Mother Tape Chapter 9.1

“Wake up.”

Wisoo had actually been awake even before Kwak Jaekyung came to wake him. However, he stubbornly kept his eyes closed.

The white, windowless room, where the lights were kept on for all but about three hours a day, was an environment that would have already driven Wisoo mad if he had not had much experience living in it since he was a child. Jung Taekyu, who had brought Wisoo back, had not thrown him in here from the very beginning.

“What’s the date today?”

Wisoo asked in a hoarse voice. He had thrown all respect to the dogs. Kwak Jaekyung was annoyed by the brat, who was much younger than him, speaking to him so informally, but he endured it, considering this an asset.

“What are you going to do with that information.”

“You could at least tell me the date. It’s not like I can do anything even if I know.”

“That’s true.”

Kwak Jaekyung grinned. Come to think of it, knowing that this much time had passed would probably crush Seon Wisoo’s spirit even more.

“A month passed last week. It’s been 34 days. Since you came back.”

He said ‘came back,’ not ‘was dragged here.’

‘I didn’t come back. I was dragged here. I didn’t want to come back….’

Wisoo stubbornly kept his eyes closed and swallowed a ball of fire inside.

For the first ten days after bringing Wisoo back, Jung Taekyu had fed him only porridge and unseasoned emergency crops, claiming it was to purify his body. One could say he was at least fed nutritious porridge because his body couldn’t be allowed to get damaged again.

And yet, Wisoo still couldn’t see the dead. It was the same even though the scent of Kwak Jaekwon was no longer on any part of his body.

‘I can’t see anything.’

Claiming that voice was full of defiance, Jung Taekyu whipped Wisoo’s calves with a switch.

And a week later, Wisoo said he still couldn’t see anything. At that time, they had deliberately gone to a place notorious for its bad energy at two in the morning, so it was impossible that there was nothing to see.

‘It’s because your body has become filthy.’

The teacher, clenching his teeth, believed Wisoo was lying.

‘You’ll have to be retrained for a while.’

And then he had thrown him into this room.

Contrary to his appearance, Wisoo possessed incredible perseverance and vitality. His will was also strong. It was an innate quality, separate from his learned resignation. What Wisoo was born with was not just the ability to see the somber crevices of people and the dead. His true talent was his will.

That was why Wisoo could return to this room and not go mad.

“Seeing as Kwak Jaekwon hasn’t looked for you once all this time, I guess he really was shocked that you caused his great-aunt to die when you were a child.”

Kwak Jaekyung chuckled.

He hadn’t gone mad, but that meant he had a lot of time to think with a clear mind.

Only after hearing Jaekyung’s words did Wisoo open his eyes. His eyes stung and felt sore. He moved his chapped lips.

“No.”

Wisoo muttered with his gaunt face.

“What?”

Unable to hear the voice that was like a soft breeze, Kwak Jaekyung asked again. So Wisoo kindly turned his head toward him.

Kwak Jaekyung knew everything about how Wisoo had spent the last 34 days. As such, he had thought it would be understandable if Seon Wisoo went insane. But the gaze looking at him was sparkling. No, perhaps this was what being insane was. The light in his eyes hadn’t dimmed at all.

“No. I didn’t say that.”

Wisoo stared straight at Kwak Jaekyung.

I wish there was a camera in those eyes. So that through those eyes, Teacher— no, Jung Taekyu could see me.

Jung Taekyu. I didn’t say that.

“Back then, I said that there were many people around Kwak Bonyoung who were angry at him, and that a man who was both angry and at the same time very sad was standing very close to the madam. That’s all.”

“That’s the same thing….”

“No.”

“Your stubbornness won’t change anything.”

“The one who relayed it in a misleading way was Jung Taekyu. Not me. Teacher— no, Jung Taekyu deliberately stirred things up. He had to, so that Kwak Bonyoung would trust him. Because Kwak Bonyoung had to become unhappy so that he could dig into that crevice.”

“Seon Wisoo. Don’t rationalize your actions.”

Kwak Jaekyung scoffed.

“In any case, you’re the one who handed him the weapon to stir things up. You’re the one who ruined Kwak Jaekwon’s life.”

At the mention of Jaekwon’s name, Wisoo’s lips pressed firmly shut.

The hands he had clasped and placed neatly on his stomach turned white. That’s how tightly he was clenching them. Kwak Jaekyung placed the meal tray—which held only white rice, unseasoned seaweed, an unseasoned fried egg, and white kimchi—down and stood up.

