Welcome to Dungeon Hotel Chapter 294

288. With Each Their Own Memories

 

“Let’s go out.”

 

It was dangerous to stay in the annex with a person who didn’t know how to be moderate.

 

For now, I, being a bit more clear-headed than Han Woohyun, was the one who pushed him away.

 

“Aren’t you going to show me around your room?”

 

“You didn’t come here just to see my room, did you?”

 

When I pressed the center of his forehead, Han Woohyun let out a laugh. That meant yes.

 

“Now you’re not even trying to hide what you’re thinking…”

 

When I muttered that, Han Woohyun answered.

 

“I never was.”

 

That’s right.

 

Han Woohyun had said it didn’t matter even if I used mind communication skills.

 

Before I knew it, Han Woohyun was leaning diagonally on the bed, tilting his head slightly as he looked up at me and asked.

 

“You?”

 

“What.”

 

“Is there something you want to hide?”

 

Something you want to hide?

 

Han Woohyun’s eyes somehow became kinder.

 

It seemed like he was reading the mood.

 

“No, not really.”

 

Because there are no eternal secrets.

 

That doesn’t mean I expect everyone to understand everything about me.

 

Everyone lives with their own memories, thoughts, and forms.

 

I looked out the window right next to my bed with that thought.

 

From this annex, which connected the main building and the outer corridor, the front gate was clearly visible.

 

From the second floor of the main building, you could clearly see the tree Uncle Minhyuk planted in the backyard, which made me afraid to sleep in the second-floor room at night.

 

That’s why Uncle Minhyuk chose this room for me—where I could see the front gate lit by a streetlamp from late at night until dawn.

 

I watched the twins going back and forth between the stepping stones from the front gate to the garden.

 

Playful, childlike smiles. So young—so young that they probably couldn’t even grasp what it meant to be young.

 

Is this how Uncle Minhyuk felt when he looked at me?

 

While I slightly opened the window and leaned on the sill to watch the children for a moment, Han Woohyun leaned against the windowsill beside me.

 

Han Woohyun’s breath fogged up the half-open transparent window. Watching that, the face of young Han Woohyun overlapped with his current face.

 

The present is not the sum of the past.

 

Some people use the deficiencies of their past as strength to move forward, while others remain trapped by those deficiencies.

 

Even if a past filled with deficiencies is one of the elements that make us up, in the end, we create ourselves.

 

Han Woohyun is Han Woohyun.

 

I created myself.

 

That fact tightened my heart with a dull ache.

 

“When I was in high school, I was really sick.”

 

“…During winter break?”

 

“How did you know?”

 

“Because you haven’t been sick that often.”

 

“You didn’t miss many days because you were sick.”

 

Han Woohyun rested his face against the windowsill and looked at me. His brown eyes were calm and steady.

 

“I took a lot of cold medicine, but the fever wouldn’t go down. I couldn’t go to school and spent the whole day drifting in and out of sleep from the medicine. When I finally opened my eyes for a moment, I looked out the window.”

 

“….”

 

“And then, outside that gate, someone was standing there. Snow was falling heavily, but they just quietly looked up at me. It was as if—”

 

“….”

 

“As if they were waiting for me.”

 

How strange it felt.

 

At that time, I no longer had that kind of hope.

 

The hope that Dad would come back.

 

Since I was seventeen, I never dreamed again of a dad who came back for me, calling my name outside the gate, with me running to him with a bright smile and hugging him.

 

But that day, I was so sick that I just wanted to whine to someone, and naturally, I thought of Dad.

 

Of all days, someone was waiting for me that day.

 

“I knew it—that it wasn’t Dad. But still, I stuck my face out the window and said it anyway.”

 

A cold wind brushed against my cheek. Though it wasn’t snowing like that day, the temperature was similar.

 

“I missed you.”

 

I missed you.

 

It was a distance where that voice couldn’t reach.

 

But when I said that, the man looked up at me blankly.

 

I couldn’t see his face because of the shadows, but I felt like he understood what I said.

 

“….”

 

“Then a tall man like my dad looked up at me and said, “I missed you too.”

 

“…So?”

 

Han Woohyun, who had been quietly listening to my story in silence, asked in a low voice. 

