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“…”
“…”
Maybe it’s just his imagination, but his cheeks have been stinging for a while now. Jaekyung, who had been forcing his gaze to stay on a book he couldn’t concentrate on, glanced at the clock on the wall, subtly checking for signs of Yeonhu.
“Ah, finally caught you looking.”
If he had followed Jaekyung to the study under the pretext of reading, he could have at least pretended to read. The book Yeonhu was holding seemed untouched, still in its stiff hardcover state. Instead, he was sitting on the rug with his backside, his upper body practically buried in the sofa, staring intently at how much Jaekyung had read.
His grinning face looked nothing but gentle. Yeonhu, still seated, wiggled his hips closer and then rested his head heavily on Jaekyung’s leg.
“Jaekyung, how have you grown even prettier with age? Why is my boyfriend so handsome? When I first opened my eyes in the hospital, I could only see you.”
“Stop talking nonsense, it’s giving me chills.”
“That’s mean, I’m being sincere.”
Yeonhu would never understand that it was precisely his sincerity that gave Jaekyung chills. Well, even if Jaekyung were to die and come back to life, he could never string together compliments as smoothly as Yeonhu did.
Yeonhu, who might pretend to be downcast for a moment but never truly became sullen, quickly smiled brightly again and poked at Han Jaekyung’s protruding kneecap with his finger. Jaekyung was simply dumbfounded by Yeonhu’s sincere comment that he thought Jaekyung’s knees were dainty and pretty because of his beautiful bone structure. He roughly shook Yeonhu off his leg.
“Don’t disturb me while I’m reading.”
“Oh come on… You haven’t turned a single page for a while now. I’ve been watching you, you know?”
“That’s because you’re being annoying. If you keep bothering me, I’m just going to go home.”
The threat of going home, which he had been using frequently these days, was the most effective threat against Yeonhu. This time too, Yeonhu responded with, “Ah, okay, I’ll be quiet…” as he slowly returned to his original spot.
Jaekyung tried to turn his attention back to the book, but his concentration had already fled and showed no signs of returning. Jaekyung sighed deeply and patted the space beside him on the sofa. Yeonhu quickly scrambled up as if he had been waiting for this invitation. He had originally been sitting right next to Jaekyung, but was forced to move to the floor because he kept being distracting.
“Is there something you want to talk about? You’re going to bore a hole through my face with your staring.”
“It’s just… I keep looking but can’t believe it. My thirty-one-year-old boyfriend, Han Jaekyung.”
“You’re the same age too, you know? Don’t act young just because you lost your memories.”
“No, no, that’s not it. I’m amazed that we managed not to break up for ten years. We really never broke up, not even once? It’s like a miracle. It’s something I’ve dreamed of so much…”
By now, Jaekyung had grown accustomed to the surge of emotion that habitually welled up inside him. He had even developed techniques for holding back tears. Jaekyung pretended to stretch, tilting his chin upward, and quickly blinked his eyes. After forcing a yawn by opening his mouth wide, his dampened eyelashes didn’t look so awkward anymore.
What Yeonhu had dreamed of was also what Jaekyung had dreamed of. The difference was that Jaekyung had thrown it away with his own hands, because he wasn’t confident in securing that dream for a lifetime, not just a mere decade or so.
“Yeah, that’s right. We never broke up… we’ve been good.”
“Didn’t we fight badly?”
“Put your hand on your heart and think about it. Could you really fight with me? Really?”
“No!”
“See?”
They hadn’t really fought even when they were just friends. Since Yeonhu had always maintained such a deferential attitude, there was never an environment for conflict to develop in the first place. If they had truly been lovers, it probably would have been even more so.
It wasn’t difficult for Jaekyung to paint a picture of the past ten years that existed only in Yeonhu’s imagination and had never actually happened. After all, he too had simulated it in his mind countless times.
“How many trips have we taken together? We never went just the two of us, without your family.”
Just the two of them on a trip? Not even once. The closest thing to it might have been when Yeonhu came to visit Jaekyung during his training in the United States. But even that wasn’t just the two of them—there were servants attached to the mansion.
Instead of voicing these depressing facts, Jaekyung began to whisper one of his old longings.
“When you were twenty-one, we went to Switzerland like you wanted. It was the first trip we took, just the two of us. I think it was around your birthday. You said your parents used to take you there often when you were young, and you took me around all sorts of narrow alleys…”
The illusion, half mixed with fact and fiction rather than being a complete lie, seemed so vivid it could almost be touched.
