# Chapter 23
Jaei muttered to himself as he organized items filled with memories of Doha on his desk.
“If only we hadn’t moved back then, I wouldn’t have been confused.”
After Doha left, he printed all the photos they had taken together and inserted them into an album. He also cut out and inserted Doha’s elementary school graduation photo. With his bones not yet fully grown, he had a fine and soft face.
“I became an actor on purpose. It’s also because this is the only thing I know how to do, but if I become an actor, even if I suddenly disappear from this world, I can make it seem like it’s not because of you. I need to create another plausible reason so our parents won’t blame you.”
He bowed his head and looked at the floor. Blood was pooled abundantly on the floor. The smell of blood brushed his nose. It seemed as if the blood Doha had shed had flowed all the way into this house, soaking the floor, and would fill the room enough for his body to be submerged.
“Doha, now tell me. Let me know how I can be with you for life.”
He laid his thin body flat on the floor to make it easier to die, submerged in his blood.
“If I can’t see you here, I’ll be really happy, and if I can see you, I might be a little sad, but I’ll still be glad.”
Now that Jaei was an adult who could easily obtain many things, he could discard himself more easily than when he was young. He held a syringe and a medicine bottle in his hand, fidgeting with them. It was an action to summon Ryu Doha’s soul.
When he opened the lid of the medicine bottle, his phone in his pocket vibrated. Thanks to this, Jaei was able to put down the syringe and hold his phone. He could instinctively recognize who it was that made him put down the syringe from his hand.
He checked the message. As expected, it was a message from Jaei’s young die-hard fan.
[Hyung, I’m sorry for bringing this up again suddenly but I was eating school lunch and suddenly thought of it. If you mention dying just one more time, I’ll commit a terrible act before you do. Just watch. This isn’t an empty threat, I’m threatening you. If you don’t want to see me die, be careful. Today’s school lunch menu is cucumber cold soup, and seeing the cucumber reminded me of you since you really hate cucumber.]
Today, it was Lee Doha, not Ryu Doha’s soul, who prevented Jaei’s death again. It had been like that from their first meeting. That child seemed to have appeared to protect Lee Jaei’s life. The evidence for Jaei to think Lee Doha was Ryu Doha was this countless.
“See, you are Ryu Doha. You sent this to protect me, didn’t you.”
Jaei talked to himself, imagining Doha in his school uniform busily writing messages in front of his lunch tray.
“Why did you come back so young? So that I can’t even like you as I please. Is starting over from the beginning just for you to forget everything and start anew? How old are you to still be eating school lunch…”
He wiped his tears, sobbing, then wrote a reply as if to a lover, affectionately. However, after reading the message he had written to send to him, he quickly regained his senses and deleted all the love-filled words.
“What am I thinking about a child right now…”
* * *
High school student Lee Doha’s daily routine was always similar. With earphones in his ears, on his way to school, he searched for Lee Jaei on his phone to check for new articles about him. If there were malicious articles that were inconsistent with the facts, he poured all his energy into his thumb to protect him. Today, an economic news outlet published a shocking exclusive article that greatly wounded Doha’s heart.
“What is this?”
[Exclusive] Actor Lee Jaei purchases one more unit of ‘Haesung Winners Castle’
Doha, who had been Jaei’s fan from the moment he debuted, couldn’t help feeling betrayed, not as a brother, but as a fan. Since Jaei wasn’t particularly materialistic, he wouldn’t have bought it for investment. His parents had no plans to return to Korea.
The more he read the article, the more suspicious points there were. According to the article, the purchase date was a month ago. However, for the past month, Jaei had returned to unit 902 as usual and slept with Doha in his arms. This means it wasn’t bought for actual residence.
The conclusion drawn from these facts was one. It meant that actor Lee Jaei had private personal life to protect from his cohabitant Lee Doha. Doha immediately called Jaei to confirm the facts of the article.
“Hyung, what’s this article that just came out?”
Unlike Doha, who was filled with a sense of betrayal, Jaei replied in a very slow and comfortable voice.
“It turned out that way. They say I’m the most beautiful face chosen by plastic surgeons, so how could I possibly refute this?”
“So you were chosen as number one this year too. Congratulations. I don’t argue with experts.”
While talking with Jaei through his Bluetooth earphones, Doha clicked ‘Surprised!’ on the real estate purchase article, found the article about ‘The Most Beautiful Face Selected by Plastic Surgeons’, clicked ‘Support!’ and then returned to the real estate article.
“But what about the article saying you bought another apartment? Is it false news?”
“That made the news? It’s nothing. I just bought one more because I had money to spare. Our Doha must have been surprised. Don’t worry, I’ll keep living with you. Once I pick something up, I don’t throw it away.”
