By Zephyria 
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It was unfair. Truly unfair.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t done anything, but he hadn’t lived his life so devoid of boundaries between public and private that he’d make it this glaringly obvious.
Despite knowing that an important conversation awaited, Jin Mu-hae eventually opened his mouth.
“The hwehang document… was at Sakdal. In a place that sells those kinds of things.”
“What?”
“So I bought one while pretending to be a customer… but Joo-oh keeps playing with it alone, thinking it’s a toy. I threw it away to get rid of it, and yet.”
“…Who’s saying anything?”
Perhaps his obsession with not being branded a lecher had come through. The uncomfortable looks in the two men’s eyes subsided slightly.
After all, this was Mu-hae, who hadn’t even shown a hint of wanting to hold someone’s hand. It was hard to judge that he had suddenly been consumed by sexual desire and was hooking up with a dim-witted fellow at every opportunity.
Only then did Mu-hae feel he could breathe a little, and he hurriedly kicked the pile of clothes away.
Damn it. He had told him not to sneak clothes away, so when did he steal this much to make a nest?
Thinking of the guy who must have spent his time lounging here, drifting in and out of sleep, made him boil with rage, yet strangely, a tingling sensation echoed in his chest.
Right… what could he do? It was his own fault for not clearing out the study sooner. Swallowing his displaced emotions, Mu-hae slumped down, leaning his back against the desk.
Boss Gil sat on the mattress without hesitation and gestured to Teacher Jung. Only after the three of them were settled and facing each other did the postponed conversation begin.
“No wonder… everything felt quite unfamiliar, whether it was my father or this house. I thought it was just because I lost my memories, but to think it was a neighborhood I’d never seen before.”
“It’s true that you had no memories. We checked several times, so it’s certain. We half-heartedly judged it to be dissociative amnesia, and they told us that was likely the case. They said you were brought in after being kidnapped by a criminal organization.”
Teacher Jung explained in a monotone voice. He seemed much calmer than when he had first witnessed the state of the study.
After hearing the explanation, the fragmented memories began to fall roughly into place.
A sudden attack. Kidnapping. Threats to his life and the faint sound of screams. He didn’t know what happened after that, but Mu-hae remembered sitting outside the city, staring blankly at the sky.
Then, his father took him. Having heard only the explanation that he had lost his memory, he filled his empty head with life in this place.
Then what about the mother who had been completely erased from his subsequent life? Her child vanished in an instant, yet she accepted the disappearance without even attempting to find him?
Another question arose that wasn’t easily solved. In his memories, although Mu-hae was certainly alone, he didn’t seem neglected or abandoned.
As if sensing that doubt, Boss Gil let out a low sigh.
“Can I have a smoke?”
“Go ahead.”
The cheeks of the man who quickly lit a cigarette sank in. Come to think of it, he had been devoid of color in his face for a while now.
While Mu-hae stared blankly at the drifting smoke, Boss Gil was the first to break the silence.
“To be honest, I’m still debating. How much I should tell you. How much I’m allowed to tell you.”
“No matter how much you reveal, it won’t be enough for me.”
“When I heard from Seong-jo that you were his child… to be honest, the first thing that came to mind was West Wind. Not necessarily because I wanted to know your father’s love life, but as I’ve aged, I can roughly guess the timing.”
“….”
“But, hmm. That was all. I didn’t particularly step forward. I haven’t met West Wind since that day, and strictly speaking, you and I are strangers, so I didn’t have much right to interfere. But after that brat Seong-jo died… someone came to visit.”
Boss Gil’s gaze wandered the ceiling for a moment before sliding down to Mu-hae. He took a few more drags of smoke and then clenched his jaw tightly.
After stalling for a long time, his dry lips opened.
“West Wind… she asked. If you were still envisioning the goal of the Return flight. It seemed she knew Seong-jo had left you mementos. Since the two of them hadn’t exchanged a single word since that day, she must have been monitoring this side.”
