Is This for Real?
Is this for real?
When I opened my eyes in this unfamiliar hospital room, the doctor told me the accident had left something wrong with my head.
He was wrong.
Whatever was wrong with my head before the accident had clearly been far worse.
Otherwise, every woman who came to visit wouldn't be planting kisses on my cheek!
"Oh, how rude of me."
Seo Arin wiped the corner of her mouth with perfect composure and smiled with her eyes. The shamelessness of it should have bothered me, but I couldn't bring myself to call her out.
It wasn't that her smile made my heart flutter so much as the fact that my cheek—already violated three times over—had become little more than a guestbook.
Why was everyone so desperate to leave a mark?
"Ian."
Before those curved eyes could meet mine, my gaze rolled the other way.
Her lips are soft.
Even if garbage thoughts like that crossed my mind, facing reality was a different problem entirely. More precisely, I didn't have the courage to confront the karma I'd racked up before losing my memories.
"I don't exist in your memory, do I?"
"I have amnesia, like I said. I only just woke up."
Though in that short span of time, three women had somehow materialized.
The whole thing left me frustrated. The desire to reclaim my past was driven less by curiosity than by a mounting sense of crisis.
Seo Arin listened to my complaint in silence, then nodded and spoke.
"So you don't really know who I am, either."
"No."
"A complete stranger, then."
"Yes."
Seo Arin offered a smile that was neither quite knowing nor quite innocent, and folded her hand over my left one.
I raised an eyebrow, wondering what she was getting at.
"And yet you don't seem to mind that I kissed you and took your hand."
The question, reached through careful stages, caught the breath in my throat. I couldn't exactly claim I'd gotten used to it when I hadn't even been awake a full day.
"Heh. There are upsides to you losing your memory, I suppose."
The ominous smile vanished as quickly as it had come. Seo Arin stepped back and folded both hands neatly before her.
"You must be exhausted. I got carried away in my happiness and overstepped."
"Yeah. You did overstep a bit."
I waved her off with a limp hand. At the clear suggestion that she leave if she understood, she let out a soft, chuckling laugh. Then she bowed her head to me with impeccable courtesy.
"I hope the day comes soon when we meet again. I shall take my leave."
Refined manners have a way of demanding equal standing from the other party. Unable to find a farewell that measured up, I simply waved. I felt like the living embodiment of an uneducated man.
"…This is insane."
I was losing my mind.
The muttered words echoed through the empty hospital room. Aside from the broken left arm, my body was fine, so I pushed myself up and got out of bed. I didn't look out the window—some restless fear that someone might be watching this room kept me from it.
Where had everything gone wrong? What the hell was going on? And where was I supposed to find someone who could answer the questions multiplying on their own?
No—even if I found someone, could I actually ask?
I lost all my memories in an accident, you see. So why does every woman who visits me kiss me on the cheek like she's glad I'm alive?
I was desperate enough to grab a stranger for life advice. But I didn't trust myself to put that question to anyone while still in my right mind. If I ever found the courage, it would only prove I'd already lost it.
"This isn't working."
I decided to go outside, if only to sort through the mess in my head. I needed fresh air. I left the room and headed for the elevator.
"Going out, sir? Just let the front desk know when you return."
A large man in a suit held the elevator for me as if it were the most natural thing in the world. On the ride down to the first floor, a sudden question hit me: was any of this normal?
"What kind of hospital is this?"
Come to think of it, I had that room entirely to myself. The size of it, the furniture filling it—none of it was ordinary. And a security guard?
The realization struck me clean through the crown of my head.
Don't tell me… was I absurdly rich?
That would give everything a certain logic. Overflowing wealth, and in exchange, a blank-minded amnesiac who remembered nothing. Easy to handle, easy to bleed dry bit by bit. The accident had killed several people, so word would have spread well enough. All that remained was a golden future waiting to roll in the moment someone reeled me in. Even three beauties showing up at once made sense that way.
"Hmm."
I studied my awkward face in the gleaming mirror. Not particularly handsome. A thin build. Loose patient clothes and hair in disarray. And they still came running to kiss me looking like this?
Taking that at face value felt like an act of pure shamelessness.
Honestly, it would be a lie to say the three of them hadn't stirred something in me. But I couldn't bring myself to believe even one of them—let alone two, let alone three. Of course, dismissing the affection they'd shown as pure falsehood wasn't easy either. Still, I couldn't let go of the doubt. Not believing hurt less than being deceived.
Even blood relatives will cut each other off without mercy when they have to. Don't forget that, Shin Ian.
You are…
"You are what?"
I'd stepped forward expecting a stair and found empty air instead. The jolt snapped me back to myself. Beyond the open elevator doors, people were waiting for me to get out.
"Sorry."
I apologized, embarrassed, and slipped past them. They looked at me with something like pity and offered comfort.
"Tsk, tsk. You've been through a lot."
"You're young—you'll heal up in no time."
"Excuse me?"
I wiped my eyes with my sleeve without thinking. They were wet, which threw me for a second—then I hurried to the bathroom. I washed my face at an empty sink and dried it carefully. My eyes had gone red in the meantime.
"Dry eye, maybe. This hospital's maintenance is a mess."
