Cha Seeun (2)
No matter how thoroughly my memories had been wiped, common sense hadn't gone with them.
I almost wished it had.
What it meant, at least, was that I could still tell the difference between what you should do and what you absolutely shouldn't.
"…"
My master plan to win Cha Seeun's heart with my finest technique had been obliterated in under five seconds. Not even wreckage remained.
The moment when dying of awkwardness had still been an option was already behind me. Now the moment when I might actually have to die was closing in for real.
But is this even my fault?
Honestly, I had excuses to spare.
She'd kissed me on the cheek the second we met. Then she'd brought me to her place — and not just her place, her bedroom — and told me to go wash up?
The whole sequence was structured so that misunderstanding was practically inevitable. I leaned in toward Cha Seeun again, who was still sitting there quietly.
"Huh?"
Before she could react, I pressed my lips to her pale cheek and pulled back just as fast.
"You did the same thing to me, Seeun. Weren't we at least that close?"
Right. If you're going to cross a line, cross it all the way. Better to brazen it out than back down.
If I folded here, everything would be my fault — so I might as well mount a defense!
Cha Seeun, eyes widened in a rare show of surprise, slowly brushed the cheek where my lips had touched.
Did it work…! My heart hammered at the thought.
"When did you get this cocky?"
But her words stabbed through my chest like a frozen blade.
I dropped my head, refusing to meet those narrowed eyes.
"You. Shin Ian."
Her fingertips kept tracing her lips.
It wouldn't have been strange if those same fingertips pointed at me next and ordered me to go die.
But was Cha Seeun really blameless in all this?
Armed with a rebellious streak born of pure logic, I carefully opened my mouth.
"I'd like to offer a defense first."
"You?"
Still dazed, still brushing her lips, Cha Seeun looked at me the way you'd look at something genuinely bizarre.
I stopped myself mid-kneel and stood up quickly.
"That's right. I kissed you. But we have to examine the context in which it happened."
"Why should I?"
"Well, I mean… look—"
"I don't want to."
The logic I'd built in the gaps of her silence collapsed under its own weight.
Cha Seeun — victim, sole judge, and prosecutor of this household — was a seasoned magistrate who granted no right to counsel.
"Shin Ian."
She might even be the executioner.
And yet Cha Seeun was kind. Kind in her own way — which only meant the kindness itself was cruel.
"I told you to wash up because it was obvious you'd been sweating through the night. And I brought you to my bedroom because—"
Suddenly it felt like someone had seized my heart and then let go.
"Do you want to be alone right now?"
I shook my head on reflex. It wasn't a decision. It just happened.
Only then did I understand why I'd been clinging to her so shamelessly.
Money was fine. The apartment was fine.
But more than anything, I wanted her beside me.
Because of the thought that the dawn I couldn't endure alone might stretch on forever. Because Cha Seeun was the one who would stay with me if that dawn came again.
"And lastly — those pajamas really are your taste."
"No…"
"They are."
"…Yes. Honestly, I thought they were cute."
I nodded with everything I had, and Cha Seeun smiled — so faintly you wouldn't notice unless you were looking carefully.
I was still staring at that smile when the hand patting the mattress brought me back.
"If you understand, lie down."
Huh? And I'm still not supposed to misunderstand this?
But my eyes felt gritty, as if packed with coarse sand. I realized I hadn't slept a wink since the hospital yesterday.
I obediently lay down at the edge of the bed and pulled the blanket up neatly. Strangely, it felt comfortable.
Even in a house I'd never been in, with a host who had no reason to put me at ease lying right beside me.
Click.
The sleep light came on — and my consciousness cut out at the same instant.
My cheek was damp.
"…"
I rubbed at it with the back of my hand, trying to shake the fog from my head.
How deeply had I slept to start drooling? Was the ceiling leaking?
I glanced around the room for no good reason and was just about to open the door when—
"Are you kidding me?"
Cha Seeun's voice snapped my hazy mind awake at once.
"Please understand I couldn't even pick up a simple package properly…"
I shut the door on reflex and held my breath.
Unless Cha Seeun was an aspiring actress practicing her lines, she was definitely on a call right now.
As if to confirm it, a frantic voice making excuses leaked faintly from the other end of the phone.
"At least keep to the schedule. That's what you're getting paid for."
Pressed flat against the door, I swallowed dryly.
No matter how generously I tried to frame it, this was not an ordinary conversation.
Something had felt off from the start.
She was only a year or two older than me at most.
And yet Cha Seeun lived alone in a place like this — a high-end officetel — and drove an expensive car?
The way a suit looked so natural on her didn't mean she'd inherited all this. It meant she'd built it herself.
Which left only one question.
What kind of work gets you that kind of money at her age?
Every crime movie I'd ever seen started playing in my head unbidden.
Black sedan. Suit. Package.
"…"
A syndicate?
I clapped a hand over my mouth on instinct.
I shouldn't have heard that. Charging in blind was stupid — but charging in knowing the truth was pure insanity.
I backed away exactly as I'd come, silent, and crawled back into the bed I'd been lying in.
