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35| HEADLINES

"You are who?" His words were a little shaky as he attempted to process the surreal situation he found himself in.

"I am Tobias, Tobias Green. Sejin's best friend, Bailey's brother."

The old man chuckled, a warm, gentle sound, and held out the photo frame. Seojin took it, his fingers brushing against the man's as he did so. Inside the frame were the smiling faces of a young man and a little girl, their eyes bright with the innocence of youth.

Seojin's mind reeled as he tried to make sense of it all. He was standing in the past, or perhaps a parallel reality, surrounded by strangers who claimed to know him intimately. The concept was mind-boggling, to say the least.

"It's been a long time," Tobias murmured softly as he gazed down at the picture. The man that once had been innocent and carefree now revealed bitterness and the scars life had inflicted on him all at once.

Seojin looked down at his own reflection in the frame, his dark eyes a stark contrast to the carefree smiles of the people in that frame.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, the weight of his actions and the regrets of his past bearing down on him.

The old man's gaze was gentle, understanding. "You don't need to be sorry, Seojin. It's not your fault."

Seojin let out a heavy sigh, turning his attention back to the window. His hand drifted into his pocket, clutching a small, precious memento that held a piece of his heart. He had a nagging feeling that this was all his fault, but he wasn't quite sure what he had done wrong.

"It was never your fault, Seojin. It was always him, your twin," Tobias spoke up after a few minutes of strangling silence.

Though his words were the balm that Seojin desperately needed. Seojin longed to dwell on the overwhelming intrusion that pierced through his heart's barriers, leaving everything in its wake scorched and simmering. Yet, his muddled thoughts were consumed by a flood of queries, uncertainties, and unsettling images, making it difficult to focus on the ache.

He needed time to understand what he was feeling exactly.

"I don't understand Tobias," he gripped his hair tightly, "all this, two realities: me still barely thirty, whereas you all are so old, and in any reality, you absolutely hated me. You have no idea how much of an ass were to me! I feel lost."

He had experienced something very deep, something he couldn't quite put his finger on, and in that moment of confusion and doubt, Tobias's words came as a blessing.
"The Twin Paradox, Seojin."

"Huh?" The gasp came out involuntarily.

"The Twin Paradox, it is a thought experiment in the theory of relativity."

"Relativity?" Seojin's face was a portrait of confusion, brows furrowed as he tried to make sense of the concept he'd been introduced to, and he kept quiet, wanting the easiest explanation for the word.

"Yes, general relativity. It's basically like ABC, but with a twist. Just how you can't differentiate between an object moving with a constant speed and an object at rest without comparing them. You can measure the velocity of an object or its momentum, but it is always in relation to something else. As if your movement has something to do with me, like you are in motion in relation to me. Otherwise, you just exist. Second, the speed of light is the same no matter who measures it in whatever condition. And the third, nothing is faster than light."

Seojin let out a guttural groan, his face twisting in annoyance. "All I understand is the speed of light."

Tobias couldn't help but smile at his friend's bewilderment. "No wonder you went for the bakery," he teased. "Suppose you watch two cars passing by; how will you know which one is faster?"

Seojin pondered, his brows furrowed, "Well, it depends on the two cars, like I will compare their speed."

Then it came as a blow; "That's relativity, Jin."

Seojin's eyes widened. "What do you mean? How can comparing two cars have anything to do with relativity?"

Tobias took a deep breath, knowing pretty well that his explanation had to be easy and concise, "Relativity is all about how different observers perceive events differently. It's like looking at things from different perspectives."

Seojin gazed straight through him, bewildered and shocked. "I mean I never thought that is relativity. How far in the darkness was I again?" But soon he regained his composure, "But how does that twin thing work here?"

"Well, it works on time dilation and how the observer sees it and everything else. When two identical twins are separated and one travels through space in a spaceship moving at close to the speed of light and other stays back, when they are reunite, the twin who stayed on Earth will be older than the twin who travelled through space."

"So, you mean I went around the earth in a spaceship? Sejin wasn't lying?"
It sounded absurd, unrealistic, and pretty much straight from some movie, but who was he to judge?

Tobias peered closely: "Kind of, yes, yes you did."

