Ki Taeseong had never directly talked to Yiyoung about money before. However, among the various sums of money, large and small, that went into cleaning up Ki Taeseong’s messes, there was naturally some of Yiyoung’s as well.
Moreover, Mom seemed to have been scraping together spending money for her incompetent lover despite their poor circumstances. Now that Mom was locked up in prison, Ki Taeseong appeared to want to gradually start demanding that role from Yiyoung.
Unable to suppress the anger surging up inside him, Yiyoung replied.
[I don’t even have enough to eat and die on]
1:53 PM
When Ki Taeseong immediately called, Yiyoung turned off his phone. It seemed likely he’d be seeing Ki Taeseong’s face within a few days.
Yiyoung buried his face in both palms, steadied his breathing, and then climbed the hill again.
***
Yiyoung’s shabby detached house was located in the upper part of a neighborhood made up of hillside roads.
It was the only property his grandfather, who had apparently been a drunkard, left to his mother. Mom had been as happy about the inheritance as she had been about the news of Grandfather’s death. After all, it meant Yiyoung could finally live in a place that could at least be called a home.
Until then, they had literally lived a wandering life. They mostly stayed in single-room monthly rentals or goshiwon that didn’t require a deposit. Even those, they had to vacate immediately the month after Mom was seriously sick or injured somewhere and had to take a few days off work. Yiyoung had no small amount of experience moving between shelters or sleeping rough.
There was no way he could properly attend school. One time, a homeroom teacher sat Yiyoung, who had frequent absences and always had a disheveled uniform, in the teachers’ office and said:
‘Yiyoung-ah, do you need any help?’
‘……’
He needed it. Desperately, even. But he couldn’t bring himself to say it.
Mom was someone who had run away from home before becoming an adult. After giving birth to Yiyoung at the young age of twenty, she fled from her own father even more desperately. The debt collectors were a problem, but Mom also avoided staying long in protective facilities because of Grandfather.
Even in such circumstances, Mom never gave up on Yiyoung for even a single moment.
Yiyoung couldn’t abandon Mom now. He didn’t want to be sent somewhere like an orphanage and leave Mom alone. Yiyoung felt not only familial love for Mom but also loyalty, solidarity, and a sense of comradeship.
‘No.’
That’s how Yiyoung graduated from middle school with only the minimum attendance.
The detached house Mom inherited from Grandfather the year Yiyoung became a high school student was actually a shanty in a hillside slum, but compared to the places they’d lived before, it was practically heaven. It was only after starting to live here that Yiyoung felt his life had barely managed to cling to the edge of the institutional system.
Yiyoung opened the front gate and went in, taking a fresh look at the landscape of where he lived.
‘It is the kind of house that would make Moon Chahyun faint in shock.’
Yiyoung let out a deep sigh and opened the rattling sheet metal entrance door.
The interior of the roughly 24-pyeong house was somewhat cluttered. It was exactly as Yiyoung had left it in disarray from bustling about early that morning. Yiyoung had gone out before finishing organizing after taking out gifts Chahyun had given him from various places around the house and gathering them in one place.
Yiyoung began putting the items piled high on the dining table one by one into large, sturdy boxes used for packing moving luggage. As he did so, the conversation he’d had with Chahyun last night in the empty lot in front of his house kept replaying in his mind. Yiyoung grumbled internally.
‘Just date for exactly two more months and then dump me……’
Chahyun had said he only had memories up until he was twenty years old.
Yiyoung had assumed he’d naturally been popular since childhood, but unexpectedly, Chahyun seemed to have had no dating experience at all until he was twenty. At the very least, it seemed he’d never liked anyone. If he had, he wouldn’t have been able to make such an absurd proposal.
‘As if that would work the way you say.’
Even though his attitude had changed as if he’d become a completely different person, he was someone Yiyoung had liked very much. In fact, Yiyoung still missed Chahyun. He was just holding back because he wasn’t someone Yiyoung could meet just by going to see him. There was exactly one way for Yiyoung to see the Chahyun he longed for again.
‘If he regains his memory, will his affectionate side return too?’
Having thought this far, Yiyoung suddenly raised his head and shook it vigorously from side to side. Then he recalled the advice Chahyun had given.
‘We’re not people who can date just because we like each other, are we?’
