# Chapter 80
Mo Eunje turned on his phone screen. There was a missed call notification from Gye Minho. Unable to bear the eerily lonely silence, he touched the call button. Since holding the phone was uncomfortable, he switched to speakerphone and placed it on the sofa armrest. As he turned to his side and leaned against the sofa back as if burying himself in it, a voice was heard.
“Hey. I heard you’re sick. Is it bad?”
“How did you know I’m sick? Has the news already spread that far?”
“When you didn’t answer your phone earlier, I called Igyeol. He seemed completely low-pressured, do you know what’s up?”
“Really? I didn’t notice.”
“No, his voice was totally low and he just said, ‘Mo Eunje is sick, so don’t call,’ and hung up.”
Gye Minho imitated Tae Igyeol’s voice and manner of speaking. It wasn’t similar at all. From the start, Tae Igyeol’s deep bass voice and authoritative tone were beyond anyone’s ability to imitate.
“Could you at least give some reaction?”
“I’m being serious right now. It wasn’t funny or touching.”
“Seeing how Eunje has lost his sense of humor, you must really be sick. Is there anything you want to eat?”
“Why? Are you going to bring it?”
“No. Tell your butler. Ah, has he already bought and offered everything?”
Mo Eunje wanted to brag that when he said he wanted gumbo, Tae Igyeol went out to buy something similar, and praise him a bit, but he didn’t have the energy for it. After all, his energy wasn’t improving, and he was slouched against the sofa back with slurred speech.
“Why did you call?”
“Actually, I have good news. But since you’re sick, let’s talk later.”
“What is it? I’m in this condition, so I can’t react enthusiastically, but I can still listen. My ears are fine.”
“I signed a webtoon contract for ‘The Regressor’s Mnemonics’ today.”
“Really? Damn, I should have heard this later. This is the kind of news I should be bouncing around excitedly to congratulate you for. Congratulations. This is the best I can do right now.”
In his joy, Mo Eunje wanted to congratulate him with all his heart, but there was no strength in his voice at all. Since he was barely breathing and just moving his mouth, his congratulations might easily sound soulless.
“Yeah. I’ve already seen how you would have reacted if you weren’t sick.”
“No, you haven’t. Let’s have a celebration party when I get better, and you can brag again then. I’ll pretend to hear it for the first time and congratulate you with frivolous fanfare.”
“I’m telling you I’ve seen it. But your voice sounds so bad that I feel guilty for keeping you on the phone. I think your butler will hit me for bragging to a sick person.”
“My butler may look threatening in size, but he’s far from violent. He’s so kind and obedient. He’s actually very gentle once you get to know him.”
“You really must be very sick. I’ll hang up now. Take care of yourself.”
The call ended before Mo Eunje could even respond. If Gye Minho knew how his butler had nursed him today, he would have to agree. Everyone just doesn’t know enough about Tae Igyeol’s kind and gentle nature.
While he wished that everyone in the world would recognize Tae Igyeol’s attentive and gentle character, he also selfishly wanted to be the only one who knew. When Tae Igyeol showed kindness to others besides himself, he would outwardly consider it admirable, but inside, he’d be enveloped by a strange feeling that couldn’t be defined.
He had already felt this several times when misunderstanding the relationship between Tae Igyeol and Shin Dael. Although he had boldly promised to “graduate” his butler if a good relationship came along for Tae Igyeol, it seemed he wasn’t mentally prepared to let go yet. So while he supported Tae Igyeol’s one-sided love more than anyone else, he also had mixed feelings, hoping it would end inconclusively.
Though he knew it was terrible selfishness, if allowed, he wanted to enjoy this comfortable peace and happiness just a little longer.
Mo Eunje searched for the time in New Orleans. It was just past 6 AM. When his body weakened from illness, he didn’t necessarily think of his parents, but he often thought of his grandmother. Even though he didn’t have anything specific to say, he wanted to be spoiled, so he made a speakerphone call. He would have preferred a video call, but he refrained, knowing his appearance would worry his grandmother.
“My cutie pie.”
“Grandmaaaa… I didn’t wake you up, did I?”
“No. I just had breakfast. Why does my Eunje’s voice sound like that? Are you sick?”
Unlike when talking with Gye Minho, Mo Eunje tried to raise his energy as much as possible to sound normal, but his grandmother supernaturally sensed the difference. Her gentle voice asking if he was sick was filled with affection.
Mo Eunje confessed that he had body aches and also mentioned that Tae Igyeol had gone out to buy food as a substitute for his grandmother’s gumbo. As they talked, the conversation flowed to why he was craving castella and gumbo.
“Igyeol was so anxious when you were absent from school due to illness and not answering your phone. It was bad enough that your grandma had to go to school, meet your homeroom teacher, and bring Igyeol back.”
“Really? Is that why Tae Igyeol left school early?”
Tae Igyeol had never mentioned this. Even after Mo Eunje recovered, he had been busy mocking him, asking if he had caught a cold in the middle of summer when even dogs don’t get sick. He had been so irritating back then.
