By Zephyria “You can go when you’ve finished the IV drip.”
Teacher Jung turned his head slightly and met his eyes. He said he could go, but it was a subtle way of telling him to leave.
He had been lying down for over a day, and his injuries were minor, so Mu-hae would normally have asked if he could leave first.
But now, it felt like he was being kicked out. The conversation they had been having for a while was abruptly cut off by a memory from the past.
“Are you busy?”
“I’m always the same. But I have to go out.”
Sure enough, Teacher Jung, who had finished tidying the cabinet, took off his gown and hung it on the chair.
A long scar was visible at the end of the comfortable three-quarter sleeves. As far as Mu-hae remembered, he always had a trace of self-harm on his arm.
“I’m glad Jin Mu-hae is awake.”
Joo-oh took someone else’s hand and played with it. Even though Teacher Jung watched the scene with a smile, he didn’t ask what the relationship between the two was anymore.
He just avoided eye contact as if to say, ‘Do whatever you want.’ That reaction made Mu-hae feel even more embarrassed, so he shook off his hand.
“I knew you’d wake up soon, but I was still worried.”
“You weren’t badly hurt.”
“Jin Mu-hae wasn’t talking, just breathing.”
He was afraid that he wouldn’t open his eyes even when he poked his shoulder and leaned his head against his chest.
He always woke up quickly and scolded him to sleep when he fidgeted like that in the early morning. He must have missed that unfriendly reaction.
Joo-oh held his arm tightly all the way home. His warm body temperature stuck to him enough to be satisfying, and he didn’t think of letting go.
Soft and delicate hands. An arm and stomach that bounced back elastically when pressed.
It was the body of an ordinary human being no matter how you looked at it. It was hard to believe that it could produce such terrifying power…
“Hey, you.”
When he opened his mouth without turning his head, Joo-oh’s gaze followed.
“Do you still not have any memories of the past?”
The hand holding his arm momentarily tightened and then returned. The short twitch was felt directly through his skin.
“…There’s not much that’s important.”
After a long pause, Joo-oh mumbled. His voice was a little smaller and less confident than usual.
Ah. It seemed he did remember something. It was just that it wasn’t something he would tell him.
Feeling a strange sensation creeping in, Mu-hae silently scanned the direction of his house.
“Really.”
Joo-oh was originally a secretive guy. It wasn’t that he was cunning or evasive, but he just had layers of mysterious past that even he himself didn’t know.
So he expected that he wouldn’t get a proper answer this time either. But was it just his imagination that he felt a faint wall?
Mu-hae just nodded roughly without answering and opened the front door of the shabby house. The narrow and dark house on Starlight Road. The place where he was born and raised.
No, the place he believed he was born and raised. Since his memories before the age of five were still in a maze, Mu-hae still couldn’t be sure of his birth.
Teacher Jung’s mention of having done a paternity test was close to a joke, but it was probably true. Considering that the collapse of the Return flight was before Mu-hae’s birth, the scenery in his vague memories wasn’t his father’s house.
‘You really do resemble that woman.’
‘It’s a pity, but my favor isn’t for your father.’
The stories he had heard from the Return flight members in the past floated around in his head one by one and found their place.
A person he had never seen even once, but who certainly existed. Questions about the person who had built a relationship with his father and given birth to Mu-hae welled up inside him again.
“Family. You don’t remember that either?”
The reason he suddenly spoke to Joo-oh again was to ignore his confused feelings.
The person who was taking off his shoes and coming in glanced at Mu-hae. He wrinkled his nose as if he was uncomfortable with this atmosphere and unnecessarily tidied up the shoe rack.
But all that was there were the two pairs of shoes that they always wore. He even wiped the boots, which were made of special leather that hardly left any stains, with his sleeve.
“I’m not trying to send you anywhere. I told you before.”
“Don’t. Remember.”
Joo-oh left the shoe rack gloomily. He sat down on the sofa and huddled there for a long time without turning on the TV.
Only when Mu-hae approached and sat next to him did his protruding lips retract a little.
“Jin Mu-hae is my family.”
His soft hair leaned against his chest. Mu-hae stroked his empty head.
Come to think of it, if he was an Experiment, he wouldn’t have parents or anything like that. Or even if he did, it would be difficult to call them guardians or family.
He might not even know their faces. Just like Jin Mu-hae, who didn’t remember his mother at all.
Feeling like he had said something unnecessary, the hand touching his ear became more tender. Joo-oh made a strange sound, “Kiring,” and snuggled deeper into his arms.
“I only have Jin Mu-hae.”
The guy who said he didn’t remember anything yet chanted this with conviction.
“I’m going to live with Jin Mu-hae.”
He crawled onto his lap and clung to him like a cicada. The sound of his soft breathing was comfortably heard in his ear.
It was already impossible to kick him out, and he didn’t even think about it anymore. Joo-oh always seemed like a person who was anxious about not being able to stay by Mu-hae’s side.
