By Zephyria 
“Who trusts whom? You know how treacherous the world is to trust someone just because you’ve exchanged a few words. He’s someone who didn’t even come to visit me in the hospital. Not a single person in this family is trustworthy, so don’t worry.”
Including you. I hinted at my inner thoughts, but there was no significant change in Father’s expression as he looked at me. I don’t know if he’s always been this way, or if he became like this from living in this house.
“Is there anything else you want to say?”
“It does make me uneasy to send you to a place with so many people, but I assume you are well aware of the precautions an Omega must take.”
“R-right.”
I shifted my eyes and gave an awkward smile. I remembered receiving a crash course in sex education from the person Father sent before my discharge, but it was so difficult to understand and I had no idea what they were talking about that I spent more than half the time dozing off with my eyes open.
It couldn’t be helped; I was a patient, after all. Whether they put sleeping pills in the hospital food or sprayed sleeping gas in the room, for some reason, I felt sleepy just by breathing in the hospital. In that state, when they started spouting vague nonsense about trying to feel pheromones that can’t be seen or touched, my eyes closed on their own even though I wanted to listen.
“Do not associate with Alphas, and avoid any man who tries to make a move on you. No matter what kind of relationship is formed there, it will not lead to a lasting bond. It is merely playing with fire. You must protect your own body.”
Both Min Jae-hee and Cha Soo-kyung were born with dicks, but for some reason, the nuance of the advice felt different.
I agree that a man should cherish and be careful with his dick. I know it’s a tool to be wielded according to the timing, purpose, and partner, but for some reason, Father didn’t seem worried that my dick would be used incorrectly, but rather that someone else’s dick would be used incorrectly on me.
“Erase your presence as much as possible, and just be there as if you aren’t. That is how you shall return.”
“I’ll try my best.”
I’m usually a quiet guy if no one messes with me, but there’s always one or two people wherever I go who insist on provoking me. When I replied that I’d try my best, Father’s brow furrowed.
“If you’re done talking about the gathering, there’s something I want to ask.”
“Go ahead.”
To buy some time to organize my thoughts, I took a sip of the tea in my hand. It was bland water with no scent or taste. It had a slightly astringent taste, like grass water, but even that was faint, making it far removed from my preference for stimulating mix coffee.
“About Min Jae-hee.”
At the mention of the name, Father tilted his head. It hadn’t been that long, yet it seemed the name had already vanished from his memory.
“The man who… died after falling from the pedestrian bridge with me.”
“Ah…, why him?”
“What did you do? I mean the post-mortem arrangements. Was he buried or cremated? If he was cremated, was the urn placed in a columbarium or scattered elsewhere? I don’t think I’ve heard anything since then.”
“He was reported as a deceased person with no known kin, so the city handled the funeral. He was kept in the morgue for about a week before being transferred.”
I was waiting for what would come next, but Father stopped there.
“That’s it?”
“What is it you want to hear?”
“No, I mean… it’s just a bit… He’s someone who died because of me, trying to save me… Shouldn’t my father feel some sense of responsibility or gratitude? If it were me, I would have held a three-day funeral. Especially since you have a massive funeral hall right next to that grand hospital.”
And yet, he just left him shoved in a morgue for a week and let the city handle it. That’s too cold. He didn’t even tell me anything. I guess this is why they say the wealthy are more ruthless.
At my gaze, filled with dissatisfaction and resentment, Father let out a low sigh.
“Are you suggesting I should have committed an illegal act out of responsibility and gratitude?”
“Who told you to do something bad? I’m just saying that since you own a funeral hall, you could have at least given him a modest funeral.”
“That is illegal. A funeral can only be conducted by the deceased’s family. If we had conducted the funeral out of gratitude, we would have gone to prison side by side for the crime of arbitrarily disposing of and damaging a corpse.”
“What kind of fucked up…“
“You should refrain from such language. I understand how you feel, but that is how the law works. Therefore, do not feel guilty about this. It is a grateful and apologetic thing that he saved you and died in your place… No, it would be best if you rested now.”
Father, who seemed about to say something else, pressed his lips shut and stood up, picking up the tray.
“What is it?”
I blocked Father’s path and lifted my chin to meet his eyes.
“What were you going to say?”
“…Do you wish to hear it?”
“Yes.”
