“It’s probably because interaction is possible. When you talk with someone you’ve known for a long time, you sometimes remember old events you’d completely forgotten, right? The closer you were to that person, the more so.”
A close person who only exists in vanished memories. As far as Chahyun knew, the only such person was Bae Yiyoung.
‘Of all people.’
Chahyun scratched the back of his head roughly and reluctantly answered.
“I’ll try looking into it.”
The doctor nodded and looked at his watch. It was time to end the consultation.
While the doctor gathered his things, Chahyun pressed hard on his throbbing forehead. When the doctor showed signs of getting up from his seat, Chahyun asked.
“But you’re sure there’s nothing wrong with my head?”
“Yes. The MRI and EEG test results were all normal. Why do you ask?”
Chahyun furrowed his brow and made a groaning sound.
“It’s nothing.”
The doctor looked at Chahyun with curiosity but didn’t press further. Only after the doctor left the penthouse did Chahyun rub his face with both palms and mutter to himself.
“Well, it’s because I really seem to have gone crazy.”
Chahyun was truly going out of his mind because afterimages of Bae Yiyoung kept flickering in his head.
At first, only the images of him he’d seen in the hospital room, the hotel sky lounge, and such would come to mind. But last night, he’d dreamed a distorted memory. In the dream, Yiyoung was actually smiling at Chahyun. In the empty lot in front of Yiyoung’s house, right after they’d kissed.
He couldn’t distinguish whether it was imagination or a fragment of lost memory.
What was certain was that his heart had been beating like crazy. Chahyun had woken up with a start at the frighteningly soaring heart rate. The sensation was too vivid to be mere imagination.
Whether it was a memory or imagination, the fact that Chahyun had felt his heart flutter for Bae Yiyoung was a problem.
“Flutter? Me, for a guy who said I was ‘not much’?”
For Chahyun’s pride, it was unacceptable.
He couldn’t understand it either. Even up until the moment just before kissing Yiyoung, Chahyun hadn’t felt nervous. Though he might have been excited if their lips had actually touched.
Chahyun tilted his head with furrowed brows.
‘Am I sexually frustrated?’
If that were the case, it would somewhat explain why he couldn’t shake off thoughts of Bae Yiyoung. Though Chahyun was impeccably pure and fastidious in that area, there was no helping the physiological urges that arose in a body that was not just healthy but overflowing with vitality.
When his thoughts reached this point, Chahyun suddenly felt an impure curiosity.
…They did it, right? They’re not kids, so they wouldn’t have just held hands while dating for four months.
He was momentarily dazed by the provocative imaginings that followed, stirring up his mind. Just then, his phone on the table rattled with a text message vibration.
Chahyun shook his head vigorously to shake off the vulgar thoughts and picked up his phone.
[Ji Eunho:
Did you change your number?]
10:12 AM
Ji Eunho, high school classmate. A nice guy. In other words, an idiot.
He was the representative of those friends who, when Chahyun asked “Aren’t you just clinging to me hoping to pick up some scraps?”, would answer “What can I do when you’re so amazing?” Except Ji Eunho was different only in that he really answered with pure sincerity.
Though he was called a high school classmate, they’d known each other since childhood thanks to his father being the president of a Moongang Group affiliate company.
Chahyun was about to put down his phone with an indifferent expression. Ji Eunho’s texts continued.
[Ji Eunho:
Are you free today?
Kim Heejin is treating us while handing out wedding invitations]
10:12 AM
Kim Heejin, like Ji Eunho, had attended the same high school as Chahyun. Since Kim Heejin had come to Chahyun’s twentieth birthday party, it felt like he’d seen her just two weeks ago. Though he couldn’t know how things were now.
Chahyun made a “hmm” sound and pondered briefly.
‘Heejin had a lot of particularly pretty friends.’
Kim Heejin had an unusually large number of pretty friends and was known as a social butterfly. Whatever she meant by treating people today probably wasn’t just buying dinner for a few high school classmates. Rather, renting out an entire banquet hall, gathering all sorts of acquaintances, and scattering wedding invitations into the air would be more fitting for Kim Heejin’s magnanimity.
According to Director Jin, Chahyun had been doing nothing but work like a psychopath for a long time. More precisely, he hadn’t met with friends since returning from studying abroad at twenty-two. It was one of the puzzling changes for Chahyun, who loved to have fun and always surrounded himself with lively, boisterous friends.
Meeting Ji Eunho and Kim Heejin might provide some clues. Chahyun cut his deliberation short and replied.
[Where should I go?]
10:15 AM
Before long, a message arrived saying “A Hotel, XX Hall. 5 PM.”
A Hotel’s XX Hall was a banquet hall usually used for wedding receptions. As expected, it seemed Kim Heejin just wanted to host a party under the pretext of delivering wedding invitations. Chahyun put his phone in his pocket and went to the massive desk placed by the living room window.