There wasn’t a single thing wrong with what Chahyun had said to Yiyoung yesterday. It was just unlucky, as he’d said. Ending things at this point was a relationship that was better for Yiyoung in many ways.
Whether it should be called fortunate or not, Chahyun, who had lost his memory, was being a huge help in Yiyoung letting go of his feelings. He’d certainly thought he’d be cute when Hyeyoung bad-mouthed him as an “elementary schooler,” but that had been a mistake. Yiyoung thought with a frown.
‘He really is a strange person.’
He really wasn’t good at all. Twenty years old wasn’t that young either.
Yiyoung looked despondently at the box that had quickly filled up. He was conflicted about how to dispose of it.
The gifts were far too expensive to throw away. Even apart from that, he didn’t want to put objects with memories of Chahyun in the trash.
‘If it were up to me, I’d want to return them.’
But to the current him, they’d just be meaningless odds and ends. Besides, he didn’t want to call him out for something he’d obviously think was tacky. Unless an opportunity happened to arise to hand them over.
Yiyoung checked the wall clock and saw it was past 3 o’clock. He had to arrive at the whisky bar by 4.
Thinking he needed to get to work first, Yiyoung hurriedly moved the box to the storage room and packed his bag.
***
Chahyun sat in the recliner chair of his penthouse, looking at his phone.
It was thanks to finally receiving a response to the civil complaint he’d filed with the National Sinmungo a week ago. The content of Chahyun’s complaint was as follows:
[Title] I almost crashed my car into a wall when I went to Hyoseok-dong today
[Content] Hyoseok-dong. Humanly speaking, it’s too dark
Why are so many streetlights out in that neighborhood?
Even the ones that are on are as dim as parking lights
How do the residents of this neighborhood get around at night? Does the government provide flashlights?
Don’t the Seoul City Urban Facilities Department civil servants do any work?
Don’t they maintain anything? Is this what I pay taxes for?
Citizen safety is seriously concerning, so please take prompt action
Fix the broken streetlights and increase patrols. I’ll be checking.
And the response that came back after a week of waiting was disappointingly bland.
[Response Content] Thank you for your feedback for the development of Seoul.
The **broken streetlights in the Hyoseok-dong area and inconvenience with nighttime vehicle operation** that you reported has been forwarded to the relevant regional department.
Thank you for sending your valuable feedback.
For other inquiries, please contact the Dongdaemun-gu Office Urban Facilities Department (phone number: 02-XXX-XXXX) and we will kindly assist you.
It was a response without a single word about when or how they would correct the issue. Chahyun felt a vein suddenly bulge on the side of his forehead and tapped the phone number written in the response.
I’ll show them what an unreasonable civil complainant is.
Just as he was gritting his teeth and about to press the call button, the psychiatrist sitting across from Chahyun with the living room table between them asked:
“Have you met with any friends?”
“……”
Only then did Chahyun make eye contact with the doctor. He soon let out a sigh and put down his phone. For now, the issue of regaining his memory was urgent, so he needed to receive proper counseling.
“No. I’m not in a position to reveal that I’ve lost my memory.”
During the last counseling session, the doctor had recommended that Chahyun meet the friends he knew when he was twenty.
Then he suggested gradually interacting with the people from his lost memories. The reason was that emotional stimulation could help with treatment. The problem was that there weren’t many people Chahyun trusted enough to openly reveal that he had amnesia.
The doctor also knew Chahyun’s situation well, so it wasn’t a method he strongly insisted on. It seemed more like a question thrown out to draw the attention of Chahyun, who wasn’t concentrating on the counseling. The doctor continued his explanation.
“As I mentioned before, Executive Director Moon’s symptoms are likely temporary. Since there’s nothing wrong with your brain function itself, it must be psychogenic in origin.”
Chahyun had received a diagnosis of no brain damage from the detailed examination he underwent while hospitalized. Naturally, it was presumed to be amnesia caused by psychological shock or stress, so his medical team was also changed to a psychiatrist and psychological counselor. Chahyun’s new attending physician smiled warmly and continued.
“It doesn’t necessarily have to be people. The purpose is to try following your movements after you were twenty. If there’s something that feels especially familiar even though you don’t remember it, I want to have a conversation about it.”
“But meeting people would be the most certain, right?”
