By Zephyria 
***
“It’s partial amnesia. He has suffered significant loss of recent memories due to a major shock to the brain.”
The doctor in white sighed repeatedly.
Han Seon, Kwon Rae-i’s long-time attending physician, looked at Tae-hwon, who had become half-dead, with a complicated expression. Woo Tae-hwon was in such a terrible state that it wouldn’t be strange if he had a cardiac arrest right now.
“Memory is one thing, but the external injuries are much more serious. It’s a miracle that he regained consciousness and woke up in this condition. His bones are broken and his flesh is torn all over his body, especially the tendons in his right arm are severed. If he doesn’t focus on recovery and rehabilitation, he will never be able to use one arm again.”
“I don’t care about anything. Just keep him alive.”
“Young Master Rae-i…”
“Keep him alive. Huh?”
“Yes…”
At the firm command, Han Seon bowed his head. First of all, he had done his best as a doctor, but…
“But, if I may be so bold, isn’t… isn’t that Woo Tae-hwon?”
The patient had lost his memory and the atmosphere had completely changed, but there was no way he wouldn’t recognize Woo Tae-hwon. The action leader who had Kwon Jung-il’s full trust. His closest aide. The hitman Woo Tae-hwon.
He was a famous figure within the organization. Furthermore, Gyeongjeong was in an uproar right now and had issued a nationwide search warrant, sending people to every corner of the country to catch Woo Tae-hwon. Currently, even ordinary street thugs knew his face.
“The enemy of Gyeongjeong who betrayed the Chairman, why is the Young Master taking such good care of him…”
Han Seon muttered anxiously. But Kwon Rae-i didn’t listen to him until the end and interrupted him halfway.
“Get out. Don’t say useless things.”
Kwon Rae-i crossed his legs and tapped the table with his fingertips. With a clear order to leave and an uncomfortable mood, Ha Seon obeyed the order without saying a word. He knew better than anyone else that there was no point in going against Kwon Rae-i’s will.
Han Seon, bowing deeply, immediately turned around and left the bedroom.
The biological son of Chairman Kwon Jung-il, who was called the Demon.
He was not the son of the legal wife but the son of a concubine, and he was born with albinism and did not resemble Chairman Kwon at all. Moreover, he was a frail boy who was particularly prone to illness when he was young, so he was abandoned alone in a detached annex rather than the main house and was ignored.
But Kwon Rae-i was the successor who had inherited Kwon’s blood more deeply than any of his older brothers. Although he was only twenty years old this year, Han Seon predicted that the real power of Gyeongjeong would fall into Kwon Rae-i’s hands within 10 years at the longest.
‘I’ve been rolling around in this world for a long time too. It’s certain that his innate talent is different.’
However, this was a prediction based on looking ahead 10 years. If Chairman Kwon Jung-il had remained firmly in his position until then, Kwon Rae-i’s position as successor would have become more and more solid, but the Chairman suddenly died and the position became vacant. In that case, no one knew what would happen to the direction of the throne. After all, Kwon Rae-i’s young age was still a factor…
Click.
The bedroom door closed and the room became quiet.
Kwon Rae-i continued to tap the table and stared silently at Tae-hwon lying on the bed. His eyes were empty. As distant and black as the night sky.
“…That’s what they say, Mr. Tae-hwon.”
Tae-hwon, who had been lying motionless on the bed all along, slowly blinked his eyes. The white ceiling looked far away. His body was completely tattered, so much so that Han Seon’s worries were rather plain.
His right arm was in a cast, and both his thighs and chest were wrapped in bandages like a mummy. That wasn’t all. His skin was stained with scars and bruises. The short-sleeved T-shirt and shorts he was wearing couldn’t cover all the wounds.
“Amnesia, I wonder how that happened. And his body is so badly injured. They say he might not be able to use his arm, how ironic.”
His body, stiff like a log, wouldn’t move as he wanted. He also had a severe headache. It felt like someone was chopping his head with an axe. Tae-hwon moved his dry lips. A rough, scratchy voice came out of his stiff throat.
“Umm, Rae-i… Young Master?”
As soon as Kwon Rae-i heard the question he asked with doubt, he chuckled.
It was because he realized where Tae-hwon’s turbid black eyes were staying. The unique hair and eye color of an albino. Snow-white hair and eyelashes like freshly fallen snow, and bright and transparent blue-gray eyes.
“Yes, Mr. Tae-hwon. It’s me. Do you remember me?”