“Let’s say you’re right. Then what are you going to do? To Kwak Jaekwon, you’re already….”

You must have become trash.

Wisoo moved his lips and muttered.

The same words came out of Kwak Jaekyung’s mouth.

The door closed, and the room became quiet again. Wisoo’s face, without a single twitch, was also quiet. Tears streamed down from the corners of his eyes.

Getting up, Wisoo wiped away the tears that had pooled in the curve of his ear and pulled the meal tray closer. Though he had no appetite at all, he ate diligently.

Isn’t it strange. To Kwak Jaekwon, I must have already become unforgivable trash, and strangely, now that I can’t see anything, my reason for existing has also disappeared, and I have no reason to live, but strangely, I find myself eating even if I throw it up. I find myself wanting to survive fiercely. I want to live more than ever before.

Wisoo’s tears fell, plop, plop, onto the white rice. Wisoo vigorously wiped his cheeks with his sleeve and emptied the tray. He chewed thoroughly. Not wanting his body to rest, he stuffed his mouth until his cheeks bulged.

This repeated until the sound of tears falling, tok, tok, could be heard on the empty tray.

After finishing his meal, Wisoo went back to the bed and curled up.

His stomach was pricking with sharp pains. Is it because I lay down right after eating? His parents, whose faces and voices he could no longer remember, seemed to have told him something along the lines of how you become a cow if you sleep right after eating.

‘I wish I could just turn into a cow like this.’

Even after crying so much, his eyes welled up again with basin-sized teardrops. Where in his body could there be so much water?

‘I wish all the water would drain out, and I would become dry and light as a feather.’

Like the woman in the myth who crossed the sea on a cow, I want to fly like a feather that can pass through anywhere and see Kwak Jaekwon. I want to know how he is doing.

‘I’m not hoping that you’re suffering while thinking of me….’

Rather, I hope you forget me completely, erase me, and live on as if nothing happened. I hope you still don’t have scary dreams and that you continue to live without anything weighing on your shoulders….

Wisoo mumbled his lips, chewing on something. There was nothing there, but it wasn’t entirely nothing either. Wisoo was swallowing the soot from Jaekwon, who was far, far away—he didn’t even know how far—and the sticky gloominess that wanted to cling to him.

‘The promise to not forget me and to come get me is already too late, so now, I hope you’ll at least forget me.’

The low pillow Wisoo was resting on grew damp.

His stomach pricked with sharp pains. The discomfort didn’t go away even when he tossed and turned. ‘Pineapple juice…’ Wisoo muttered. The thing he never got to drink. He would probably never be able to drink it.

❖ ❖ ❖

“What is this?”

“Pineapple juice.”

“No, I mean, juice, not coffee?”

Jaekwon didn’t answer and sipped the liquid fructose. It wasn’t to his taste, but he had been drinking it consistently recently.

It had already been over a month.

“How are the preparations for the job coming along?”

“I’ve laid out a solid groundwork as you instructed. Kwak Jaekyung was right about one thing. It’s a small world. It wasn’t easy to secretly squeeze our way in.”

“You’ve secured all the pieces?”

Jaekwon asked, looking at a ring inside a very small plastic bag. The bag held in his fingertips glinted dully.

“Secured them all. My goodness, the number of times you’ve asked.”

“Still, check them meticulously. Make sure they play their parts well in their positions. I won’t tolerate any delays from things going awry.”

Hwang Gujo, who was well aware but had forgotten for a while, also grew extremely tense at the sight of Jaekwon’s original self.

Jaekwon put the plastic pouch he was holding in his hand into his pocket and rose from his seat. Unlike the past few months he had spent with Wisoo, his hair was completely swept back and styled, and he was dressed in a full suit, complete with a vest.

“I’m off then. There will be no contact for a week.”

“Are you really not going to tell me where you are going or what you are doing?”

Jaekwon, who was silent for a moment, opened his mouth.

“If there’s no contact even after a week, come to the house where I lived with Seon Wisoo. Even if something happens to me, proceed with the plan. The order and method will be in your email.”

He had set it up so that an email would be automatically sent if he didn’t log in for eight days.

Seeing Jaekwon looking as if he were going to his death, Hwang Gujo stood stock-still and called out to his friend.

“Kwak Jaekwon. If you’re planning on doing something crazy, don’t. It’s not like you.”

“I’ve heard that line a lot. In Korean dramas. The line about it not being like me.”

