Chapter 2

They were all… pictures of me.

In one, a teenager in a blue-and-white school uniform grinned proudly from a podium. That was me at fifteen, when I’d won the math competition.

I thought the photo had gone missing, but it turned out Leon had kept it here.

Another showed me at seven, riding on Leon’s shoulders to pick persimmons. There was one of me at twelve, when he had carried me home from the hospital after an IV drip.

He even kept the embarrassing shots of me passed out drunk on my eighteenth birthday.

I crouched down and picked up one photo of Leon himself, back when he was still an orphan.

In that moment, I was back to when he was thirteen. A pale, porcelain-faced boy sat quietly under the sycamore tree at the orphanage, lashes lowered, still as a painting.

He was wearing a washed-out T-shirt, yet he looked more like a storybook prince than any of the rich kids at my school in their polished clothes.

That day, Mom had ruffled my hair and asked, “Harry, which one do you want to choose as your brother?”

The day before, I had begged her nonstop to give me a big brother. So, the next day, she took me to the orphanage to pick one.

Later on, the boy under the tree became my brother.

I gave him his name, just as carefully as I used to name my teddy bear and toy soldiers.

When I tore up my homework, he rewrote it for me. After I broke the neighbor’s antique vase, the punishment landed on his palms instead of mine.

Leon became my shadow. Wherever I went, he followed.

Until the day I caused real trouble.

I had smashed some punk’s head into the ICU after he had harassed a girl outside school.

However, the revenge didn’t come for me, but for Leon.

When I found him, he was lying in a deserted alley, blood pooling into a winding stream beneath him.

It was my mess. So why was he the one paying the price?

I had clutched him and bawled, swearing I would study hard and that I’d never cause him trouble again.

Then, our parents died in the crash.

Before the funeral was even over, Mom and Dad’s former business partners were already ready to tear the company apart.

I still remember that night at the memorial. Rain mixed with tears, soaking Leon’s black suit.

He wrapped me in his jacket at twenty-one, holding me close. Instead of crying, I clung to him until his clothes were stained.

Without realizing it, I had bitten my lips raw.

Leon had pried open my mouth with steady fingers, dabbing the wounds with a cotton swab patiently.

Back then, he would pat my back and say, “Every year from now on, I will be here with you.”

However, somewhere along the way, we’d turned into two people who could barely stand each other.

The sound of an engine cutting off outside jolted me out of my memories. Panicked, I scrambled to gather the scattered photos and shoved them back into place.

The lock clicked.

“Harry, what are you looking through?” Leon’s voice came from behind me.

I spun around, slamming against the desk, my heart hammering in my chest.

He stood in the doorway, shadowed, his suit jacket slung casually over one arm. His gaze dropped to the bookshelf behind me, his eyes dark as pitch.

My whole body tensed. Sweat slid down my spine, soaking my shirt.

“Leon, why did you call me back?”

He didn’t answer. Step by step, he walked closer, each thud of his shoes against the carpet pounding against my nerves.

I swallowed hard, darting a glance at the folder I had just shoved back.

He couldn’t have noticed, right?