“That there is nothing you can do for a dead person. Because they are someone who has died and vanished. If you feel grateful and sorry toward that person, make sure such a person does not appear again next time. …That is what I was going to say.”
So, it was a warning not to cause another accident by trying to die and creating an innocent victim. He’s the only one in the family who seems to care about me, but he still lacks tenderness or warmth. I worry if my father is doing well in his social life, speaking so ‘beautifully.’
“Yes, yes. I felt that a lot this time. I don’t know why I tried to die, but I shouldn’t make an innocent person get swept up and die for no reason. So from now on, I won’t die, and I’ll make sure no innocent people die either—if there’s someone bullying me, I’ll make them feel the same way. It’s too frustrating to just take it, right?”
“…Indeed. I truly hope it turns out that way. If they feel the same way, they will learn what is wrong.”
Looking past me into the empty air over my shoulder, Father spoke in a distant voice. It seems this man also has something he cannot speak of. Is it a characteristic of the people in this house to all have a secret? There were so many hidden things that I felt I might get swept away if I wasn’t careful.
“Go rest.”
I watched Father’s back as he left the room, walking lightly without making a sound. That man isn’t easy either. This place feels like a collection center for strange people. Or maybe the lives of the rich are just like this, and I’m the one who can’t adapt.
I flopped onto the bed and looked up at the ceiling. It was a clean white, incomparable to the ceiling of the gosiwon where Min Jae-hee lived. The wallpaper in the gosiwon room was so stained yellow that I wondered if it hadn’t been yellow to begin with, and the corners were mottled with mold. There was even a black burn mark on one side of the flooring from whatever had been done there.
Still, my heart was more at ease there. When I returned after a day’s work, I was often so exhausted that I fell asleep without even washing. But when I collapsed onto the bed, I felt a sense of, ‘Now I can finally rest.’
Here… my body is comfortable, but my heart is uneasy. Wearing clothes that don’t fit me, eating food that doesn’t suit me, and trying to sleep in a room that doesn’t belong to me put a lot of psychological pressure on me. It might be the guilt of stealing and living someone else’s life.
I wonder if my dead body was handled well.
Since the city cremated it, I don’t know where it was placed. It’s not that I hope for a formal funeral, to be buried in a grave according to etiquette, or to be enshrined in a columbarium. What does a dead person know? Even if I were thrown into the mountains to become dog food, what would I care? Even if I had died as Min Jae-hee, there would have been no one to take me in. It would have been the same fate.
Still, there was a slight lingering attachment. My physical body died, but I am alive here as Cha Soo-kyung. A lingering wish that at least the end of my dead body could have been tidied up cleanly.
It’s all useless.
To the people of this household, I’m a complete stranger, and even the one who is family, Cha Soo-kyung, has no interest in me, so what interest would they have in Min Jae-hee, who died in Cha Soo-kyung’s place?
To live as Cha Soo-kyung, I too had to let go of my attachment to Min Jae-hee. It was time to stop worrying about the dead body and instead figure out how well I could survive moving forward.
Farewell, Min Jae-hee.
Letting him go from my heart without even being able to confirm the end, I decided to fully become Cha Soo-kyung.
∞ ∞ ∞
“It is time to depart.”
Lee Kyung-jin had been urging me from outside the room for ten minutes. In my heart, I wanted to shout ‘Let’s go!’ and walk out confidently, but reality was still harsh to me.
After struggling on my own, I finally opened the door and approached Lee Kyung-jin. As I scanned him from head to toe, his neat attire looked absolutely perfect.
“Please help me.”
Lee Kyung-jin, who was looking at me with a bewildered expression because I hadn’t even changed my clothes yet, looked even more confused at my words.
“I need help. Very desperately.”
“Is something the matter?”
“Come inside.”
I grabbed Lee Kyung-jin’s wrist and pulled him into the room. “Uh, uh, uh?” Making strange noises as he was dragged in, Lee Kyung-jin gasped upon seeing the room in shambles.
“You know I’m going to a gathering, right? I don’t know what to wear. They told me to wear a suit, but I’ve never worn one. How do I wear it? Should I dress like you are now? The things over here are suits, right? There are so many; which one should I wear?”
Lee Kyung-jin, who had a blank look on his face for a moment due to my frantic words, eventually took a heavy step toward the closet. Flipping through the hanging clothes with his hand, Lee Kyung-jin quickly pulled out a dress shirt and a suit and handed them to me.
