Se-min turned away and gave himself a brisk face wash. His head was foggy. He rubbed his feverish skin with his palms until it hurt, and that seemed to bring him back a bit. Drawing a deep breath, he closed his eyes.
A few seconds later, when he opened them again, the flush on his face had faded a great deal.
“…Hyung, that’s not what we were talking about.”
His voice had settled, and he pointed it out plainly.
The original topic had slipped by because he’d been too stunned by Cha-hyeon’s sudden confession. He meant why, after he’d explained it several times, Cha-hyeon still wouldn’t believe him—and why he’d gone and told that ridiculous lie on live TV, making the mess almost impossible to clean up.
The soft curl at the corner of Cha-hyeon’s mouth slackened. He wore a faintly indifferent look again, but his voice stayed gentle.
“Topic?”
“Hyung, we’re not dating.”
Cha-hyeon only looked at him in silence. Something in Se-min’s chest grew tight, and he kept going.
“I told you more than once. About what you remember….”
“Ahh, so Se-min doesn’t date the person he kisses, rubs cocks with, and has sex with.”
That cutting jab left him genuinely flustered.
“N-no, hyung! What the—!”
“You fucked your hyung-ah and bolted?”
The fabrication flowed as easily as breathing, and the description was brazenly explicit. Before he knew it, Se-min hopped in place, his face blazing red. Watching him stammer and flail, Cha-hyeon’s smile returned.
If it had happened between ordinary people, sure, Se-min might’ve thought they were “a thing.” But what happened the day before had been guiding as a pair guide. He’d mixed in a little personal feeling, yes, but he’d still done it hoping the unwell Cha-hyeon would feel better.
“Hyung! Guiding and that are different! And the fact is, we’re not even dating—no, you went on live broadcast and said we were without defining anything! You’ve got the order of things backward…!”
“Is that really so important to you, Se-min? Picking apart the order of something that’s already happened?”
Tilting his head, Cha-hyeon peered up at him with droopy, mournful eyes. The pitiful act was shameless to the point of audacity.
Yet it worked on Se-min better than on anyone. Face flushed, he just opened and closed his mouth, unable to string words together.
“Do you not like your Hyung, Se-min?”
He’d never once heard the man refer to himself in the third person as “hyung-ah,” yet the man in front of him breezily called himself “Cha-hyeon hyung-ah” and pretended to be dejected.
It felt like being tempered by plunges from hot water to cold. No matter how he tried to keep calm, his long-time crush kept dropping bigger bombs, and Se-min couldn’t get his head straight.
“You’re the one who made me misunderstand first, aren’t you? You said we were lovers who’d promised to marry. I was so happy—you’ve no idea how fluttery I felt.”
Now it felt wrong even to bring up that, back then, he hadn’t realized Hyung had lost his memory. His head swam, hazy as if he’d caught a fever.
Struck speechless, he could only tense his wobbling legs to stay on his feet. Watching him, Cha-hyeon’s expression sank a notch at steady intervals, like an actor hitting his marks.
“…Yeah. Got it.”
At the final mark, his face turned stricken. In a voice thick with gloom, he said,
“I’ll do a correction interview.”
“…What?”
At last, a strangled reply slipped out. Playing at contrition, Cha-hyeon murmured with shameless ease,
“I guess you don’t feel the same way…. You want me to say we’re not dating.”
As if that’s even possible! The urge to grab the collar of the man spouting such unrealistic, childish nonsense surged up, and Se-min had to choke it down.
If he actually did that, it wouldn’t just make Hyung look a little ridiculous—it’d be worse. The only way to explain things without making him look too foolish was to reveal the amnesia, but that had been off the table from the start. They’d already agreed to bury the fact that Cha-hyeon had lost his memory, and they couldn’t drag it out just to correct a dating rumor.
“No, Hyung… how would that even work….”
He took a steadying breath and clenched his teeth. The corners of “pitiful” Hyung’s mouth twitched in a telling way. He was more infuriating than ever, but forcing himself to be reasonable, Se-min worked hard to persuade him.
“Let’s say what you said in the interview can’t be taken back…. You’ll regret this once your memory returns!”
Right. What he’d said on live TV was already done. Time couldn’t be rewound, and, frankly, even if they tried to explain, a South Korea as giddy as if it were declaring a national holiday wouldn’t bother to listen.
