That morning, sunlight filtered in through the gaps in Laura's bedroom curtains. He woke up with a big smile. Today is the day. The day he would throw away his ego and make up with his older brother at the dinner table.
Laura jumped out of bed, straightened her uniform extra carefully, and jogged down the stairs to the dining room. His heart pounded with anticipation.
"Good morning, Mother! Is Alcel's older brother awake?" said Laura cheerfully.
The mother who was preparing breakfast turned around. His hand movements stopped for a moment seeing his daughter's cheerfulness. However, the mother's expression slowly faded, leaving behind a sad, heartbreaking smile.
"Alcel has left, Ra," his mother answered quietly.
Laura frowned, glancing at the wall clock which had just shown six in the morning. "Early in the morning? Does he have picket duty?"
His mother shook her head slowly. He pulled a chair and sat down, looking at Laura with deep eyes. "Not to school, darling. Alcel has gone. His thirty days are up. Starting today, he lives alone."
Laura's world seemed to stop spinning. "G-leave?" he repeated, his voice shaking. "But... he didn't even say goodbye to me..."
Without waiting for further explanation, Laura turned around and ran down the hall. He stopped in front of Alcel's bedroom door. With trembling hands, he turned the doorknob and pushed it open.
Empty.
There was no black backpack in the corner of the room. There are no books. The bed had been made without a single wrinkle. The only thing left behind was a small framed photo placed right in the middle of the study table.
Laura walked unsteadily. It was a photo of his family. Photo where little Laura smiles awkwardly standing flanked by her parents. Laura's defenses crumbled. Her tears spilled. His chance had run out, and his words of apology were now just empty echoes in a room whose occupants had left.
***
Time flies mercilessly. Three years have passed since that painful morning.
Laura is now in grade 9 of junior high school. Throughout these three years, Alcel was like a ghost. He occasionally sent short messages to his mother just to let her know that he was still alive, but he never once came home.
One gray afternoon, Laura found her mother sitting pensively near the living room window. The mother's blank gaze turned towards the front gate.
"Do you miss Big Brother Alcel?" Laura asked quietly, sitting next to her mother.
His mother smiled bitterly. "I really miss you, Ra. I haven't been able to contact her at all this week."
Laura looked down, wringing her fingers together. "It's my fault, right, Mom? Alcel's older brother left and didn't want to come home because I was very mean to him at that time. I hated him because I thought he was an adopted child who stole your love from me."
The mother finally turned around. He stared at Laura for a long time, his eyes filled with tears. He then grabbed both of Laura's hands and held them tightly.
"In the past, I let you judge Alcel in your own way," said his mother in a trembling voice. "But now you are old enough, Ra. There are facts from the past that you should know. Facts that Alcel asked Mother and Father to bury deeply."
Laura's heart was beating fast. "F-what facts, ma'am?"
"For years since we were babies, Mom and Dad always thought that Alcel was our biological child." The mother took a deep breath, holding back a sob. "We raised him with great affection as our own flesh and blood. Until one day, when Alcel was ten years old, he discovered a mismatch."
Laura's eyes widened.
"Just from looking at the blood type on the health card and matching it with a basic biology book, Alcel's logic started to kick in. He realized there was something strange. Unbeknownst to us, with his pocket camera, little Alcel went to investigate. He infiltrated the archives room of the orphanage and photographed medical record documents from the maternity hospital."
One by one, tears fell onto the back of Laura's hand.
"Alcel found out the truth, Ra," continued the mother, now letting her tears flow freely. "It was Alcel who discovered the fact that there had been an incident of swapped babies. He found evidence that he was not our biological child. And in that document, Alcel found out where our real biological child was."
Laura's body shook violently. His chest felt like it had been hit by a giant sledgehammer.
"Alcel brought all the photos of the documents before Mother and Father. He submitted proof that he was just a stranger in this house." The mother wiped Laura's tears which were now spilling profusely. "It was Alcel who told us that our real biological daughter was in an orphanage. It was Alcel who brought you back into our arms, Ra."
Laura sobbed, her cries were so loud and painful. That fact destroyed all his sanity. The figure he had always hated, the figure he slandered as having broken a flower vase, the figure he always suspected would steal his parents' love... turned out to be the person who voluntarily gave up his position.
For Alcel, it may simply be a move to "correct erroneous data." But for Laura, Alcel has sacrificed his life and comfortable status as a biological child, just so that the truth is revealed and Laura can return to where she belongs.
"He did all that, Ra," his mother whispered, "and then he took a step back, letting you be the center of our attention, without ever once asking for acknowledgment or return of the favor."
***
Back to the present. Night crept slowly over the simple rented house that Alcel now lived in. Outside, the occasional sound of crickets could be heard, breaking the silence that had settled in the air.
Laura stood still in the half-open doorway to her brother's room. Inside, Alcel was sitting cross-legged on the carpet, focused on cleaning his DSLR camera lens with a piece of microfiber cloth. His movements were constant, precise, and completely ignoring the existence of the world around him.
Laura's eyes were not fixed on Alcel, but on the wooden work table in the corner of the room. There, among the stacks of notebooks and boxes of film reels, stood a small picture frame.
It's the same photo. An old photo that Alcel left years ago on his study table. A family photo in which Laura smiles awkwardly flanked by her father and mother. Alcel apparently took him, kept him, and cared for him to this place.
Seeing that frame, Laura's defenses that she had worked so hard to build since this afternoon finally collapsed completely.
