His thoughts had wandered briefly down another path, but soon enough a sigh escaped him at the reality of his situation. A debtor in every world, it seemed. Debt! Debt! It was beginning to feel like his fate — to spend eternity struggling to pay off debt no matter where he ended up. Ivan had dropped his bomb and left, and Eugene had sat there alone, clutching his head and turning the situation over and over in his mind — but it was all pointless.
He still didn’t know enough about this world, about Eugene Primrose and the Primrose family, for any brilliant solution to come to him. And when had he ever lived with some grand plan in mind, anyway? He’d just stumbled through life one way or another until he ended up here.
Even when he’d first climbed onto the operating table at the plastic surgery clinic, he hadn’t had any particular plan. As he always had — throw himself at it bodily, and somehow a way out would emerge. That was how Park Yujin had always lived. Head-first, whatever came.
Rebuilding a household that had fallen apart — done it once, can’t do it twice? With that thought, Eugene lay back down on the bed — and promptly kicked the blanket off and sat back up. No matter how he turned it over, if he had to pay debt anyway, it was far less infuriating to pay his own — Park Yujin’s debt — rather than Eugene Primrose’s, which was someone else’s. The more he dwelled on it, the more swindled he felt.
Swindled… swindled. The world keeps swindling me.
Eugene picked up the blanket he’d kicked away, rolled it into a ball, and cried tears of sheer injustice.
Some time later, Eugene found out what the “plan” Ivan had mentioned actually was.
* * *
At last, the bandage was unwound from Eugene’s head. Since he had already been somewhat healed by the time he woke up, he hadn’t fully grasped it — but it truly was a miracle he’d survived at all. Pushing back the long golden hair that fell loose, he ran his fingers over it and felt a large, smooth scar still sitting there.
Worried that he might be left with a bald patch forever, he’d asked the family physician — who had responded with a deeply uncomfortable expression. If he combed his hair neatly down over it, it wouldn’t show, but if a strong wind happened to blow, that was another matter. It nagged at him a little, and Eugene found himself habitually smoothing the back of his hair.
With the bandage off, the footmen who had flanked him on both sides like an escort — as if bracing for him to collapse at any moment — were finally gone. If he wanted, he could now roam anywhere in the townhouse on his own. In truth, up until now, he had followed the physician’s instructions to avoid strenuous exertion to the letter, and hadn’t even properly eaten a meal in the dining room. He’d been taking his meals half-reclined in bed, like a man with the singular ambition of becoming a cow.
After the physician’s early morning visit, Eugene stepped into the dining room at Ivan’s invitation to lunch together. The dining room, flooded with midday sun, held yet another enormous portrait — different from the one in the hallway.
It was large enough to fill an entire wall, and seen up close, the faces it depicted were even more breathtaking. The woman who appeared to be the mother was strikingly, almost terrifyingly beautiful. To think that parents like those were now tormented by an eldest son who had run off with the family fortune.
It was still a world he didn’t fully understand — there was too much he didn’t know yet to describe it clearly — but the appearances confirmed in the portrait were similar to what he knew of British or French aristocracy.
That kind of era — where men wore powdered wigs, dressed in ornate silk and velvet, and walked about in something like stockings.
It wasn’t the same world, but the image of the Primrose family in the portrait closely resembled the era associated with the apocryphal line “Let them eat cake.” Of course, since this world wasn’t that particular England or France, it wasn’t exactly the same.
For one thing, the language in use here was neither English nor French. He’d already gathered as much when he received Count Primrose’s letter from the earldom — but Eugene had no trouble at all speaking the language of this unfamiliar world. He was grateful for that. The ability to read, speak, and write it was something to be thankful for. However, the letters written on the flower-sealed stationery were in a form entirely unlike anything he’d seen before.
Still, Eugene thought it a relief that there were points of similarity. If he’d stepped out the door and discovered the world was actually coexisting with extraterrestrials and ablaze with the latest trends from outer space, it would have been deeply unsettling. He hadn’t expected that the sight of something even vaguely familiar could be this comforting.