“I’m not kidding right now.”

“I’m not kidding either.”

Jaekwon put on his jacket and tightened his tie.

“Gujo. We’ve been thinking that Seon Wisoo is crazy too. Right?”

“……”

“Seon Wisoo might really be crazy. But he might not be. In the first place, don’t you think jumping to conclusions can’t be called rational?”

“Jaekwon.”

“That’s right. I’m splitting hairs right now.”

Jaekwon, who had been walking toward the door, tapped the back of the leather sofa next to him, tap, tap, then turned his body toward Hwang Gujo.

There was a large desk, a chair of equally heavy presence, and behind it, a huge floor-to-ceiling window that showed the entire glittering skyline of Seoul.

“I need to know Seon Wisoo.”

Jaekwon said with sleepy, languidly open eyes and voice.

“I want to try and understand Seon Wisoo.”

His fingertips lightly scratched the sofa.

“To do that, don’t you think I have to go crazy too?”

❖ ❖ ❖

The house had no sign of life, nor could the warmth of a person be felt. Autumn could be bountiful, or it could be desolate. This house was the latter.

Just the absence of one Seon Wisoo made this place feel like a mere tomb. It was no longer a place he missed, nor did it feel like a place he should hurry back to. It was just a space, and it felt as unpleasant and damp as his first impression of it.

Jaekwon took off his jacket and vest, hung them on the back of the sofa, and unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt.

“……”

Jaekwon slowly looked around the house.

Seon Wisoo had said that this was a house where things collected easily. Where anything and everything tangled and collected easily.

When he first saw this house, he had seen white feet. And perhaps because Wisoo had really taken it away, he had erased most of his earlier memories as if deleting them after he turned eighteen, and it seemed the him in that buried past was not someone who saw and believed nothing, like he did now. Separate from his disbelief, when he was with his mother and maternal grandfather, he hadn’t distinguished or been conscious of it, but something had been tangling around him too.

“If so, that means there’s a possibility.”

Kwak Jaekwon decided to act like Seon Wisoo. Like him, he would eat almost no seasoned food and would push himself to the limit, waiting for someone who might remain in this house. Until that someone spoke to him.

“There must be a reason Kwak Bonyoung was obsessed with this house.”

No answer came back.

“Right, Mom?”

An empty house. All the doors were open, yet strangely, there was no echo in return.

Jaekwon smiled coldly.

❖ ❖ ❖

Jaekwon survived on minimal water, hardtack, and the crusts of sliced bread. He ended up eating only the crusts. He felt like shit. It wasn’t because it tasted bad or because he was hungry. Eating this part made him think of Seon Wisoo. Even without that part, he was always reminded of him, but the sensation that filled his tongue and fingertips was particularly distinct.

“Fuck…”

Jaekwon muttered, burying his forehead in the back of his hand.

A rough stubble had grown. He rubbed his dry face with his palms, and having lost his appetite, he put down even the little he was eating.

He wasn’t sleeping either. He began to hear a ringing in his ears. Today, it was getting close to a week. He had seen the white feet just once. It was the same one he had seen when he first came here. At first, he thought it might be Seon Wisoo’s, but at that time, he wasn’t even in this house to begin with, and looking at it again, the shape was different. Since it was something he had kissed and licked and played with, he now clearly knew the difference. It was a much thinner and visibly sickly foot.

“Now, stop showing just the foot and come out.”

It was his mother’s.

Jaekwon was certain.

“Seon Wisoo has left me now, so like he said, there’s no need to try not to scare me, so whether it’s a ghost or whatever, just come out.”

Jaekwon, who had leaned his body completely back in the chair and let his limbs go limp, blinked his dry, bloodshot eyes from lack of sleep.

The beeeep of tinnitus was now mixed with a scraping metallic sound. It was an extremely unpleasant sound, like scratching a chalkboard with fingernails. Not only that, but he also heard a thump, thump sound as if from a physical fight, and the noise of someone running down the stairs.

“Is it working?”

Jaekwon muttered and staggered to his feet.

If this doesn’t work, he would use other methods. He would even try hypnotherapy. Mobilizing all the methods he didn’t believe in, that he had considered to be scams, Jaekwon would find out. The truth of that night.

Jaekwon went up the stairs and stood on the second floor.

“The structure is so unnervingly similar.”

Jaekwon was also confusedly recalling the structure of the last house his mother had lived in. Only the room where his always-sick mother had been confined was vivid.