 

I looked into Han Woohyun’s eyes, which were somehow filled with anticipation, and let out a soft chuckle.

 

“A little while later, the lady came upstairs and told me that uncle was waiting downstairs and to come down.”

 

So, that tall man was probably Uncle Minhyuk.

 

The person who replied to my “I missed you” with “I missed you too” was also Uncle Minhyuk.

 

But throughout the entire ride to the emergency room in the car Uncle Minhyuk was driving, I didn’t say a single word to him about it.

 

Uncle didn’t say anything about it to me either.

 

Back then, I couldn’t even imagine what kind of feelings Uncle had when he did that, but why do I feel like I understand today?

 

“I just wanted to believe that the person I missed the most came to see me. If I believed that, it felt like it could become true. The truth didn’t really matter. No matter who it really was, I’m here because there was someone who told my sick self that they missed me.”

 

I want to protect your memories.

 

You don’t have to say that the father you saw in your memory wasn’t really your dad, or that the one who comforted you saying “Thank you for being born” wasn’t your true savior—but me.

 

Just…

 

I’m glad that I was there, right in the middle of your most painful memory.

 

“More than anything, I’m the one who grew through that memory. I turned out well. So the truth of the memory doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is the present.”

 

Because you’re the one who grew through that memory.

 

I no longer have any desire to question the truth of that memory.

 

To you, it’s enough that I’m the one who’s here with you now.

 

Leaving behind vague words that may or may not be understood, I turned to look at Han Woohyun.

 

“….!”

 

At that moment, I saw Han Woohyun’s reddened eyes. I saw the tears welling up. I saw the words he had wanted to say slip back in between his trembling lips.

 

The words that never became speech would well up inside him, turning inward toward himself.

 

I was sorry. I was grateful. Because you were there, I found strength.

 

I hoped those words would flow inward to Han Woohyun himself, becoming his strength—not mine.

 

Hoping for that, I pressed my lips firmly against his, as if sealing them shut.

 

Then, I parted my lips slightly and smiled.

 

“I have nothing left behind in the past anymore.”

 

His eyes widened and he bit his lips tightly.

 

He hugged me tightly and muttered in my ear.

 

“Me too.”

 

* * *

 

“Hey, how much longer do you think they’ll stay before coming back?”

 

Kim Junsoo, holding a squid in his mouth with a satisfied expression, asked Hwang Misoon.

 

Ever since sending Han Woohyun off to the annex, Kim Junsoo had been wearing a satisfied smile the whole time.

 

‘I’m definitely going to tease him a lot when he comes out.’

 

Kim Junsoo lived for teasing others. Lately, it had been especially fun because his nephew-in-law was so easy to fool.

 

“Just tell him to sleep there.”

 

Moon Heeyoung answered briefly.

 

“Why bother bringing him out?”

 

At Moon Heeyoung’s straightforward retort, Kim Junsoo clapped his hands but then glanced subtly at the twins playing in a corner of the garden.

 

“They say their conversation is so long, just the two of them? Ridiculous.”

 

Hwang Misoon muttered sulkily.

 

Seeing that, Moon Heeyoung locked Hwang Misoon’s neck and smiled as she stroked under her chin.

 

“There are deep conversations between people who are dating that people like you can’t understand.”

 

“What are you talking about?”

 

While Hwang Misoon was grumbling, Kim Junsoo, who was sitting across from the two of them, suddenly stiffened. Moon Heeyoung noticed it first and looked back.

 

“….”

 

It was Lee Semyung.

 

When Lee Semyung appeared, he looked disapprovingly at Hwang Misoon, Kim Junsoo, and Moon Heeyoung, who had suddenly become quiet, and popped open the can of cola he had brought.

 

Tak.

 

With a refreshing fizz, he took a sip of the cola as bubbles rose, then pulled a chair next to Kim Junsoo and sat down.

 

“Why are you looking at me?”

 

Seeing that Lee Semyung’s face was still not bright, Hwang Misoon quietly muttered.

 

Why would you…

 

Moon Heeyoung was the one who bravely stepped forward.

 

“You’re against Han Woohyun.”

 

At the word “against,” Lee Semyung flinched—almost spilling the cola he was drinking.

 

“Ugh… What did I— Why would I be against it?”