Seated at the table set for a pleasant lunch, Eugene cast a sidelong glance at Ivan, who was eating in near silence. The deep purple velvet waistcoat — shining strangely, almost garishly — paired with what were called breeches, the kind used for horse riding. And there was Ivan, as ever, with the ends of his mustache twirled and curled upward. Eugene retracted his earlier thought that none of this felt unfamiliar. As a Korean who’d always preferred clean, simple styling, this aesthetic was far too alien for comfort.
To be fair, Eugene himself was dressed in something not so different — a banyan, a night robe of sorts with elaborate patterns, which was what they called it here. He’d been living indoors as a patient in that banyan all this time, but the reality that today he would apparently have to look the same way as Ivan gave him a momentary jolt of mild shock.
“After lunch, there’s somewhere we need to go together.”
“Where?”
He asked the question with a perfectly composed expression, but what he actually wanted to ask first was: Do I have to dress like that too?
“I’ll explain on the way. Let’s finish eating first. We need to hurry — the appointment is soon.”
At Ivan’s words, Eugene plugged the question that had been pushing to get out with a piece of steak loaded with sauce. Perhaps because the stomach was Eugene Primrose’s — not a flicker of craving for kimchi. The food was good enough for that.
Ivan, having eaten at a somewhat hurried pace, notified the servants of their departure. No sooner had the meal ended than Eugene, with the help of an attendant, was dressed from head to toe in the style of this world — like a child incapable of dressing himself. Swathed in vivid blue velvet, extravagant by any modern standard, Eugene looked — surprisingly — not terrible at all.
Fashion truly was completed by the face. However, comfort and ease aside, Eugene did feel burdened. In particular, the breeches — which clung tightly and left very little to the imagination in the area between the thighs — were a source of acute awareness. But what could he do? That was the rule of this world.
Fitted with a cane and a hat on top of everything else, Eugene climbed into the carriage alongside Ivan, who was gleaming in gold. No matter how fine a face and figure he possessed, the taut press of fabric across his backside and between his legs was distracting, and Eugene found himself shifting his bottom around in his seat.
Despite promising to explain on the way, Ivan said nothing once they were in the carriage. And in truth, Eugene’s attention was entirely stolen by the view outside. It was his first glimpse of the world beyond the townhouse walls.
As the carriage cleared the townhouse and pushed into the city center, the pace slowed to something a brisk walker might match. At that gentle speed, Eugene was able to take in the city scenery.
The wig he had refused before leaving — he could see the style on men outside: bifurcated wigs that made the wearers look every bit the aristocrat. A man strutting past in a red coat, yellow breeches, and a blue waistcoat. A woman sheltered beneath a lace parasol, her waist cinched tight, her skirts billowing wide.
The glimpses that flashed past bore a resemblance to what he knew of the Rococo period from world history textbooks — but with a wilder, less refined extravagance. Of course, since Eugene had never actually lived through that era, he couldn’t make an accurate comparison, but by a modern person’s standards, this world was dazzlingly chaotic in its ornamentation.
There was a saying that medieval aristocratic life was a mixture of the stench of filth and the perfume used to mask it — but fortunately, the world Eugene now inhabited was not like that. At least the visible streets were clean and well-kept, and while the people’s dress was so overwhelmingly lavish as to be almost oppressive, everyone appeared neat and tidy. Just slightly off the main thoroughfare, however, figures in muted colors began to appear one by one.
“Tsk. Bourgeoisie.”
Eyeing the people dressed in dark tones — black, navy, grey — stripped of excessive ornamentation, Ivan clicked his tongue. His reaction made clear he had little regard for them.
Class discrimination and prejudice born of a rigid social hierarchy — that’s what this is, Eugene thought to himself, keeping it internal. Unlike Ivan’s reaction, what Eugene’s eyes saw in those plainly dressed figures was something closer to relief — far more comfortable-looking than the mismatched, garish riot of color on the nobles around him.
