The Amnesiac Client
Exhausting.
With attention pouring in from every direction these days, the people around me were making an even bigger fuss than the media, and I could hardly keep my head straight. My manager had thrown up his hands insisting the internet was talking about nothing but Yoo Seul-ho, but I didn't have the spare energy to actually process it. Filming had to happen before editing could, so every single day was packed to the seams. Miss a single day's scheduled shoot and the whole production ground to a halt — and with the public eye fixed squarely on us, none of us could afford a single mistake. Everyone poured themselves into the set.
Even in the middle of all that chaos, the production staff hadn't forgotten to shower me with kind words and a barrage of gifts. Not that everyone was friendly, of course.
Woo Jun-seo seemed a little miffed, I noticed.
After episode one dropped, every glance and every scrap of attention had swung my way, so from the leads' perspective, there was no way it didn't sting. That wasn't because Woo Jun-seo's personality was garbage — put me in his shoes and I'd have felt the same. If I were the lead and everyone kept gushing about a supporting actor, my mood would sour too.
With a truckload of filming still left, burning bridges with the lead actors would only hurt me. So I tread carefully, choosing my words to soothe his ruffled feathers, and by some miracle we avoided any major clashes. Choi Ran brushed off my concerns with something like "quit fretting over useless crap," while Woo Jun-seo didn't bother hiding his low mood, replying, "Well, good for you — drama's blowing up."
That was when Woo Jun-seo's manager, who'd spent the entire day tiptoeing around his client's temper, bolted from his seat like a man fleeing a crime scene. I was just weighing whether I should discreetly make myself scarce too when I spotted Park Sang-in glancing over at us from across the set.
If I left now, he'd seize the moment and latch right back onto Woo Jun-seo. So I swapped on the mask Woo Jun-seo wanted instead.
"Jun-seo, I've got a problem. Could you hear me out?"
"What now?"
"It's just — my acting's improved, sure, but most of the comments yesterday were comparing me to you. And honestly, people were saying it's way too brutal to even be compared to the male lead. Obviously I could never surpass your acting, but I don't want to drag the drama down either. It's been eating at me."
The more I opened my mouth, the more Woo Jun-seo's furrowed brow smoothed out. Once I'd run through this routine — dressing up flattery as a "worry" — a few more times like clockwork, he finally came back around with a smile on his face.
"Hey, why are you even agonizing over that? If your acting were actually lead material, you'd be the lead already. Don't get all self-conscious over nothing."
The guarded edge in his voice had melted into the easy contempt of a man looking at someone he considered beneath him. He seemed to have recovered his old certainty: 'Face it, you're a supporting actor and I'm the lead. So what?'
Excellent.
My pride wasn't bruised in the slightest. Whatever the guy privately thought of himself didn't change a single fact, so it wasn't worth a second of my attention.
I need to keep this relationship intact until the drama wraps.
More precisely, I needed to manage things so that Park Sang-in and Woo Jun-seo never reunited as a pack. If I was going to live out my life in this industry as Yoo Seul-ho, nothing would be more insufferable than vermin like them scurrying around behind my back.
Deal with them early, deal with them clean.
As for Woo Jun-seo, I was sitting on a mountain of dirt I'd dug up myself. It was only a matter of time before the whole power dynamic flipped. I could already picture him turning to jelly over a few whispered threats, so nothing the man said right now could get under my skin.
Park Sang-in is a different animal, though.
Underestimating him could cost me dearly, so I couldn't afford to let my guard down. Keeping my circle clean and making no enemies was the sensible play — but Park Sang-in was the lowlife who'd gone out of his way to recommend Yoo Seul-ho to Woo Jun-seo as a convenient punching bag.
Not that I was sitting around seething with "How dare he! Unforgivable!" — I wasn't exactly a saint myself. The problem was simply that the target he'd chosen was Yoo Seul-ho.
The poor kid had enough on his plate already.
Yoo Seul-ho was the man whose body had given me a second life. At the very least, I owed it to him to treat his name better than that.
I'll keep mulling over how to dismantle Park Sang-in.
And if nothing needed doing, well — he could simply be shipped off whenever Woo Jun-seo went down.
Anyway, I'd spent yesterday's shoot jingling around at Woo Jun-seo's side like a bell on a collar, and today was my first genuinely free day in ages. I left the worthless manager to his golf game with Director Shin and dug Yoo Seul-ho's car out of the hotel parking garage where it had been gathering dust.
Been a while since I drove.
In my old life, I'd grown so used to my men handling the wheel that this was the first time I'd gripped a steering wheel in nearly ten years. I'd briefly considered just hailing a taxi, but given the destination, it seemed wiser not to bring an outsider along.
Must be the car.
My driving was rustier than a sunken ship, and I'd half expected a honk of protest at any moment — needless worry, as it turned out. Yoo Seul-ho's expensive ride glided along so smoothly I never heard so much as a single horn. Had it not been for that report from the detective agency, I'd have been wondering how a man with nothing in his bank account could afford a car like this.
According to the report, Yoo Seul-ho's parents had gifted him no fewer than five luxury cars the moment he came of age. And yet he'd never been seen driving any of them around. Every outing on record was a trip between home and set in the manager's vehicle.
That was how, a year ago, he'd walked out of the family home with nothing but this one car.
So the other four are sitting at the family estate, then.
They needed to be offloaded fast, once the chance presented itself. Insurance premiums on four cars nobody drove — what a waste of money.
