Extra Chapter 2-6
“No.”
“Oh, it’s not? Sorry, I must have come in by mistake. I think I should get going now… Could you move aside?”
Blocking the path to the door, Mitchell watched as Geon-woo, who had lost his way, fidgeted and shuffled his feet.
Mitchell had to be patient ever since Geon-woo’s memory flew away. Putting aside emotional exchanges, he couldn’t even touch him properly or say sweet words, always feeling thirsty like a parched person. To such a Mitchell, Geon-woo had come with cool water. He wouldn’t miss this opportunity.
“You’re a stalker, aren’t you?”
Mitchell asked quite seriously, crossing his arms. Gently scratching and making him come over on his own was the perfect prescription for Geon-woo. He would only struggle wildly at first, but he was the type of person who would fully accept words that a normal person would never understand.
“Me? Stalking you? What nonsense are you talking about? No matter how great you are, isn’t this a bit of an excessive imagination?”
“Gerard does act in this movie, but he’s a minor role in the latter part and hasn’t even started filming yet. You seem to think Gerard is here after roughly checking some articles, but you’re wrong. And do you even have Gerard’s contact information?”
Gerard and Geon-woo, who first met during the agency’s vacation trip, actually got along well in real life. At first, Geon-woo misunderstood the relationship between Gerard and Mitchell, but after learning that wasn’t the case, they met separately and even had dinner together. This was before Geon-woo’s memory flew away.
That’s all Mitchell knows about their meetings. There’s no way Geon-woo would meet Gerard secretly or contact him separately. It was the limit of the lie he had concocted. It was immediately exposed.
“Fine, I don’t know! Can’t I come to cheer even if I don’t know? I thought you were obviously filming. I guess I was mistaken. Are you satisfied now? Sorry for barging in.”
“If you admit that you came here because of me, I’ll let you continue what you were doing.”
“What I was doing?”
“Being obsessed with me.”
“What are you talking about!”
Geon-woo, with his eyes wide open, jumped up and down on the spot. He expressed his feelings of injustice with his whole body.
“I really don’t understand. I’ve never done such a thing…, I wouldn’t accept such a…, I’m so dumbfounded I can only laugh.”
He didn’t finish sentences that seemed ambiguous. It was no different from affirmation.
“If you don’t admit it here and just leave, you’ll never be able to talk to me again. The moment you leave, I’ll consider you a non-existent person in this world.”
“Oh come on, you’re coming on so strong out of nowhere. Who do you think would be afraid of that?”
“Go if you want to.”
Mitchell turned around. He cleared the way and nodded towards the door. He opened his mouth in a monotone voice, as if explaining what the door looked like.
“I’ll change my phone number first. I’ll move too. Then of course the front door passcode will change, right?”
“People should know that the great Mitchell Cronenwirth is such a childish person. What a shame.”
“I won’t have any more occasions to meet you.”
“I think you’ve got the wrong kind of threat. If you had said you’d completely block my acting career in America, I might have been scared.”
“We’ll become nothing to each other.”
“So what are you trying to say…”
“It’s completely over between you and me.”
“…”
As Mitchell emphasized the end of their relationship over and over, Geon-woo finally closed his mouth. There was no more rebuttal.
***
Mitchell, who the hell is this guy to me?
I was so angry that I couldn’t say anything. At first, I thought Mitchell’s threats wouldn’t shake me at all.
So what if he moves and changes his phone number?
I would lose a valuable connection, but right now we’re not connections, we could even be enemies and it wouldn’t be strange. So I thought it didn’t matter at all. Just ‘thought’.
I couldn’t take even one step outside.
Something shapeless was holding onto the hem of my pants and wouldn’t let go. Or maybe my legs had taken root in the trailer floor. I was in a state where I absolutely couldn’t move. That’s why I was angry.
On the other hand, I was also tempted by his words that he would let me continue what I was doing. Of course, I couldn’t accept the word obsession, so I made a small rebellion saying, “I’m not obsessed.”