“Eugene, stop gawking.”
Eugene had been trying to absorb as much knowledge as possible from the world outside the window, but Ivan put a stop to it. The curiosity moved his body on its own — he’d been craning toward the window almost as if he were about to stick his head out. Ivan tapped his foot with the tip of his cane. He acknowledged that losing one’s memory might make everything seem new and interesting, but an aristocrat had a dignity to maintain — and it was dangerous besides — and with that, he drew the curtain entirely shut.
With nothing left to look at, Eugene crossed his arms and sat at a slight angle, watching Ivan. Not intentionally making a point of looking sulky and dissatisfied — it was simply that the carriage ride was not particularly smooth, and shifting his bottom to one side to make it tolerable had resulted in a slight lean. But regardless of his intent, his extravagant appearance and the air he naturally carried made him look insufferably haughty and cold.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
In truth, he’d just been staring blankly at Ivan’s ill-fitting mustache, sideburns, and wig, with no particular thought behind it. He couldn’t answer honestly, so instead Eugene asked what he hadn’t managed to during lunch.
“Where exactly are we going? You said you’d tell me.”
Whether Eugene’s gaze — slanted sideways from discomfort, fixed on Ivan’s styling, which went beyond not suiting him to being almost pitiable — was a touch too pointed, Ivan gave an awkward cough. But he quickly replaced it with an expression of considerable self-satisfaction, and stroked his mustache with ill-fitting smugness. That blasted mustache. The longer Eugene looked at it, the more it irritated him.
“We’re going to Primo Street. I’ve managed to secure a reservation at Atrian, no less.”
“You’ll have to explain what that place actually does. Ivan.”
“Ah, right.”
Only then did Ivan remember to be a considerate older brother — the kind who would walk a sibling whose head had been shattered and memories erased through everything from start to finish — and helpfully explained their destination. Primo Street. Eugene’s first outing in this world was headed to a district lined with exclusive gentlemen’s social clubs for the upper class, situated near a shopping strip.
A street where men of means gathered to spend that money. Primo Street, where shops catering exclusively to men were clustered together. In modern terms, it was the equivalent of Savile Row — the byword for bespoke men’s tailoring. In plain terms: they were going to get clothes made.
“Didn’t you tell me to live frugally for the time being? Aren’t we a household in debt now?”
“Hmm… this is something that can’t be helped. It’s a necessity.”
Their current destination was about as far from frugality and economy as one could get. Going off to have clothes tailored at leisure while the family finances were reeling — he had to ask.
“We need to make appearances at parties for the time being, you see.”
“Par… ties?”
Another answer that defied all common sense. Eugene drew the last syllable out and stared. The composed, ever-measured arch of his brows shot upward into sharp points, like the spires visible through the gap in the curtain. Sitting across from him, Ivan had the audacity to do nothing more than shrug.
To Park Yujin — who had scraped and clawed through life — this conversation made no sense at all. Wasn’t this the kind of situation where every member of the household should be pinching every last coin and putting their heads together to figure out how to pull through the crisis? Where had the dependable older brother gone — the one who had told him not to worry about the debt? Failing to comprehend Ivan’s words or their destination, Eugene pushed, his tone sharpening slightly.
“The family name is on the verge of rolling around in horse dung because our brother eloped with a commoner woman and took the family fortune to another country — and your solution is to go to parties?“
“Precisely because of that.”
Ivan responded as though Eugene had asked something perfectly obvious.
“We need to shut Lady Chelsea’s mouth. We also need to make it known that there are still perfectly presentable sons left, even if the eldest caused a scandal. And on top of that, we need a new bride who comes with a substantial dowry. Furthermore, Count Primrose wishes for his sons to find matches before word spreads any further — so that there’s no longer any need to maintain such an expensive townhouse.”
The social season. A cold north wind was still sweeping through, but time moved like water — and soon enough, the flowers would bloom and herald the start of the social season. Before that grand curtain rose, it was only natural that the actors set to take the stage would need to be ready.