“That crazy bastard remembered it all by himself, is that it.”

That crazy bastard was, of course, his biological father.

Jaekwon took a deep breath in and out and loosened up his body. He stood at the very edge, so far that the tips of his toes were past the landing.

“They say when a person does something they don’t usually do, it means their time to die has come.”

Jaekwon mocked himself and swept his hair back. He also licked his lips as if anxious.

“Still, I don’t want to die. There’s someone I have to see again.”

The silence remained. But Jaekwon had a strange certainty. Is this the sensation of going mad? The certainty that he was not alone here.

“So just do something on your own.”

「….」

“Mom.”

Jaekwon leaned his body forward.

The stairs were steep and high. To abandon all resistance, he closed his eyes and held his breath as if diving.

With a tremendous noise, the man with a large build and solid muscles tumbled down.

In that moment, he thought of Wisoo. The moment of falling, which he had thought felt like flying, when Seon Wisoo had run as if fleeing from him before they slept together for the first time.

❖ ❖ ❖

Jaekwon is looking at a family photo. In the photo, he hasn’t changed from his childhood. In the photo, his mother is not smiling. Her hand is on his shoulder, and Kwak Bonyoung was hugging his wife’s waist as if squeezing it tightly.

A strange family photo in which no one is smiling.

Jaekwon, who had been looking at it, went down the stairs as if possessed. The stair railing is made of a material that takes a lot of work, wood that has been oiled many times and then polished with wax. If you hold it, warmth seeps in, and there was a time he had hugged the railing and pressed his cheek against it… Jaekwon was slowly realizing this fact.

He felt dazed, as if trapped in a thick fog. He wondered if this was the perspective of a dead person. Everything was reversed left to right. The master bedroom, which should have been to the right, was on the left. The door was half open. As he walked toward it, he could see that the front door and the inner door were also wide open. The shoes were a mess. It looked as if a burglar had broken in. His shoes aren’t there. A day he isn’t here. A day when Jaekwon, who only comes on weekends, isn’t here. It’s a weekday.

‘You said he definitely married someone else and is living with them!’

It was a desperate cry mixed with sobs.

‘That’s what you told me! That he abandoned me. You said you’d take responsibility for me after I was abandoned, that’s what you said! You deceived me, my parents! Where is he. Where did you bury him! You killed him, didn’t you!’

‘This crazy bitch.’

There was the sound of a watch being taken off and thrown. Jaekwon’s feet stopped as he stood directly in front of the open doorway, blocking a full view.

‘Didn’t you hear me? I’m the one who wants to ask. Kwak Jaekwon, is he my kid? Jung Taekyu said so. That there must be a reason that bastard lingers around you with such attachment.’

‘You believe that quack bastard’s words?’

It was an unfamiliar sight for Jaekwon, who had only ever seen his mother as a twig-like, utterly drained figure. The light in her eyes was fierce. Her hair was disheveled like a madwoman’s, and beyond the dressing room, clothes were strewn about. It was clear she had been caught trying to leave for somewhere. And on her hand… was the ring he had found in the dressing room. The ring that Kwak Bonyoung couldn’t have bought and that he had never seen his mother wear.

‘Even if that kid said such a thing, is that my fault? You killed him. Seokho, you killed him, you son of a bitch!’

Kwak Jaekwon’s mother lunged at Kwak Bonyoung. Kwak Bonyoung forcefully shoved her lunging body away. Ack, with the sound, Jaekwon flinched. But as if his role was strictly that of a spectator, he could not lift his feet. His mother, fortunately, fell onto the bed. But the shock must have been great, as she was trembling uncontrollably.

‘You killed him.’

Still, she didn’t stop.

‘I loved him. I had no one but him…. He was the only one….’

‘Without me, you would have been stuck in that hick town with a dirty reputation. You know that?’

‘I’d rather have that than live with a bastard like you.’

‘Fuck…. Is there really something between you two? That bastard is probably here right now, in this very moment.’

Kwak Bonyoung looked around like a madman. At that moment, another spectator appeared next to Jaekwon. A dead body that seemed to be covering its mouth and crying, but no tears came out. A frail and delicate-looking young man who bore no resemblance to Kwak Jaekwon whatsoever. If he remained as he was when he died, his life must have ended in his early twenties.

‘What other reason would there be for that bastard to be so obsessed and linger. Wouldn’t it be Kwak Jaekwon? No wonder. Ever since he was a kid, the little brat was always saying something was scary or he couldn’t sleep, he was so pathetically weak. There’s no way my blood would be like that.’