That was when it happened.
"For crying out loud, this is ridiculous!"
A shout came from outside. Curious, I followed the corridor toward the lobby, and the source of the noise came into view at once.
At the front desk: a nurse fidgeting and at a complete loss, and a man with a murderous build stomping his feet.
"I'm not some random peddler—I'm here for a visit!"
"I-I'm sorry, but the VIP ward doesn't allow visitors without separate authorization…"
"What, I walk in on my own two feet to see a patient and I need someone's permission? Huh?"
The man scratched his head in frustration, then turned with a sigh. He looked ready to give up and leave—except his eyes locked onto me.
"Hey!"
He strode over and grabbed my shoulder without warning.
"Thought you were dead—but look at that, you're alive!"
"…Excuse me?"
Did he know me, or was he only pretending to? Before I could decide, my hands flew up to cover both cheeks on pure reflex—a contingency plan for a possibility I genuinely did not want to imagine.
"You bastard, ignoring my calls and ghosting my texts—what the hell?"
"Who are you? Do I know you?"
Every time I asked that, I felt my IQ drop by about ten points, but it was a question I couldn't hold back. The whole world kept producing people delighted to see a man they'd never met.
As I tilted my head, the man furrowed his brow.
"Ain't you Shin Ian?"
"I am, but I've run into a bit of a situation."
He scratched his head at my answer.
"What is this. Some weird joke? Not funny."
He gave my shoulder a friendly thump. How was I supposed to explain this to him?
That the Shin Ian he knew had vanished in an accident, and what remained was someone else who only shared the name and the shell?
It was a headache. Even the doctor had glossed over the explanation; I had no confidence that a non-specialist like me could make him understand.
"Forget it—let's go eat. I'm starving."
"Uh, sure. Let's do that for now."
"I told you, the joke ain't funny."
"You're saying it's not a joke?"
The man sat frozen in front of a bowl of steaming pork-rice soup, a bottle of makgeolli still in his hand.
"Yes. Amnesia. I don't know who you are, either."
"You were acting like you'd never seen me before—and that was real?"
How many times did I have to explain this before it sank in? Given that he was reaching for alcohol in the middle of the day, his brain health was clearly not ideal, so I nodded calmly.
"I'd pretend I knew you if I could. I genuinely don't."
"Well… then I don't know what to do with that either."
"That is exactly the conversation we've been having."
The man finally moved, filling a cup to the brim with makgeolli and pushing it toward me.
"Have one first."
"I'm a patient."
"If one drink was gonna do you in, you'd already be dead."
I wasn't sure that was the kind of thing you said near a hospital, but his face was so intimidating I couldn't refuse. I knocked it back lightly. He clicked his tongue.
"I'm Lee Junho. Lee Junho. Aigoo—forgetting even your own friend."
"Friend?"
Me and this guy?
I looked him over, unconvinced. What kind of life would make that possible? I didn't seem old enough to be friends with a man who looked like a construction-site foreman in his late thirties.
"I can tell what you're thinking just from your eyes. Twenty-four. Same age as you."
"Don't give me that crap."
"Shit, I've been hearing that since high school."
Lee Junho shook his head, steadily working through the makgeolli.
"Enough nonsense. Body okay?"
"Fine, mostly. Head's a bit of a problem."
He tipped the last few drops into his mouth and answered.
"Your head was always a little off. This version's an improvement."
I wasn't sure a self-proclaimed friend who dragged a patient out to drink had any right to say that. But I was the one who needed something from him, so I kept it off my face and raised a middle finger instead.
"That finger—fold it before I snap it off."
"More importantly, I've got questions."
"Drop the formal talk. It's weird."
"You don't realize you look like the kind of person formal talk is made for?"
Lee Junho scowled mid-spoonful of his cooling soup. The scowl only made him look more dangerous.
"Shut it. Ask what you need to ask. I've got work after this."
I hesitated, then opened my mouth.
"What kind of person was I?"
"A dumb pushover."
Lee Junho demolished the rest of the soup in seconds and drained a glass of water with satisfaction.
"Couldn't say what needed saying. Swallowed everything he wanted to say. All he ever managed was 'sorry.'"
It didn't quite land. Not because I failed to understand his words—because I couldn't accept that the Shin Ian in this man's memory and the person I was now were the same.
Lee Junho didn't seem particularly bothered. He stood up as if it were nothing.
"You've lost some of your manners, but you're still better this way. Oh, right."
Halfway to the register, he turned back and asked casually,
"Your girlfriend doing okay?"
"Girlfriend?"
I jerked my head up in shock. Lee Junho snorted as if he couldn't believe it.
"Wow. Forget your friend, but you remember you had a girlfriend. I'm hurt."
"Do you know who my girlfriend is?"
Three candidates. One correct answer. I'd thought it was a broken question—but if there was an answer, I needed it now. I grabbed his arm in a rush.
"You don't know her name?"
"How would I? You started dating after graduation."
"…"
I lost my words for a moment.
"Whoa. Something wrong?"
"Well… if you call it a problem, it is one."
The names of the problem were:
Cha Seeun.
Yu Chae-a.
Seo Arin.
The odds were one in three.
One of them.
I really did have a girlfriend.