Chapter 38: The Love He Could No Longer Remember

It would be a lie to say there had never been moments when Doyoon irritated him as a friend.

But those moments were little more than jokes.

Lee Doyoon had always been kind to everyone.

Though he drew clear boundaries with most people, his kindness came naturally.

“Why did you come in the rain?

If you didn’t have an umbrella, you could’ve called me…”

“…Doyoon.”

“What did you go out to buy?”

“Chocolate…”

There was Doyoon.

Standing before him was Choi Haesu, drenched from head to toe.

Seha turned at the familiar voice and immediately frowned.

Judging by his expression, Doyoon wasn’t in a good mood either.

He didn’t like the state Haesu was in.

He should take off those rain-soaked clothes immediately and warm himself up.

Even then, Seha wasn’t sure if it would ease the discomfort he felt.

He couldn’t even guess how long Haesu had stood beneath the cold rain.

One small pale hand tightly gripped the thing he had gone through all that trouble to buy.

The chocolate wrapper was crumpled beyond recognition in Haesu’s hand.

He was holding it so tightly that even Doyoon looked awkward when he reached out to take it.

Does he like that?

Coincidentally, it was the same kind of chocolate Seha liked.

The realization brought him an odd sense of pleasure.

A tiny happiness nobody else would understand.

And then Seha saw it.

Without hesitation, Doyoon raised a hand and brushed the rainwater from Haesu’s hair.

“Ah, I’m kind of dirty right now.

I ran all the way here, so I’m sweaty too…

Don’t touch me.”

“I don’t mind.

Actually, I’d rather you changed clothes first.

Take off the wet ones…”

Seha watched Doyoon’s profile.

A man looked as though the world had ended simply because someone got caught in the rain.

Was all that really necessary?

People got caught in the rain.

People forgot umbrellas.

Yet Doyoon looked genuinely heartbroken over it.

Watching him, Seha felt that his own pity for Haesu amounted to nothing.

Just moments ago, Seha himself had been thinking how pitiful Haesu looked.

But now he found himself thinking differently.

The feeling was strange.

And unpleasant.

It filled his head with thoughts he didn’t need.

Like branches sprouting from a tree that had once stood bare.

The things filling Seha’s mind were ugly.

Pathetic.

Messy images of the three of them.

All centered around a single person.

If possible, Seha hoped he was wrong.

There was nothing good about being right.

After all, one of the people standing over there was his closest friend.

“Eat the chocolate later.

Come with me and change your clothes first.”

“……”

“Come on.

I’ll beg the nurses for a hospital gown if I have to.”

They said this was the person Kwon Seha had loved before losing his memories.

The person so precious that he would have thrown away his own life without hesitation in any emergency.

The person he treasured more than anything.

And yet, the chocolate Haesu had held so tightly was eventually taken from him.

By Lee Doyoon.

Not by anyone else.

Only by Doyoon.

The two of them, unaware of Seha’s presence, gradually disappeared into the distance.

When Haesu turned toward Doyoon, Seha could see half of his face.

He was already pale enough as it was.

Just as Doyoon said, changing clothes should have been his priority.

Yet Haesu still seemed intent on stopping him.

Did he have something he needed to do?

The only reason Haesu came to this hospital was because of Kwon Seha.

Perhaps he had wanted to visit Seha’s room.

Still, avoiding a cold came first.

Standing expressionless, Seha eventually turned and walked away.

He was too tired to continue thinking about it.

Still…

It seemed many people had loved him.

Lee Doyoon, who had somehow endured maintaining this strange balance despite everything.

And the old Kwon Seha, who had almost certainly ignored Doyoon’s feelings without hesitation.

Kwon Seha looked into mirrors quite often.

The only way to lessen the sense of alienation caused by everything that no longer matched his memories was to stare long enough for it to feel familiar.

Though he never voiced them aloud, Seha had asked himself the same questions countless times.

Most of them were trivial.

How old was the person in the mirror?

What did he do for a living?

Where did he live now?

Questions like that.

The answers always belonged to Kwon Seha’s past.

Still in his mid-twenties.

Still more of a company employee than anything else.

He had lived with his grandfather all his life.

And unless the house had somehow collapsed, he was probably still living there now.

To Seha, events that had actually happened years ago felt like the recent past.

It wasn’t surprising.

His memories had practically been cut away.

Whenever he realized that the time he remembered and the time that had actually passed were different, Seha suffered.

The fact that he remembered none of the experiences this body had clearly lived through was harder to bear than he had expected.

Among all those things, the most painful was Choi Haesu.

The person whom Kwon Seha—his former self—had loved still stood right beside him.

Yet Seha felt nothing.

No affection.

No longing.

That was both natural and unnatural at the same time.

