NOVEL NEXT Chapter 4: 003
It's been five years, and I still haven't found my younger brother.
As if swallowed by the earth itself, the police couldn't find any traces of my brother.
The police claimed that the only traces left by my brother were inside our apartment. Therefore, they were stuck in a dead end, and the search had to be postponed until new leads emerged because there were no other clues to examine.
Moreover, the police doubted because someone couldn't disappear while inside their own home.
I, on the other hand, although initially in a panic as if my world had collapsed, tried to think positively.
"Yes... He must have run away to some distant place. He can surely live well out there with all the money he earned."
I tried to calm myself, which was almost dying from a panic attack.
"He'll surely come back once his sulking is over!"
But contrary to my expectations, my younger brother still hadn't returned, no matter how many messages I sent to his phone, which had an untraceable signal.
I, unable to take any more time off, had to go to work and deal with a pile of tasks in a mentally exhausted state.
And now, as I was working late, I had just come home in the dead of night, staring at the lonely streets.
"Where did you go?" I murmured as if whispering to the wind.
I stood still for quite some time, letting the spring breeze wash over me before I walked back to the towering apartment building.
"..."
I opened my door without making a sound. Because no one had welcomed me for the past five years, the house had become quiet and cold, and I had become a person of few words.
After living alone for five years, I began to realize many things.
My little brother was very noisy. And that living alone was actually very unpleasant.
"Haha. I now understand why our parents' will contained such strange words."
I washed my face and changed into casual clothes. Today, I had to review the reports sent by contract workers.
As I was about to enter my room, I suddenly stopped, blankly staring at my younger brother's room door, tightly closed.
Perhaps it had become an odd habit of mine. I would stand in the middle of the living room, silently gazing at my younger brother's room door without uttering a word.
But for some reason, this time, my two feet moved on their own toward that door. Without thinking, I opened it for the first time since the police investigation five years ago.
"What a mess, haha."
I just realized that I had let this room remain in disarray after the police came and searched the entire room for evidence related to my brother's disappearance.
"Alright, let's tidy up," I muttered to myself after seeing the pile of dust.
Starting with removing the bedsheet and disposing of the trash. Then tidying up his desk. Wiping down dusk at my brother's computer and ensuring it was unplugged.
I smiled in satisfaction at the clean and tidy atmosphere in the dimly lit room that had been uninhabited for so long.
"Okay, the rest is returning these novels to the next room...." I paused, looking at the door that led into my younger brother's other room.
One day, my brother insisted on turning the bathroom inside his room into his own private reading space.
I, unable to refuse, eventually agreed to the renovation according to his wishes.
After it was finished, I never entered it again.
Why? Because the books in this room were not just any books, but a collection of hilariously melodramatic romance novels!
Even during the police investigation, I still hesitated to enter this room.
But now, after five years had passed, I, who hadn't heard anything about books since my brother disappeared, felt nothing. I didn't even feel the creeping disgust in my body anymore.
I just felt an odd and painful emptiness.
"Well, going inside won't kill me."
I opened the white door, which was in stark contrast to my younger brother's bedroom, which was dark black.
"Wow...." I was immediately amazed.
Contrary to my expectations that this room would be very cramped due to the bookshelves filling it, the white room turned out to be quite spacious, with enough room for an adult to comfortably lie down while reading a book.
The room was immaculately clean and tidy as if the police had never disturbed it and had only looked around.
"Ah, here it is." I found an empty bookshelf and began placing the novels my brother had taken from the adjacent room back onto it.
"Alright, let's get back."
I wanted to say that, but I stopped when I saw one book left lying amidst the bookshelves. The book lay on the carpet, near an orange cat-shaped pillow, my brother's favorite animal.
The book had a striking brightly-red cover, with a crumpled note slipped into it. Perhaps that's why the police hadn't found it, and I only discovered it now.
I stared at the haphazard handwriting, which I recognized immediately as my brother's, with an inexplicable gaze in my eyes. Tears welled up in my eyes unconsciously, but I quickly wiped them away, not giving them a chance to dampen the book I was holding.
