He felt uneasy about leaving Bae Jung-yoon alone in the hospital room, but it wasn’t easy to turn down a meal invitation from an elder. Telling himself he’d eat quickly and head right back, Go Hoon followed the two men.
They traveled by car and arrived at a quiet Korean restaurant. It seemed a reservation had been made—the table was already set.
Go Hoon had assumed that the sharp-looking man with the composed demeanor would be joining them for the meal, but when it came time to sit, only he and the elderly gentleman took seats. The man must have been the chairman’s personal secretary.
“Go ahead, eat.”
As Go Hoon stood hesitantly, the old man picked up his chopsticks and gestured for him to begin. He gave a nod and started eating.
Silence hung heavy in the private dining room. It was an uncomfortable quiet, but Go Hoon wasn’t the type to butter up those in higher positions. He had no choice but to quietly match the man’s stillness.
After they had eaten a fair amount, a server came in and set down two cups of warm tea before exiting.
“I heard you were in an accident with my grandson.”
The man spoke as though he had been waiting for the right moment. At first, Go Hoon didn’t quite grasp what he meant. Accident? What accident? But then it clicked, and he let out a soft sigh.
“You mean the fall during the MT trip?”
“That’s right.”
“Yes. It just… sort of happened.”
Bae Jung-yoon had been hurt trying to save him.
Looking back, Jung-yoon had saved his life more times than he could count—during the Park Ki-cheol incident, during the MT trip, even now…
He always acted cautious with his body, but whenever something truly unexpected happened, he would throw himself headfirst into danger—like someone who didn’t value his own life at all.
“I asked the school to handle it appropriately. Did everything get resolved?”
Handled appropriately, he said. At last, the puzzle pieces fell into place. No wonder the school had so easily agreed to cover the hospital bills—now it made sense. The old man in front of him must’ve intervened behind the scenes.
“Thanks to you, yes. Everything was handled properly.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
The man gave a small, quiet nod. It didn’t seem like he was bringing it up to flaunt his influence. He appeared genuinely concerned.
Still, this couldn’t be the reason Go Hoon had been brought here. They wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble just for a few questions.
“What exactly is your relationship with my grandson?”
So this was it. The real reason.
The question hit directly. Go Hoon paused for a moment, then finally opened his mouth.
“We’re classmates in the same department.”
He racked his brain for the most appropriate answer. The only thing that mattered was avoiding any harm to Bae Jung-yoon. He didn’t want his grandfather to misunderstand either. So Go Hoon deliberately lied.
“Just classmates?”
“Yes.”
“So you’re saying there’s nothing special between you two.”
“…Right.”
The moment the words left his mouth, a sharp jolt of pain shot through him just below the tailbone. His lower half, still swollen from having sex with Bae Jung-yoon, seemed to scream in protest. As if to say, Seriously? After what you did together, that’s the answer you give?
Bae Jung-yoon’s grandfather remained silent for a while.
“Don’t try to lie to me.”
Then his sharp gaze locked onto Go Hoon.
“There’s no way Jung-yoon would act that way over someone he didn’t care about.”
Clearly, he didn’t believe him. In fact, it seemed he already had a solid idea of what kind of relationship they had.
“What exactly did he do?”
Go Hoon didn’t flinch. He asked calmly. What on earth had Jung-yoon done to provoke this reaction?
The man replied in a steady, detached tone.
“He became incredibly sensitive about you.”
But that word—sensitive—hardly seemed to cover it. The man shook his head, lips pressed tightly together.
“For four days, he was completely out of his mind. He’s my grandson, but I can’t describe it any other way.”
Too afraid to ask further, Go Hoon said nothing. But the man wasn’t finished.
“He caused a scene, saying he had to find someone named ‘Go Hoon.’”
Go Hoon’s fingers trembled before he realized it. While he had been missing, Jung-yoon must’ve been desperately searching for him—in his own way.
A heaviness settled in his chest. As he nervously fidgeted with the hot teacup in his hands, Jung-yoon’s grandfather took a leisurely sip of tea.
“These days, he’s been acting out more and more. For a while, it looked like he was calming down… but no longer.”
Go Hoon couldn’t find any words. Somehow, everything felt like his fault. He sat there silently, like someone on trial. Then the old man spoke again.
“The reason I brought you here today is to tell you a story.”
“…What kind of story?”
“A story about my grandson. More precisely—about his family.”
A story about Bae Jung-yoon. His family background.
Go Hoon remained silent, simply meeting the man’s gaze. The elder returned the look calmly. His pitch-black eyes—so strikingly similar to Jung-yoon’s—held emotion, unlike the cold, unreadable gaze Go Hoon was used to seeing.
“Can I trust you to keep this to yourself?”
He likely meant: Don’t go talking about this elsewhere.
Go Hoon hesitated. If he shook his head now, would that mean he wouldn’t have to hear it?