He didn’t know if this was a good phenomenon for someone who had lost his memory, but every time he whispered like this, Mu-hae couldn’t help but feel satisfied.
Even though the scene he had seen in Buckta was still vivid in his mind… It was a funny thing.
Twitch. Something woke him up in the darkness.
Jin Mu-hae slowly emerged from the swamp of sleep and gently put strength into his fingertips.
It was a posture in which he could draw a weapon and move at any time. Then, the moment he groped his empty back, he realized he was lying in bed.
This was the old house on Starlight Road. Not Buckta. The dawn in the poor neighborhood was faint, with almost no artificial moonlight shining through the window.
Joo-oh was twitching in his arms. The fingertips clutching his clothes were chillingly cold.
When he moved his arm, a faint light poured out from the Link Watch. Underneath it, Joo-oh’s eyelids fluttered as if he was dreaming.
It was now more than familiar, almost a daily routine, that he had nightmares from some point on. The assumption that it was a memory from the past that was still submerged in his unconscious was also quite credible.
Before long, Joo-oh’s eyes flashed open. He breathed heavily and grabbed Mu-hae’s arm.
“Looks like you had another dream.”
“…Jin Mu-hae.”
He called Mu-hae’s name first as usual, but today he looked less conscious.
His thinly opened eyes slowly closed again, and he wandered in a drowsy, half-asleep state.
“Did I appear in your dream?”
It was a thoughtless remark. He didn’t even expect a conversation.
But the languid voice haltingly received the question.
“Jin Mu-hae… was watching.”
“Me?”
“Just watching. Monitor…”
Haah. Joo-oh yawned softly and soon lost his mind again. His breathing, which had become peaceful as if he was relieved by the warmth, was felt through their touching bodies.
“Monitor?”
Why was that? He felt like if he asked anything now, he would get even a clumsy answer. As if responding to Mu-hae’s voice, Joo-oh’s shoulder twitched slightly.
“…Jin Mu-hae is.”
Likewise, the voice full of sleepiness, no, in fact, almost half-asleep, scattered as if melting into the quiet house.
“Always there.”
With those words, complete silence came. Even if he touched him again, Joo-oh didn’t respond.
It was such an earnest voice, as if he had been waiting for over a decade, that the words without any embellishment flew deeply into his still-dazed head and were embedded there.
If it wasn’t him who had discovered him in Kahn Lano and brought him here. Would he have relied on a strange mercenary, a lucky surviving miner, or even Cheong, this much?
It was a strange thing. Mu-hae was sure of it without any basis for the childish question. Even if another guy had picked him up, Joo-oh would have come to find him.
He didn’t know what kind of past he had, what he had gone through, or even if he had forgotten human common sense, but he had the feeling that Joo-oh’s final destination would have been this old house.
“So, is West Wind still in Goryeo City?”
Joo-oh, who had refilled his large bowl with colorful cereal, asked out of the blue.
It was a late breakfast. He thought he was checking the quality of the newly acquired Tinkle Friends figure. It seemed he was counting the past missing person searches in his head.
“I don’t know, that.”
That West Wind was the disappeared Kang Ju-seo. That she was alive and active somewhere and that she wasn’t really missing.
He was only sure of those two things. He still couldn’t confirm whether she was still in Goryeo City…
“Jin Mu-hae has a good sense.”
Crunch. Joo-oh, who had chewed and swallowed a spoonful of cereal, licked his lips and replied.
He sipped the milk, which had turned purplish-black from the mixture of all sorts of colors, and then shone his eyes as if waiting for an answer.
What on earth did he want to hear? Mu-hae, who was changing his clothes while checking the wounded area, approached the table with an indifferent expression.
“I wonder.”
Mu-hae sat across from him to prepare for his meal only after he mischievously cleaned up the remaining cereal.
It was true that West Wind’s trail had ended there. But for some reason, Mu-hae had the feeling that she was still here.
That she had blown away the fake identity she had been involved with in the Return flight and was continuing her unfinished research while lurking somewhere in Goryeo City.
He felt a little uneasy because he felt like Joo-oh had read what he was thinking. He wanted to avoid at least the sloppy appearance that showed whatever he was thinking.
“Director Gil contacted me.”
“What? When?”
“When Jin Mu-hae was sleeping soundly a while ago. He sent me a message because Jin Mu-hae didn’t answer.”
Joo-oh pushed aside the well-built figure and showed his cheap Link Watch.
[> Come by with that kid when he wakes up.]
[Why?]
[> I’ll give you a car and snacks. Don’t let Teacher Jung know.]
[Okay.]
He had been fidgeting next to the sleeping person and even sent a very clever reply.
Just from the short answer, it was as if he could hear Joo-oh’s voice in his ear, and the corners of his lips moved slightly.
“CEO Gil will know West Wind.”
Joo-oh’s red eyes, which were adding a footnote as if it was nothing, were once again filled with a faint glint.