Chapter 92: The Weight of a Packed Suitcase

“When… did you wake up?”

“A little while ago.”

Seon Woo-jung’s gaze, accompanied by his unenthusiastic reply, was fixed on the solitary suitcase nestled in the corner of the dressing room.

A fleeting thought crossed my mind: ‘I needed to conceal it from him.’ However, it was already too late.

Seon Woo-jung walked past my frozen form and stood before the suitcase. He nudged it once with his foot, then, noticing it was packed, let out a short, cynical laugh.

“All your bags are packed… You were ready to leave, weren’t you?”

He kicked the suitcase again, pushing it completely into the corner, before turning back to me. The moment I saw his face, devoid of any humor and contorted in a grimace, my heart plummeted.

“My, that bag is heavy.”

“Jung-ah, that’s—”

“Were you planning to leave while I was asleep?”

“No, I wasn’t going to…”

“Then what is this?”

Cutting off my faltering words, Seon Woo-jung gestured towards the suitcase with his chin. Anyone could see it was packed for departure, leading him to believe I was lying.

“Perhaps I should have just slept more soundly, without noticing anything? That way, you could have left with a lighter heart, couldn’t you?”

His sarcastic words choked me. I wanted to cry, but knowing I didn’t even deserve that, I swallowed the surging emotions and forced myself to speak.

“It’s true I packed my bags to leave. But not right now.”

“You packed your bags, and now your mind has changed?”

“I know it’s hard to believe. I know all of it, but…”

His cold reaction choked me. I needed to continue speaking, but I simply couldn’t, so I ultimately bowed my head and sobbed silently.

“…Are you crying?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Liar.”

A large hand cupped my cheek, and his thick thumb gently rubbed my reddened eyelids. As if a switch had been flipped, the tears I had been holding back began to stream down.

“I’m the one who wants to cry. What good have you done to be shedding tears?”

“I’m sorry, *hic*, I’m so sorry—”

“Stop apologizing. I don’t want to hear it anymore.”

Though his tone remained cold, the hand caressing my face was infinitely tender. His hand was, as always, warm.

“Is asking you to stay by my side such a difficult request? What exactly do I have to do to make you not leave? If it couldn’t happen when I was Seon Woo-jung, and it can’t happen when I’m Han Jung-woo… then who do I have to become now?”

Looking back, every reason I fell in love with Han Jung-woo was you. It was because he shared your appearance, because I saw traces of you in him, and because being with him constantly reminded me of you.

I had tried to love Han Jung-woo, not Seon Woo-jung, precisely because you weren’t here. Yet, in the end, I had been drawn only to you, and loved only you, from the very beginning until now.

Foolish as I was, I hadn’t recognized you immediately. But whether you were Seon Woo-jung, Han Jung-woo, or even someone else entirely, I would ultimately fall in love with you.

That much, I could be absolutely certain of.

“I won’t ask for much. Just… let me stay by your side. That’s all I need; I won’t even ask for your heart—”

“I don’t like that.”

At his firm refusal, Seon Woo-jung’s eyes widened and wavered. Before his hesitant hand could fully withdraw from my cheek, I caught it again.

Then, I moved even closer, stepping toward him until our faces were directly aligned, and spoke my true feelings—feelings I would no longer conceal.

“You can ask for more. I’ll do everything you want, I’ll do anything for you…”

“…Hyung.”

“Jung-ah, ask more of me. Keep holding onto me.”

When I first arrived here, it was difficult to accept that no one in this world saw me as Yoo Joon-hee anymore.

Though I had gained a new life, living as Yoo Seo-jin felt like being eternally abandoned in a play without a director to call ‘cut.’

So, I chose to blend in among strangers, and there, to some extent, I lived a life as both Yoo Seo-jin and Yoo Joon-hee.

But Seon Woo-jung was different. He had completely abandoned his life as Seon Woo-jung, the one I had forsaken, and chosen to become Han Jung-woo just to return to me.

All because of me. What am I, to deserve such devotion?

“This time, I’ll never let you go. If you leave me again like before, I’ll follow you without hesitation.”

Even his chilling warning sounded like a plea directed at me. He was begging me to help him avoid making such a choice.

I rose on my tiptoes and kissed him first. We had already been intimate, and I even carried his child, yet a single kiss made Seon Woo-jung incredibly flustered.