Because he loved him so much, Se-min could accept the misunderstanding that they were lovers if it kept Hyung from being laughed at. It wasn’t all that different from the misunderstandings he’d been enduring anyway.
But his memory would come back someday. Se-min believed that firmly. And when Hyung regained his memories of him… odds were high he’d scramble to fix the mess of having publicly declared that someone he’d treated like a real dongsaeng was actually his lover.
He couldn’t now confess the amnesia he’d once concealed. The neatest fix would be to say they’d broken up and gone back to being close hyung and dongsaeng, and that felt unfair to Se-min.
Sure, later they could reveal, “Actually, he had amnesia back then,” but that, too, felt miserable. Lovers while the memories were gone, then back to hyung and dongsaeng once he’s fine again? It’d be ridiculous for both of them.
One way or another, he’d end up the guy who got dumped by someone he hadn’t even been dating. And by the person he’d loved for so long, at that.
It was a dilemma. No matter what he chose, it would just be a headache with no clean resolution. In that case, wouldn’t it be less unfair to stay lovers—at least while Hyung’s memory was gone?
…Ah. Would it?
Caught in that thought for a beat, he quickly shook his head. He wouldn’t deny he’d wavered for a second, but this still wasn’t right. Taking advantage of Hyung’s memory loss to satisfy his own desires? That’d be out of his mind.
…Or would it? Hyung was the one who set this in motion—was it really right for him alone to cling to conscience and propriety?
Besides, even if his memory returned later, Cha-hyeon would have an excuse. He could say it was because “I didn’t remember.”
But all Se-min would get was Hyung’s apology, if that. Despite his cool exterior, Cha-hyeon had a soft heart; he might distance himself out of guilt.
Of course, after getting his memories back, Hyung might try to make it right not by restoring the old status quo but by taking responsibility for what he’d done. And Se-min could hold on—say, If you don’t want to end it, then take responsibility. If it came to that, there was a good chance Cha-hyeon would stay on as his lover. In name only, though.
But could a relationship maintained to manage guilt ever be happy? Clinging to a bond that should’ve ended long ago, wouldn’t they end up spoiling even their fond memories until they were sick of each other? Wouldn’t it be even more miserable to have daily proof that while Cha-hyeon was at his side, love wasn’t?
His face went pale, then flushed, and, suddenly crushed by a sense of injustice, he started tallying things up, rubbing at his temples with a heavy sigh.
“You’re saying I’ll regret it when my memory comes back?”
Lost in his heated calculus, he jolted at the voice. Sitting perfectly straight, not a twitch out of place, Cha-hyeon curved his lips slightly.
“Who knows. You’re not me, so you can’t know whether I’ll regret it. And… it’s possible my memory never comes back, you know?”
He sounded utterly nonchalant, as if it were someone else’s problem. Yes, the blank might never fill in, but did people say that about themselves? He even looked like he wouldn’t have many regrets if it did happen. Mouth ajar and wheezing, Se-min finally managed to counter,
“No…! It will come back! Of course it will. I mean, you—how much you….”
You thought of me like a real dongsaeng. If you even crossed the line and dated me, you’d definitely beat yourself up later. …Though maybe you wouldn’t….
“Why should I sit around waiting for that guy—Sung Cha-hyeon—to get his memory back? I’ll regret it if it returns? At the very least, the me right now doesn’t regret it. When’s it supposed to come back, and why should I talk like that based on that? You’re only thinking about a ‘what if’ future, right now, Se-min.”
His head kept insisting this was wrong, but his heart kept yielding. Se-min’s pupils trembled.
“What if I’m the same ten years from now? What then? Are you still going to be like, ‘When Hyung’s memory returns, I’ll regret it…’ even then?”
His throat bobbed. The worry crept in—what if Hyung’s memory really didn’t return for a long time?
Would Cha-hyeon keep insisting that whole time that they were lovers engaged to be married, and would they keep squabbling over whether they were dating or not? And what if, being the type to just do it once he’d decided, Hyung suddenly announced their marriage?
…That kind of sounded nice?
No, that was insane, wasn’t it? For a split second, he wanted to slug himself. In a coaxing murmur aimed at a wavering heart, Cha-hyeon said,
“If you’re convinced I’ll regret it no matter what, isn’t it better to go all in and then regret it?”
Clenching both fists, Se-min drew ragged breaths. His tightly pressed lips twisted with helpless resentment.
Damn it… should I?