I pulled the blanket over my head and shut my eyes. Come to think of it, I was still tired. I'd just been dreaming.
And then—
"…"
Without a single sound, light fell across my eyelids. There were no footsteps, but her distinctive scent settled on the bridge of my nose.
Heavy, a little complex. A faint fragrance that almost resembled soap.
I held my breath so I wouldn't start sniffing without meaning to — and in that moment—
"Still out cold."
Cha Seeun's palm settled on my forehead.
The same temperature as the space between us right now — neither cold nor warm.
The hand slowly stroking through my hair felt strangely good.
"We need to do something about this hair."
What?
Startled, I cracked one eye open. Her hand kept moving through my hair with the same dry, mechanical rhythm, even though she knew I was awake.
"I'm up, you know."
"I know."
She kept at it for a long time. Just as I was starting to wonder whether my skull would permanently take the shape of her palm—
Bzzzt.
A notification buzzed, and Cha Seeun stood.
"How long are you planning to lie there?"
"…Sorry?"
"Go wait."
I had the distinct sense that my standing in this household had already taken a hit — but the fear of how much further I could fall if I pushed it made me move exactly as my body was told.
Not long after, Cha Seeun set a heavy plastic bag down on the dining table. A long receipt was taped to the side of it.
"Wow. Who orders delivery food this aggressively?"
I asked out of sheer disbelief, and Cha Seeun shoved a large white container in front of me.
"Eat."
"…Yes, ma'am."
Inside the container was tteokbokki. Rose tteokbokki, no less — that creamy, orange-hued kind.
Noting, not for the first time, how consistent her tastes seemed to be, I picked up a pair of wooden chopsticks.
"You must be tired. You should've slept longer."
"Sorry? It's the middle of the night."
It was. The sun had long since gone, and the evening had settled in late and heavy.
Besides, the one who'd woken me from my fake sleep was Cha Seeun herself.
"Funny. Then how did you manage to hear everything I said?"
My chopsticks froze in midair.
It was shaped like a question, but she clearly wasn't looking for an answer.
"I'll have to be more careful from now on."
The tone made it impossible to tell whether the warning was meant for me or for herself.
So I swallowed a slippery piece of rice cake and said,
"Yeah, you really should've been more careful."
I lifted my eyes carefully — and caught the sharp line of her gaze softening, the corner of her eye curving just slightly.
"You never did have much of a conscience."
Cha Seeun let out a small, dry laugh.
"Even if you weren't this brazen about it."
"Near-death experiences change a person, I guess."
I set the chopsticks down and abandoned the tteokbokki I'd been forcing down out of hunger. Stuffing any more of this vicious, greasy, cloyingly sweet something into an empty stomach that didn't even like it was beyond me.
"Aren't you going to eat, Seeun?"
"No. I got it for you."
A flicker of suspicion crossed my mind.
If she knew the me from before the amnesia well enough to bring me into her home and look after me, shouldn't she know my tastes at least a little?
Cha Seeun was perfectly capable of steamrolling over someone else's preferences out of sheer stubbornness — but she also wasn't the type to sit there watching me with that puzzled look just because I wouldn't eat more.
"I'll be honest. I think I hate this."
"You?"
"Yes! Sorry for being picky, but this really isn't my taste."
I watched her eyes — which until now had never so much as wavered — tremble in fine, rapid shivers. Her lips parted slightly.
She looked more startled than when I'd kissed her on my own, and something in my chest lurched.
Is it really that big a crime?
Then Cha Seeun simply held me in a softened gaze, quiet and still.
"Um… why are you looking at me like that?"
"It's nothing. You used to love this, that's all."
She took the chopsticks I'd been using as she spoke.
"Thinking about it now, I wonder if you only pretended to like it because I did."
She lifted the chopsticks and set them down again, over and over. Eventually she gave up, left them on the table, and murmured blankly,
"We used to eat it all the time back then. At your place."
"My place…?"
I started to murmur along with her, pulled under by the weight of the mood — then raised my voice as loud as I could.
"Seeun!"
It was a terrible moment to interrupt. Which was exactly why I made it louder.
"There's something I want to say."
"What."
The questions I'd been packing tightly into the back of my mind were endless.
How I'd lost my memories. Why she'd brought someone like me here. What we had actually been to each other.
Which was precisely why I couldn't ask a single one of them.
Because the more she remembered me, the more she might push away the version of me that no longer matched those memories.
Yes — I wanted to stay beside the Cha Seeun who looked sad when she thought of me.
"You know… I really like this place."
"That so."
Her indifferent reply made me stand up all at once, trying to pull her attention back.
"I really think I should at least do some housework!"
"You're loud."
One word, and I sat back down demurely, knees together.
"Ian. Shin Ian."
Cha Seeun said my name and pushed a cup toward me.
"Just take it easy. I'm the one who brought you here."
"Then what am I supposed to do here?"
Cha Seeun cut me off with the finality of someone who had no interest in a rebuttal.
"Nothing."
"Sorry?"
She leaned back in her chair and quietly tipped her cup.
"What I want is for you to do nothing at all."