‘You crazy bastard…. Jaekwon is your son. He’s your blood….’

‘You expect me to believe that now?!’

The entire situation escalated to an extreme.

The two fought as if they would kill each other. That Kwak Bonyoung had the upper hand was, tragically, a given. But his mother fought back, biting and defending herself against his body.

In the end, Kwak Bonyoung got on top of his mother and strangled her. With a gasping sound, his mother scratched wildly at Kwak Bonyoung’s arms. When her fingernails failed, the ring left scratches on Kwak Bonyoung’s arm.

And from the body of the dead young man who had been spinning around madly next to Jaekwon, something like sewage water trickled out. From his eyes, which had been empty, bloody tears now flowed, and a terrible sound, like scratching a chalkboard, came from his mouth.

‘—!!’

With an indescribable sound, he rushed forward and tried to pull Kwak Bonyoung off.

But the dead cannot cross over into the world of the living. Even though he cried and pleaded powerlessly to stop him, Kwak Bonyoung was a living being. Jaekwon, too, was in the role of a spectator here, unable to move a muscle. Even when he clenched his fists so hard that his palms should have torn, not a single drop of blood appeared.

‘Keok—!’

Kwak Bonyoung recoiled after a knee struck him squarely in the solar plexus. The one who turned his body and coughed violently, cough, cough, muttered in a voice that was utterly cracked.

‘Did you not feel any pity for that child?’

‘You crazy…. Keok, keoheuk.’

‘A child who’s only three or four… instead of taking him out because you felt sorry for him, to think you’d.’

She was originally that kind of person. Affectionate, soft-hearted, and loving of weak things.

‘You didn’t even know what that child really said, you just… blindly believed the words of a conman bastard who… relayed it however he pleased.’

‘You too, you’re trying to leave me after hearing those words, aren’t you.’

At that, his mother whipped her head around. While her face was completely soaked, her gaze was hollow, and the laughter that escaped her lips was a mad cackle.

‘Hey, you stupid man….’

‘…….’

‘It’s not because of Seokho.’

‘…….’

‘It’s because of you. Because… I detest you.’

His mother, having said that, collapsed onto the bed.

A startled Kwak Bonyoung rushed over in a panic and listened for her breath. She would be alive. The final moment of his mother that Jaekwon had seen was not this. As Kwak Bonyoung raised his head, his face cycled through relief, then anger, contempt, obsession, and hatred. He immediately called for a doctor using the phone in the room. All the sounds were muffled and distant, as if humming. Jaekwon felt the ground beneath his feet give way.

Kwak Bonyoung, who fiercely ended the call, grew blurry. In the scene that was breaking apart as if the pixels were shattering, he, his father, that bastard, could be seen taking the ring off his mother’s finger and carrying it toward the dressing room.

‘Sooyeon-ah.’

A wailing sound was heard. The dead young man was collapsed beside his mother, crying. He wanted to hold her hand but couldn’t.

‘Sooyeon-ah.’

Jaekwon muttered his mother’s name, which he had forgotten for a long time. His mother probably had forgotten it for a long time too. Memories are more fragile than one thinks, and people are cowards, so they bury many things.

He was being completely pushed out of here. This was as far as he was allowed. Because Jaekwon knew what happened after this.

However, his mother had not departed out of helplessness. She had wanted revenge, she had wanted to end it all, and she ended it because there was someone she could meet after she did. The reason she didn’t take the medicine was simply that she chose the most moderate method possible to buy time for Kwak Bonyoung to come and see her death.

The eyes of Jaekwon, who was about to be ejected, met the eyes of the dead young man, the one called Seokho.

The man, who was crying as if he would melt and disappear, moved his lips. From within his form, which was now so blurred that his features could no longer be discerned, only a voice came out. It was a very youthful, a very, very young voice. One whose gender couldn’t even be distinguished.

‘There are many angry people around that man. There are angry people and there are crying people… they’re near the madam too. They want to see that place.’

That was all.

Wisoo had never said the name Seokho, nor had he said that he was his mother’s lover.

However, Jung Taekyu knew of Kwak Bonyoung’s crevice and was looking for an effective way to dig into it. He tormented people, made them fall, and in the midst of it all, he could pretend to be their only salvation.