“It seems I was the only one who didn’t know.”
“Before I could even hide it, that woman said. That I could do as I pleased. That she wouldn’t stop whatever Jin Seong-jo had set in motion. In exchange…”
Clink!
A very faint sound of cutlery being set down echoed from beyond the wall. Come to think of it, Joo-oh’s hearing surpassed human levels.
Even if he closed the door and stuffed the gaps with blanket edges, Joo-oh could hear as much as he wanted if he wished. Mu-hae regretted venturing into the study to do something pointless.
Had he said that? That he could hear the sound of bathing but chose not to. Was he not listening to the conversation now? Or was he quietly holding his breath and taking it all in?
While he was momentarily distracted, Boss Gil crushed the cigarette butt into the ashtray. The man, whose complexion had returned somewhat, continued his blurred words.
“In exchange, she told me to leave everything to you and not to interfere. Whether you seek your father’s mementos or uncover the truth of the Return flight through them, she said to leave it all to your choice. She told me to refrain from talking about the past and not to impose any values or direction.”
“….”
“It was a kind of contract. A promise made between her and you. It was a sufficient price for that.”
Nearly twenty years since his first memory. And several years after his father’s death. The full story, hidden for so long, was suddenly revealed before his eyes.
Jin Mu-hae stared silently at Boss Gil. His face was gradually becoming drenched in complex emotions that were hard to describe in words.
“…The goal of the Return flight.”
“Yes. What I failed to achieve.”
Teacher Jung was looking this way without a word, but he must have experienced it as well. Mu-hae placed his cold hand on his forehead and rubbed it slowly.
Damn. This was a topic he had deliberately postponed because of the Joo-oh issue. But as soon as he tried to ignore it, it came right in front of his face as if telling him to look straight at it.
Moreover, since this was the first time he had heard such detailed information about West Wind, he didn’t even know how to react.
Ridiculously, he didn’t feel like he had been deceived by the two people he trusted. Strictly speaking, he was almost grateful that they had kept those conditions and hadn’t raised him to be some kind of successor to the Return flight.
Above all, it was thanks to them that he was still alive and well in this dangerous land. Mu-hae saw his fingertips trembling slightly as he gripped the cigarette butt.
“I’m only hearing this now.”
“…I spoke sooner than I had vaguely intended.”
“Still, you should have told me after we finished eating.”
He replied as if it were no big deal. He should have been the one with the most complicated heart, but for some reason, it felt strangely distant.
He had almost no meaningful interaction with his father, and his mother was a being who had never been in his life to begin with.
The two people he was facing now and Joo-oh were the only family left in Jin Mu-hae’s present.
“So, what is West Wind thinking?”
“I don’t know. I’m just me. The only certain thing is that she must have wanted something from her side as well.”
After the kidnapping, a tiny glimmer of hope had once flickered—that she might have placed him here for his safety.
But he hadn’t expected it. Because his subsequent life had been far from safety or peace in every way.
The kind of dream where a well-dressed adult visits one day, reveals they are the parent, and takes them to a nice house was a childish developmental stage that slum kids grew out of more than eight years prior.
Knock, knock. Someone knocked on the door. Since Joo-oh was the only one in the house besides the three of them, it was obviously him.
“What.”
“I’m done eating.”
“So, are you coming in?”
Teacher Jung, glancing back at the door, uncrossed his arms. His reaction was that it was a good time since they had finished what they needed to say.
“Do you have nothing more to ask?”
“No, not really.”
“Then let’s go. The windows are blocked, so it looks like there’s no ventilation.”
Mu-hae also had no intention of staying long in the study, where his clothes and photos of the two men lingered.
As he hurriedly opened the door, red eyes smiled brightly with joy. For some reason, he felt awkward petting him or saying something, so he ignored him and walked toward the dining table.
