By Zephyria ■
The night air was quite chilly.
The outdoor tables at the hotel restaurant, which had been bustling all summer and fall, were mostly empty. Two women, one with a knee blanket and the other with a blanket draped over her shoulders, were engrossed in their conversation, paying no attention to other customers.
Lee Hae-sung slowly walked around the illuminated swimming pool before descending to the garden below.
As the hotel was built on a high elevation, the Seoul cityscape was clearly visible from the garden. Like lights shimmering and swaying on water, the night view was beautiful.
Despite being an artificial creation, the city’s night view had a way of being as moving as a natural landscape. When viewed up close, it was a tangle of desires and greed, but from a distance, existing merely as light, the city appeared like a star of romance and hope.
Lee Hae-sung stood with his hands in his pant pockets, gazing indifferently at the city. The entire city had lost its charm and vitality due to the disappearance of a single person. At least, that’s how it felt to Lee Hae-sung.
There was a crucial difference between being able to imagine that the light embracing that child existed somewhere and not being able to. It wasn’t just about a small light. No matter how much people marveled at it, it couldn’t move Lee Hae-sung.
For Lee Hae-sung, the city was in darkness.
He suddenly turned around. He looked up at the imposing hotel building.
Yoon Hye-an was consulting with a New York doctor in the reserved suite.
Although Yoon Hye-an was supposed to be waiting in the living room while the consultation took place in the bedroom with an interpreter, Lee Hae-sung couldn’t calm his mind and had been wandering out of the room.
It was past 9 PM here, and before 9 AM in New York. It wasn’t an ideal time for a consultation, but it was difficult to schedule due to the doctor being a renowned physician actively engaged in practice and research.
The doctor had previously explained that even though it was a consultation for treatment, the effectiveness couldn’t be guaranteed. He gave the usual vague explanation that symptoms caused by psychological factors could be very easy or very difficult to treat.
Lee Hae-sung, still with his hands in his pockets, turned his wrist and looked at his watch. The consultation was about to end.
Turning his back on the city lights, he retraced his steps.
After washing his hands and making a whiskey Ondaroks from the minibar, the bedroom door opened.
Yoon Hye-an, with an inscrutable expression, appeared with the interpreter. Lee Hae-sung, after briefly wetting his lips with whiskey, approached them holding the glass.
“You must be tired. It was your first consultation, so you must have been nervous. Was anything uncomfortable?”
“The doctor made me feel comfortable, so it was fine.”
In fact, Lee Hae-sung’s face was more rigid than Yoon Hye-an’s, the one actually undergoing the consultation. Even when they arrived here, Lee Hae-sung had been tense, but Yoon Hye-an seemed calm.
Lee Hae-sung gestured with his chin towards the open bedroom door and asked.
“Are you still connected to New York?”
Yoon Hye-an nodded instead of answering.
“Don’t go yet. I’ll take you.”
“No, it’s okay.”
“Your manager can’t take you, so you must have taken a taxi. I’ll take you.”
Lee Hae-sung tilted the Ondaroks in his hand and took another sip of the drink. Then, patting Yoon Hye-an’s shoulder as if to encourage him, he added.
“I want to hear about how the consultation went, too.”
Only then did Yoon Hye-an nod once.
Not twice. Just a single, significant nod. Lee Hae-sung remembered that habit precisely. He had struggled to suppress his laughter every time he acted like that. He had saved it, fearing that calling it cute might make him too embarrassed to do it again.
Although his face was youthful for his age, Choi Hong-seo was fundamentally dignified and polite. That’s why that nod stood out so much.
It wasn’t a dismissive or rude gesture. At those times, Choi Hong-seo was almost solemnly serious. Like a child looking at someone they blindly followed.
The child who had been wary, suspicious, and misunderstood of him gradually began to show these aspects over time. He would answer with a nod, engage in banter, and even be a little stubborn. Knowing that all of it was proof that he was opening his heart, every gesture that child showed was precious. It had made Lee Hae-sung happy.
Was he deliberately imitating even those aspects?
As the silence stretched with his hand on Yoon Hye-an’s shoulder, Yoon Hye-an looked up at Lee Hae-sung with an anxious expression. His face didn’t look like that of a calculating and cunning person capable of such actions.
When Lee Hae-sung first encountered Yoon Hye-an through reports, he had been certain. But the more he met him in person, the more confused he became. He could no longer be sure if he was truly the person described in the reports.
Patting the thin shoulder in his hand heavily, Lee Hae-sung said in a tired voice.
