The Sleepwalker’s Mansion Chapter 60

Finally, that day had arrived.

The beginner curriculum at the language school had ended, and a one-week short vacation had begun. While other international students were enjoying flashy nightlife in the bustling downtown, for Doha, it was the perfect opportunity to finally escape to Korea after a whole month. Doha had been waiting for the day to leave for Korea like a prisoner sentenced to hard labor, marking an X on the calendar each passing day.

“Fucking hell, shit.”

The fishy-smelling fast food that made his taste buds go numb, the pumpkin mines rolling around in the barren rural farm belt, the drug addicts stumbling out as if from a graveyard buried just yesterday. Everything was fucking awful.

Among them, the worst was the utterly miserable schedule of being confined to the language school from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., lumped together with East Asians from various countries.

Doha, who had desperately hoped for the short vacation to come, had finally welcomed the rain-like break after a month of language academy life that felt subjectively like a year.

“Young Master Doha, I have come to pick you up.”

Korea, which he returned to after a long flight, was drizzling with fine rain, but the black sedan sent by his dad was waiting in front of the airport. The driver personally opened the back seat door and bowed politely.

“Chasing me out whenever, now should I be grateful for this.”

The sense of emptiness and loss that he had not felt when he was sent to America like being kicked out with just one suitcase came rushing in belatedly.

He had thought he was disowned for touching his older brother.

Taeoh had not even sent a single phone call asking if he was doing well during that time. It had been a continuous string of shitty situations like going back to being a high school student not in Korea but in America, but a faint hope had made him fiddle with his phone late at night, waiting for a contact that would not come.

The slim hope that maybe Doeon would contact him.

He did not expect an apology. Because Doeon’s confession of screaming that he had been raped in front of Dad was never a lie.

But even a rice cake the size of a fist means something, so had not even a shred of emotion remained for him.

With a somehow hollow heart, he casually got into the back seat, sank deeply into the leather seat, and asked toward the driver’s seat.

“Where are you planning to take me?”

The driver tilted his head as if to say he already knew and glanced at Doha through the rearview mirror. He spoke a name that was all too familiar.

“The Representative said to take you to the main house in Ihyeon-dong.”

It was the name of the neighborhood where Doha had lived since before. A bitter smile hung on his well-formed lips. He had no intention of going to the main house from the start.

“I’ve been out for a long time, so I should at least greet Dad. Please take me where Dad is.”

“Yes. Understood, Young Master.”

It really felt like he had been released from prison. A thick sense of liberation flooded in, as if he had finished his sentence in the notoriously horrific Brazilian prison and been freed. The car carrying Doha quickly left the airport.

Doha lowered the window a little and inhaled the fresh air blowing in from outside through his nose. Instead of the dry soil smell thickly enveloping the cornfields, it felt like the fresh scent of lavender was wafting in.

The warm and soft fragrance that rose from the slender body when held in his arms.

It felt like that fragrance was waiting for him.

“It’s the same as ever.”

Doha, getting out of the car, stood at the entrance of the mansion and looked up at the roof peak rising beyond the fence. A pitch-black crow sitting on the roof as if overseeing the world added to the mansion’s eerie atmosphere.

Doha slightly furrowed his brow and lowered his gaze. If the crow was one thing, his eyes caught the second-floor terrace railing, more crumbled than before, as his gaze passed by.

What a mess.

The old mansion, without a single proper part, was like a toothless tiger—big in size but in poor condition in places. It was a mansion he had returned to after just a month, but it still exuded a desolate atmosphere bordering on bleak.

Tsk tsk, clicking his tongue, he stood in front of the gate as tall as himself and pressed the bell. How would his dad, who had returned not to the Ihyeon-dong main house but to Doeon’s mansion, greet him? Would he tell him to get lost back to America? What reaction would Doeon show, who had holed up in his room without showing even his nose when he left the mansion? Would the nosy Jung Yubin nag annoyingly too?

Even while making such various guesses, there was still dead silence from inside. The bell sound with high decibels was not just for his ears alone. He pressed the bell a few more times, but there was still no response.

Had everyone gone out?

It was his own fault for coming without contact, but to arrive just when everyone was out was unlucky. He had expected everyone to make stunned faces upon seeing him. When things went awry, irritation rose, and he kicked the door irritably with a thud.

Creak-.

He had not kicked it that hard, yet the wooden gate pushed inward powerlessly. Had they not even locked it? How could they go out without securing the door? With a puzzled face, he passed through the gate and walked toward the entrance, stepping on the gravel-covered stepping stones.

“What the….”

The garden scenery he saw after a long time was familiar yet unfamiliar. Unlike when he first came to the mansion, uneven weeds had grown thickly, covering his calves.

The house had been rundown from the start, but it had been maintained somehow with the limited manpower, and after Jung Yubin came in, it had taken on a very neat appearance. But now, the weeds had grown wildly without even being weeded, making it feel unfamiliar.

Yubin, who had been so sincere about decorating the mansion even just for preparing a welcome party, would not have left it in this state. Yubin had been preparing even remodeling as if it were his own home. It was strange that he, who was neat to the point of germaphobia, had left the garden in such a condition.

“……?”

