Chapter 41: The Decaying Symbiosis

Furthermore, Min Dong-wook, who had been beaten to a pulp by his half-brother with a golf club, was currently hospitalized. Despite the gravity of the situation, Madam Hwang—Dong-wook’s mother and the mistress of Seoil—remained strangely quiet. She likely viewed this as a windfall. In a family feud where the victim and perpetrator were clearly defined, she stood to lose nothing.

Junseong, having heard the general outline of the incident, finally spoke after a long silence.

“…And here I thought things had been quiet for a while.”

An overt sneer immediately followed.

“Hardly. Even now, he goes looking for that person every time night falls.”

At the mention of ‘him,’ Seonghye’s cheek twitched slightly. Junseong did not miss that subtle change.

The one thing this man, who had surgically severed his own emotions, could never cut away. No matter how hard he tried to hide it behind a chilling gaze or a twisted smile, the person who had permeated Seonghye’s entire being like oxygen had not left him once in the last three years. More accurately, he had never been forgotten.

Though his red lips still held a mocking curl, a longing he couldn’t hide scattered like fallen petals within his shadowed eyes.

Watching Seonghye’s face in silence, Junseong felt a bitter taste in his mouth and clicked his tongue softly.

The two personalities residing in one body shared nothing—not their speech, expressions, tastes, hobbies, or habits. And yet…

“You said neither you nor the other guy had seen him even once since you parted three years ago.”

Yet for a long time, they had both wandered, as if pulled by a massive gravitational force, searching for that one man.

As the one who had conducted Seonghye’s therapy over the years, Junseong often wondered how both personalities had come to accept nothing less than total submission to a single man.

The only thing he could gather through their sessions was that the encounter three years ago had shaken both personalities to their very roots. Now, like uprooted trees, they were desperately searching for their soil so they could take root once more. That was all.

Just as the atmosphere grew suffocating from the weight of their blind obsession, the sound of rain began to tap against the window, shifting the mood.

Shhhhhhh—

“…Sigh.”

A low sigh escaped Junseong’s lips. He shook his head and spoke in a weary voice.

“The time of coexistence has been too long. No, no. This isn’t coexistence or symbiosis or anything of the sort.”

He broke off, his brow furrowing. Setting aside his professional medical opinion for a moment, he spat out a cold, realistic observation.

“The lingering attachment you can’t let go of… no. I see it more as the ‘Past.'”

“The past, you say?”

The response was icy. A deep chill began to swirl in Seonghye’s eyes.

Min Seonghye’s childhood was a study in stark contrasts.

His father, Chairman Min Seong-jo, had four children. Except for the eldest, Min Ho-kyung, the eldest son and second daughter were children of the second wife. However, after a woman who had been a researcher at Seoil Pharmaceuticals entered the household and gave birth to Seonghye, a violent storm erupted.

A son born late in the Chairman’s life was enough to overturn the family’s power structure, backed by the Chairman’s blind paternal devotion. No matter how much the other children struggled, the result was always the same.

Thus, the hierarchy was subverted. Madam Hwang and her children, whom everyone expected to draw their claws, were surprisingly quiet. They believed they held a different card.

Because the woman who gave birth to Min Seonghye—his mother—began to pour out her hatred for the Chairman and this entire household with every fiber of her being.

They believed the child would inevitably be destroyed by her screams, and that the old Chairman’s ugly “spark” would soon burn out.

And so, Min Seonghye grew up in the arms of a father who provided everything, yet every night, he hid deep inside his room to escape his mother’s seizures and shrieks, desperately waiting for the sun to rise.

The child, busy hiding from the resentment that haunted every corner of the house, struggled in a quagmire every single night.

Seonghye’s wish to somehow cast off the moments of agony became a desperate longing, and that longing became a fervent prayer…

Giving birth to a pair of crimson-stained eyes in the lightless darkness.

Seonghye continued in a clear, deliberate tone to Junseong.

“You’re wrong. That guy is nothing more than a long-festering trauma. To wrap it up in pretty words like ‘lingering attachment’ or ‘the past’ is beyond the pale now.”