“Igyeol called and said, ‘Grandma, Eunje isn’t answering his phone. He’s not dead, is he? What if he’s dead?’ His voice was so pitiful that I couldn’t just sit there.”
“Wow… His thought process was unique even as a child. Asking what if I’m dead…”
“Do you remember when Igyeol carried you on his back to the hospital because you didn’t want to go?”
“Didn’t we go in your car then?”
“Igyeol carried you to the car, and even after getting out of the car, he carried you into the emergency room. This boy, who had never even carried Iden once, suddenly carried you, and how surprised was this old lady!”
This was also something Mo Eunje was hearing for the first time. He wasn’t sure what had happened to his memories. Perhaps, as Tae Igyeol had said, he had been living with fabricated memories. He couldn’t understand why, for what reason, or when this fabrication had occurred.
“I must have been really sick then. I have no memory of being carried at all.”
“You were very sick. Your fever was close to 40 degrees. Your grandma scolded your mom and dad so much at that time. How could they go to work when their child was in such a state?”
Mo Eunje hadn’t been that sick when his parents went to work. He clearly remembered that. He had been left alone at home, buried in his bed playing games on his phone, when his condition rapidly deteriorated to the point of hovering between life and death. His parents had told him to call if he couldn’t bear it and then went to work, but he hadn’t been in a state of mind to contact them, so he felt a bit sorry now to hear that his grandmother had scolded them.
“Grandma was my lifesaver then.”
“The lifesaver was Igyeol.”
“Igyeol? Why?”
“When we entered the emergency room, they said there were no beds and told us to wait on chairs in the lobby. You were burning with fever, but everyone looked too busy, so your grandma just stood there stomping her feet, not knowing what to do.”
Mo Eunje imagined a well-built foreigner with blonde hair and blue eyes stomping her feet helplessly in the emergency room lobby. Even though it was just his imagination since he had no memory of it, his heart ached. Thinking about it, his grandmother had gone through many experiences she shouldn’t have had to while raising them.
“But Igyeol caused such a commotion. He turned the emergency room upside down, asking if they would take responsibility if a dying child actually died. Your grandma had never seen Igyeol so angry before, and my heart was pounding.”
“Ah… You must have been very surprised.”
“But thanks to that, we got a temporary bed, and you were able to lie down right away and receive an IV. Igyeol brought the doctor over, and they immediately gave you fever reducer and anti-inflammatory painkillers.”
Mo Eunje’s heart throbbed. He had not known about this backstory, and only the fact that he had gone to the hospital remained in his memory, with the entire process omitted. It wasn’t that his memories had been fabricated; rather, they had been consumed by the high fever, causing him to lose certain parts as if the film had been cut.
“It’s fun talking about old stories. Grandma, it seems like you know more about us than Igyeol and I do about ourselves.”
“Of course… Eunje.”
“Yes, Grandma?”
“…Are you getting along well with Igyeol?”
“Of course. Why are you asking something so obvious, Grandma? Oh? I think Igyeol is back.”
The sound of keypad touches was heard from the entrance, followed by the door lock opening. Strangely, just hearing his grandmother’s voice seemed to recharge his energy.
“Grandma, wait a moment. I’ll let you talk to Igyeol too.”
“No need. I talked to my pretty boy yesterday. Your grandfather wants to go for a walk.”
“Alright. Enjoy your walk, and I’ll call again. I love you, Grandma.”
After hearing his grandmother’s voice say she loved him too, he ended the call. Tae Igyeol came in and headed straight to the kitchen while speaking.
“I thought I heard you talking, did you hang up because of me?”
“No, I was talking to Grandma. She said she talked to you yesterday.”
“Ah…”
“What did you buy? I’m so hungry I feel like I might faint.”
Mo Eunje moved his steps, dragging his body that was screaming terribly from muscle pain. His legs were trembling so much that it felt like he might collapse at any moment. When he painfully made it to the dining table, Tae Igyeol pulled out a well-arranged chair for him.
“I bought beef stew. I asked them to add sausage and seafood. It seemed like it would be the most similar.”
Looking at the stew on the table, it did look somewhat similar in appearance, perhaps because the ingredients overlapped with gumbo. Tae Igyeol brought utensils and also unwrapped the packaging of the newly purchased castella.
“Aren’t you eating?”
“I already had dinner earlier while you were sleeping.”
“What did you eat?”
“I didn’t have much appetite, so I just made do with whatever was in the house.”
“You go out even at this hour to buy food for me, but why do you just make do for yourself… Get a spoon. Eat with me. The stew looks plentiful too.”
“It’s fine. I have no appetite, so you eat a lot. I wonder if this will taste similar to gumbo.”
Tae Igyeol got water from the water purifier and placed it in front of Mo Eunje before sitting across from him. Perhaps because he had found fragments of lost past memories while talking with his grandmother, Mo Eunje felt a pressure to say something, but he swallowed the jumbled, mixed words and picked up his spoon.
