11 Virtues A Hero's Civilian Friend Must Uphold - Chapter 61

“Elder brother…”

Jae Won sobbed, and Hee Won approached him habitually, placing a newly brought fork in his hand.

“I told you to control your strength. Just think of everything you’re holding as tofu. Think that you need to reduce it to one-tenth of the strength you imagine to avoid breaking it.”

“It’s hard to control…”

“You’ll be able to do it all when you become proficient.”

He must be an elder brother who raises his younger sibling strongly. Na Eun remained silent, unable to intervene in such matters. She smiled and comforted Jae Won.

“It’s okay, Jae Won. You’ll be fine soon.”

“Elder sister.”

Jae Won suddenly called her, then immediately glanced at his elder brother’s expression.

“…Now that the tutoring is over, can’t I call you that anymore?”

“Who said anything?”

Hee Won didn’t even bother with his younger brother, who was checking his reaction over such a trivial matter.

Na Eun inwardly clicked her tongue at Hee Won, who showed not even a hint of kindness.

If he had shown even half of what he did to the women he used to seduce, they would have been close siblings. But Na Eun, who decided to refrain from unnecessary comments, smiled.

“Call me elder sister! I like it.”

“Elder sister, what should I do?”

Jae Won cautiously asked a question he hadn’t even asked Hee Won. He was carefully fidgeting with the hand holding the fork.

He seemed to be quite careful not to break it again.

Na Eun spoke intentionally nonchalantly.

“What do you mean, what should you do? You’ve just gotten a bit stronger. It’s the same as before.”

She raised her arm and awkwardly patted Jae Won’s shoulder.

“You could prepare for the college entrance exam again next year, or find something you want to do and invest time in it. Now that you’re twenty, you can drink alcohol to your heart’s content. There’s a lot to do.”

With great power comes great responsibility. It’s a phrase from her favorite superhero stories, but Na Eun didn’t want to impose that sentence on her acquaintances.

Friends who already have a sense of mission in what they do, even if they don’t show it, can’t be helped.

But she sincerely hoped that this young kid wouldn’t lose himself under the weight of such responsibility.

“No alcohol. If he drinks in a situation where he can’t control his strength, that bastard will become a villain.”

Seo Hee Won, who cuts the atmosphere just as it’s about to soften, is annoying just for now. Can’t you read the room?

Na Eun slightly raised her eyes to look at Hee Won, and Hee Won secretly avoided her gaze.

And Jae Won, who observed all this scene from a third-person perspective, quickly figured out who the top predator in this situation was.

He recognized the stronger one and moved closer to Na Eun, who was sitting on the sofa, sticking his hip to her.

Hee Won frowned, but Jae Won pretended not to notice.

Na Eun patted Jae Won’s shoulder again.

“So what I’m saying is! You can do anything. It’s not that you have some obligation, or that there’s something you absolutely must do.”

“…Would you stop me if I said I would do it, elder sister?”

“…Honestly, I want to.”

After hesitating for a moment at Jae Won’s question, Na Eun answered without avoiding it. Then Hee Won, who was standing behind, looked at her. Na Eun smiled awkwardly.

“But, I don’t think it’s something I should interfere with.”

“…”

“Since everything’s out in the open now, I’ll tell you this. Actually, my friends do the same work as Seo Hee Won. That’s how we became close.”

Hee Won fell for Na Eun once again for her refreshing brevity, summarizing a great deal of backstory into just one sentence.

He closed his mouth and averted his gaze, while Na Eun sat next to Jae Won and continued speaking while looking at him kindly.

“But, do they get hurt every other day?”

Hee Won, who had been avoiding her gaze, looked at Na Eun again. She was staring at her younger brother without wavering.

“I think they’re trying to keep it a secret from me, but I kind of know. There are accidents every time, and so they run around saving people… Sometimes when they’re badly hurt, I don’t hear from them for months. Then I’m always waiting. Anxious, unable to ask why they got hurt or what happened.”