Kwak Bonyoung was that weak and cowardly of a bastard, and it wasn’t Seon Wisoo’s words that had ruined them. Just as his mother had said that she was leaving because he was despicable, the one who ruined everything was Kwak Bonyoung.

“Wisoo-yah.”

Jaekwon muttered. His cheek was pressed against the floor. Because of his high nose bridge, his tears couldn’t quite flow and pooled on the bridge of his nose. No, what he thought were tears was blood.

“Wisoo-yah.”

He opened his eyes at his own muttering.

It had clearly been deep in the night, but the surroundings had brightened. Sunlight was streaming into this gloomy house. The autumn dawn was breaking.

“Seon Wisoo.”

Jaekwon muttered painfully.

‘Don’t forget me, and you have to come back to me to get this, okay?’

Even back then, he was already gaunt, his hair was grown out shaggily, and he was a child who was afraid of all the adults around him. Why did you pick me. There must have been other people. There must have been someone else who wouldn’t have forgotten you and would have gone to get you right away.

‘When I’m with Kwak Jaekwon, I don’t see scary things.’

He hadn’t been a clean slate from the beginning. He had just been preparing. To remain in the state Wisoo had cleanly taken away, until he met Seon Wisoo again.

‘Take it.’

His own voice from when he met Seon Wisoo echoes in his head. A time when his field of vision had narrowed and he had no interest in anything.

‘Take it all. Take my memories too. You can take my name too. It’s okay if I don’t remember anything. I want that.’

‘What’s your name?’

He, who had been curled up the whole time, finally lifts his head and looks at Wisoo.

‘What’s your name then.’

‘If I tell you, will you not forget it?’

‘I’ll see after I hear it.’

‘My name is….’

“Seon Wisoo.”

With trembling arms, Jaekwon pushed his body up. His entire body ached and was in pain. His phone was ringing. Jaekwon barely made it there and slumped down as he answered the call.

—Kwak Jaekwon!

It was Hwang Gujo.

—You fucking bastard, I thought you were dead!

“I almost was.”

When he pressed his forehead with his sleeve, blood smeared onto it. The head, including the face, tended to bleed a lot even from a small wound. It was probably just a small cut, but maybe because he had pushed his body to its limit until now, it was a bit difficult.

—I’m rushing over like a motherfucker!

“Come quickly.”

Jaekwon looked at the ceiling and then closed his eyes.

“I have to get Wisoo quickly.”

It’s already too late. I’ve made him wait too long.

Jaekwon quietly raised the corners of his mouth.

I want to see Seon Wisoo.

❖ ❖ ❖

“Why are you going this far?”

On the way to the hospital, Hwang Gujo vented his anger the entire time. It was a reaction of complete incomprehension. Just half a year ago, Jaekwon would have thought the same. But now, Jaekwon was pressing on the injured part of his head with a handkerchief and smiling faintly.

“Seon Wisoo doesn’t remember the past well.”

“So what! No, what does that have to do with you throwing yourself down the stairs!”

“If Wisoo can’t remember, then at least I have to. He needs someone to tell him clearly that it’s not his fault. Only I could do it. It was a job that only I wanted to do.”

“That….”

Hwang Gujo stammered before shutting his mouth firmly.

“How much progress have you made so far?”

“We still haven’t been able to pinpoint Seon Wisoo’s location. It seems they haven’t let him out once since taking him. We checked the cars they used, and they were all burner cars, and they kept switching cars while driving around and around the beltway. The last confirmed location is Daecheon Reservoir….”

“Fucking hell, it’s the same.”

Almost nothing had changed from the information he had when he returned to the mansion. For a month, and then another week, there had been no progress.

However, that didn’t mean they were just sitting on their hands. Jaekwon’s mind, in a semi-awakened state, was spinning rapidly. The list of people he had looked at so many times that he had memorized it passed by like a slide show, click, click, click.

His head hurt.

Jaekwon buried himself in the chair. Then he muttered in a hoarse voice.

“I’m tired. I’m going to sleep for a bit. Wake me up when we arrive.”

For a month, Jaekwon had been getting by on almost only catnaps. It seemed that might have helped him have this absurd experience in just a week. It was a strange experience that no one would believe even if he told them. It could be a fantasy concocted in his head. But he wasn’t a person with enough imagination to make up a situation so detailed and vivid as to recall a man named Seokho.

Upon arriving at the hospital, Jaekwon received treatment for his bruises and also underwent a detailed examination just in case. And then he got to the main point. In truth, the treatment was not his real purpose.

