PHUW 29

He was trying to slide out of it again. No matter how Haeri turned it over in his head, he couldn’t come up with a good answer. His appetite vanished.

“In that case, I’ll just say bye-bye here. Thanks for the steak. And for the clothes. I’ll leave the phone behind. I really appreciate everything until now. I’ll see you at the police station.”

He had his bankbook and card, so as long as the telecom store in the basement was still open, he could get a new phone. Haeri shot to his feet.

“Don’t go.”

Jeong Mok looked up, startled.

“Haeri-ya, wait. I think you’re misunderstanding something.”

“I’ll misunderstand, then.”

“Haeri-ya.”

Even the gentle call in that low voice no longer worked. He ignored the pounding in his chest from the tension and headed straight for the steakhouse entrance.

At the entrance, a staff member asked if he’d be paying. He almost assumed hyung-nim would cover it, but running out after getting luxury clothes and a free meal felt too much like being a punk. He’d gotten settlement money, so the least he could do was buy a meal. He reached into his pocket. It was empty.

“Huh? Where’s my card?”

Jeong Mok, who had walked over slowly, looked between the waiting staff and the flustered Haeri.

“They’re in the clothes you took off, with your bankbook.”

“Oh.”

He was done for. Those clothes were in Jeong Mok’s car. His temporary ID confirmation slip was in the bankbook too. He thought about asking for them back, but then he felt the staff’s curious gaze. He didn’t want to make a scene.

Jeong Mok guided the bewildered Haeri back to the table.

“You haven’t finished eating. Sit and let’s talk.”

“….”

He had never felt this humiliated. The world was far too rough to get by without a card or a bankbook. And even if he reapplied, how could he get to the district office and the bank at this hour? With no cash at all, he’d end up sleeping on the street.

Haeri reluctantly followed him back to the table, shoving both hands deep into his hoodie pocket to show he wasn’t happy. Considering all the care and gifts he’d received from Jeong Mok, it was rude. But until he knew the man’s real intentions, he couldn’t let his guard down. He was still an orphan with no one. He had to protect himself.

Jeong Mok sighed softly. He pulled his driver’s license from his wallet and held it out.

“Take a picture of this.”

“…What?”

What kind of performance was this now? Then Jeong Mok took out his phone, opened the camera app, took a photo of the license, and sent it over.

“I told you I work in construction, right? To be exact, I run an architectural office. It’s just me. I don’t usually go in and out of sites at dawn, but this one’s a building that’s been left alone for a while, so I’ve been keeping an eye on it.”

He handed over a business card. It really was from an architectural office.

“After we eat, let’s go straight to the accident site. The site foreman will vouch for me.”

“There’s no need to go that far.”

A bit of guilt slipped in through the reluctance.

“And the reason I want to get close to you…”

He took a sip of lukewarm sparkling water.

“I told you before, I had a friend who died.”

Was it that heavy a story that he had to bring up the dead? The mood instantly turned somber.

“Your late girlfriend?”

Jeong Mok smiled bitterly. He’d said Haeri resembled her. The mood at the already quiet table sank even deeper.

“You must have liked her a lot.”

“I loved her. Enough to wish I’d died in her place.”

The sorrow in his calm voice was all the heavier for its restraint. His gaze wandered the table as if lost. He tried to smile but his lips trembled as if it was too much. He looked so lonely and worn out that Haeri’s own eyes began to sting.

“When she died, I left that child alone because I said I was busy, even though she was sick.”

With a voice gone hoarse, Jeong Mok dragged a dry hand over his face, then lowered it.

“By the time I got back that night, I found her already cold.”

Oh. It could have been an accident, but from the sound of it, it was suicide. He must have been shocked after finding his girlfriend’s body like that… Haeri couldn’t even think of words to comfort him, he only opened and closed his mouth soundlessly, staring at him.

“After she got sick, all I did was make her suffer with the treatments, and then I let her die alone. And it wasn’t even something I absolutely had to be doing that day.”

So his girlfriend had been seriously ill, and in the middle of that, she… That explained it. Just the resemblance would be enough to make him want to treat Haeri well.

And hearing a confession this full of regret made Haeri want to punch himself for his earlier suspicion.

“When I’m with you, it’s like I’m with her again. I wanted to feed her whatever she wanted, dress her in pretty clothes. I won’t ask for much. Until your memory comes back, could you take her place for a while?”

“Oh, of course. Yes, of course.”

All his earlier talk about parting ways was meaningless now. How could he refuse? Anyone who did would be trash.

