The Way to Save the Crazy Returnees Chapter 78 - Blood Wasn’t Thicker Than Water (1)

 

 

“…It’s not like I was trying to deceive you.”

 

That was a lie.

 

Lee Man-deuk must have realized it too, because he let out a hollow laugh.

 

“So that’s when it started, huh?”

 

He asked sharply.

 

“When you suddenly brought those people up. From that moment on, that guy was already like that, right? Isn’t that so?”

 

He spoke with certainty, but I couldn’t answer.

 

When I stayed silent, Lee Man-deuk suddenly exploded.

 

“Say something!”

 

“Mr. Lee Man-deuk, first—”

 

“If you’re going to tell me to calm down, don’t bother.”

 

Lee Man-deuk bristled, as if he were about to unleash a spell at any second.

 

“Did you enjoy playing with me?”

 

I never played with him. Never. I hadn’t hidden the news about his father with that kind of intention. But it seemed he had already decided I’d treated him like a toy.

 

No.

 

I couldn’t let everything between us fall apart like this. What could I do to calm him down? How was I supposed to admit my fault—how was I supposed to make this right?

 

“It’s our fault.”

 

The sudden voice cut through my thoughts.

 

“Lee Deok-soon. Lee Soon-deuk!”

 

Lee Man-deuk raised his voice when he saw his siblings.

 

“You two—!”

 

“Oppa!”

 

Lee Deok-soon shouted even louder, forcing Lee Man-deuk’s mouth shut. It must have been the first time his sister had ever raised her voice at him—he stared at her in shock.

 

With firm resolve, Lee Deok-soon said,

 

“This is a hospital.”

 

“And in a hospital, you’re supposed to be quiet,”

 

Lee Soon-deuk added.

 

“Lower your voice, hyung.”

 

Lee Man-deuk looked at his siblings in confusion.

 

“…So you all knew, huh?”

 

Since when?

 

That was what his eyes seemed to be asking.

 

Lee Deok-soon and Lee Soon-deuk must have felt the same, because they exchanged glances before speaking carefully.

 

“We were afraid that if you found out, you’d kill Dad.”

 

Lee Man-deuk flinched.

 

“Wouldn’t you?”

 

At Lee Soon-deuk’s question, Lee Man-deuk chose silence. Soon, he spat out curses under his breath, his face twisted as if he might cry at any moment.

 

“Fuck…”

 

A bitter smile tugged at his lips. Then he finally released me and turned away.

 

“Oppa.”

 

“Hyung.”

 

Lee Deok-soon and Lee Soon-deuk grabbed him as if he might leave at any second.

 

“Move.”

 

Lee Man-deuk coldly ordered them aside. The two siblings flinched.

 

“Lee Deok-soon. Lee Soon-deuk.”

 

His voice was restrained now.

 

“If you don’t want me to kill that bastard right now, step aside. I need to think.”

 

After a moment’s hesitation, they stepped back. It didn’t seem like Lee Man-deuk truly wanted to take their father’s life with his own hands.

 

He left the hospital room.

 

Only then could I finally speak to the kids.

 

“…I’m sorry.”

 

“It’s okay, oppa.”

 

“You didn’t know either, right, hyung?”

 

“Our oppa came back.”

 

“Yeah…”

 

If I’d known Lee Man-deuk had returned, I would’ve stopped him from coming here no matter what.

 

No—would I really have been able to?

 

I wasn’t sure.

 

This was the first time, after 365 regressions, that Lee Man-deuk had faced the moment of his father’s death. How else would he have known?

 

Unless someone had told him, there was no reason for him to show up here.

 

‘It wasn’t Lee Deok-soon or Lee Soon-deuk.’

 

They’d been too shocked. It couldn’t have been them.

 

‘Han Yeong-won, then?’

 

But she was currently infiltrating the Ark of Universal Salvation Church, destroying it from the inside. No matter how insane she was, Han Yeong-won was terrifyingly competent. She wouldn’t waste focus on anything outside her mission.

