“Jaewook hyung. It’s been a while.”
Baek Seolheon looked straight at Kim Jaewook with a smiling face.
“Oh. Do you come to this cafe often too?”
“Yes.”
Kim Jaewook turned off the tablet screen at the same time as he answered.
Just before the screen went dark, a photo and document file flashed by.
[LK_XX0421.doc]
It was only a brief moment, but Baek Seolheon didn’t miss it.
What was captured in the photo was Lee Haram and Baek Gunho.
It was a scene of the two people laughing and talking with their department classmates at a meat restaurant.
“How strange. Running into each other randomly outside like this. How many years has it been since you and Gunho were discharged together?”
Kim Jaewook smiled as he organized his bag.
Despite meeting after a long time, a dry air circulated rather than warmth.
“I have work to do, so I’ll leave first.”
“Jaewook hyung.”
Baek Seolheon spoke to Kim Jaewook, who was hastily trying to leave.
“That. Send it to me too.”
“What?”
“The file.”
Baek Seolheon pointed with his finger at the tablet contained in the bag.
“That document you’re writing periodically.”
“I don’t really know what you’re talking about……”
“The Baekil Group information you’re sending to LK.”
At those words, Kim Jaewook’s movements stopped.
“Is that what I should say?”
“……”
“Or, the background investigation on my hyung?”
Kim Jaewook looked at Baek Seolheon with an expressionless face.
A moment of silence continued, and Baek Seolheon opened his mouth first.
“You know my number, right? Send it there.”
“You’re acting wild now that Gunho’s not here.”
Then Kim Jaewook let out a scoffing laugh.
“Well, yeah. I never really felt like I was having a proper conversation with you from the start anyway.”
He then spoke in a low voice.
“What are you trying to do to Gunho?”
“That’s my line.”
Their gazes crossed in midair.
Kim Jaewook looked away first.
“I don’t know how you tracked me down here, but let’s just…… say we ran into each other by coincidence today. This is annoying.”
Kim Jaewook knew the location of the apartment where Baek Seolheon and Baek Gunho lived. This was a cafe on the outskirts of Seoul that required an hour’s travel from there.
Acting like a regular at a shop that had barely been open for a month or two, how shameless.
Kim Jaewook let out an empty laugh and headed toward the cafe entrance.
“I’m leaving.”
“You don’t want to tell hyung, do you?”
“Fuck.”
Kim Jaewook squeezed his eyes shut and furrowed his brow.
It was difficult to maintain composure any longer.
“You, just how much do you know?”
“I don’t really know either.”
“Don’t know, my ass. You’re the one who came here directly and even brought up LK.”
“It’s true. I’m just combining ‘fragmentary things,’ knowing just a bit more than others.”
Baek Seolheon sat on an empty table.
“Actually, I wasn’t sure either until I saw Jaewook hyung’s face. The whole time coming here, I was hoping I was wrong……”
Baek Seolheon, who had been trailing off, raised the corners of his mouth in a grin.
“But now I’m certain. Thanks to you.”
“What more bullshit are you spouting now?”
Kim Jaewook gripped the strap of the bag slung over his shoulder tightly with his sweat-soaked hand.
The navy-blue eyes were clearly looking this way, yet there was nothing inside them. Like an empty, dark and quiet sea where not even waves crashed.
Somehow it felt chilling.
“At least about Jaewook hyung…… I’ve learned about the person named Kim Jaewook.”
Baek Seolheon smiled gently and spoke quietly.
“At least that you’re not our hyung’s friend.”
Kim Jaewook glared at Baek Seolheon with a cold gaze.
* * *
I looked at my laptop screen with my arms crossed.
On the screen, a logo reading “Viflix” was displayed prominently.
In a way, this platform was also created through my influence.
Previously, when I told Chairman Baek Ildo about the prospects of the OTT market, VivaPlay pursued the business, and as a result of securing a position early and continuing their monopoly, they became established as the world’s largest media platform.
Beyond this, VivaPlay had considerable sources of revenue. It could fully cover the losses of other business ventures that kept hemorrhaging money and then some—truly the real golden child of Baekil Group.
‘No wonder Chairman Baek treats me like an idea vending machine.’
I got too carried away just because I had memories from my past life.
Chairman Baek Ildo hadn’t contacted me at all since I stormed out after mentioning Baek Seolheon.
No news is good news, I suppose. I put aside my thoughts about Chairman Baek Ildo and logged into Viflix.
[My Saved Movies (42)]
“……”
The masterpiece collection that Lee Haram had arbitrarily added immediately caught my eye.
I briefly recalled what happened yesterday.
‘Sniff, hyung…… weren’t you sad?’
‘I was sad.’
‘Then why didn’t you cry?!’
‘You can be sad without crying.’
Lee Haram shouted at the top of his lungs as if he couldn’t believe it.
‘Why on earth aren’t your pheromones fluctuating! They’re just incredibly faint as usual!’
‘……Honestly, it wasn’t enough to tug at my heartstrings?’
‘How can this be, it was in my top 3 best movies! You cold-blooded person! Psychopath! T-type human!’
‘I’m an F.’
‘Liar! If hyung is really the same F as me, prove it with tears!’
Even though we watched sad movies for six hours straight, the first day of lessons ended without much harvest.
The movies were enjoyable, but the story felt a bit contrived, so honestly it wasn’t moving enough.
So I ended up with a homework assignment.
‘You have to watch all these movies and shed tears! Got it?’