"But-" Seojin was on the verge of throwing up his hands, screaming, or shouting for the sake of the reason and much deeper context, but what if this man was also lying? What if everything was just a trap for him? So, he channelled his words in a twisted way.

"But how do you know?"

"The whole city of Cambridge does, Seojin," Tobias replied, his tone matter-of-fact.

...

Tik. Tok. Tik. Tok.

"The chain of cursed theories cause havoc."

"Paradox of truth and lies: Harvard faces hatred"

"Was Kim Sejin a narcissistic science prodigy?"

"An evil deed: Harvard is forced to shut down."

"The spaceship crashes the city of Cambridge destroying the main building of Harvard."

Sejin had nearly piled all the newspapers Tobias had shown him, a bit too frenzy in his mind and in his body as if he were living a stranger's life. The headlines only made it worse.

Tobias spoke up. "Seojin, you vanished from this world without a trace. There were theories, speculations, and then eventually, you were forgotten."

Sejin picked up the last article staring at him.

"A new life requires an old life. A soul needs much more than just being alive. The world is in constant flux, and there are those who do not see it but need to know when the time will be right for them. Many have tried before: their last name does exist somewhere, a family that has been together too long might die because of one mistake, someone could never seem content enough, or someone could never work through some personal grudge against others. But then there are those that come forth, the ones that seek the truth and are not on the side of justice.

I have always loved and respected him, and I always will. We didn't just share the same womb; we had the same face, the same life, and the same secrets, and I still don't know where I went wrong, where I disregarded it all, and why he couldn't confide in me anymore.

I just ask you to forgive him, my brother, Kim Sejin."

"He had stolen your identity, lived your life and nobody could catch him, not even me. But things got worse when your spaceship crashed in the middle of the city."

The clocks kept dwindling in a harmonious little wind of their own, though he honestly wanted to slip away and bury himself beneath some old woolly sheets and get his night's sleep done, then wake up to find everything sorted.

There was no sanity left in the crevices of his ribs. They were now bounty, charred, and filled with caseous sediments, and it only gave him pain.

Sejin had stolen his identity, lived his life, and blamed him. He became this ghost that they took upon themselves to defend against every crime against them; he would not be treated any other way from here on out.

The newspaper was still scattered along with the other important pieces of writing on the table, and Seojin kept reading them over and over again, but nothing changed. His demise had curled around the city and the world for months until the speculations curbed to the feat of pain and misery it brought to his remaining so-called family.

And with Harvard's deterioration, everything had numbed down.

Even so, their wargames for survival seemed futile when fighting a monster like Sejin could do more harm than good; but how bad must one fight something worse? But then he had nothing to lose. Nothing at all.
Even his identity had dripped down the drain.

It had been fifty-five years since that night—years of pain, effulgence, and guilt. For all those years, from the moment he was gone that night until the day he woke up, Sejin's feelings hadn't changed anymore, and he sat on the ground, unguarded and unshielded.

"So, he did all that, all of it..." Seojin muttered softly to himself.

What would happen next? Who cared what else had already become history for him? It was over! That which started out as an impulse and was put to death out of necessity or by mistake in order to not spoil someone else's happiness with their foolish actions had turned into a disaster.

The world itself didn't matter anymore than this; his loved ones were dead anyway.
Rather, did he ever have any family to begin with?

Seojin gritted his teeth, his heart racing. Tobias seemed to hold all the answers. "How did you know?" Seojin demanded, his voice cracking. "How did you figure out he stole my identity? How did you know it was him and not me?"

Tobias's expression remained calm, but a hint of amusement flickered in his eyes. "I had my doubts, Seojin. I'm no expert in identity theft, but when Bella died –"

"Bella?" Seojin's voice rose in horror. "Your sister Bella?"

Tobias nodded solemnly. "You met her in the simulation, didn't you? She was raped and murdered and it was Sejin who did it. Those DNA samples in the semen of her molester spoke volumes."

Seojin's mind reeled, a chill creeping up his spine. "Why would he... why would he kill Bella?"

"He loves killing people," Tobias replied matter-of-factly. "And when I threatened him that I would tell the world about him, he killed my wife too."

_________

I hope February is kinder to all of us.
Let me know if you liked it^^

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