A sense of disjointed disillusionment clung to his words. The night he had tried so hard to avoid. Min Seonghye thought that from the day he carved out that entire night and handed it over to the second persona, what began was not coexistence, but a mutual destruction.

As Junseong remained quiet, Seonghye turned his head toward the blinded window.

“I’m the one holding his leash, and from now on, I intend to domesticate him.”

The invisible leash pulled taut. The man, having established dominance through words, had no intention of showing mercy by loosening his grip.

Junseong rubbed his face roughly with his dry hands.

“So… you’re saying you’re going to force yourself to sleep during the hours he usually wakes up? The days are long lately, so you’d have to take the pills between 5:00 and 6:00 PM. How long do you think your body can endure that? If you develop a tolerance, it’s going to get messy.”

To completely silence his consciousness through sleeping pills—Junseong tilted his head, frowning.

Seonghye gestured with his chin toward the pill bottle.

“It’ll be quite a sight. I have never once stolen his time before.”

At that nonchalant answer, Junseong’s brow furrowed unpleasantly. Deciding it was time to pick up his medical professional’s mantle again, Junseong set his pen down on the chart and laced his fingers, staring at Seonghye. The atmosphere grew heavy again.

It had been eleven years since he discovered Min Seonghye’s ego was split in two. For those eleven years, the top medical teams gathered under Chairman Min had tried every possible treatment to integrate Seonghye’s personalities, failing every time. Yet, if there was one method they had strictly avoided—

Junseong hesitated before speaking.

“That kind of personality suppression comes with side effects. What I’m saying is, forcing sleep isn’t the solution. Even if your personalities are split based on sunset and sunrise, if you use drugs to arbitrarily shut down the hours after dusk, the second persona might wake up during your time instead.”

Instead of denying it, Seonghye reached out and took the pill bottle.

“It wouldn’t be bad to use this opportunity to find out for sure. Exactly who the master of this body is.”

“…No, that kind of extreme method is—”

Junseong’s persuasion—that it wasn’t good and they should reconsider—was cut short.

“I think my explanation was lacking. I am going to…”

The chilling gaze cut him off, turning the air between them into ice. Seonghye looked at Junseong with a peculiar expression. He seemed to deliberate for a moment, sweeping his tongue over the inside of his mouth, before speaking in a flat, monotone voice.

“I am going to kill him, even if I have to force him to sleep forever.”

Regardless of Seonghye’s decision, Junseong’s consultations continued. In the sessions held twice a week, Junseong found no particular anomalies, and Min Seonghye participated with his usual indifferent gaze.

As the cold winter began to fade, a hint of warmth entered the wind. It was around the time white magnolias were planted as landscaping at the entrance of the building where the clinic was located.

It had been less than two months since Seonghye had taken the pills.

Early on a weekend morning, a call came from Chief Choi.

[Kim-seonsaeng, come to Seonghye’s house immediately.]

Amidst their conversation, the voices of third parties could be heard intermittently. As unfamiliar voices began reciting medical terms used only when checking a patient, Junseong’s lips tightened.

Though the call was practically a one-sided command, Junseong headed to Seonghye’s residence without hesitation. Throughout the taxi ride, his mouth felt dry and his fingertips cramped. He managed to tuck away his rising anxiety, but upon arrival, he found the house—which servants hadn’t entered for days—in shambles.

Chief Choi stood blocking the door to Seonghye’s room and spoke to Junseong.

“He’s been sleeping for three days straight. Professor Jang says it’s temporary hypersomnia, but I found something strange on Seonghye’s desk today.”

Thud. A pill bottle hit Junseong’s chest and fell, rolling between the two men before coming to a weak stop.

“Since when?”

Junseong’s face turned cold. He reached down and picked up the bottle; it was empty and light.

“…It’s likely been two months.”

When Chief Choi’s face contorted in anger, Junseong added quickly:

“And I didn’t give him these. It’s true Seonghye asked me for sleeping pills, but at the time, what I handed him were just ordinary vitamins.”

“…What?”

Junseong’s brow furrowed. He had indeed given Seonghye pills two months ago, but as he just said, they were only vitamins. Since Seonghye hadn’t mentioned the pills afterward, Junseong hadn’t reacted, choosing instead to simply keep a close watch on him.