 

‘So who… could it be?’

 

At that moment, it didn’t even matter.

 

“So Man-deuk left after all? I knew he would, but he’s really cold about it.”

 

The person responsible for telling Lee Man-deuk everything appeared with a smile.

 

“Seo Do-hwan?”

 

My face twisted.

 

“Was it you… the one who told Lee Man-deuk about his father?”

 

“Yeah. That was me.”

 

He’d even casually mentioned that Lee Man-deuk’s mother was hospitalized in a psychiatric ward. I’d suspected as much from the moment he showed up so nonchalantly.

 

“Why did you do it?”

 

I couldn’t understand.

 

“I already told you—about Lee Man-deuk’s parents.”

 

“They abandoned their kids after the divorce,” Seo Do-hwan said calmly. “Boss… here’s the thing.”

 

He came in with Lee Yoo-seong, muttering as he glanced toward the hospital room where Lee Man-deuk’s father lay.

 

“No matter how much he hates his parents, I think a child’s duty is to at least show up once at the very end. Well… you could say it’s because I’ve never had parents, so I feel at ease.”

 

I wanted to do that.

 

Seo Do-hwan added quietly, letting out a sheepish smile.

 

“Don’t worry about Man-deuk. I’ll go check on him.”

 

“You know where he is?”

 

“Seems like he hasn’t left the hospital yet. I can find him soon enough.”

 

Seo Do-hwan smiled confidently, as if asking me to trust him.

 

“Boss, just keep an eye on the kids.”

 

With that, he went after Lee Man-deuk.

 

“Yoon-hoo hyung… do you think he’ll be okay? If it’s Man-deuk hyung, he might snap the moment he sees Do-hwan hyung…”

 

“We have to trust him.”

 

There was no other choice.

 

***

 

“Fuck!”

 

Lee Man-deuk kicked a trash can and cursed.

 

At first, when Seo Do-hwan had told him about his father, he thought it was a joke—someone casually informing him where his father was, just when the man was barely holding on…

 

But it was true. The man he never wanted to see again was dying.

 

“H-Haha…”

 

Lee Man-deuk let out a hollow, bitter laugh.

 

How much better it would have been to never know. Why did he even bother checking, even from the U.S.? Why confirm it at all?

 

Why do something so stupid?

 

“If Hyung knew, you’d probably kill Dad.”

 

The sudden memory of his siblings’ words made Lee Man-deuk squeeze his eyes shut. They weren’t entirely wrong.

 

Lee Deok-soon and Lee Soon-deuk had little memory of their parents, having been separated from them at a young age. But he wasn’t like that.

 

Lee Man-deuk bit down hard on his lip. His parents had never cared whether he was bullied or not. They had always been too busy fighting each other to care about the children they’d brought into the world. 

 

Looking back now, that had probably been for the best. There had even been times when, drunk, they raised their hands against them. Mother or father—it didn’t matter.

 

They were violent. To Lee Man-deuk, who had endured it all to protect his younger siblings, “parents” were nothing but beings deserving of pure hatred.

 

So whenever those shameless parents had the audacity to show up, he thought:

 

I was going to kill them quietly, without anyone noticing.

 

And yet now, one of them was literally dying.

 

In a fit of rage, Lee Man-deuk gritted his teeth.

 

“Man-deuk hyung, you’re grinding your teeth too hard. Take care of them, okay?”

 

It was Seo Do-hwan, one year younger than Lee Man-deuk, speaking to him.

 

“…Seo Do-hwan.”

 

Lee Man-deuk scowled fiercely.

 

“Get lost.”

 

“Nope.”

 

Seo Do-hwan smirked.

 

“If me being here annoys you, then go ahead—use that proud magic of yours and make me leave.”

 

“Annoying bastard.”

 

“I am the kind of guy who irritates people, aren’t I?”