“I am not sure what kind of event it is, so I chose the most neutral option. Was there a specific dress code mentioned?”
“Just that I should wear a suit. Anyway, thanks. You need to help me pick a tie, too.”
In my haste, I stripped off my clothes and threw on the dress shirt. Lee Kyung-jin quickly turned around and searched for a tie.
“The ties were in the side drawer.”
The closet is a bit complicated. I only managed to get a rough grasp of it after searching through it all day yesterday.
I stuffed the shirt in and put on the pants, and feeling my toes were empty, I wiggled them and pulled on some socks. Should I put on the suit jacket first and then the tie, or the tie first and then the jacket? While I was pondering for a moment, Lee Kyung-jin brought out a navy tie and handed it to me.
“Th-q, thanks.”
I looped the tie around my neck and held the long end, spinning it around dizzily, before suddenly realizing I had never actually tied a tie before.
“…….”
“I will do it for you,” Lee Kyung-jin said, reaching out with a tone of half-resignation. He grabbed both ends of the tie, twisted them a few times, and created a perfect knot. As he pulled it tight up to my neck, it looked exactly like Lee Kyung-jin’s tie.
“May I adjust your appearance a bit?”
“Wow, yes. Please do.”
As soon as I finished speaking, Lee Kyung-jin tucked in the dress shirt, smoothed out the wrinkled pant hems from putting them on, and fastened the cuff buttons of the shirt.
If I had known, I would have just requested rescue from Lee Kyung-jin from the start; I wasted time for nothing.
“What will you do with your hair?”
“What should I do with my hair? I’m just going like this.”
Cha Soo-kyung’s hair was thin and lacked volume, and since it was slightly long, it fluttered haphazardly. The Cha Soo-kyung I met before didn’t look like this, but perhaps I did something wrong, as the young master had instantly turned into a homeless person with hair sticking out everywhere. It looked like the fur of a shaggy dog wandering the streets.
What am I supposed to do with this?
Since I didn’t have the luxury to care about grooming, I’d only ever gone to a salon to get it trimmed; I’d never styled it with my own hands.
Can’t I just go like this? Looking at it, it’s natural and not so bad.
As if my thoughts were conveyed, Lee Kyung-jin scanned every corner of the room and found something. He poured some into his hand, rubbed it gently, and patted it onto my frizzy hair. The hair that had been sticking out here and there became a bit more subdued.
“It seems too late to properly style your hair, so I have only calmed it down.”
This man’s hand movements are extraordinary. I want those hands.
As I stared at him with sparkling eyes, Lee Kyung-jin let out a sigh after helping me into the suit jacket. I could tell he felt a sense of relief that the hard part was over.
“Let us depart now.”
Right, time to go. To signal that I was ready, I brushed down the hem of the suit jacket and followed Lee Kyung-jin down to the first floor.
“Young Master!”
As I was about to leave the house, an employee appeared from nowhere and blocked my path. This person was different from the other employees; he managed the internal affairs of the house overall, and other employees and even the family referred to him as ‘Chief.’ His attire was always a neat suit like an office worker, and his manner of speaking was so polite that he was as difficult to approach as my father.
“Yes?”
“You haven’t taken your evening medication. Please take it before you leave.”
Chief Cha held out a few pills on a white plate and a glass of water. I glanced at her eyes and popped the pills into my mouth.
“The eldest young master has already departed for the gathering. The location has been relayed to this driver, so you may go directly there.”
“Uh, thank you?”
“Then, please have a safe trip.”
Watching Chief Cha enter the kitchen with the empty plate and glass, I realized that a lot of time had passed and hurried out of the house.
Lee Kyung-jin went down to the parking lot to prepare the car, and as I crossed the wide lawn and walked down the stairs, I spat out the medicine I had tucked inside my cheek.
The medicine they’ve been giving me to take every morning and evening since I came home was of unknown identity. When I first received the medicine and asked what it was, the answer was that it was the medicine I always took, so I couldn’t ask what the medicine I always took was and just pretended to take it.
I had a rough guess. Cha Soo-kyung himself said he took medication, and there was the story I heard from Father at the hospital; since he never said his depression was cured, the employees would have provided the medicine as usual.
Then it’s a medicine I no longer need to take. I’ll have to talk to Father soon and either stop taking the medication or go back to the psychiatrist and get a diagnosis that the depression is gone.