"Alright. Alright. I'll read and review this disgusting romance story for you."
'So, please come back home quickly, my stubborn and noisy little brother.'
I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. After finding a comfortable position, I examined the cover of this book carefully.
This time, the novel written by my brother was a romance with a touch of fantasy and an R19+ rating, likely to attract many mature female readers.
"... Wow, my little brother has grown up to write a genre like this," I muttered to myself, shivering because this was the first time I had read one of my brother's works in over seven years.
[World For Her]
After reading the title in my mind, I began to open the red-covered book and started reading the first pages with no expectations.
***
"Cough-cough." I suddenly coughed as the number of pages I had read approached the end.
Not because I felt embarrassed during the 19+ scenes, but because I felt something stuck in my throat.
"I need a drink," I mumbled as I stood up wearily.
I left my brother's book wide open on the white fur carpet and hurried to the kitchen to grab a glass of water.
"Whoa, is it this late already?" I exclaimed in surprise when I saw the digital clock showing 4 AM. I had only two hours left before work.
Turns out, I had gotten carried away with my reading.
I rushed back into my brother's room and entered the white door again, carrying a glass of water that I hadn't had a chance to drink due to my panic.
But, in my haste and bad luck, I tripped on the slippery floor of my brother's room and spilled the entire glass of water onto the white, fur carpet in the reading room.
!!
The sound of breaking glass and bodies hitting the floor could be heard simultaneously in the small room.
"Noooo!" I shouted in distress.
Ignoring the pain in my knees, I crawled towards the red-covered book. Fortunately, the water hadn't reached the one and only book in the world. Then, I turned to make sure none of the other bookshelves had been affected.
After confirming that nothing else was damaged, I looked back at the large and now damp white carpet, which covered almost the entire floor of the books room.
"... I don't have the energy to dry a carpet this size right now. I'll do it after I get back from work." I muttered lazily while cleaning up the shards of broken glass.
After that, I immediately lay down on the dry part of the carpet, too tired to do anything else. I also picked up the book.
"Alright, let's continue reading. Where was I?"
"Ah, I was at the part where Cecillia and the Saintess were arguing about...." I mumbled, my focus returning to the book.
I was so consumed by my curiosity about the ending of the story that I hadn't noticed the subtle, mysterious shimmer on the cover of the book I was holding.
So engrossed, I also didn't realize that the lower part of the carpet I was lying on was slowly glowing, as if it had turned into a magical product.
I, feeling suddenly dazzled, shifted my gaze from the almost-finished book and was startled to see that everything around me had changed, and it was now glowing brightly.
"W—What is this?" I shouted, my face turning pale. "Is this some kind of hallucination from not sleeping for a day?"
I hurriedly pinched my cheek, but instead of waking up, I felt a sharp pain in my cheek from the pinch.
I quickly stood up, wanting to escape from this strange place. However, to my misfortune, I slipped again on the wet part of the carpet.
"No, no way...!"
Instead of falling and hitting the floor, I suddenly lost my vision. No. It could be said that it was because everything around me, which had initially been bright white, had instantly turned into a dark and eerie black.
That's how I lost consciousness without realizing what caused it.
When I woke up, I still couldn't see anything. It was as if I had been thrown into a place that was not only dark but also empty. Thankfully, I could feel all my limbs just fine.
"What happened to me...?"
"Welcome."
"Huh?" I blinked my eyes as I heard a strange yet familiar man's voice. "Is there someone there?"
"This world... I made it just for her."
I felt strangely familiar with the sentence he uttered.
"Isn't that the opening sentence of my brother's novel [World For Her]?"
"Hehe."
"... Did he suddenly laugh?" I tilted my head, feeling more curious than scared. Maybe because I was certain I had heard his voice somewhere before.
"Enjoy."
"Enjoy what?"
I, who received no explanation whatsoever from the familiar yet mysterious voice, suddenly lost consciousness once again in an instant.
A clean, white-ink lettering that seemed holy drifted through the silent, dark air and lingered for a few seconds.
[To my sister, who is too busy taking care of me to ever feel love, I hope you can be loved by many people here.]