 

Lee Semyung recalled Han Woohyun’s slumped back, like a little puppy soaked in the rain earlier.

 

What did I even oppose? I never really opposed anything. It’s not like I dislike him.

 

‘Ah, why does he look so pitiful?’

 

Thinking of those cow-like eyes, a sudden sharp ache pricked at a corner of my heart for no reason.

 

Like he said he wouldn’t even dream of marriage, and that he would let her go if she had another man.

 

Lee Semyung felt like he was the villain at the words he said as if he was mocking himself.

 

And above all, he seemed to understand just how much Han Woohyun liked Junghyo.

 

“Do you really think Han Woohyun has liked Junghyo since they were kids? What if he just made that up? He’s got that sly side to him, you know.”

 

Lee Semyung looked at Han Minhyuk standing behind them with eyes full of vain hope.

 

Han Minhyuk had just poured whiskey on the rocks into a glass, saying he wanted to wash away the smell of oil.

 

“I think it’s true.”

 

“Tsk.” 

 

Han Minhyuk let out a soft chuckle as he watched Lee Semyung pout. He pulled over a chair and sat down next to him.

 

“I saw Junghyo back when she was in high school. At the time, I didn’t realize it was Han Woohyun, but now that I think about it, it was him. He came to the front gate, saying he had something to pass on to her.”

 

“A confession letter?” 

 

Han Minhyuk shook his head. 

 

“It was something like a school newsletter, but I don’t really remember. Junghyo was really sick at the time—we had to take her to the ER.”

 

He ran into him as he was parking the car and rushing inside.

 

He remembers the snow falling lightly, then stopping, then falling again.

 

And the boy in a school uniform, standing in the snow for what felt like a long time, looking up at the annex with a quiet intensity—he remembered that, too.

 

For some reason, that profile didn’t seem like someone who had come to meet someone, but rather someone who was ‘waiting.’ So he never thought he was just a classmate of Junghyo visiting her home.

 

Not until he handed something to the lady who came out of the gate and disappeared.

 

At that time, he didn’t realize that the reason the male student lingered there for an unusually long time was because of Junghyo.

 

But now he could see clearly.

 

That Han Woohyun’s feelings had started a long time ago.

 

“Junghyo was sick?”

 

Seeing Lee Semyung clench his fist tightly, Han Minhyuk let out another bitter laugh.

 

“Then do you think she won’t get sick? Kids all get sick as they grow up.”

 

Han Minhyuk hesitated for a moment, then briefly grabbed and released Lee Semyung’s shoulder.

 

“So it’s okay. You don’t have to worry too much about Junghyo. We were here while you weren’t.”

 

“….”

 

At those words, Semyung found himself looking, almost without realizing it, into the eyes of Hwang Misoon, Moon Heeyoung, Kim Junsoo, and Han Minhyuk, who were all gathered around him.

 

These guys were there while I was gone…

 

The ones who stayed with Junghyo through those painful times… they are my colleagues.

 

“That’s really comf…”

 

“So, why don’t you all just get lost now? Stop making my house smell like grease.”

 

He was going to say that it was comforting.

 

Han Minhyuk finished his whiskey and then took out an old-fashioned pistol from inside his coat.

 

Then he shot Hwang Misoon accurately and said.

 

“You’re not going anywhere. The turntable got ruined because of the air purifier. I’m going to kill whoever did it.”

 

“That gun was made by me, you know?! Why am I the only one you want to kill? It’s because Lee Semyung spilled alcohol that it got like this.”

 

“More than the smell of oil, it’s because of the turntable. I’ll bury you here and move out of this house that smells like oil.”

 

Watching Han Minhyuk chasing Hwang Misoon with a gun, and Misoon running away, Lee Semyung gritted his teeth.

 

F*ck.

 

Would that really be any comfort?

 

Lee Semyung tore at his hair and retreated inside the house with the twins and their luggage.

 

“Uncle, does Uncle Minhyuk beat Aunt Misoon?”

 

After entering the house, Lee Semyung found a canvas while organizing the twins’ things and answered them.

 

“Well. Maybe he could win?”

 

Sun and Moon Fortress.

 

Looking at the letters on the canvas, Lee Semyung smiled warmly and asked the twins.

 

“But you know, did Junghyo Noona happen to see this?”