By Zephyria The talk about Lee Hae-sung seemed to come to a close. The conversation soon shifted to the unpleasant chaebols and powerful figures they had encountered.
Taking advantage of the moment, Choi Hong-seo quietly got up from his seat. Director Kang noticed and called out to him.
“Hye-an, where are you going?”
“I’m going to the restroom.”
“Oh, yes. It’s down the hall to the right… Wait, you were just there earlier, weren’t you?”
Nodding, Choi Hong-seo bowed to Director Kang, who gestured for him to go, and left his seat. I hadn’t noticed, but I had even broken out in a slight sweat while Lee Hae-sung was the topic of conversation.
In the spacious powder room outside the restroom, I washed my face a few times with cold water at the sink. When I lifted my face, still wet, Park Dong-ha was looking at me in the mirror.
“……”
Choi Hong-seo took out a couple of paper towels, dried his face, and slowly turned around.
“Hyung. What was that just now?”
“What do you mean?”
“You have a metabolism where you don’t gain weight, Hyung. When we lived in the dorms, even when we were starving after schedules, we went to bed hungry, but you alone would order late-night snacks and cook ramen. Even at 2 or 3 AM. I’ve cried smelling ramen from under your door. You know that.”
“……”
“But you said you gain weight easily. Why would you say that, when you’d rather not remember anything?”
“That’s…”
Gripping the edge of the sink behind him, Choi Hong-seo bit his lower lip.
“I was on a diet, and they offered me food, so to refuse, I…”
Park Dong-ha still looked unconvinced. It wasn’t that he suspected anything specific, but he seemed confused by Yoon Hye-an, who had lost his memory and was different from before.
“It’s hard enough to accept that you’re managing your physique and working out for roles… were you really going to the gym? You don’t have to lie to me.”
Choi Hong-seo nodded at Park Dong-ha, who was trying to confirm again even though he had already asked once at the restaurant.
Park Dong-ha, who had been observing Choi Hong-seo intently, sighed as if resigned and moved a little closer.
“I really don’t know what’s what.”
“……”
“When should we drink? You said you’d invite me over. Hyung, do you even have my number?”
“It’s saved in my phone, but…”
“Isn’t that an old number? What is it?”
Choi Hong-seo took out his phone from his pocket and went into his contacts. Park Dong-ha thrust his face close to the phone screen.
“Let me see. It really is an old number? I’ll delete it and re-enter it for you.”
“No, I can do it myself…”
Park Dong-ha snatched the phone and furrowed his brow.
“Your contacts are still so sparse. Huh? What’s this? A Carrot Seller?”
Earlier that day, after changing his phone, the first number he saved was Lee Hae-sung’s. Even if he couldn’t contact him, he at least wanted to have his number in his phone. With the same name they had saved each other with before.
Even if someone found the contact saved as ‘Carrot Seller,’ they would never suspect it was Lee Hae-sung, but Choi Hong-seo licked his lips, feeling a strange tension.
“You use Carrot?”
“Ah, well… I was thinking of clearing out some luxury items I don’t use.”
“Even if they’re things you don’t use, you’d throw them away before selling them on Carrot. Yoon Hye-an?”
As if he had forgotten he was supposed to enter the phone number, Park Dong-ha let his hand drop and stared straight at Choi Hong-seo.
“What? Did you really lose your memory?”
“What do you mean?”
“No. Can a person’s true nature or abilities change just because they lost their old memories?”
“……”
“Isn’t that just becoming a different person, beyond just memory?”
“What are you trying to say?”
“You’re studying screenwriting so meticulously, and even making character analysis notes? You? To the point where the director is praising you?”
“……”
“The fact that you’ve been attending these meetings diligently from the start is already unbelievable for Yoon Hye-an. No, isn’t just being cast a miracle?”
Park Dong-ha looked quite confused. He roughly scanned Choi Hong-seo’s face, swallowed dryly, and continued speaking.
“I’m not trying to criticize you, Hyung, but let’s be honest, your acting skills aren’t good enough to be cast in Director Kang’s movie. Is it possible for your abilities to suddenly improve just because you lost your memory?”
Park Dong-ha’s confusion was reasonable, even to Choi Hong-seo. But he had nothing else to say. He couldn’t exactly say, ‘Because I am Choi Hong-seo, only appearing in Yoon Hye-an’s body.’
“Did you think I was pretending not to remember, Dong-ha-ssi, all this time?”
“Honestly… yes.”
“The me you knew before… I was someone who could remember everything but pretend not to, right?”
Park Dong-ha, who seemed to be contemplating, nodded heavily as if he had made up his mind.
“That’s right. It’s not just me; I think anyone who knows you would think that.”
“……”
“But at the same time, you’re also someone who would have revealed your true nature if I had pushed you this far. That’s why it’s so strange.”
