Chapter 1 - An invitation from a pocket watch (1) (1/2)

Chapter 1 An invitation from a pocket watch (1)

March 21st, 2018 Incheon Airport

Yeon-woo adjusted his clothes as he walked across the airport tered htly on his arent

After organizing his backpack, he eant Cha reporting in from Korea”

[Understood Take it easy and try to comfort your parents while you are there]

“Thank you”

After expressing his gratitude, Yeon-woo ended the call and put his phone down

Co back from a three-year stay in Africa, he felt much warmer and peaceful in Korea than in Africa

However, Yeon-woo’s arette in hisfro his mission

The word ‘Obituary’ ritten on the letter His younger brother had disappeared five years ago, and this obituary was now notifying him of his brother’s death

The funeral had ended

His brother’s ashes were scattered at the sea in front of Taejongdae, his brother’s favorite place

Yeon-woo hadn’t heard any news hi the last five years, but now he had returned to hi when the body was found”

The person who discovered his brother’s body took out a small box

Yeon-woo opened it with care The box contained two things

One was a faded photograph, and the other…

“…A pocket watch?”

In the photograph, his brother was in front of a shabby looking house, wearing some kind of medieval armor, next to so a ht

Yeon-woo had roa like this

“Uhm…”

“Oh, I’ his brother’s figure in the photograph, the ht him back to his senses

At the same time, a question came to his mind, but it wasn’t an appropriate place to ask it, so Yeon-woo only thanked the man and returned horaph in his roo

They were twins Born with identical faces and features, and yet they were so different

His brother was abooks and watching movies

Yeon-woo, on the other hand, was very extroverted He was also athletic, thus he applied both to PE as a major, and to the military academy

People around them were surprised by how different they could be

Nonetheless, the two of theether

The little brother would hold onto his scatterbrained brother and teach him how to study, and the older brother would tell his brother lying in bed, about how fun and exciting things were outside, several times a day Both of them were so devoted to one another

But then, with only one day before the CSAT, his younger brother had disappeared

And so ed since then

Hisfro for his brother for over two years to no avail, Yeon-woo had given up on everything He enlisted in the military as a non-commissioned officer, volunteered himself to be dispatched to Africa and left Korea

It was at that tirew to be more cynical

From that point on, contact with Korea had naturally been cut off He thought he would never return to Korea, ever again

But now, five years later, his brother had returned to him as an obituary letter

“…”

At first, he had been mad at his brother, who disappeared without a word and now had beco that had coent

But as the funeral began, he started to feel e torn apart And by the tidae, his heart had been bursting at the seams

He wanted to ask what had happened to his brother, what had he been doing, and why did he have to return like this

But his brother in the photograph did not say a word Just like how he hadn’t said anything during the past five years

“Ha…”

Yeon-woo put the photograph down and checked on the pocket watch

It orn out and badly thumbed, as if it were more than a hundred years old

Only ‘XII’, the roman numeral for 12, and the hour hand was left of the watch, and it was not working He took it to a jeweler to repair, but the only answer he got was that it was too rusty to fix

‘This is the present that I gave my brother back then’

When they were 19 years old, the year they becaave each other a present on their birthday The younger brother gave hiave his brother a pocket watch to wish him luck on his CSAT

This was that pocket watch

Yeon-woo grabbed the pocket watch, it slipped and clung perfectly into his palht size

‘I knew it’

He re for a pocket watch that would perfectly fit in one hand

Then Yeon-woo flipped the watch over, and on the backside saw a name written in cursive on one corner

J W CAH

“Whoa! I really needed a watch Thanks bro Coital watch, this is way cooler”

“Puhaha! How is it? Your big brother’s got a nice fashi+on sense

“But what is this written on here? Looks like J W is my name, but CAH? pft”

“Hmm? That’s our family name, ‘Cha’”

“How is this ‘Cha’? It’s spelled CHA!”

“What? Daonna talk to the guy from the jeweler to fix it”

“It’s OK, don’t bother I’ll take it From now on, I’ll just write CAH whenever I write er brother confidently put the pocket watch into his pocket

After that, the younger brother proudly wrote ‘CAH’ as his name when he went to apply for a passport

At that tirateful at the same time

Yeon-woo chuckled as he recalled his pasthis hand over the pocket watch, he pressed on a knob by accident

Click

‘Huh?’

Wasn’t it broken? He thought

The knob slid inside the watch

Then suddenly…

Tic Tac

The hour hand that seemed to be stopped started to run

To my older brother ill listen to this sometime in the future

A familiar voice was heard inside his head

“…!”

Yeon-woo subconsciously sprang up to his feet

It was a voice he hadn’t heard in five years It was a voice he thought he would never hear again It was his brother’s voice

Thump Thump

His heart started to pound like crazy

By the tiuess I will be already dead

It was not a hallucination

Yeon-woo checked if there was a recorder inside the pocket watch, but it was nowhere to be found

The voice was clearly ringing inside his head

How is this possible? He thought

I am sorry Everyone had a hard time because of me, didn’t you? I just wanted to find a ht I could return hoone by too quickly

“What?”

It was at this ot strained

Whoosh

Suddenly, in front of his eyes, a flood of his brother’s memories passed by like a panorama