‘There are over 40. That’s such an unreasonable……’
‘Always be conscious to feel your pheromones! You must cry!’
‘Must……?’
‘Must! It’s all for improving your constitution, hyung!’
Was this supposed to be learning pheromone control, or training to cultivate sensitivity?
I had some doubts about the tutor’s qualifications, but I had no choice.
Right. I should at least try it. It’s still the first lesson, so it’s too early to be discouraged.
“The problem is…… when will I watch all of these?”
Forty-two movies. Just in play time alone, wouldn’t it take a good three or four days?
The fortunate thing was that today’s class was canceled, and tomorrow is the weekend.
I clicked on a random thumbnail and the movie started playing with the distributor’s name.
‘In my past life, I was too busy to even think about watching movies.’
An orphanage background filled the screen. When I first opened my eyes in this world, it was also at an orphanage.
In my past life, I was too busy struggling with debt to watch movies. My only entertainment was web novels I read in bits and pieces of spare time while working.
One day, I watched a movie at a theater with a gift certificate I received from another part-timer.
But I felt no particular emotion. Throughout the screening time, my head was full of thoughts like ‘Wouldn’t it have been more profitable to work a part-time shift during this time?’
Had that memory been etched deep in my soul? Even though I’d become ‘Baek Gunho’ and was enjoying more leisure than at any time in my past life, it was still difficult to immerse myself in movies.
The first movie ended. It was a moderately sad story, but not enough to shed tears. I couldn’t feel my pheromones at all either.
The second movie was the same.
When I looked at the clock, it was already well past lunchtime.
“Ah, I need to take my medicine.”
I naturally reached for the pill bottle neatly placed in the corner of my desk.
Then I paused, stopping my hand.
The words <Pheromone Response Inhibitor> written on the pill bottle caught my eye anew.
‘Wait a minute. Isn’t it because of this that I can’t feel my pheromones?’
This medicine was a crude drug that made one insensitive to all pheromones, whether alpha or omega.
Surely my own pheromones wouldn’t be an exception.
……That makes sense.
‘Classes are canceled, and I have no appointments.’
For the next three days or so, there was nothing I particularly needed to go out for.
So wouldn’t it be okay to skip the medicine just for today?
I was going to stay home anyway.
My cohabiting younger brother is a beta, so there’s no need to consider him either.
I returned my hand from the pill bottle back to my lap and played the next movie.
‘Let’s focus on the movie for now. Forget about things like my past life.’
Let me immerse myself as much as possible and draw out my emotions.
Keep my senses sharp so I can feel something called my pheromones. Just as Lee Haram advised.
And so the third movie began.
It was a story about a single-father household. Moreover, it was a common melodrama about a protagonist paying off business debts in place of their sickly father.
“Ha, really.”
Just as I decided to forget about my past life, coincidentally it’s this kind of synopsis……
I felt uncomfortable for no reason. But choosing a different movie felt like running away from my past life, which created resistance. My past life was nothing to me, just a past that had already gone by.
With such ambivalent feelings, I continued watching the movie.
— “My son……”
The actor playing the father spoke with difficulty while lying on a sickbed.
The face of someone I’d forgotten for a while overlapped with his.
— “You don’t have to shoulder everything alone……”
Without realizing it, I turned my gaze away from the screen.
Still, the audio continued.
— “I’m truly…… sorry……”
Buried in a corner of my heart.
A face I tried not to recall anymore came to mind.
— “I’m sorry……”
When was it? When my father died.
I couldn’t remember the timing, but I remembered the words I conveyed when his breath was hanging on faintly.
‘……Is saying one word of sorry. That difficult?’
It was contact I’d finally received after a long time with no news.
Where I rushed to, there was a middle-aged man who was skin and bones.
‘A word of thanks for my hard work, a word of apology. At the very least, a word that you’re glad to see me after so long.’
He couldn’t even enter the ICU because there was no money, dying alone in a corner of a shared room.
Seeing that sight, I didn’t feel like mocking or criticizing him.
‘Is that. Such a difficult thing to say?’
‘……’
‘Say something. Ahjussi.’
For someone in his position, he was terribly stubborn.
He never made eye contact with me in the end, and just left alone like that.
Though my obligation to repay the debt as a direct descendant disappeared with the debtor’s death, the illegal unlicensed loan shark’s debt collection didn’t stop.
The country called the Republic of Korea where I lived had no intention of helping a man in his 20s with no connections, and in that cramped peninsula, there was nowhere to run.
— “Our Seonghun, from now on do what you want to do, eat what you want to eat……”
The actor’s lines in the movie continued.
— “Live doing everything you want to do.”
— “Dad, I don’t have anything like that.”
— “No, you will.”
And so the father warmly embraced his son.
— “From now on…… you’ll have many……”
And so the father passed away.
After that, the son met new connections and continued living a happy life.
It started melodramatically, but it was a decent romance film. The emotional lines were good, and the process of overcoming hardships together with an omega lover had sufficient plausibility.
The scenes with the father were only brief at the beginning.
Yet, I was still captivated by the image of the middle-aged man lying on the hospital bed.
“……”
I watched the ending credits silently, then rewound back to the beginning of the movie.
The father actor repeated the same lines.
— “I’m sorry……”
I paused the screen and took in the actor’s face.
I stayed like that for a long while.
“What am I doing?”
An empty laugh came out because I didn’t understand why I was doing this.
Just as I was about to close the internet window entirely.
That moment.
A certain scent, brushed past the tip of my nose.
