. He gave himself wholly to the task of raising, of teaching, of keeping his brother safe from a world too cruel to understand it.

And though it had cost him everything, he had never once wished for anything different.

Every piece of himself he had given—his childhood, his freedom, his body, his dignity—it had all been worth it. Because Yoojin had believed, with every part of his being, that Yoohyun was worth it.

But now, staring at this strange, polished world Yoohyun had risen to rule, Yoojin couldn’t help but wonder: what had he really contributed?

His sacrifices had been real, yes. They had been everything. But had they mattered?

Yoohyun had grown into a force of nature, a beacon of power and strength. He had become something extraordinary. But not the way Yoojin had imagined. Not the way Yoojin had worked for.

Yoohyun’s life wasn’t the safe, steady thing Yoojin had wanted to give him. It was a battlefield, one victory after another, power gained at the cost of peace.

Yoojin had known, somewhere, his fate was to be no more than a footnote. A stepping stone to someone else’s greatness. 

A hero and a tragedy, intertwined and inseparable, yet irrevocably different.

And yet.

In this impossible future, the story was trying to make a legend of Yoojin too.

He felt like an imposter in someone else’s narrative. A ghost in borrowed skin, clinging to a role that didn’t belong to him, trapped in a life that whispered of greatness but felt like exile.

Like a counterfeit star in a constellation that had no place for him.

He looked around as he sat in the stillness of his apartment. It wasn’t the kind of space that whispered home, but one that belonged in the glossy frames of magazines or the curated, unattainable videos of the perpetually fortunate. Each piece of furniture carried an elegance he couldn’t quite decipher—smooth lines, muted tones, cushions plush enough to cradle dreams. It felt like a stage set for a life unbroken, unmarred by hunger or the grinding weight of survival.

But worse than the fridge, worse than the furniture, were the photos. They lined the walls and shelves, silent witnesses to a life Yoojin couldn’t remember living. Smiling faces stared back at him: one was his own, and beside it, Yoohyun’s, looking at peace, as though the years had been kind. But there were others too—strangers with expressions so warm they could have been family. Their gazes seemed to reach for him, to embrace a man who didn’t exist.

His trembling fingers hovered over a frame. The photo inside showed a group, laughter caught mid-bloom, Yoojin at the center, his face lit with something so foreign it felt like a betrayal. Happiness? Belonging? He traced the glass, his chest tightening with an ache that refused to be named.

Who was this version of him?

His thumb hovered over the gallery app, but he couldn’t bring himself to open it. Not again. The photos he’d seen earlier were already etched into his memory—photos of him, of Yoohyun, of people he didn’t recognize laughing, leaning into him like they belonged there. 

His own face, radiant in every shot, looked back at him like a stranger mocking his struggles. A life too beautiful, too full, too good to be real.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d smiled like that, not with his whole body, not like he believed it. 

Each photo had been a stab to the chest, a painful reminder of how foreign this world was. His fingers trembled as he recalled scrolling further, past images of celebrations, of dinner tables full of food, of arms slung over shoulders. He had paused on one: Yoohyun, older than Yoojin could comprehend, his face sharper, his eyes harder. His baby brother, no longer a boy but a man, standing next to Yoojin with an ease that felt almost mocking.

Yoojin had stared at that photo the longest, the ache in his chest threatening to pull him apart. What was this version of his brother?

He had scrolled faster, tears blurring the faces he didn’t recognize, faces that blurred into ghosts, into nothing. Videos had lain waiting in the gallery too, but he didn’t dare touch them.

If the photos had been daggers, each one slipping between his ribs, then the videos would be swords, sharp and unrelenting, cleaving through the soft, hidden parts of himself he had spent years hardening.

This couldn’t be his life.

The ache in his chest grew sharper with every photo, every piece of evidence that this version of Yoojin—the one who smiled, who laughed, who lived—managed to exist. It felt like a mockery, a cruel hallucination crafted by a mind desperate for something better. He squeezed his eyes shut, his breath shuddering.

Could this be real? Could it?

It didn’t feel possible. Fate had never been kind to him. Yoojin had spent years scavenging scraps from a life that refused to give him anything more. He had sold everything he could—his body, his dignity, his dreams—just to keep Yoohyun alive. The world had turned him into a scavenger, a shadow crawling through dirt and ash, inch by inch, only to find himself back where he started.

And yet, wasn’t this justice? For all that had been stolen, for every piece of himself he had traded for survival? Couldn’t this be the world’s way of finally tipping the scales, offering him some fragile shard of balance? A quiet voice deep within him—a voice both hopeful and cruel—whispered yes. It insisted this was fate’s atonement, a meager gift for all the years of suffering it had left in its wake.

But Yoojin couldn’t believe it.

His trembling fingers found his phone, and before he could stop himself, he typed in the address of the apartment. The price appeared on the screen, stark and unyielding, staring back at him like a judge passing sentence. He felt the weight of the numbers settle in his chest as he scrolled through descriptions that might as well have been written in a foreign language: “luxury living,” “state-of-the-art amenities,” “prime location.” The words blurred together, meaningless under the enormity of what they represented.

He dropped the phone onto the couch, his hands unsteady.

It was too much. All of it. The photos, the clothes, the apartment. The lavish replacement of it all threatened to swallow him whole. His breath came in shallow gasps as the memories surged—years spent crawling, kneeling, begging, the weight of every desperate choice made, the countless nights lying awake beneath the crushing press of poverty’s relentless hand. He had carried it all, Atlas with the weight of a world he never asked for.

And now, it was gone. The crushing burden replaced by something heavier still: the unbearable emptiness of not knowing who he was without it.

The couch beneath him was too soft. It embraced him in a way that felt suffocating, swallowing him whole. Yoojin leaned back, closing his eyes against the perfection of this place. He couldn’t bring himself to sleep in the bed. It was too plush, too foreign, a cradle for someone who deserved more than what Yoojin had ever been.

Instead, he curled up on the couch, his body folding into itself as though to protect the ache in his chest. He pulled his knees to his chest, the tension in his limbs refusing to unwind even as exhaustion crept over him. Each breath grew heavier, slower, until sleep, at last, began to claim him.

And as he drifted into unconsciousness, Yoojin’s thoughts clung to a single, fragile question: would he wake up again? Or would this, too, be taken from him, as so much else had been?

Notes:

i know reddit removed the ability to see downvotes but they didn't in this universe ok.

omg this introspective piece turned poetic and way too long im so sorry nobody says a single word here to anyone else. anyway please enjoy. this reddit post took me a while to make. umm and enjoy the 4k monologue of yoojin goddamn im sorry we get yerim next chapter <3

Notes:

thanks for reading! check out my tumblr @justwannabeoutthere and my other sctir fics!

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 2 of flesh amnesiac, this is your song