His footsteps shuffled slowly into the room. "Big bro..." he called, his voice hoarse and shaking violently.
Alcel stopped spinning the microfiber cloth. He turned his head slowly, finding his younger brother standing with shaking shoulders and tears streaming down his cheeks.
Laura dropped herself, kneeling on the carpet right in front of Alcel. He burst into tears. Her sobs echoed throughout the narrow room, shedding all the burdens that had been strangling her neck for years.
"I'm sorry... Big brother Alcel, I'm sorry..." Laura babbled between sobs. She lowered her head deeply, refusing to look at her older brother's face. "I was bad... I broke Mom's flower vase on purpose and accused you. I bothered you every day. I thought Brother would take Mom and Dad away... even though... it was Brother who gave me my life back."
Laura's voice was cut off by a painful gasp.
"Brother sacrificed your own position as a biological child. Why did you remain silent when I slandered you? Why did you never scold me? I'm a very bad little brother, Big bro..."
Alcel was silent for a moment. He put his camera lens on his lap, then took a piece of tissue from a nearby box and held it out in front of Laura.
"It's good to admit you were wrong," said Alcel flatly, breaking Laura's sobs with his calm voice. "But crying until you sob makes it difficult to hear your words."
Laura accepted the tissue with shaking hands, wiping her face which was already soaked. "But I hate you, Big bro! I treated you so badly! How can you possibly stand it and accept it all?" Laura argued, still trying to demand punishment for her guilt.
"Whether you hate me or not at that time, that's your own business," answered Alcel without hesitation, repeating the exact same principle he had said to the whiny child in the park many years ago.
Laura slowly looked up, looking at her older brother with red eyes.
"The flower vase has been replaced with new flowers, and returning you to your family is what should happen. There's no point in me being angry with you because of those things," continued Alcel, explaining his logic literally and honestly. "I don't care about what you think first."
Alcel leaned forward slightly, looking straight into Laura's eyes which still had pools of tears.
"What's important is what you're thinking right now, right?"
Laura was stunned. These words were spoken in a very flat tone, without the emotional intonation of a drama scene. However, that simple sentence actually disarmed all the guilt that was shackling him. Alcel didn't blame him, didn't judge him, and didn't dramatize the past at all. Alcel just accepted his request for now and considered everything to be done.
An enormous sense of relief suddenly swept away all the weight in Laura's chest. He took a deep breath, then nodded slowly. A relieved smile—for the first time after years of being haunted by the shadow of regret—finally spread across his face.
"Yes, Big bro," whispered Laura sincerely. "Thank You."
***
The atmosphere in the rented room now felt much lighter. The air that originally felt stiff and suffocating with emotional tension, slowly melted.
Laura exhaled a long breath. He was still sitting cross-legged on the carpet, but his posture was no longer tense. He wiped away the remaining tears in the corners of his eyes. He looked around the room which was dominated by neutral colors, then glanced at his two suitcases which were leaning in the corner of the room.
Starting tonight, he has received full permission from their parents to live with Alcel in this rented house. A redemptive step he took to make up for the time he had lost over the last three years.
"You want to sit on the carpet until morning?" Alcel asked suddenly, interrupting Laura's thoughts. The teenage boy had gotten up, put his camera on the table. "There's a folding mattress over there. You can use it."
Laura smiled broadly. He nodded and immediately got up to tidy up his things. That night, for the first time in years of being haunted by the shadow of regret, Laura slept feeling truly at peace.
***
The next day, a sunny Friday afternoon greeted them.
The wind blew coolly as Laura and Alcel walked side by side along the sidewalk towards the rented house. Alcel walked with a constant rhythm, hands tucked into his jacket pockets, while Laura strode cheerfully next to him, occasionally matching the length of her older brother's strides.
Towards a weekend like this, the streets start to fill with people walking around. Laura turned to Alcel, staring at the side profile of her older brother's face which always looked calm and unreadable.
"Big brother Alcel," Laura called, breaking through the noise of the street.
"Hm?" Alcel said without turning around.
"Tomorrow is the weekend, Saturday and Sunday," said Laura in a hopeful tone. "Let's go back to Mom and Dad's house. Just stop by and stay for the night. You haven't been home for three years, right?"
Alcel's steps didn't slow down, but his eyes stared straight ahead, processing the offer. Visiting his parents' house after three years of cutting off physical contact was an anomaly in his independent routine. However, considering that his relationship "data" with Laura was just updated last night, this variable makes sense.
"Going home means Mom will cook large portions of food," Alcel muttered, purely doing efficiency calculations in his head. "That will save us two whole days of food expenses. Alright. We'll go home tomorrow."
Hearing Alcel's very typical functional reason, Laura couldn't help but laugh. A very loose and relieved laugh. "You bastard. OK, tonight I'll call Mom to prepare your favorite meat dish!"
Laura stepped a little faster, walking in front of Alcel, smiling at the evening sky. All the burdens of his past have collapsed. The dynamic between them finally returned to its proper coordinates.
However, the peace that had just been established turned out to be just a thin curtain covering a much darker reality.
Without Laura and Alcel realizing it, from a distance—about fifty meters across the road—a black sedan was parked quietly under a large tree. The pitch black windows hid whoever was inside.
Behind the wheel, the silhouette of a mysterious man dressed neatly was staring intently at the two brothers who were walking away. His hand was holding a small communication device, while his eyes did not leave Alcel Meyer for a second. The normal life that Laura and Alcel had just begun to reorganize has now entered their surveillance radar.