The excessive amount of food brought by the visitors had vanished completely, without a single grain of rice left.
Boss Gil’s eyes widened slightly at the impressive feat. Come to think of it, he had never properly seen how much Joo-oh ate.
“Anyway, take care of your health. It seems you’ve been coming back too injured lately.”
“I’m probably healthier than you, Boss Gil. Oh, and don’t step on my foot.”
Perhaps because the conversation was mostly over, Teacher Jung picked up his coat and prepared to leave.
It wasn’t an attitude of ‘I’m done here, so there’s no need to stay.’ It felt more like he was leaving because he felt awkward staying too long in someone else’s house.
Mu-hae awkwardly saw them off and stood at the entrance for a long time. Strangely, no particular thoughts came to mind.
It was only when he turned back to the living room that a surge of emotion remained. Not toward his father or the two men, but…
“Hey.”
“Huh?”
“Who told you to steal the laundry?”
Toward the insolent, idiot roommate still sitting at the table.
The dizzying sensation he felt when he first opened the study door was still deeply etched in his mind. He felt like his psyche had been slightly scarred.
“I didn’t steal it. I borrowed it.”
For the first time in a while, he wanted to smack him on the head. When he had found him after he ran away from home, he had promised himself he would be less irritable.
He had experienced a situation so terrible that such thoughts vanished instantly. Mu-hae gathered all the missing clothes in one arm and strode toward him, throwing them down.
“Oh.”
“’Oh’ my ass. I told you not to touch the clothes I took off. And this, didn’t I tell you to throw it away?”
When he shook the lubricant held in his other hand, a look of realization finally appeared on Joo-oh’s thoughtless face.
His round pupils rolled as he avoided eye contact. It was the expression he made when he had done something wrong.
“When I told you to put it away and you were playing by squeezing it on your hand, what did I say?”
“I told you to stop messing around and throw it away quickly.”
“And what did you say then?”
“…That I’d put it away. So I put it away. In my room.”
He had trusted a crazy person for nothing. He felt like he was the one going crazy instead. As he covered his face with both hands, Joo-oh crept closer and rubbed his head against Mu-hae’s shoulder.
“Jin Mu-hae bought it for me.”
“It’s not yours…”
“And if there are lots of Jin Mu-hae’s clothes, it smells like Jin Mu-hae, so I like it.”
Muttering a reason that seemed plausible to him, he made a whimpering sound.
“This is how you use it.”
Then, he picked up the clothes scattered on the floor one by one and personally demonstrated how to make a laundry cushion, something he wasn’t asked to do.
Joo-oh carefully curled his body and lay down on the pile of fabric stacked neatly in a circle on the floor.
“Ta-da.”
Ta-da, my foot. He barely managed to restrain himself from kicking it away again. It was purely because of the happy smile in his eyes, oblivious to the atmosphere.
He rubbed his cheek against the soft fabric of the top several times. He inhaled the scent and curled his already round body even tighter.
Kirrr… He seemed to make a very small, strange sound. For some reason, the energy to be angry vanished, and Mu-hae just let out a series of sighs.
Then again, since he had seen everything from this guy’s head to his toes, strictly speaking, Teacher Jung’s misunderstanding wasn’t entirely baseless.
It was just that because he had his own secrets, he felt dirty and guilty, like someone whose crimes had been discovered.
Bzzzzzz-.
Suddenly, the Link Watch vibrated in the evening. Pressing his temple, he checked it and found that Boss Gil, who had left the house a moment ago, had sent a message.
[If you find yourself curious about more, come visit me separately later.]
It was a message Teacher Jung had also secretly sent, perhaps because there were things they hadn’t been able to say. Mu-hae looked at the content word by word and then turned his gaze away.
Joo-oh was still obliviously lying on the clothes. Like a wild beast sprawled out in a habitat it had carefully prepared, with the most satisfied corners of his mouth.
192 – I Became an Aberration in a Dead Game