Na Eun honestly expressed how miserable she felt when they shamelessly returned, having to be grateful just for the fact that the other person was alive.

Jae Won, who had been listening to her story without interruption, carefully said.

“…Isn’t that a very unhealthy relationship for you, elder sister?”

Isn’t a relationship where you’re emotionally at a disadvantage worse than not having one at all?

Na Eun smiled, sensing Jae Won’s kindness as he beat around the bush, unable to speak directly.

“I know, but what can I do? They’ve already become precious to me.”

“…”

“Anyway, I’m saying I’m a selfish person who respects all heroes but hopes they’re not close to me.”

After casually throwing out those words and shrugging her shoulders, Jae Won pondered and asked.

“Is it really okay if I don’t do anything?”

“Of course it is. You have no obligation.”

“…Then, what if I say I want to do it anyway?”

“…”

An awkward silence descended on the spacious living room for a moment. Hee Won’s gaze sharpened, and Na Eun lowered the corners of her mouth.

Jae Won, trying to straighten out the slightly crumpled fork, lowered his head and mumbled softly.

“When bad things happen, I can now do things that others can’t, right?”

“…”

“I know people around me will worry. I understand that you, elder sister, don’t like it. But still, what if I say I want to do it?”

He no longer thought that his worth changed whether he did the same work as his elder brother or not.

But Jae Won, like on the morning of the last college entrance exam, didn’t have the confidence to turn a blind eye when a tragedy he could stop appeared before him.

It was quite difficult to say he wanted to do it in front of someone who clearly disliked it.

As he lowered his head, not knowing what kind of negative response might come from Na Eun, she answered after a moment of silence.

“If that happens, I’ll come to respect you.”

Jae Won raised his head in surprise at the unexpected response. In that moment, he was confused to find an indescribable emotion in her eyes.

She looked at Jae Won with a hint of bitterness and sadness as she continued speaking.

“I’ll pay my respects to the dedication and sacrifice you’ll make for many people in the future.”

“…”

“I’ll be sincerely grateful.”

This wasn’t just applicable to Jae Won.

She respected all the heroes in the world who didn’t spare their bodies to prevent the tragedies of others, whether big or small, that had nothing to do with themselves.

She respected them even more because it wasn’t an obligation but their own choice.

If Jae Won made such a choice, no matter how worried she might be, Na Eun wouldn’t be able to interfere with that noble choice.

…Although she really wished he wouldn’t. That was an issue she couldn’t force.

Jae Won seemed to have read something in Na Eun’s expression and was too choked up to say anything.

Looking at the back of his younger brother’s head as he lowered it, seemingly lost in thought, Hee Won’s mind also briefly returned to the past.

He remembered when he had seen Na Eun’s expression, the same as she was looking at Jae Won now.

Three years ago, for several months after Na Eun’s father passed away, she couldn’t even see a single strand of Seung Joo and Sun Jin’s hair.

The decision to cut ties was entirely Seung Joo and Sun Jin’s, and Na Eun didn’t accept it.

After quite a long period of psychological warfare, with Hee Won’s help, she finally met her friends who had been avoiding her.

It was the result of Hee Won, who felt a great sense of debt to her at the time, taking Na Eun’s side.

He had only casually mentioned that Na Eun was seriously ill and hospitalized, but the two immediately took the bait and went to her hospital room.

Seung Joo and Sun Jin, who were worried about Na Eun with pale faces, were furious when they found out that the reason for her hospitalization was just a simple cold.

They were angry that Seo Hee Won had helped lure them with a lie, but more so that Na Eun had tricked them, who were more sensitive to their own safety than anyone else.

‘How could you lie about something like this!’

Sun Jin shouted, not caring that there were other people in the hospital room, and Na Eun stared at her expressionlessly.

Eventually, when Seung Joo also got angry, saying she didn’t think about the feelings of those who worried about her at all, Na Eun even smirked.

Hee Won remembers that Na Eun was probably the scariest that day.