“Mr. Choi Haesu.”

“Yes?”

Even when he looked into those damp eyes, all Seha felt was guilt.

Regret.

Sympathy.

Results he could do nothing about.

As expected.

To Kwon Seha, Choi Haesu was a complete stranger.

Without memories, they were nothing.

Sometimes, when Haesu wasn’t around, Seha would open a drawer and face the version of Haesu that existed only in memories he no longer possessed.

There were photographs.

Various objects that clearly didn’t match Seha’s personal tastes.

More than anything, the photographs forced him to acknowledge the truth.

His eyes were always drawn first to one face.

A clear, gentle face.

And beside it stood Kwon Seha.

No matter where.

No matter when.

They looked happy.

Painfully happy.

“Why do you love me that much?”

The question almost felt meaningless.

The photographs alone proved how deeply they had loved each other.

The frozen moments captured everything.

He knew that.

And yet he still asked.

Even knowing it would hurt Haesu.

“Are you staying because I protected you during the accident?

Because I used my body to save you?”

Maybe things would’ve been better if you had loved someone else.

Once again, Seha found himself pushing responsibility elsewhere.

Even that thought crossed his mind.

“If that’s the reason, then I wanted to tell you that you don’t have to.

I don’t remember any of it.

So honestly, I’m not even that upset.”

Haesu looked like the sort of person who would be loved wherever he went.

Yet he remained here, unable to move forward.

It was foolish.

Even if he looked beside him right now, there was someone better than the current Kwon Seha.

Someone far better.

Far better than a man who had lost his memories and turned Haesu’s incredible love into something pitiful.

As he spoke, Seha’s composed features twisted slightly.

“I just…”

“……”

“I don’t love you anymore, Mr. Choi Haesu.”

Even as he said it, he felt his jaw stiffen.

No matter what, Kwon Seha was still human.

And imagining the expression on Haesu’s face frightened him.

“You’ve done enough, Haesu.”

The listener remained silent for a very long time.

Several weeks had passed since Seha woke up and they stopped being lovers.

During that time, Haesu continued visiting him.

Yet they barely spoke.

Haesu never asked questions.

Neither did Seha.

They wasted time remarkably well.

Whenever he came, Haesu would stare at Seha with vacant eyes.

He would open familiar drawers and rummage through familiar belongings.

The thing he searched for was called memory.

Seha hated that look.

He hated the anxiety that rose whenever Haesu failed to find what he was looking for.

The disappointment he might eventually feel.

He hated it.

“I’m sorry for forgetting our time together.”

“……”

“I’m truly sorry.”

As Seha spoke, small hands instinctively pressed against different parts of his body.

His thin forearm.

His shoulder.

Then, having nowhere else to go, the hand slowly curled into a fist.

His body trembled.

Though the room was neither cold nor hot.

Apparently, Seha’s words had struck directly into the ear that still worked.

“Ah…”

Choi Haesu looked like someone who had lost something precious from the top of his desk.

Someone who searched desperately and couldn’t find it.

Someone who eventually broke down crying from the sadness.

A restrained groan escaped him.

His thin back shook.

His gloomy face twisted before tears finally spilled onto his pale cheeks.

His eyes seemed to demand something.

His body.

His feelings.

And eventually, Kwon Seha himself.

The gaze piercing through him demanded all of it.

Like a desperate struggle to reclaim something that belonged to him.

A plea to give it back.

Seha had nothing he could give.

Nothing that Haesu wanted.

For a moment, he felt suffocated.

Watching him was painful.

Watching him cry.

Watching him collapse in despair after looking at Seha’s face.

“Mr. Choi Haesu.

Please stop.”

Half of those words were directed at himself.

A warning.

At this rate, he felt as though he might reach out to Haesu.

The unpleasant sensation made him frown.

He hurriedly urged Haesu to leave.

“And could you leave now?”

“……”

“Take care of yourself.

And make sure you eat properly.”

He offered a farewell to someone who couldn’t even wipe away his tears.

It sounded like a request.

But anyone listening would have recognized it as an order.

Strangely, it felt as though the fog clouding his mind had finally lifted.

Only now did Seha realize that perhaps he had simply grown exhausted from those eyes that constantly searched through him.

Letting out a quiet sigh, he finally understood.

Haesu’s trembling legs lifted a body that looked incapable of supporting even its own weight.

After stumbling once or twice, he turned his back on Seha.

“…Then get some rest.”

That was the last time.

After that day, Choi Haesu stopped spending meaningless hours in Kwon Seha’s hospital room.

There were moments when Seha felt strangely empty.

But only for a little while.

Kwon Seha wanted a life that remained under his own control.

Even if the powerful pull he felt whenever he looked at Choi Haesu made every part of him react.

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