“Alright. Then… get some rest.”
In the laptop screen prepared in the bedroom, a doctor was waiting to meet with Lee Hae-sung. Lee Hae-sung, having closed the door, slumped back in the chair in front of the desk.
After brief greetings, the conversation turned to the consultation’s content.
“Hyean doesn’t remember anything about his past self. He’s in a state like a completely blank white page.”
“Are you saying his claim of not remembering is the truth?”
“I can only answer that question after much more consultation. For now, we have to proceed with the consultation by believing the patient.”
The doctor, smiling at Lee Hae-sung’s impatience, looked down at the chart below the screen and said.
“However, what can be considered unusual is…”
“……”
“When someone doesn’t remember anything to this extent, they usually feel anxious about that fact. Who are my family, what kind of childhood did I have growing up, how did I live… Since there’s no foundation to recognize as ‘me,’ any human would inevitably feel anxious.”
Her sharp-looking eyes behind her glasses sparkled.
“But Hyean is not like that at all.”
Swallowing dryly, Lee Hae-sung fixed his gaze on the laptop and reached for a glass with his hand.
“Hyean has looked up a considerable amount of information related to himself online, and he does possess basic information. But for Hyean, it’s like information about characters in a novel or movie. He can’t recognize it as himself.”
“……”
“Even if he dislikes his past self discovered in that way, he would inevitably feel anxious about the fact that he knows nothing about himself. It’s as if Hyean was born into the world at the age of twenty-seven.”
Slowly twirling the glass in his hand, Lee Hae-sung asked for confirmation.
“So, Yoon Hye-an doesn’t feel any anxiety about that?”
“That’s right. When I spoke with him directly, this was the most impressive part.”
“Is it possible he wants to replace his erased past with Choi Hong-seo’s information? How do you see that?”
The doctor smiled leisurely.
“First, it’s important for the patient to trust the doctor and open up. It can take years for both the heart and the mind to open up. You were prepared for this, weren’t you?”
Lee Hae-sung licked his dry lips with his tongue, puffed out his chest, and slowly exhaled.
The doctor evaluated Yoon Hye-an positively as a patient.
He shows an effort to answer questions honestly. There’s no overly defensive attitude to protect himself, nor does he act sentimentally. Such observations followed.
Yoon Hye-an is lying. He stole Choi Hong-seo’s memories as if they were his own. — It was unclear whether he had expected such a conclusion or was relieved by the doctor’s answer that it was too early to tell. His body felt heavy and tired.
When he returned to the living room, Yoon Hye-an was looking at the script for
He looked up at the sound of the door opening, closed the script, put it in his bag, and stood up. It was a different bag from the one he carried last time, but it was still a luxury brand product from a past season.
Lee Hae-sung, who had been watching him for a moment leaning against the open doorframe, walked into the living room.
“You must be drained from the consultation. Shall I order room service? Do you want to eat here?”
Yoon Hye-an shook his head and said.
“I ate before I came. I’m fine.”
Right. He wouldn’t want to sit down and eat with me. He’s not a comfortable person to be with.
I’m so tired I want to soak in the bathtub, so why did I offer to let him eat here… I don’t even know myself.
Staring blankly at the hand gripping the bag strap that crossed his chest diagonally, he turned his head away as if to avoid it.
“Then let’s go.”
There was no particular conversation until they got into the car.
In the elevator, an attendant stood by the door, and Lee Hae-sung and Yoon Hye-an each occupied a corner inside. Yoon Hye-an followed Lee Hae-sung a few steps behind as they walked to the parking lot.
Only after the sedan carrying the two of them exited the underground parking lot did Lee Hae-sung speak his first words.
“I’m going to smoke.”
Yoon Hye-an nodded, and Lee Hae-sung took out a cigarette and lighter from his jacket pocket and lit it. He rolled down the window halfway and inhaled the filter, casting a meaningless gaze at the scenery beyond.
Feeling a gaze fixed on his profile, he turned his head after a while. Yoon Hye-an, pretending he hadn’t been watching, slyly turned his head. Lee Hae-sung tossed out, “Why?”
“It’s nothing.”
“If you have something to say, say it.”
He opened and closed his lips, gripped and released the fabric of his pants on his thighs… After a long hesitation, Yoon Hye-an finally mumbled,
“I think I saw somewhere that the Vice President doesn’t smoke…”
Lee Hae-sung’s shoulders trembled with a hollow laugh. He lowered his head, sighed briefly, and rubbed the back of his neck with the cigarette in his fingers.