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PROLOGUE — A WORLD BEFORE THE SUNRISE
Long before the morning sunlight ever slipped through the cracks in their small wooden home, Li Kyo and Sin Kyo had a world of their own. It was a world stitched together with giggles, whispered secrets, and imaginary adventures that stretched far beyond the worn walls.
Li Kyo, the elder, had always been a quiet shadow of patience and calm. His eyes, dark and observant, saw more than anyone realized. He carried a responsibility that he didn't fully understand yet — the responsibility to protect, to guide, to love.
Sin Kyo, the younger, was everything the world wasn't — bright, boundless, untamed. He had a laugh that could fill an empty room and eyes that sparkled with curiosity and mischief. Wherever Sin Kyo went, joy followed.
Together, they were more than brothers. They were companions, confidants, and, unknowingly, lifelines for one another.
"Some childhoods end too soon. Some smiles carry the weight of worlds."
"The light of innocence often burns brightest before the darkness arrives."
---
CHAPTER 1 — THE MORNING THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING
The morning sunlight slipped gently through the thin gaps in the wooden walls of the small house, illuminating traces of dust floating lazily in the air. It was early — the kind of early where the world is halfway between night and day, quiet yet preparing to wake. And in the middle of that calm, the house echoed with something precious and rare: laughter.
Li Kyo stood at the stove, a worn-out pan sizzling under his careful hands. The aroma of eggs frying mixed with the faint smell of wood smoke that always lingered in their small home. His long black hair brushed lightly against his forehead as he leaned closer to check the eggs.
It should have been a normal morning, just like countless others…
But today was special.
Not because it was a birthday.
Not because it was a holiday.
But because today, Li Kyo had decided he wanted to give their mother something she hadn't felt in a long, long time — happiness.
Behind him, little footsteps pattered across the floor. His five-year-old brother, Sin Kyo, approached the stove like a soldier approaching the battlefield — serious, determined, and extremely cute.
"Hyung! Hyung! Spoon do! Spoon do!" Sin Kyo practically bounced as he grabbed a spoon nearly as big as his forearm.
Li Kyo chuckled under his breath. "You can help with stirring… but don't spill anything, okay?"
"No spilling!" Sin Kyo declared proudly.
The spoon almost slipped from his small fingers the very next second, but he quickly tightened his grip with a startled gasp. His eyes twinkled like stars — bright, full of life, and overflowing with excitement.
"Mom will be so surprised!" he said, his voice ringing through the kitchen.
Li Kyo smiled, one of those smiles that were gentle yet heavy with something unspoken.
"Yeah… we'll make her really happy today."
For a brief moment, his heart felt light.
For a brief moment, the brothers existed in a world where nothing could go wrong.
For a brief moment, everything felt safe.
"Happiness is fragile. It never stays long enough for anyone to truly hold it."
But fate has a cruel way of ripping moments apart.
The sharp ringing of the old telephone cut through the warmth of the morning. It was loud, sudden, almost urgent.
Li Kyo turned off the stove, wiped his hands on the nearest towel, and called back to his brother, "Wait here, okay? I'll be back in a second."
Sin Kyo nodded, swinging his feet playfully as he hummed a tune only he knew.
Li Kyo walked toward the phone with a faint smile on his lips.
A smile that would soon be his last one as an innocent boy.
He picked up the receiver—
BOOM!!!
The explosion shattered the world.
"Some worlds end in an instant. Some hearts break silently."
The floor lurched violently.
The windows burst into shards.
The kitchen table snapped into two.
Heat, fire, sound — everything collided at once.
Li Kyo's ears rang so loudly that it felt like the whole world had gone silent.
He hit the ground hard. Dust and debris clouded the air, choking him. His left arm throbbed painfully, and warm blood trickled down his forehead. His vision blurred, white spots dancing in front of him.
He tried to breathe.
He tried to understand.
But then —
Then came the realization that stabbed deeper than any wound.
"Sin… Kyo…?"
There was no answer.
Only crackling flames.
Only the settling of broken wood.
Li Kyo dragged himself across the shattered floor. Every movement sent pain shooting through his entire body, but he didn't care. His hands were scraped, bleeding from crawling over rubble. Smoke burned his throat. But he didn't stop.
He couldn't stop.
And then he saw him.
His little brother's small body lay only a few feet away, partially covered by debris. He wasn't moving.
Li Kyo's heart nearly stopped.
"Sin Kyo… Sin Kyo!" he cried, pulling broken pieces of wood away.
The boy's chest rose slightly — he was breathing — but too weakly. His tiny fingers were curled, his skin pale beneath the dust.
But what struck Li Kyo the most…
What broke him completely…
Was the faint smile on Sin Kyo's lips.
A peaceful, gentle smile.
A smile too calm for a child caught in an explosion.
A smile that didn't belong to a moment filled with pain.
"Even in death, some souls wear smiles meant to shield others."
"Why are you smiling…?" Li Kyo whispered, his voice trembling.
Sin Kyo didn't answer.
He couldn't.
Li Kyo held his little brother close, shaking as tears spilled freely down his cheeks.
"Please… wake up… please…" he begged.
But the world remained cruelly silent.
---
CHAPTER 2 — THE AFTERMATH
When Li Kyo opened his eyes again, everything had changed.
He was no longer in the burning house.
No longer surrounded by smoke or screams.
He was in his own small room.
His breathing was ragged, his clothes soaked with sweat. His heart hammered against his ribs as if it wanted to break free.
A nightmare.
A memory.
A curse he couldn't escape.
He sat up slowly, wiping the sweat clinging to his hair. The room was dim, lit only by the faint streetlight leaking through old newspapers taped across the window.