On top of the office desk originally from the study, various documents and file folders were piled high.
All of them were either work content that Chahyun had handled and processed at the company or information about related people. There were roughly 20,000 to 30,000 sheets of printed materials, and the data files received were far more numerous than that.
In contrast, documents about Chahyun’s private life didn’t even amount to an armful. Chahyun didn’t particularly want to look at records of his privacy being invaded in detail, so he scooped up the printouts he’d left on the floor and lifted them onto the desk. Even though the quantity was relatively small, the height of the stack of A4 papers reached up to his chest.
“I really didn’t want to look at this.”
His private life, with content about Bae Yiyoung omitted so cleanly it was detestable, wasn’t that interesting anyway. Chahyun sat down at the desk, checked his wristwatch, and sneered.
“Shall I see just how diligently our Chairwoman Moon has been stalking me all this time?”
There were roughly five hours before attending Kim Heejin’s party.
Of course, he could memorize this much in two hours. In five hours, Chahyun could recite every sentence written here backwards and still have time left over.
Chahyun picked up the first sheet from the top of the paper mountain that easily exceeded his seated height.
***
A Hotel’s XX Hall had an unexpectedly refined and elegant atmosphere.
He’d secretly expected the commotion of champagne popping like firecrackers, but seeing the banquet hall decorated elegantly like a private club, it seemed Kim Heejin had matured somewhat after all. Ji Eunho, dressed in a fairly adult-looking smart suit just like her, said to Chahyun.
“I didn’t think you’d actually come. What’s the occasion?”
According to Igyeong’s stalking diary, Chahyun was seeing Ji Eunho for the first time in about 6 years. Therefore, there seemed no need to deliberately act like the twenty-eight-year-old Moon Chahyun. Chahyun answered in an indifferent tone.
“We’re strangers now.”
“You bastard, your personality’s still the same. Though I heard as much from Dad.”
Ji Eunho burst into a chuckle and sipped his champagne. Then he suddenly made a puzzled expression and asked Chahyun.
“That Pagani Huayra in the parking lot, is it yours?”
“Who else here besides me could drive that?”
“Well, that’s why I’m asking.”
Ji Eunho readily agreed while frowning as if unable to understand.
“Why did you put on a beginner driver sticker?”
Chahyun squeezed his eyes shut, feeling his pride shatter to pieces once again. Soon he glared into the air and made a blunt excuse.
“When you have that on, the road opens up.”
“True. If a beginner were driving a Pagani Huayra, I’d avoid them too. Must have been like Moses parting the sea on your way here?”
It really was. Though it was frustrating to obediently follow Bae Yiyoung’s words, he had to acknowledge it was very useful advice. Chahyun kept wetting his pursed lips with a non-alcoholic cocktail.
Meanwhile, Kim Heejin was going around the spacious banquet hall’s cocktail tables, greeting friends in turn. Soon spotting Chahyun, Kim Heejin’s eyes widened as she approached.
“Moon Chahyun? You came too?”
Chahyun nodded halfheartedly. It was natural for her to be surprised since they were seeing each other for the first time in 2 years.
Still, supposedly Chahyun had seen Kim Heejin several times even after returning from studying abroad at twenty-four. Chahyun had always rated Kim Heejin higher than Ji Eunho, so that made sense. With a decent family background plus being lively and charming, Kim Heejin was qualified to be Moon Chahyun’s friend.
Of course, if Kim Heejin knew that Chahyun thought this way, she’d be so honored she wouldn’t know what to do with herself.
And if she happened to get conceited about it, her charm would be halved, so Chahyun hadn’t bothered to tell her. Perhaps because of this, Kim Heejin seemed to have not expected Chahyun’s appearance at all and handed over the wedding invitation while looking bewildered.
Chahyun opened the invitation, checked the groom’s name, and asked.
“Han Seongju? The CEO of Motion Sound?”
“Yeah. You know him? Have you met?”
“As if.”
Chahyun answered with a light snort.
He’d merely read a one-line piece of information in the materials Director Jin brought, saying it was a music production company whose business areas partially overlapped with MG Entertainment, a Moongang Group affiliate. From what was included in the materials, it seemed fairly promising, but it was an embarrassingly small music production company to even be considered a competitor. There was no way its CEO would have been given an opportunity to build rapport with Chahyun.
Chahyun lowered the hand holding the invitation and stated the unvarnished truth.
“Your father must be disappointed. You could have had much better marriage prospects.”
Then Kim Heejin opened her mouth wide and muttered as if shocked.
“Wow… You really haven’t changed at all.”
It meant he was unpleasant. Still, the part about not having changed was welcome news.