‘Why. Am I not allowed to do that?’

What? When Seung Joo and Sun Jin both made expressions of incomprehension at the question whose meaning they couldn’t understand, Na Eun’s expression grew increasingly cold.

She glared at the two with emotionless eyes.

‘Am I not allowed to make you worry about me a little?’

‘…’

‘It was like that for me every day, every single day. You’d come back injured all the time, not letting me ask why you were hurt, and when you were badly hurt and out of contact for months, I could only wait. Even when I couldn’t sleep worrying about you, staying up all night until the next morning, I didn’t say anything.’

Every word she uttered calmly was a dagger.

The reason Seung Joo and Sun Jin remained silent like mutes in front of Na Eun then was because of the winter frost-like cold anger emanating from Na Eun at that time.

‘How many times do you think I wanted to hold you back when that damn call or whatever kept ringing while you were with me, and you’d leave me behind?’

The question in a low tone wasn’t a question. It was a rebuke.

‘I imagined it every time. Grabbing your arms as you were about to leave, telling you not to go, to just stay. Telling you not to do it because you’d get hurt again, asking if someone else couldn’t save them instead of you. I imagined stopping you like that countless times.’

Her voice grew increasingly tearful, but gritting her teeth and not crying, she burst out in anger towards her unkind friends.

‘Every time that happened, I imagined you hating me. I imagined you criticizing me, asking how I could say such things. You probably don’t know, but your heads are already so full of responsibility that you don’t care about the worries of a civilian like me. So, I held back because I didn’t want to be hated. I held back even when I was worried sick. How do you think I felt having to imagine every time that you, who suddenly left while playing with me, might come back dead the next day?’

By the time the conversation had reached this point, Hee Won had already skillfully sent all the other people in the shared room out.

‘Are you sorry to me?’

At that question thrown out as if mocking, Seung Joo choked up. In the end, she cried.

‘That’s why we said we couldn’t see you!’

‘Why can’t you see me!’

Na Eun screamed like a shriek following her shouting friend.

‘I endured while imagining that you could come back dead the very next day, so why can’t you?!’

‘…’

‘Why, now that the positions are reversed, you can’t bear it? You always jump into situations where you could die at any moment, knowing that I worry. But you can’t handle worrying that I might die? Why can’t you do it? I did it all!’

Na Eun cried out as if bursting with the frustration she had been holding back all this time.

Roughly wiping away the falling tears with her patient gown sleeve, Na Eun calmed down and lowered her voice again.

‘Are you afraid that I might get involved in what you do again? I’m scared every time you go out and might get hurt too. I endured all of that. I endured and stayed by your side.’

She bit her lip. So, because I endured.

‘−I endured it. So you should endure it too.’

‘…’

‘It’s painful, but there’s no choice. All relationships require effort.’

Na Eun had already been more dedicated than anyone in her relationships with her precious people. So she had no regrets.

‘…Kwon Seung Joo, Lee Sun Jin.’

Na Eun coldly called out to her friends.

‘You put that much effort into our relationship too.’

You bad girls.

Hee Won still vividly remembers Na Eun spitting out that curse at the end and then shedding tiny tears.

He remembers that pitiful expression, so sad, so pathetic, and yet thinking the other’s choice was noble and unable to touch it.

Maybe, it might have been from then.

When Yoon Na Eun became imprinted in his mind and wouldn’t leave.

Since when have I been in love with that person?

Hee Won inwardly muttered while observing from afar his younger brother’s shoulder, which looked the most stable it had ever been as he received Na Eun’s comforting pats, and her infinitely affectionate face as she looked at his brother.

To think I’ve been falling for her for so long, but only realized it a few months ago, am I really an idiot?

Realizing that the love he had become aware of belatedly had actually been starting for quite some time, Hee Won laughed softly at the emptiness.

It was a moment when he unfortunately learned through personal experience that when you lose overwhelmingly by such a vague difference, you end up laughing.