Since Jaekyung was someone who rarely participated in family events like trips or holidays, the only travel experience the two had shared until then was school field trips and the like.
Even in high school, Yeonhu would occasionally list travel destinations he had visited with his family and sing about wanting to go there with Jaekyung. One of those was a villa in Switzerland where the world seemed cut off from everything when it snowed.
His twenty-first birthday. With just two months left before his military enlistment, Yeonhu had asked if Jaekyung would go on a trip with him as a birthday present. He promised not to be arrogant. There was a place he really wanted to visit together. Just the trip would be enough. Even if it was just for one day, if Jaekyung would go there with him just once, he wouldn’t mind coming right back. It was quite a heartfelt plea.
Jaekyung had nodded and said he understood, then that very evening, revealed the plan to Madam Yu. It didn’t take long for their potential trip for two to transform into a family trip. It was just one more family member tagging along.
“I’m sorry I can’t remember…”
“No, it’s fine.”
Jaekyung continued his story, comforting the sympathetic Yeonhu. Stories about how Yeonhu had followed him down almost weekly while Jaekyung was serving as a military legal officer, and how he had tracked down Jaekyung’s blind date location and shed tears. Tales of Yeonhu floundering in Jaekyung’s trap easily transformed into a rather romantic love story without the need for much embellishment.
“Hearing it in your voice… I can’t remember, but somehow it’s reassuring.”
“…”
“Don’t worry. Even if my memories never return, I’ll do better than before. I’ll create many, many more happy memories, much better ones. Trust me, Jaekyung.”
There was far more power in Yeonhu’s sincere voice than in the fabricated love stories. Jaekyung knew it was impossible. Eventually, he would have to return Yeonhu to Choi Eunseong… But Yeonhu, freely loving and expressing his feelings without reservation, was far more lovable than the eighteen or nineteen-year-old Jaekyung remembered. It struck him that this was the person—someone who could be so carefree, bright, and lovable—whom he had dragged through the mud.
“So, I was thinking… about revealing our relationship to the family… I’d really like you to consider it seriously. I want to spend my life with you, Jaekyung. If I had just wanted a casual relationship that would eventually end, I wouldn’t have confessed in the first place.”
It seemed that Yeonhu had been prepared from the beginning for a lifetime commitment—something the fearful and cowardly Han Jaekyung hadn’t dared to dream of. He had heard similar words when he suggested breaking up, but at that time, he hadn’t believed Yeonhu. He had considered it just an empty promise from an immature young master who would eventually turn away.
“…Okay. Let’s do that.”
Don’t turn away using fear as an excuse. Don’t give up thinking you can’t win against blood-connected family.
“If that’s what you want, let’s talk about us.”
He should have trusted Yeonhu’s offer of “a lifetime” at least once.
* * *
“Chairman, are you sleeping?”
Taking advantage of Yeonhu’s rehabilitation time, Jaekyung sought out the Chairman’s room. Having stepped back from company affairs after the recent commotion, the Chairman was often drowsy at this time of day, so Jaekyung’s knock on the door was particularly soft. If he was sleeping, Jaekyung didn’t want to wake him unnecessarily and would try again later.
“Come in.”
Fortunately, the timing was good. Until now, meeting with the Chairman alone had been uncomfortable but not awkward. However, after the commotion in front of the intensive care unit, it had somehow become awkward to face him. The Chairman seemed to share this slight discomfort.
“Ahem. What brings you here, Attorney Han?”
“…Yeonhu wants to formally talk to the family and gain acceptance. About us seeing each other.”
“Well, since he thinks you’ve been together for over a decade without breaking up, I suppose with his personality his mouth must have been itching—he’s held out quite long.”
“What do you plan to do?”
“What can I do? There’s no need to stubbornly invite trouble when we only need to wait a few weeks. I’ll tell his father to come home early soon, and you can reveal it then with everyone present. We’ll pretend to notice and naturally give our blessing—that should suffice.”
The Chairman, who had been nodding as he spoke, suddenly added hastily, as if remembering something.
“Ah, I’ll make sure everyone keeps quiet so that Choi Eunseong fellow doesn’t find out later. Attorney Han, I know you’ll handle yourself appropriately.”
The moment he had dreamed of for so long was right in front of him. Yet it too was just a well-crafted illusion.
For a moment, Han Jaekyung envied Choi Eunseong immensely, who possessed the thirty-one-year-old Jang Yeonhu completely, not just fragments of the past. Truly, he envied him so much.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
