Korean Horror Story: Asylum

Brothers in Arms

The scene came back to him in scratchy waves of black and white. The scrappy patches of dried grass, deadened by countless artillery fire and bombs, crunched beneath his feet as he walked up the hill. The sky came down to greet him with each slow calculated step he took to reach a memory of a man—his brother. As the approaching man caught up to his elder, his brother turned to greet him.

"Yoongi, what happened to your tie?" his older brother asked, scrutinizing the chest of his younger brother. A lopsided tie was dangling around his brother's neck, hanging about loosely like a noose ready to be tightened.

Yoongi just shrugged and eyed his brother wearily as he came over.

"Here, I'll adjust it for you," his brother offered.

The unnaturally pale younger man allowed his brother to come to him. The eldest began by gingerly taking the tie in both hands and began to work on making it look decent. His brother was so close that the musty smell of his cheap cologne lazily wafted over to Yoongi making his heart begin to thump out of tune within his chest. His brother was taking an awfully long time to fix the tie and being this close to him, scrutinizing the young innocence etched onto his face, made Yoongi recall the inevitable.

Despite being younger, Yoongi often felt as if he was the older one. He was more rational and more in tune to the world around him, perhaps too in tune, but he had enough sense to leave things alone when the needed to be left alone. Still, he let his older brother be carried away by fantasies and the innocent dreams that not even someone like Yoongi could stop. Now however, his brother was going to do something too stupid to be ignored and needed to be stopped.

"Do you have to leave?" he asked his older brother quietly. His voice came out in a breathy sort of way as if the trek to reach the top of the hill had taken its toll on his body. But that wasn't it. Something else was making the pale man's body tense, readying his soul to take flight to go far away from this place forcing his brother along if it came to that.

His brother frowned at the tie, ignoring his younger brother's question to focus on tying the last knot.

Yoongi went on anyways. "I told you I could take your place. They're looking for younger soldiers anyway and I fit their requirements more than you."

His brother still said nothing and deliberately looped the tie slowly through the last hole before securing it with a gentle tug.

Yoongi was starting to become impatient. "Mom and dad aren't going to approve of this. I will tell them, you know?" he paused, his teeth tightening in frustration as a scowl emerged over his face. His brother hardly appeared to be listening as he looked away from his younger brother to take in the landscape of their city, Daegu. A city currently surrounded by invading forces from the North who were being pushed back by the South's own defensive troops. They were in the middle of a war zone.

Yoongi flickered his eyes away from the sight, already tired of seeing the truth and snapped at his brother, "Ya, are you even listening to me—"

Suddenly, his older brother spoke. "Yoongi, do you like it here?"

This caught the younger one off-guard for a moment but he hesitantly heard himself answer within confusion, "Yeah, of course. I was born here, lived here, and I plan to die here. Why are you asking?"

"Because wouldn't it be better in, say...America?" his brother answered softly.

Yoongi thought about it. "I want to see America one day, but Korea is my home."