A small desk stood beside his bed. Its surface was covered with dusty books, old notebooks, and papers filled with scribbled thoughts he never showed anyone.
At the center of the desk was a single photo frame.
Sin Kyo.
Smiling brightly.
Forever frozen.
Forever untouched by time.
Li Kyo reached out and traced the edges of the photo with trembling fingers.
"I'm sorry…" he whispered.
The words had become a daily ritual — a prayer he repeated without fail.
A prayer without forgiveness.
He forced a small, empty smile onto his face — a smile he had mastered over the years.
Some smiles were full of joy.
And some…
Some were the only way to hide pain.
"Survivors wear their pain like armor, hoping no one sees the wounds underneath."
"Some promises are heavier than any weight the body can carry."
For Li Kyo, smiling had become easier than breathing.
CHAPTER 3 — THE BOY WHO SHOULD HAVE DIED
The rain had begun before sunrise—steady, cold, and unbothered by the world below.
It fell like a quiet reminder that life didn't stop for anyone, not even the broken.
Li Kyo sat on the old wooden bench outside their home, watching droplets slide off the roof.
His eyes followed the rain, but his mind stayed somewhere far behind him.
Sometimes it felt like he had never escaped that morning years ago.
"Some childhoods end early," he once read.
"Some turn into promises the world never lets you keep."
He didn't know who wrote it, but the words had settled inside him like truth.
He was eighteen now, but the boy inside him had never grown past the rubble.
---
THE QUIET WEIGHT
People said he was calm, mature, disciplined.
They didn't know calmness could be created from fear.
They didn't know maturity could be shaped by loss.
Most nights, he lay awake thinking he should end it.
Most mornings, he woke up alive again, breathing out of responsibility, not choice.
Rima Kyo — his mother — was the last string tying him to this world.
The last warm place in a life full of cold corners.
Parents suffer differently.
"Parents bleed in silence so their children don't see the wounds."
He didn't need anyone to tell him that.
He had seen it in her eyes when she thought he wasn't looking.
He lived for her.
Just her.
---
THE SEEKER
His desk was a mess—piled books, ruined pages, torn notes, maps scribbled with places no one visited anymore.
He wasn't a scholar.
He wasn't curious.
He was desperate.
Years ago he found a single line in an old diary:
"Souls do not vanish.
They only move."
Something inside him shifted.
Hope?
No.
Hope was too soft a word.
It was hunger.
"When truth becomes an obsession, it stops being truth…
and becomes hunger."
And so he became a Seeker.
A Khoji.
He followed myths, ruins, symbols etched by hands long dead.
Every clue felt like it pulled him closer to something—
but not close enough.
Someone else was searching too.
Someone faster.
Someone who always arrived first.
Three nights ago, he finally saw him.
A silhouette on a rooftop.
Still. Quiet. Watching.
Not curious.
Not confused.
Just measuring.
"Some enemies don't strike.
They simply wait for you to break yourself."
The figure vanished like fog in wind.
Li Kyo didn't know why…
but something inside him whispered:
He knows everything.
---
THE MORNING THAT FELT WRONG
"Li Kyo," a soft voice called.
His mother stepped outside holding a crooked umbrella. Her hair was slightly messy, her eyes tired in a gentle way that came from carrying too much for too long.
"Breakfast is ready," she said with a faint smile.
"Okay. I'll come."
Their mornings were always like this—quiet, simple, fragile.
She turned back toward the door.
A faint rumble passed through the ground.
The kind of sound that didn't belong to nature.
Before Li Kyo even understood, his chest tightened.
A memory flashed—smoke, wood, blood, his brother's hand slipping away.
"A single moment can split a life into 'before' and 'after.'
He learned that too young."
And then—
The explosion hit.
No dramatic scream.
No violent sound.
Just pressure. Heavy. Crushing.
The world seemed to bend for a second.
Dust.
Splinters.
A wave of heat.
Then—silence.
Li Kyo didn't scream.
He hadn't screamed in years.
Pain had taught him another language—quiet.
He ran toward the collapsed doorway, pushing through fragments of wood.
"Mom…?"
His voice was steady, but his fingers trembled.
He found her under a fallen beam.
Breathing softly. Too softly.
He knelt beside her, a cold numbness rising through him.
"Look at me," he whispered.
Her eyes opened.
Unfocused. Searching for him.
But calm — heartbreakingly calm.
Sometimes the softest smiles belong to the people who have suffered the longest.
She reached for him weakly.
"Li… don't follow the truth…
It will destroy you…"
Her hand loosened.
Her breath faded.
He watched the stillness settle over her.
He didn't cry.
He couldn't.
"Some losses carve deeper than tears can reach."
The world didn't fall apart.
It simply grew quiet.
---
THE MAN IN THE SMOKE
Far away, through the settling dust, someone stood on a distant rooftop.
The same man.
The same stillness.
Watching.
His eyes glowed faintly—not with anger, not kindness—something colder.
Knowledge.
He didn't run.
Didn't hide.
Didn't fear.
He simply turned and walked away, as if everything that happened was exactly what should have happened.
As if he had been waiting for this.
Li Kyo knelt beside his mother, the rain washing dust from his hair.
He didn't know it yet, but something had shifted.
"What you run from will shape you more than what you chase."
And now, with everything gone…
The world finally had space to pull him toward the truth.
A truth that had been watching him all along.
---
Thank you for reading "Why Smile?"
If my writing touched you even a little —
if a line made you pause, if a scene made you feel something —
then I want to ask just one thing from you:
Please support this story.
Your single like, comment, or share gives this novel a new breath.
A writer grows because readers choose to stand with him.
If you believe this world deserves more chapters,
then help me make it reach more people.
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because your support decides how far this story will go.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you for giving this world a chance.
— Ajiro Shin