“Thanks. I won’t dote on you so much it makes you uncomfortable.”

“No, please. Dote on me as much as you want.”

Even without his memory, Ahn Haeri wasn’t trash.

“Thank you for letting me.”

Haeri was at a loss for words again, this time for a different reason. What was there to thank him for just giving permission? Not knowing what to do, he took a sip of the flat sparkling water.

“How long has it been since she passed away?”

“A little over a year.”

If it had been real love, that was nowhere near enough time to get over it.

“Do we really look that much alike?” he asked, his voice subdued.

“Yeah.”

Jeong Mok gave a small but firm nod. Not a dead younger brother, but a dead girlfriend? That was embarrassing.

“What am I, some kind of woman substitute? Why do men keep sticking to me?”

It was something he said half to himself, half for Jeong Mok to hear. He pretended to sip his drink and glanced at him.

“It’s not that you look like a woman. It’s the brown fur, with that little bit of curl. Exactly the same.”

“Fur?”

The word, one not usually used for people, slipped a reflexive question out of him.

“Yeah. Especially that soft, fluffy hair at the crown of your head.”

Jeong Mok’s eyes, with a trace of a smile, went straight to Haeri’s curls. Ah, hair on the head. Who calls a girlfriend’s hair “fur”? But this was an unusual hyung-nim, so maybe his pet names for a lover were unusual too.

“Brown permed hair isn’t rare.”

“And your clear, bright eyes are the same. The whole atmosphere is similar. At first I thought she’d been reincarnated as a guy in his twenties.”

The moment he heard the explanation, Haeri found it strangely hard to keep his eyes open straight. He shifted his gaze away.

“And the way we met was similar too.”

“The way you met?”

This time, Haeri looked up at him.

“She was sitting alone in a box at a construction site, crying. With nowhere to go.”

In a box at a construction site? An unusual person indeed.

But since she was deceased, and since Haeri himself had been the one hiding in a construction site box in the middle of the night and getting his head split open by a flying crowbar m, he kept his thoughts to himself.

“This time, I’m the one who hurt you.”

Jeong Mok looked at him with complete seriousness.

“It felt like… fate, I guess.”

That low voice carried both sadness and conviction. Haeri couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to meet someone who resembled a loved one who had died only a year before. But at least it explained Jeong Mok’s baffling excess of kindness.

Jeong Mok called a staff member over and asked to have the cold steak reheated. He also had the sparkling water replaced. When the hot steak came out, it was placed in front of Haeri first, as always. Jeong Mok seemed to want to fill his plate before his own.

“Eat up. It’ll get cold.”

Who would win, Hyung-nim’s endless thoughtfulness, bringing him salad and grilled vegetables as if nothing had happened, or the suspicion Haeri had boldly voiced in annoyance? The grief of pouring out the love he couldn’t give to a dead girlfriend onto some amnesiac drifter?

Jeong Mok speared a piece of meat with his fork and held it out.

It didn’t feel like a lie. If that was an act, there was no one in the world worth believing. And even if it really was a scam, who else would treat him this well? If trusting him ended up being a loss, that would be Haeri’s own choice.

The man might have been the one at fault for the accident, but he’d given Haeri the best medical care, then, only a day after discharge, handed him a hundred million won in settlement money without hesitation, and kept looking after him in every way. For a man with nowhere to go, Jeong Mok was a kind benefactor.

‘Who’s to say meeting someone this good isn’t just my luck? Even if it is a scam, taking in some guy in his twenties with no past or background is risky too. We’re even, so what’s the big deal?’

After a short debate, Haeri decided he might as well go all in and let himself be doted on. Finally settling the question that had nagged him for two days made him feel lighter. And nothing went better with that lightness than meat.

“Thank you. I’ll eat well.”

He took the fork from Jeong Mok. Jeong Mok smiled brightly.

“You should eat too, hyung-nim. It’s really good.”

“Yeah. Let’s eat.”

They finished the meal without trouble, and Jeong Mok paid.

“Want to do more shopping? Or head out?”

“Let’s go.”

He wasn’t shameless enough to suggest buying more after everything he’d already been given.

“All right. We also need to change the phone ownership.”

There was still no one at the telecom shop in the basement. Switching the ownership while keeping the current phone and plan took no time.

By the time they left, Haeri’s focus was already elsewhere. He downloaded ChocoTalk first, then Niver. He was so caught up with the phone that he didn’t even notice when they reached the parking lot, or when Jeong Mok opened the door, sat him down, and buckled his seat belt.