“……”
“Your face is the same… but your way of speaking, your expressions, it’s like I’m looking at a completely different person…”
Park Dong-ha trailed off and avoided his gaze. Just like last time, he seemed to want to say that it was chilling. Perhaps Park Dong-ha’s reaction was more common than Yong-jae’s, who had adapted and accepted it quickly.
Park Dong-ha entered his own number into the phone he was holding and handed it back to Choi Hong-seo.
“You changed your phone to ARA too? Someone who never used Android phones.”
He looked down at Choi Hong-seo’s hands as he took the phone, shaking his head.
Then, as he exited the powder room, he turned back when he didn’t feel anyone following him.
“Aren’t you coming in?”
“Go ahead. I need a moment to catch my breath.”
“What’s wrong, are you not feeling well?”
Looking at his pale, sickly face, Park Dong-ha narrowed his eyes.
“No, I’m just a little nervous. Go ahead.”
Was it because Park Dong-ha had interrogated him?
He felt worse than he had at the restaurant. It wasn’t the extreme nausea he felt when he collapsed at the ancestral shrine, but he was breaking out in a cold sweat, his back felt weak, and he was drained of energy.
He figured he’d feel better if he just took a quiet moment to himself.
Choi Hong-seo left the powder room and walked down the corridor in the opposite direction of the dining room. He reached an entrance that offered a view of the entire living room, with stairs leading to the second floor on the right.
Laughter suddenly erupted from the dining room.
By the time he regained his senses, he was already holding onto the railing and climbing the stairs.
He knew it was rude… but he wanted to go back just once more. To the place where he first met him. And, to the place where they officially became lovers.
Since it was a drawing room, not a private space like a bedroom or study… he thought it would be okay to go back for just a moment. He made excuses to himself and climbed the stairs with heavy legs, as if being chased.
He grabbed the handle of the right door of the drawing room’s double doors and slowly turned it down.
Click, clack.
“……”
In the silence, the neatly organized space seemed to be buried in the past.
The artworks on the walls, the circular dining table on the right, the sofa set arranged in front of the large window on the left. Everything was the same.
Choi Hong-seo walked in slowly, as if entranced.
With every step he took, it felt like visions of the past were coming back to life.
Director Kang Woo-hyun, displeased because CEO Myeong had appeared with another actor without prior consultation; the senior actor sitting next to Director Kang; Chairman Jo, who had been nothing but manipulative from start to finish; a middle-aged woman who was an executive at a chaebol family; Myeong Do-hoon, who was as obsequious as ever in front of the powerful…
Choi Hong-seo walked up to the sofa set and stopped at the spot where he had stood that day.
Directly opposite was the seat of honor, an individual recliner.
The VVIP, who had crossed his long legs and clasped his hands neatly on his lap, looking like a mineral in a picture frame.
It felt as if his presence could be resurrected in this very spot at any moment.
A chill ran through him, and goosebumps covered his entire body.
“Let’s stop the music.”
It was the first time he had heard his voice, and
“Do you often read Chekhov?”
It was the first question he had asked Choi Hong-seo directly after the performance.
He hadn’t forgotten a single detail. He felt like he could play the roles of all the people who had been there that day by himself.
“I hope we can meet again once this matter is successfully concluded, Choi Hong-seo-ssi.”
Looking back, perhaps he had already subtly shown his interest from that moment. ‘Hope to meet again.’ He knew too well now that he wasn’t the type to say such things meaninglessly as a formality.
He had never spoken indirectly from the beginning. He had never tried to test or probe anything. But he, like a fool, had been talking in circles for so long.
Choi Hong-seo walked away with a painful, hollow laugh, and slumped onto the long sofa where Director Kang and the senior actor had sat side-by-side.
It was also the chair where he had sat next to Lee Hae-sung on the day of the movie production confirmation party.
They had held hands tightly. His forehead had touched his neck. He had felt suffocated because he was so close, and he had wanted to stay close, even if it meant suffocating.
“Do you like me? Not just as a friend?”
He slowly ran his palm over the spot next to him where he had sat.
The presence that had been clearly beside him then was now absent. The loss of what he had lost, what was missing, was starkly highlighted. He now understood perfectly why people advise avoiding places of shared memories after a breakup…
As if he had been sitting there just a moment ago, he felt a warm sensation under his palm. Of course, it was an illusion. He also ran his hand over the back of the sofa where he had leaned.
If such an absurd thing was going to happen anyway, it would have been better if time had turned back, rather than waking up in someone else’s body. If that had happened, he could have corrected those foolish moments.
However, this was not a
His brow twitched, and his eyes felt hot.
He had suppressed his tears when he saw Hyun-su, but this time, he couldn’t hold back.
He sobbed, his shoulders shaking, with his head bowed. He didn’t cry out loud. He couldn’t cry like that. He bit his lip, swallowed his sobs, and let the tears flow.
“It’s you again.”
“……”
“At this point, it’s almost fate, isn’t it?”
He didn’t need to turn around to confirm the owner of the voice that came from behind him. It wasn’t a ghost from the past. The past him had never spoken to him in such a metallic voice.