around me, everything is different(oneshot)

not anymore

Basen Henituse isn't much different from what Cale expects.

He is about seven when he first meets his step brother. Basen clings to Countess Violan, as if she would shield him from the coming forth of his new older brother. Cale feels indifferent towards them.

His mother stains his mind, with her bright red hair and gentle smiles that he'll never see again. Only emotionless paintings can replicate a face that's gone.

Cale Henituse plans.

Lily is born soon enough, and she is two and Basen is ten.

They make fun of Basen, ridicule and mock him and Cale Henituse does what he can to protect his brother even if it means taking a new personality and becoming known as trash.

-

When Basen is ten, he changes.

Unruly. They come to call him, Takes after his brother.

Because when two disgusting children of nobles come after Basen without fear for the slowly– becoming trash of the Henituse family known as Cale, it doesn't end like every other time.

No, instead, when knights guarding the area hear the sound of screaming, they find two crying and bruised children on the floor and one dusting off his hands.

Basen Henituse, wiping blood from his nose and smiling.

For the first time, it's Basen who is grounded rather than Cale.

-

Cale Henituse is not sure what's happened to his brother. There are some similarities that mirror the young boy that he's known over the years, and startling differences that take him aback.

Basen is somewhat more brash. Blunt. He says his thoughts more often, thoughts which make servants eyes open wide. Basen will swear–usually bastard–which had Cale drop his fork after his brother had said to their father: Hey, you sooty bastard!

At the dinner table, it is instead them staring at Basen Henituse with disbelief instead of Cale.

There are some physical changes as well, with Basen ruffling his own hair to make it more messy, an almost antenna like quality to it mirroring an insect.

Sometimes Cale's brother whispers stuff under his breath that he thinks Lily or Cale can't hear. Their sister is blissfully young and ignorant of both of her brother's changes, but Cale isn't ignorant of Basens.

"Hyung, what about scenarios?"

Basen asks one day, catching Cale Henituse off guard before he can sneak away to his room. Another thing, he's gotten unusually better at finding people. It makes it harder for Cale, especially when Basen starts to call him Hyung instead of Hyung-nim.

"What do you mean, scenarios." Cale scoffs without a clue of what the younger means.

Basen Henituse's face falls and for the first time in many months, Cale pats his stepbrother's hair because of the heartbreakingly desolate look on his face that mirrored Cale's long ago.

Loss. Is what his brother's eyes say.

-

When Lily is three, both of her brother's are abrasive, one less than the other. Basen Henituse who used to be a mature younger boy, now one who uses sticks to stab and smack at people that attempt to wrong him and Cale Henituse who tries to drink and is suspected to be a poor influence on his younger brother.

Cale Henituse doesn't comment when Basen begins to slip up his words. He will say names, reference places and people Cale has never heard of before. 

With Lily, Basen says Biyoo before quickly correcting himself. Multiple other names, such as Shin Yoosung from Basen when he spots an animal, Lee Hyunsung when Basen sees a shield. A book or a poem and there is Han Sooyoung accompanied by the name of a woman as Yoo Sangah. Cale sees Basen hold up a wooden sword, and he mumbles about a Lee Jihye and Jung Heewon.