You know how they say if loosing your parents is hard, how much harder is it for a parent to loose you child? All we know is that a parent's grief is an unimaginable pain.
And I think about Yoojin who was not just a brother, but a mother, and a father. Now reread the depiction of Yoohyun's death with the idea that Yoojin is incapable of thinking of Yoohyun as only a brother. And it turns his crying scene into something more visceral, because his son has died in his arms.
And he sits there and he thinks of everything. EVERYTHING, that as a parent he possibly could've done to avoid this moment… He thinks, what could have happened if he made some kind of different choice back then. As if making a mistake parenting Yoohyun at the age of 7, when Yoojin himself was only 12, meant the difference between keep Yoohyun in his life or loosing him.
But what if somehow he hadn't messed everything up back then, what if it didn't butterfly effect into the life he's living now. What if in another life Yoojin and Yoohyun never broke apart. In another life maybe Yoojin used his caretaker skills to command the S-ranks as their F rank commander/strategist. In that life Yoojin and Yoohyun made a thousand more memories together, while Yoojin too was allowed to find glory.
It's really unfortunate that in both lives, his baby would've still been send off to war. That is not a choice that Yoojin has the power to change. There is no universe that escapes the gates, the monsters, or the transcendent.
It's just that in this other life Yoojin has to be the commander that sends his brother onto the battlefield. What if on a Monday, Yoohyun returned back to Yoojin's office with groceries ready to tell Yoojin about his day. Yoojin would wave S ranks out of the room just so his 'son' could be his first priority, and he smiles and tells his baby boy that he's thankful that Yoohyun has become a hero.
What if on a Tuesday, during one of his missions, Yoohyun makes a stupid mistake and dies for it. Something as simply as being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Dying so quickly as if he didn't even matter.
What if in this other life the other S-class hunters are panicking. Yoohyun will return in a body bag, but how can they possibly bring the body back to Yoojin. Their leader, their commander, Yoohyun's mother, his father, his brother. What if Yoojin breaks down, what if Yoojin can't find the strength to continue fighting this war. They still need him. The world needs him. How will he grieve, what if this unimaginable pain is enough to kill an F rank.
Unknown to all of them, Final Thanks has already activated, and Yoojin has already dropped to his knees.
In another life Yoohyun died before reaching Yoojin's arms.
In this one he got to hold him in his final momments.... maybe it was all in exchange for a life spent with his brother.
And this is just one, of a thousand what-ifs, of bargaining and denial that goes through Yoojin's mind as the corpse in his arms grows colder.
[If you like my work; I'm the writer of Next Time, I'll Come Home Different on A03]