“I’d like to request a DNA test.”

What Jaekwon handed to the hospital’s deputy director was a ring in a small plastic pouch.

“It’s old, so you’ll have to handle it carefully. It will be contaminated too. I just need a little bit of certainty, so it doesn’t need to be that precise.”

“DNA testing is a precise technology to begin with, so what are you talking about.”

Hwang Gujo said bluntly. Hwang Gujo couldn’t believe the fact that Jaekwon had thrown himself from the top of the stairs. He thought, He’s been self-harming like a madman and finally did something like that, he’s gone so crazy that I can’t take my eyes off him for a while.

“Then the comparison sample….”

Jaekwon checked his post-treatment appearance in the mirror and rose from his seat. While buttoning the cuffs of a fresh shirt, he asked.

“How many strands of hair do you need?”

He was willing to pull out as many as needed. He just needed to get the result that the blood on that ring was indeed Kwak Bonyoung’s. Something to give shape to the unscientific and unrealistic event he had experienced.

❖ ❖ ❖

It hadn’t been long since Wisoo realized that something strange was happening to his body. He couldn’t clearly say what this feeling of déjà vu was. However, perhaps in exchange for recently being unable to see or hear the dead, a sharp premonition struck him that he must not tell anyone about this state.

What was fortunate, at least, was that at Hyekwang, Wisoo was perceived as a child who had a small appetite, ate very little, and spent most of his time sleeping.

But there was one variable that Wisoo had not anticipated.

“You’ve been strange lately?”

Kwak Jaekyung was someone who had seen, even if briefly, how Wisoo had been living on the outside. No matter how disheartened he was by being dragged back, that alone couldn’t explain all the sense of disharmony coming from Wisoo now.

“Are you sick somewhere?”

Wisoo muttered, curled up and facing the wall.

“You said you were filming a movie. Go film your movie.”

Wisoo was not given a blanket because they didn’t know what he might do under it.

“I’m not the one filming the movie, you stupid bastard. The director is.”

“……”

“Well…. If you ask, I could secretly bring you something sweet without Teacher knowing.”

“So you can ask me to suck you off in return? Again?”

Kwak Jaekyung smiled faintly.

“Unfortunately, I can’t do that. There are no blind spots here.”

“……”

“I guess I’m human too, so my heart is getting soft. Tell me in secret. I’m telling you, I’ll bring you one thing you want to eat. I bring you your meals, don’t I.”

It could be a trap set by Jung Taekyu. But Wisoo couldn’t stand it because there was something he wanted to eat so badly that it kept him from sleeping, made him cry, and hadn’t left his mind for days. So what if it’s a trap? If I get caught, I’ll just get scolded and that’ll be it. I have to at least say it.

“Egg bread.”

Wisoo said, holding back his tears with great effort.

“I want to eat egg bread.”

“What’s this. They could probably make that here without sugar.”

Wiping his tears away with his hand, Wisoo shook his head.

“No. It has to be sweet egg bread. It won’t do if it’s not.”

He didn’t want to sound like he was whining, but the sob in his voice leaked out helplessly. It couldn’t be helped. Because it reminded him of the mornings he spent with Kwak Jaekwon.

“Alright. Good timing. The weather outside is getting chilly anyway. It’s about time for them to come out.”

Kwak Jaekyung said it as if he were doing a great favor. It seemed he thought this would make him look like some kind of savior to Wisoo.

However, from Kwak Jaekyung’s words, the first thing Wisoo caught was that it was already getting chilly outside. He pressed his lips, which had parted in surprise, firmly together.

At some point, he had stopped asking how much time had passed. Because it was becoming more and more miserable and sad. He was afraid that if one day someone said, ‘Ten years have passed,’ he would truly not want to live anymore.

But… he said it had gotten cold. They had parted in the heat of a day when cicadas were crying.

“Egg bread. You’re more pathetically sentimental than I thought. Is that all Kwak Jaekwon fed you?”

You’re just the one who doesn’t know the taste.

Wisoo didn’t answer.

Then he impulsively called out to Kwak Jaekyung, who was turning to leave.

“If egg bread is no big deal… can’t you bring me pineapple juice too?”

“Pineapple juice?”

Kwak Jaekyung’s face puckered slightly. Kwak Jaekyung looked at Wisoo, whose complexion had become dreadfully poor and who had become so pitifully gaunt that it was a shame he had ever gained weight, smacked his lips, and nodded.