As I trudged down the stairs and exited the main gate, Lee Kyung-jin, who had moved quickly, was waiting with the car parked right in front of the gate.
I highly praise this kind of service. As I said, while my heart is uneasy, my body is at the peak of comfort.
I climbed into the back seat, feeling the plush cushions, and personally experienced that this is the advantage of wealth.
∞ ∞ ∞
“I will be waiting in the parking lot.”
Lee Kyung-jin said to me as he opened the door for me to get out of the car. He’ll wait when he doesn’t even know when I’ll come out? Isn’t that a terrible thing for both the person waiting and the person being waited for?
“Forget it. You can clock out for the day.”
“No. My work for today ends only after I have escorted the young master back home.”
“It’s a bit much for you to just wait in the parking lot indefinitely when you don’t know when I’ll be out.”
“Then I shall drink some coffee nearby.”
“Forget it, forget it. I’m really fine. I can take a taxi, so just go home. That’s the only way I’ll feel at ease. How can I enjoy myself comfortably if I think someone is waiting for me downstairs?”
Of course, I have no intention of comfortably loosening my tie and playing around, but to get Lee Kyung-jin to clock out, I needed this kind of excuse. When I insisted strongly, Lee Kyung-jin seemed to ponder for a moment.
“I won’t tell Father, so please just go home. We have to keep going together from now on, and it’ll be tiring for both of us if you’re this rigid. Is there some kind of rule? I’m a very free-spirited person, so the driver will be exhausted if he tries to follow rules.”
“Then I will wait today, and gradually try to adjust to the young master’s pace.”
“No, that’s not it. Go home today, and let’s adjust gradually. I think I’m late; should we just keep arguing like this?”
As I continued to be stubborn, Lee Kyung-jin finally raised his hand in surrender.
This man is incredibly stubborn too. I don’t know where Father finds these people. I’ve heard of private security firms, but I wonder if there are companies for attendants.
“Then I will leave after seeing you go up.”
“No, I’ll go after seeing you leave.”
“I will truly leave after seeing you enter.”
“I’m really going to be late. We might just end up staying here and then going home.”
When I checked the time and emphasized that I was late, Lee Kyung-jin reluctantly got back into the car.
“Don’t tell Father. Go home, get some good rest, and I’ll see you tomorrow. Thanks for helping me get ready today.”
“Please let me know if you think you’ll be too late. I’ll come pick you up.”
“If I’m late, all the more reason to take a taxi. There’s no point in calling someone out from home if it means you didn’t actually get to leave work early.”
What kind of nonsense is that? I waved my hand, telling him to just hurry up and go since he was talking nonsense. After confirming that Lee Kyung-jin had driven away from the hotel, I started walking toward the venue of the gathering.
This was my first time at this hotel. I marveled at the sheer scale of the building and was floored by the blatant display of wealth inside. It was glittering and magnificent, like some kind of castle.
After wandering for a while, I finally found the elevator and pressed the button for the floor where the gathering was being held. I smoothed out my wrinkled clothes and calmed my racing heart, which was thumping with a mix of nervousness and anticipation, not knowing what would happen next.
As I stepped off the elevator and headed toward the venue, a staff member guarding the door stopped me.
Do I need some kind of pass? As I blinked in confusion, the staff member asked for my name. After checking my name on the list, the staff member looked slightly troubled.
“It seems your name has been omitted…”
“Is this a members-only thing? I was told to come.”
“Could you tell me who invited you?”
“Cha Baek-joo. He’s my eldest Hyung. Should I call him? I’m a bit late, so he’s probably arrived already.”
Would Cha Baek-joo even answer? I didn’t think he’d invite me just to humiliate me by leaving me stranded at the door. Surely he wouldn’t ignore the call.
As I gripped my phone tightly and looked up at the staff member, he seemed to see something on the list; his face relaxed, and he nodded.
“Your companion has been confirmed. You may enter.”
It seemed I wouldn’t have to suffer the embarrassment of waiting at the door after all. I stepped inside through the door the staff member opened for me.
Unlike the silent hallway, a bit of loud music greeted me as soon as the door opened. It wasn’t disco, nor was it classical. I couldn’t tell what kind of music it was. From the start, I got a strong feeling that this wasn’t my scene.