Kwon Rae-i had never liked his distinctive appearance that stood out anywhere. Not once. But since it was a clue for Tae-hwon, who had lost his memory, to recognize him, he didn’t think albinism was so bad when he looked at it this way.
“Young Master, no, but why is the Young Master like this…”
Tae-hwon, who hadn’t yet adapted to his sparsely empty memory state, frowned deeply and became confused. Seeing him struggling with a headache, Kwon Rae-i got up from the leather sofa and slowly walked to the bed where Tae-hwon was lying.
“Don’t overdo it. It must be hard to accept yet. Tell me what you remember last.”
He leaned one arm on the metal frame headboard and looked down at Tae-hwon. The light from the fluorescent lamp was blocked, casting a dark shadow in the shape of Kwon Rae-i. Despite the brightly lit, spacious bedroom and the open space with a high ceiling, there was a sense of pressure as if he had squeezed into a narrow back alley.
Tae-hwon looked at Kwon Rae-i’s chilling blue-gray eyes and slowly replied.
“In my memory, Young, Master.”
“Yes, Mr. Tae-hwon.”
“You were still… still ten years old.”
“Ah. Ten years old? That was 10 years ago.”
“You were, young. Very.”
“Yes. I was very young. Tae-hwon took care of me and we lived together in the Separate House. That was ten years ago.”
“……Ugh.”
Tae-hwon, frowning, groaned intermittently and clutched his head. Kwon Rae-i reached out to the struggling Tae-hwon, gently stroking his back as he asked,
“I see. So you remember that time. How old are you now, Tae-hwon?”
“T-Twenty, I am.”
“No. I said ten years have passed, right? I’m twenty, and you’re thirty now, Tae-hwon.”
“Thirty?”
Tae-hwon’s eyes widened. Seeing Woo Tae-hwon with his emotions so clearly displayed was a rare sight, and a faint smile graced Kwon Rae-i’s lips. Kwon Rae-i folded his long eyes, smiling like an angel, and asked Tae-hwon again,
“Do you remember Gyeongjeong?”
“I remember……. Thanks to Chairman Kwon taking me in, I narrowly escaped death.”
“Hmm. I see. So you remember my biological father too.”
“……Are you really Young Master Rae-i? Is it true that ten years have passed, and you’re twenty years old?”
“Does it seem like a lie?”
“No. But, that appearance is too…….”
Tae-hwon, looking bewildered, lowered his head and muttered. Kwon Rae-i had never seen Woo Tae-hwon so flustered.
Indeed, after talking to him, he had lost about ten years of his memory. He claimed to be twenty years old, and a twenty-year-old Woo Tae-hwon would only be a fresh, low-ranking rookie in Gyeongjeong. Completely different from the current knife-wielding Woo Tae-hwon. A tenderfoot who had never even held a knife, never killed anyone. Just a caretaker in charge of looking after the Chairman’s illegitimate child.
“Too? What’s wrong with my appearance?”
“……You’re an adult.”
“Huh? Do I look like an adult?”
At those words, Kwon Rae-i chuckled.
An adult…….
He had always been treated like a child by Woo Tae-hwon.
“Right? I’ve become an adult before I knew it, Tae-hwon.”
“Yes…….”
“As you can see, I’m not young anymore, haha. I’m even taller than you, Tae-hwon. My sick body has become healthy too. I even have pubic hair now.”
“…….”
“Twenty years old…… Wow, haha. Woo Tae-hwon is twenty. Hahaha! You know what? We’re the same age now.”
Kwon Rae-i shook his shoulders and burst into loud laughter. He laughed and laughed and laughed as much as he pleased, then wiped the tears from his eyes with his fingertips, muttering as if dumbfounded.
“I can’t say I’m young in front of you anymore.”
The confused voice echoed in his mind. The jumbled, chaotic voice was unsettling, yet it contained a certain madness.
Kwon Rae-i, who had been laughing endlessly, ran his index finger up Tae-hwon’s neck. As if tracing the shape, he gently caressed his chin and the outline of his face, then stopped at his lips. Pale fingers, born of albinism, pressed down on Tae-hwon’s lips. The dry lower lip changed shape as it was pressed, slightly parting.
“And you can’t dare say it was a childhood infatuation or a teenage impulse.”
“……Young Master?”
“I’ll tell you in advance, Tae-hwon, in case you’re surprised. This isn’t our first kiss.”