 

Lee Man-deuk let out a bitter, exasperated laugh and turned away. Seo Do-hwan showed no intention of leaving, so he decided to walk off himself. He would have loved to blast him with magic, but his long-distance teleport had drained most of his mana.

 

‘No point wasting mana on a jerk like him.’

 

Just as Lee Man-deuk was about to leave, Seo Do-hwan spoke again.

 

“Thought you’d be happy about this.”

 

“What?”

 

“Don’t you think so?”

 

Seo Do-hwan grinned at him.

 

“If I were you, I’d be pleased.”

 

“Are you crazy?”

 

“No, just teasing.”

 

Was he joking? Lee Man-deuk’s face twisted in disbelief for a moment.

 

Seo Do-hwan, still smirking playfully, continued.

 

“Just trying to lighten your mood. Aren’t you taking things too seriously?”

 

“If you know, just leave.”

 

“Don’t want to?”

 

Lee Man-deuk struggled to calm his boiling emotions. Taking a deep breath, he said through his scrunched-up expression,

 

“Then please… just shut your mouth.”

 

“Do you hate it when I keep holding you back?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Lee Man-deuk admitted it without hesitation.

 

“If you understand, then stop talking nonsense and shut up.”

 

But Seo Do-hwan didn’t shut up. He walked past Lee Man-deuk, sat on a nearby bench, and started talking again.

 

“Not sure if the boss told you, but I’m also a kid abandoned by my parents. The only difference between us is that I’ve never even seen their faces. Apparently, they left me in front of an orphanage the moment I was born.”

 

At Seo Do-hwan’s sudden confession, Lee Man-deuk gave him a skeptical look.

 

“…Are you asking me to pity you?”

 

“No way!”

 

Seo Do-hwan burst out laughing.

 

“If I were going to get pity from you, Man-deuk hyung, I’d bite my tongue and die first!”

 

That made Lee Man-deuk’s face twist into a scowl, and Seo Do-hwan laughed even harder.

 

“Damn, is this fun for you?”

 

“Yeah. Fun as hell.”

 

There was laughter in his voice.

 

“Hey, Man-deuk hyung. You know something?”

 

“What?”

 

Why did this guy keep acting so familiar? His head was already a mess—so why was he sticking around and running his mouth?

 

“If you’ve got something to say, say it fast and leave.”

 

In response, Seo Do-hwan said,

 

“I envy you.”

 

“You envy me?”

 

Seo Do-hwan nodded lightly, smiling.

 

“You get to see what happens to the parents who abandoned you.”

 

And maybe—just maybe—

 

“You might even hear them say they’re sorry.”

 

Lee Man-deuk’s eyes wavered.

 

Sorry?

 

A word he’d never once considered.

 

Why now?

 

The answer was simple.

 

“Want to hear an interesting fact?”

 

With a twisted smile, Lee Man-deuk said to Seo Do-hwan,

 

“People don’t really change.”

 

Especially…

 

“Trash changes the least.”

 

If Kwak Yoon-hoo had been here, he would’ve just smiled quietly. But he wasn’t, and Seo Do-hwan nodded instead.

 

“But, Man-deuk hyung… people can change, right?”

 

Even trash might regret the past if death were staring them in the face. That was what Seo Do-hwan meant.

 

Understanding—or at least considering it—Lee Man-deuk lowered his gaze in thought before turning toward the hospital entrance.

 

“Going to see your father?”

 

“As if.”

 

Lee Man-deuk scoffed.

 

“I just want to see whether the trash stays trash until the end, like you said.”

 

“What will you do if he is?”

 

What else?

 

“I’ll burn him properly.”

 

Leaving him alone could leave scars on his fragile younger siblings. So—

 

“As the eldest, I’ll make sure his final journey is… comfortable.”

 

Recycling was never an option.

 

At the same time, one person came to mind.

 

‘Kwak Yoon-hoo.’

 

How dare he mock the person he had sworn an oath to.