Standing in front of the firmly closed entrance with a strange awkwardness enveloping him, the doubt began to amplify further.

“This is ridiculous; even a thief would have nothing to say if they robbed the place.”

The front door was wide open. If forgetting to lock the gate was one thing, having the front door flung wide open like this was like personally inviting thieves in. Though there probably was not much to steal anyway.

Did the people living in this house know that fact and thus leave the door wide open? But Doeon, who had guarded this his mansion like an iron fortress, did not seem like he would do that.

His long eyes narrowed halfway at the accumulating questions. Something had definitely changed. He could not say for sure, but even the air enveloping him felt different from before.

A warning alarm blared noisily in his head that he should not set foot in this sinister mansion. But Doha knew that going back to the Ihyeon-dong main house would be the wise choice, yet he could not abandon the curiosity to dig into this mansion.

As he entered the entrance laid with cold marble, the straight corridor, familiarly empty, filled his gray pupils.

Was there really no one home?

In the silent living room where not even the sound of an ant crawling could be heard, only the huge chandelier hanging from the ceiling sparkled occasionally, catching the midday light. Thinking he was standing alone in the empty house suddenly made his energy drain away.

Had it been unnecessary worry? There was no need to be tense at all, yet entering this mansion like the skeleton of a dead beast made his nerve center stiffen under the bizarre atmosphere.

“Ha….”

Letting out a hollow sigh, he walked leisurely and plopped down on the leather sofa in the living room. It was when he turned his head left and right to shake off the tension.

Thump thump-.

The sound of someone coming down the stairs from the second floor was heard. He reflexively raised his head, and there was the brother he had always pictured in his mind.

The hair strands tinged with faint light. The bloodless pale skin. The apathetic face as if uninterested in the noisy outside world. The brother he saw after a month still had the ascetic atmosphere like a bride in a shroud, just as it was in that first meeting moment.

The appearance of writhing beneath him in agony and crying out in climax was nowhere to be seen, and his haggard complexion, as if not exposed to sunlight for a long time, was like a flower blooming only in the shade. If there was a flower that bloomed without sunlight, it would not be his brother. For some reason, he wanted to approach more, to touch.

Hyung.

Doha straightened his back sunk into the sofa and opened his lips toward Doeon.

“Hyung, long time no see.”

Doeon, who had lowered his gaze and stepped on the last stair, raised his head at the suddenly heard voice. The somewhat dazed gaze gradually found focus, and bewildered eyes flickered.

“Ho, how did you get here….”

“How did I get here? I took a car.”

When he crossed his long legs casually and answered, Doeon hunched his shoulders as if he had spotted a bird of prey that would devour him and moved his body to the corner of the living room.

“You, you should be in America right now….”

“Yeah. Stuck in the sticks turning into a fossil.”

“Th, that’s not what I mean….”

“It’s not acceptable to you, but there’s a short vacation.”

He had expected it, but watching Doeon’s reaction, more flustered than anticipated, made his solar plexus feel stuffy. Well, after causing that disaster and being chased out of the house, it would be stranger if he welcomed him. Forcing a smile by lifting the stiffening corners of his mouth, he threw an ordinary question like a younger brother returning home after a long time.

“Where’s Dad? Did he go out? The door was open anyway.”

“Da, Dad?”

“Yeah.”

When he asked about Taeoh’s whereabouts, Doeon furrowed his brows greatly as if receiving a confusing question and looked perplexed.

“I, I don’t know well either.”

“You don’t know?”

“I, I just woke up too….”

“Oh, I see?”

“Yeah….”

“Then what about Mr. Lawyer?”

When he changed the subject and asked about Yubin’s well-being this time, Doeon’s face, stained with bewilderment, turned pale blue as if he had heard something he should not. Doeon lowered his eyes as if avoiding the gaze.

“…Mr. Lawyer is not at home.”

“Where did he go?”

Even to the simple question, Doeon bit his lip and made an expression as if it was hard to answer. Had Yubin gone out to cheat or something? Why so cautious? Just as his chest felt stuffy from Doeon’s lack of any response, an unexpected sound came.

“He’s injured… He’s at the hospital now.”

“Injured?”

“Yeah….”

He had thought that with him gone, there would be no one to watch, so he would proudly settle into the mansion and play the lady of the house, but to hear he was injured and in the hospital. At the unexpected news, Doha raised his thick eyebrows.

“How?”

Since there was no additional explanation beyond the word injured, Doha asked again. In fact, his curiosity outweighed any worry about Yubin.

During his absence, what had happened to make the mansion’s atmosphere even more阴沉, and Yubin’s absence, who had wanted to embed himself in the mansion like a stone despite being a rolling stone. There were not one or two suspicious points.

“He fell from the second-floor terrace… He injured his leg.”

“Fell from the terrace?”

“Yeah….”

Unless it was a suicide attempt, how could one fall from a second-floor terrace? The circumstances of the injury were unexpected, so his brows furrowed automatically.

“So he can’t walk?”

Had he received punishment for his smugness? Even if he had to live in a wheelchair from now on, that unruly mouth would probably remain the same.

“Ah, no, his leg is in a cast, with a recovery period of 16 weeks….”