Even though it was barely above a mumble, Mitchell somehow understood what I said. It didn’t seem like anything special, but his indifferent expression changed a little. For some reason, he even seemed to be enjoying it. He was a strange guy.
“Mitchell, if that’s what you want to believe, then do so. You’re right, I came here because of you… Let’s say that’s true. But I’m really not your stalker.”
I turned my head abruptly and bit the lemon candy in my mouth in half. My temper was somewhat soothed.
“So you admit you came here because of me, but it’s not obsession? And you’re not a stalker.”
“Are you asking the obvious? That’s absolutely, absolutely not true!”
“Okay. I’ll believe you.”
Saying he’ll believe me was just in passing, the main point hadn’t come out yet. After waiting for a moment, Mitchell sat on the sofa. Then, with a very peaceful face, he spouted nonsense.
“Obsession and stalking. After removing these, one thing remains. I think that’s the reason why you’re not leaving here and holding out.”
“What is it?”
“Love.”
For a moment, my hair stood on end and I felt a chill. It felt like the air had become cold only where I was standing. I exchanged glances with Mitchell, unable to speak. I couldn’t turn my eyes away or deny it.
Why on earth am I acting like this?
“I haven’t told you until now because I thought you’d be shocked if you knew what you were like before you lost your memory. But I’m telling you now because it seems like your actions are struggling to find your past memories.”
Mitchell leaned back comfortably in his chair and crossed his legs. Taking an impossibly arrogant posture, he declared:
“You used to love me.”
He threw a bomb at me that I couldn’t possibly survive if it were true.
***
I think all people should be respected. Just because everyone has different preferences doesn’t mean the other person is wrong.
So, the reason I accepted that I might have loved Mitchell rather than feeling repulsed by it started from my generosity. Moreover, it seemed possible to love Mitchell with his excessively handsome looks.
I looked at my past self with an open mind. Because, as he said, I couldn’t leave this place.
I absolutely couldn’t cut ties with Mitchell. Beyond just showy connections or career, I wanted to continue maintaining our friendship.
Then I heard the bomb declaration that I had loved him. When I thought that all my excessive actions and unsettled feelings were ‘love for Mitchell’, everything fell into place. I didn’t want to admit it, but I had to. Even my strange behavior up until now finally made sense.
Since I had already decided to accept it, the period of denial of our relationship wasn’t long.
Knowing each other’s house passcodes, and Mitchell touching my body, it all makes sense if we were lovers. It felt like finding a missing piece of why my heart was only directed towards Mitchell.
“Lovers?”
But there was something off about Mitchell’s clearly smug expression. I had a bad feeling. Surely not…
“We weren’t lovers though.”
“But, but you just said that in the past, before I lost my memory, I loved you.”
“You loved me. But I didn’t. It was only you. That’s why you crawled into my bed every day. Of course, that’s partly my fault for giving you the passcode.”
My open mouth couldn’t close. What was surprising was that I couldn’t say there was no way that could have happened.
I might have been tempted by Mitchell’s bed. Just imagining lying next to him made my body boil. Actually imagining what I hadn’t dared to think about on my own until now, I wanted to do it so badly.
“By the way, I’m not gay.”
At the words that our feelings weren’t mutual, it felt like the world was ending. It seems my past self had quite a hard time with unrequited love.
I wonder if I forcibly tied up the memories of my unhappy self that I wanted to protect. Out of pity for myself.
Since the intense emotions of unrequited love had flown away with my memory loss, I could save face from his declaration. If it had been the past that I can’t remember, I might have sat down and wailed for him to love me, but fortunately, I didn’t do such a thing. Now I just felt a bit of tightness in my chest.
“Did I confess to you?”
“You did. Countless times. You didn’t care about the place.”
“…It must have been troublesome. I’m sorry.”
Mitchell laughed. For some reason, his eyebrow raised on one side looked annoyingly smug.
“Don’t come to the filming location anymore.”
It sounded like he was telling me not to love him anymore. So I couldn’t answer. I thought we were just close, I never imagined our relationship was this extremely bad.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