“I’m sorry. For hurting you, for causing you pain, for making things difficult for you, for abandoning you.”

He listened silently to my heartfelt apology, then slowly nodded. He tried to smile, pretending to be fine, but stumbled as if broken.

“Ah, this—”

Realizing the tears streaming down his face, he faltered in confusion. I pulled him into an embrace as he tried to pull away, telling him to stay by my side.

Seeing the sincerity in my eyes, his face contorted as if he were about to cry, before he finally broke into a wide smile. His expression was so beautiful, yet so heart-wrenching, that I, too, smiled softly in return.

****

“So, how did you come to know Jung Hee-soo?”

After taking a moment to compose myself, I wanted to completely clear the last obstacle remaining between us.

While the anxieties about fate and such were gone, Jung Hee-soo’s name, saved on his phone, still lingered unpleasantly in my mind.

“Well—”

“Tell me honestly.”

After some hesitation, he finally met my gaze, as if having made a decision. In his eyes, calm as a lake, not a shred of deceit could be seen.

“When I opened my eyes, I was in a hospital room. Actually, it wasn’t the first time something like this had happened, so… I thought someone had saved me again.”

“Not the first time?”

“I told you, I wasn’t in my right mind.”

He cupped my cheek, which was contorting in despair, and gently reassured me, urging me to hear him out first. I suppressed the tears threatening to fall and continued to listen to his words.

“It was truly frustrating, but everyone kept calling me Han Jung-woo. That’s when I vaguely realized it: I had become Han Jung-woo.”

I remembered. The day Han Jung-woo had an accident that wasn’t in the drama. Seon Woo-jung must have arrived here around then.

“As you know, it was very confusing. It took me quite a while to accept the situation. About a month, I think. I was completely dazed until I heard news about Yoo Seo-jin—no, about you.”

“What news?”

“News that you left Han Jung-woo without a trace of regret and went far away?”

Just as I, playing Yoo Seo-jin, had come to know Han Jung-woo well, Seon Woo-jung, playing Han Jung-woo, also knew Yoo Seo-jin well.

He found it puzzling that the original Yoo Seo-jin would have surely exploited Han Jung-woo’s vulnerability, yet I had left without a backward glance. That’s why he began tracking my movements from then on.

“Starting with you, I was investigating Jung Hee-soo, Yeon Jae-hyun, and all the characters who appeared in the drama.”

“All the characters in the drama?”

I was simply astonished to hear that he was individually investigating well over a hundred people by a rough count.

“The only people I met in person were you and Jung Hee-soo. If either of you had changed, I wouldn’t have failed to recognize it.”

“So, did you find out?”

“Yes, I found out that you had come here.”

After concluding his not-so-brief investigation, his conclusion was that only two people had come to this place.

Han Jung-woo and Yoo Seo-jin—just the two of them.

“Then, you did end up meeting Jung Hee-soo?”

“Well, having one or two conversations doesn’t mean you know everything about a person.”

Noticing the sharpness in my voice, Seon Woo-jung quickly offered an excuse. Though it sounded ridiculous, he showed me his phone, claiming he hadn’t met them since and had long deleted their contact information.

“Do you believe me now?”

A slight feeling of unease lingered, but now, even that didn’t matter. I replaced my answer with a nod, then burrowed into Seon Woo-jung’s embrace and took a deep breath.

‘Why hadn’t I recognized this scent, so reminiscent of a cold winter? It was the perfume he used so often.’

“When did you become certain it was me?”

“The day you were drunk, you called my name.”

I remembered it vividly. The day he had returned but briefly left, and I, completely inebriated, had cried miserably while calling his name until I blacked out.

“Who is this ‘Jung’ person?”

How much trouble I’d gone through, avoiding that repeated question. Yet, he said he only wanted to confirm that I was truly me.

“I must have seemed like such a fool.”

“Well, a little.”

Seon Woo-jung chuckled playfully and flicked my forehead with his finger. When I narrowed my eyes, feigning pain, he pressed his lips to my throbbing forehead, apologizing.

“You wouldn’t know how overwhelmed I felt then.”

Holding me in his arms, he exhaled a trembling breath. Against my ear, his heart pounded, its beat quickening steadily.

“Thank you for being alive, even here.”

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