Which meant I'd have to draw up a strategy for dealing with Yoo Seul-ho's parents first.
Today's meeting will be the key.
With that thought, I headed for Pyeongchang-dong, where the office was. Back in my loan shark days I'd strolled in and out of the place daily, so arriving there in Yoo Seul-ho's body felt bizarre beyond words.
As I approached the building — guarded by high walls like some kind of fortress — a security agent stationed at the gate moved to intercept me at once.
"May I ask the purpose of your visit?"
The air around us had the peculiar gravity that only a heavily fortified building produces — outwardly polite, but the agent's eyes were brimming with vigilance. I cracked the window down just enough to hide my face and answered.
"I have a meeting scheduled. We agreed to settle things face to face."
"May I have your name, sir?"
"Ah... just tell them I'm here to see Mr. Hwang Tae-jun and Mr. Jo Gyeong-beom."
The agent murmured something into his radio, and moments later the gate swung open.
I descended into the underground parking garage and pulled into a spot near the entrance — parking with deliberate care, mind you — and by the time I reached the elevators, they were already waiting for me.
Tsk. Look at those faces.
Hwang Tae-jun, the youngest of my old organization, looked wound tighter than a spring. Jo Gyeong-beom, who'd served longer, was frozen solid. Both faces were stiff as boards — but I could read the anger and irritation simmering under Gyeong-beom's.
The security guard must've tipped them off.
The fact that anyone knew the real Pyeongchang-dong office existed was alarming enough on its own. Now a nameless, faceless client had shown up knowing even their names — that had to be grating on their nerves terribly.
Clack!
I briefly considered stepping out in sunglasses, then decided against it — this wasn't a film set, and I had no intention of preening in an underground parking garage. I got out and strode over to where the two men stood.
"Hello."
"Oh, yes, hello—"
Hwang Tae-jun, who'd reflexively returned the greeting, opened his mouth the instant his eyes landed on my face. One second. Two seconds.
On the third, he detonated.
"Yoo Seul-ho?!"
The sheer shrillness of it grated on my ears, but Gyeong-beom was quicker — a sharp jab to the youngest's ribs shut him right up. Back in the old days, the kid was good-hearted but a touch too theatrical, and there'd been plenty of exhausting moments because of it. And every time, before my brows could knit together, it had been Gyeong-beom who stepped in to smooth things over.
It's been a while.
Facing that familiar face I'd seen every single day, after months apart, stirred up a strange feeling. But while I was getting inexplicably sentimental, the eyes looking back at me held nothing but wariness and suspicion.
"Pleasure to meet you."
"......Let's take this upstairs first."
I followed them up to the office. Since the building was used exclusively by the people of Mindo Detective Agency and Haru Finance, privacy was the least of my concerns.
"You can sit here."
The room the youngest ushered me into was large and nearly bare — a table and a few scattered chairs, nothing more. The office had never been built for client-facing work, so there was no proper meeting room to speak of. It looked like they'd hastily cleared out the corner where the boys normally lounged around eating snacks and shooting the breeze, which told me exactly how flustered they'd been by such an unprecedented situation.
"Would you like water, or something to drink?"
"No. Let's get straight to business."
At my words, Jo Gyeong-beom shifted his posture as if he'd been waiting for exactly that.
"Are you the client who placed the request regarding Yoo Seul-ho?"
"I am."
"And you expect us to simply believe that?"
"Why wouldn't you?"
"Let's be reasonable. Nobody hires an investigator to run a background check on themselves. Even the richest, most bored fool alive would agree it's excessive."
"Could be. Could also not be."
"...Haah. Fine. Just tell me the truth. Who are you here on behalf of today? An individual? An organization?"
Jo Gyeong-beom's glare bored straight through my skull, and beside him I could see the youngest swallow nervously. The atmosphere was stretched taut as a tripwire, and for a long while, I simply studied the two of them in silence. The longer I stared without a word, the tighter the tension wound.
"The truth is..."
After a deliberately drawn-out pause, I delivered the line I'd prepared.
"I have amnesia."
"I'm sorry?"
I didn't miss the split second their expressions crumbled — and pressed on without pause.
"Not everything. To be precise, only my memories of being Yoo Seul-ho are gone. No accident, no head trauma — I woke up one morning and this is what I found. I need help, but there was no one around I could properly turn to. And no, I haven't forgotten that I'm a celebrity. I have zero interest in broadcasting to the whole world that I woke up one day with my memory wiped. Now, sure, the memories might come back someday, but sitting on my hands and waiting isn't in my nature. I figured doing something beat doing nothing, so I contacted you. And that brings us up to speed on why I commissioned a background investigation into myself. So — how about it? Still don't believe me?"
The nonstop barrage left them both gaping. I had no particular desire to elaborate, so I shut my mouth, and after a moment Jo Gyeong-beom spoke up haltingly.
"No — even if that were true, wouldn't you... normally go to a hospital first?"
"I hate hospitals."
"......"
Jo Gyeong-beom, struck dumb, took a long moment to recover. He scowled all over again, as if warning his own face for letting its composure slip so foolishly, and glared at me.
"Then how do you know the Pyeongchang-dong office exists at all? And where did you dig up my name — and the name of my colleague sitting here?"
"Ah, that. Whether it's a blessing or a curse, I honestly couldn't say — but even with all my memories of myself wiped, the memory of that conversation stuck around somehow."
"Who told you?"
I answered as casually as if I were commenting on the weather.
"Your boss."