By Zephyria 
‘You’re lucky to be alive, you little rascal. A little kid wandering around outside all alone.’
‘Doesn’t even know how dangerous it was, just sitting there staring blankly at the sky.’
Director Gil’s story was etched into Mu-hae’s mind.
According to what he heard, Mu-hae seemed to have been born and raised in Starlight Road, and a major incident seemed to have occurred around the age of five.
What reason would a child have to leave his Comfort zone and sit in a dangerous place? No, even if he ended up like that somehow, how could it not be recorded in his father’s notes at all?
“……”
Strangely, Mu-hae soon concluded that it was possible.
Now that he thought about it, perhaps because of his experience overseeing a group, he was sensitive to the order of things. Things that weren’t important to him, even eating and sleeping, were pushed to the back.
Simply put, they weren’t a priority. Not his son, not unexpected accidents. He was always holed up in his study, scribbling something.
Was that too much of a leap? If so, perhaps he was so sensitive that he decided it wasn’t something to be written down.
Either way, the five-year-old Mu-hae wandering outside the city was not recorded in his most private notes. The missing pieces of memory, impossible to piece together, were not left here either.
‘Hmm.’
There was no dramatic emotional change in the face of his own conclusion. Jin Mu-hae himself was generally calm. Unless it was someone else’s business.
Still, he felt a faint disappointment. The taciturn man who never said much to him. Perhaps beneath that appearance, there were unexpressed feelings, and he had hoped that his inner thoughts about him would be written down in at least one sentence.
Even in the documents he obtained as his inheritance, he never directly mentioned Mu-hae. Even knowing that the only person who would spend the enormous sum of 204,000 Deal to access the deceased’s records was his son.
Perhaps it was a delusion to feel ‘interest’ in the journal, which was written with even trivial explanations.
“Jin Mu-hae.”
Suddenly, a small voice called his name. Mu-hae kept his head still and only turned his eyes to the side.
Joo-oh, who had been sitting on the sofa, had come down and leaned his head on his shoulder.
A fluffy and warm sensation. The human warmth felt through the thin T-shirt was strangely welcome.
“What.”
“Just because. I wanted to call you.”
Joo-oh chanting Jin Mu-hae, Jin Mu-hae, without even using his last name, was something he was used to hearing even in his sleep.
Yet, he suddenly wanted to respond to that call. It was ridiculously funny.
“Jin Mu-hae.”
“Stop calling me.”
“Jin Mu-hae.”
Whether Joo-oh pretended to be dazed or not, this cuckoo-like calling never stopped. Even when he was tearing at his leather shoes and drooling, begging to be taken away, he called Mu-hae whenever he had the chance.
Even as he gradually reduced his strange behavior and started going outside alone, even as intelligence occasionally returned to his red eyes, this alone never changed and always followed Mu-hae.
Suddenly, Jin Mu-hae felt another strange sensation from him. The guy who followed him around with his mouth open seemed to be standing far ahead, leading him.
Every time he faced a world he had never experienced before, Joo-oh was quietly watching him.
…It felt strange. Something was rising from within, unfamiliar and irritating.
“Watch TV or something.”
He slammed the pad down. If there was no information needed for the Return flight, there was no point in digging through old things.
Mu-hae was always someone who ran forward, only looking ahead. There would be no luxury of indulging in sentimentality and reminiscing about the past, neither before nor after.
“Okay. Good.”
Joo-oh jumped up with a bright expression. A light breeze stirred, and his scent brushed past his nose.
The strange tension between the two continued for four more days.
As things didn’t go as planned, Jin Mu-hae was starting to get annoyed.
Click. Clack. Clatter.
While Mu-hae struggled to suppress his sensitive nerves and continued to cook the semi-prepared food, Joo-oh sat quietly and lined something up on the table.
It was a Tinkle or Tangle cereal toy. The awkwardly posed grotesque creatures were lined up in a colorful row.
Endless pieces of plastic kept popping out of his not-so-big hoodie pocket. He didn’t know why he liked collecting such low-quality things so much.
“Didn’t you collect them all?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Then why do you keep eating the same cereal?”
“Because it’s delicious.”
According to Joo-oh’s explanation, some vaguely granted wishes, and others simply turned sadness into just another emotion.
There was also one that didn’t make you sing well, but helped you not get tired until you finished the song.
Every single one of them had terribly ambiguous settings. They were the ones who created the characters anyway, so why couldn’t they give them more definite abilities?