Maybe this was Pandora’s box. After all, knowing everything isn’t always a blessing. If opening this up would only create more trouble, maybe it was better left alone.
But curiosity clawed at him. You’ve always wanted to know more about Bae Jung-yoon, a voice whispered inside his head.
In the end, Go Hoon surrendered to that desire. He nodded.
With a composed expression, the old man began to speak.
“You’ve probably realized by now that my grandson… has issues.”
“Yes. I’m aware.”
Go Hoon responded without hesitation. He had seen enough to know Bae Jung-yoon couldn’t be described as normal.
“Has he ever talked about his family?”
“Only that his father left after a divorce… and his mother died in an accident.”
The man gave a knowing nod, then exhaled slowly.
“That wasn’t an accident.”
Not an accident? The meaning behind those words struck hard. Go Hoon glanced at him, puzzled, and the man clarified.
“My daughter… took her own life.”
…That couldn’t be. That wasn’t what Bae Jung-yoon had told him. Jung-yoon had said it was an accident.
Could it be that he didn’t know? That the trauma had altered his memory of the event?
Questions piled up inside, but Go Hoon stayed quiet, waiting for the man to go on.
He drew in a deep breath, as if bracing for a long confession, then began.
“I first realized something was wrong with my daughter when she was five. It had only been about a week since she started kindergarten. Her teacher called us and said she never smiled. She suggested—very gently—that we consider psychological counseling.”
“……”
“At the time, I was so consumed with work, I had no real grasp of her condition. I just thought—maybe she’s less expressive than other kids. That’s all. But I couldn’t ignore the warning. I asked my wife to come with me to take her to a hospital. But she refused. Maybe… she just couldn’t accept that her daughter might have a problem.”
His gaze darkened as the story continued, but he pushed forward, as if carrying a burden he’d carried alone for years.
“We disagreed on everything. I insisted she needed psychiatric treatment. My wife shouted that she’d never allow her daughter to be sent to a mental hospital. We fought constantly. The conflict between us only grew. Eventually, our relationship began to crumble.”
“……”
“All the while, our daughter’s behavior got worse. She didn’t smile, didn’t cry, had no empathy whatsoever. She bullied other kids at kindergarten, made them cry—yet she was completely isolated, trapped in her own world. She wouldn’t let anyone near her. Not even us.
And still, my wife stubbornly insisted there was nothing wrong with her.”
“……”
“Watching them both… I was exhausted. I eventually made the decision to divorce. I promised generous support for her and the child, and walked away. I remarried and tried to start over—but I never had another child. Maybe it was fate. Maybe I wasn’t meant to rebuild a family after turning my back on the one I had.”
His voice remained even, but the cracks showed. His eyes trembled—just slightly, but unmistakably.
“Then one day, my daughter reached out. She hadn’t contacted me once in all those years. No pleasantries. She just told me her mother had died. Cancer had taken her.”
He paused to sip his tea, as though trying to loosen the knot in his throat.
“…At the funeral, I barely recognized her. She smiled gently and said, ‘You came?’ But in that moment… I was terrified. That coldness in her eyes, behind the smile—I felt like she might swallow me whole. I don’t even remember how I managed to say goodbye to my ex-wife. I ran from that place. After that, I never contacted her again.”
For a while, he simply stared into space. In his jet-black eyes flickered something—was it fear? Guilt?
“Then a few years later, the police called. They said my daughter’s car had crashed straight into a guardrail—with my grandson inside. And they told me… it looked intentional. That my daughter had tried to kill herself—and her own son.”
Go Hoon gripped the teacup tightly. His fingertips turned pale.
Bae Jung-yoon’s face rose in his mind without warning.
Jung-yoon had told him once—his mother suddenly wanted to go see the ocean that day, so he went with her.
What had he been thinking in that moment? What kind of mother and son were they, truly? He couldn’t pretend to understand.
Even as these thoughts filled his head, the old man continued.
“But it seems… her plan didn’t go as she intended. In the end, she was the only one who died. Even then, I wasn’t sure if I should take in the boy. I couldn’t decide if I was the right person to raise him. But the moment he opened his eyes in the hospital, and I heard what he said… that’s when I knew. I had to stay by his side until the day I died.”
The man stopped, as if expecting Go Hoon to speak.
But Go Hoon hesitated. He wasn’t sure what kind of answer awaited him. Still, something told him he had to ask—he needed to know.
“…What did Bae Jung-yoon say?”
And finally, Go Hoon asked the question.
The old man met his gaze and replied.
“‘Why am I still alive?’”
For a moment, Go Hoon forgot how to breathe. The words etched themselves into his mind.
And in that instant, something else came rushing back—what Jung-yoon had told him just a few hours ago.
“I won’t die.”
“I’ll never die and leave you behind, Hoon.”
It had sounded like a vow.