However, Doha, who was checking the comment section, was having his brain invaded by logical texts left by others. He was gasping for breath, and his hands and lips were trembling. Everyone was confidently asserting one fact. Doha emotionally agreed with those comments, but with his finger, he clicked ‘Dislike’ and asked Jaei.
“Do you have someone you’re dating? Are you in a relationship? Do you need to meet secretly in that house?”
“Did people write that in the comments?”
“Hyung, you said you loved me the most among living people. Was that a lie?”
“It wasn’t a lie, you’re the best among living people, Doha. It’s just that there are different kinds of love.”
Doha, who had been staggering toward school, gradually stopped walking and asked seriously, staring ahead with a hardened expression.
“…What kind of love is it for me?”
After school, he badgered the real estate agent to find out the unit number of the apartment Jaei had purchased.
He was shocked twice as much when he learned that the house Jaei had newly bought was right above their floor. Does this mean that for a month, he had been having a sweet romance and living in semi-cohabitation with a lover right above where they lived together? With just a ceiling between them, did he hug someone else, roll around on the floor, kiss, and make love?
Didn’t he say he couldn’t fall in love with someone else because of his dead first love? The innocent Lee Doha had believed those words.
“So I should have believed what I should have believed. Why did I trust a celebrity, Lee Doha? Why did I believe a celebrity who said they absolutely wouldn’t date, you idiot.”
He muttered as he went to unit 1002 and randomly pressed the password. Of course, it wasn’t his date of birth. Of course, it wasn’t Lee Jaei’s publicly known birthday either, nor was it the password they used at home, nor Lee Jaei’s digital certificate password, nor his credit card password combined with his birthday.
Then it must certainly be a sequence of numbers related to his romantic partner. Thinking about how they must have put their heads together and discussed to set their own code made him just want to bang his head against the lock and die.
After acknowledging that it would be rude to find out the password and open the door, he changed his method. He politely pressed the doorbell once every second. He also respectfully kicked the front door.
“Hey, who are you? Come out!”
But no one responded. It’s not that he didn’t think there might be no one in the house. But at this moment, he needed a place to vent his sadness.
Jaei, who had finished filming and returned, headed to the 10th floor instead of the 9th floor in the elevator. For the past month, after work, he would first stop by the 10th floor every time to perform a summoning ritual to call forth Mr. Ryu’s soul, and afterward, go down to the 9th floor to pinch and crush the big and sturdy Mr. Lee with his whole body, living a double life.
26-year-old adult Lee Jaei, who had both money and time, purchased unit 1002 a month ago and simultaneously asked his manager, whom he had worked with and trusted for a long time, to find the whereabouts of a 19-year-old boy named “Ryu Seungha.” The manager, who received a fee and reward from Jaei, provided information related to Seungha to an errand company under an alias.
And two weeks ago, the result arrived by email. Jaei had not yet opened that email.
As Jaei walked down the corridor toward unit 1002, he rubbed his eyes as he saw Doha sitting in front of the door. What was waiting for him in unit 1002 was not the 14-year-old Mr. Ryu, but the 19-year-old Mr. Lee.
Lee Doha was crouched in front of the house, just like he had been sitting in front of the tteokbokki shop on the day they first met. However, the aura of the young man glaring at Jaei now was very far from the pitiful atmosphere that the child had shown then.
Confirming that Jaei had returned to the 10th floor first, Doha raised one corner of his mouth and showed a vile smile he had never shown before.
“So you were stopping by this house first. I was second.”
And at this moment, Lee Jaei, an actor with 7 years of experience, couldn’t help but admire Doha’s vile expression. This was a face he had never seen even from the past Ryu Doha, who had almost debuted as a child actor.
Is it possible to make such an unpleasant expression with such an angelic appearance? It was undeniable that Doha was excellent acting material capable of handling even villain roles.
“If you sit like that, your knee joints will wear out.”
Doha, who knew very well that he had no chance of success through studying and would have to make a living with his face and body in the future, immediately stretched his legs and stood up to protect his knee joints. He looked down at Jaei, who had become much shorter than him, and put both hands in his school uniform pants pockets. And with a shameless expression, he made an unreasonable demand.
“Let me know the password to this house too. Or give me a key card.”
“You already have the house downstairs. Is 58 pyeong not enough?”
“No. I’d like it to be over 100 pyeong. Can’t I enter this house? It’s a house you use, hyung. Didn’t you buy it to practice acting comfortably by yourself?”
“No.”
“Then it means you’re not using this house alone.”
Jaei didn’t answer that it wasn’t true. Doha instantly lost his appetite completely. Both his arms ached painfully. He wanted to completely stop eating and drinking again, just as he had when he was fourteen.
Lee Doha, Lee Jaei’s die-hard fan who had completely forgotten the fact that he was Lee Jaei’s brother, simply wished that his favorite actor would deny it firmly to the end and answer that it wasn’t true. If he did, he was confident he could live believing his words as truth.
“Who is this bastard?”