A few days later, Kwak Jaekyung, having used some method, really did pull out an egg bread from his pocket.

“Turn around and eat. There are cameras everywhere, but the one over there is a bit shoddy.”

Wisoo did as he was told, not knowing if the person watching was lazy or if the camera was just bad.

Nothing else on the meal tray entered his eyes. Only the yellowish egg bread came into view. His mouth filled with saliva. Wisoo swallowed the sweet saliva with a gulp and was about to eat greedily but stopped.

‘I can’t get sick.’

Wisoo admonished and controlled himself, then took small bites and chewed thoroughly.

He felt like crying. It was so delicious. It was so delicious, and more than anything, the memory that came to mind in full color was so warm it was driving him crazy. Even though the egg bread itself was completely cold.

“Ah. The stuff in that soup bowl is juice.”

Wisoo scooped up the juice with a spoon and drank it.

Actually, he didn’t think about pineapple juice anymore. But the reason he asked for it was because the reason Jaekwon had gone out before he left was for this trivial thing.

If I hadn’t said I wanted to drink this, would he not have gone out? Then when Teacher came in, could we have escaped through the window with Kwak Jaekwon? Then Kwak Jaekwon wouldn’t have had to be forced to kneel so miserably, and he wouldn’t have had to recall memories he wanted to forget because of me….

Most of all, he wouldn’t have been disappointed in me forever.

The human body is made of water. So, in order not to disappear, Wisoo drank more diligently than he ate. Knowing that his tear ducts were already broken, he felt that if he kept spacing out like this, he would disappear forever.

Tears fell, plop, plop, into the juice. Still, Wisoo drank, and ate. The juice tasted different from what he expected. It had no taste at all. He thinks it was probably because it wasn’t what he had wanted. What he had wanted was for Jaekwon to buy it for him. It was to drink it by his side.

“How is it. Is it good?”

“It tastes bad.”

At Wisoo’s answer, Kwak Jaekyung grumbled.

“Rude little bastard.”

But he didn’t say anything more. Kwak Jaekyung was generally despicable and generally rude, but he had a soft spot for Wisoo. Wisoo felt that too.

But what did that matter? To him, it meant nothing. Just like this juice had no taste at all.

❖ ❖ ❖

The deputy director made a big show of it. He said he had to mobilize all sorts of connections. He boasted that he even had to mobilize connections at the National Forensic Service. That’s how contaminated the sample was.

Jaekwon let the boasting go in one ear and out the other as he took out the contents of a classic manila envelope. His gaze slowly scanned horizontally, then moved down, scanning and moving down repeatedly.

And upon seeing the conclusion, he finally raised the corners of his mouth.

“Is this the result you were hoping for?”

The deputy director asked with a proud expression.

Jaekwon crossed his legs and clasped his hands around his knee.

“I never hoped for something like this. But since it’s something that already happened, it was a result I needed.”

There are buildings on prime land that are said to never be sold, no matter who from the top ten, no, top three business conglomerates asks for them. There are several such places. It is said that the owner of those buildings, hidden in mystery, and of countless cash, has appeared. That person was the man in front of his eyes. The son of the man who was called the ‘Money Teacher’ of the business world’s chairmen.

The deputy director fiddled with his tie and straightened his back. The handsome man smiled faintly.

“It says my father is a murderer.”

Jaekwon coolly watched the spectacle of the elderly man, who had climbed to the position of deputy director through politicking, completely failing to control his expression, belying his years of experience.

A murder by willful negligence. His mother, struck by a stone made of malice.

The person who threw it, and the person who pushed her from behind until the very end, was Kwak Bonyoung.

❖ ❖ ❖

Jaekwon arrived at the columbarium and let 30 minutes pass before he went inside.

It was chilly inside. It seemed unavoidable that funeral homes and columbariums had a strangely chilly atmosphere.

As if to mock how splendidly he had lived in such splendid places during his lifetime, Kwak Bonyoung was in the bottom-most compartment with no decorations at all. It showed that even the relatives who had run their mouths so much about how one must take care of their father, and so on, in reality did not care at all for Kwak Bonyoung, who was now just a pile of bone ash.

“Living is so futile, isn’t it?”

Jaekwon asked the one who would never answer back.

“Dying is so futile too.”

Jaekwon folded his long legs and hunched his body.

“If it was going to end up like this anyway, why did you live like that.”

He was genuinely, purely curious. Jaekwon irritably wiped his face.