When he asked about it sarcastically before, Joo-oh said.
‘That’s why it’s good. If the Tinkle Friends solved everything, the main character wouldn’t have anything to do. That’s not helping.’
‘Then the monsters should be the main characters.’
‘They’re not monsters. They’re fairies. And that’s not allowed. Because Tinkle Friends love their friends.’
The guy who explained it so clearly was now loosening his eyes and pretending to be regressed.
Joo-oh, who had been quickly lining up the figures, made eye contact with Mu-hae and immediately flicked one, knocking it down.
Damn it. Even if he drank a crate of alcohol and thought about it, this plan was a failure. He wasn’t getting better, but rather turning into more of an idiot.
When he was wary, he became frighteningly clever, but the decision he made with a great determination resulted in this.
“Put it away. I’m putting the food on.”
As if his appetite was still there, he followed those words quickly. Then, as he put the lump of meat in the center of the table, Joo-oh blinked and looked at the opposite side.
He wanted him to cut it first. Mu-hae was rather annoyed by his captivating gaze.
“That researcher. You remember.”
But since he was such an erratic person. Just in case, Mu-hae lightly threw out bait.
“The person Olga mentioned.”
“Umm. The one who searched Solar City.”
As soon as Olga’s name came up, his unfocused eyes snapped back into focus. He knew it. Mu-hae chuckled inwardly and cut the meat onto his own plate.
“Do you think we can find him?”
Joo-oh’s eyes widened as if he didn’t expect him to ask his opinion on the Return flight.
As if it meant something big, he twitched his lower lip and looked back and forth between the meat and Mu-hae.
The hand holding the plastic lump was fidgeting. As if he wanted to join in right away.
“Never mind if you don’t know.”
“No. That’s not it.”
The voice he belatedly uttered became clear, but Mu-hae didn’t bring up the past again.
After being impatient several times, he seemed to realize that he was being tested, and Joo-oh puffed out his cheeks and picked up a knife.
Being upset was one thing, but once he took a bite of the meat, he couldn’t stand it anymore and devoured the meat like a starving man.
Then, in front of the empty plate, he looked at Mu-hae several times with regretful eyes.
“Don’t make a face like you’re wronged after eating it all.”
Was he expecting some kind of comfort? Joo-oh’s lips drooped at the cold warning.
Even while Mu-hae cleared the empty plates and stored the remaining bread, he continued to sit with a listless face.
Damn it. Joo-oh kept making that face these days. He looked terrified, as if something was terribly wrong.
With anxiety flickering in his eyes, Mu-hae felt a pang of guilt for no reason. A sight he would normally ignore was irritating him strangely.
“Just do one thing. Just one thing.”
In the end, Mu-hae couldn’t stand it and said something. Joo-oh flinched at the prickly tone.
He shouldn’t be pushing him like this. Now he would droop his shoulders again and make a sad face until he was comforted.
“Why……?”
But unexpectedly, Joo-oh was frowning. He looked up at Mu-hae with his lips pouted.
“Why just one thing?”
The guy who usually moved cautiously, afraid that Mu-hae would get annoyed, was now talking back with his eyebrows furrowed, as if he had eaten something wrong.
At this point, Mu-hae was also boiling inside. Damn it. Subtle approaches didn’t suit his temperament after all.
“Then. Do you want me to interfere with everything? With a lanky brat like you?”
Mu-hae, whose patience had run out, ended the useless war of nerves. Joo-oh’s eyes trembled slightly at the indifferent answer.
Joo-oh moved his lips as if choosing his words several times, then slowly lowered his head.
And stared blankly at the empty table. An awkwardly stifling silence fell between them. It was a silence that was eerily chilling.
Ironically, from that moment on, an unpleasant sensation that felt like a noose tightening around his neck struck his mind.
“Look at me.”
“……”
“I’m calling you.”
No matter how many times he called, Joo-oh remained silent. The fact that he was still mumbling meant that he hadn’t given up on the conversation altogether, but rather was looking for the right words.
He could do more things on his own, but he still lacked vocabulary. He often mulled over his thoughts like this, trying to choose the word that best suited his feelings.
“……It’s not.”
After a long mumble, he took a deep breath and muttered.
As if he had pondered it countless times, his breathing had become quite rough in a short time.
“It’s not interference. It’s concern.”
Joo-oh, who had finally completed his sentence, jumped up from his seat.
Then he walked with a thud, and slammed the door shut with a bang! and went into the study.