# Chapter 06.
Jaei cupped Doha’s pretty face in his hands as Doha was looking at his phone, making him look into his eyes.
“A secret? I’m hurt. How could you keep a secret from me?”
Doha was very surprised by Jaei’s words about being hurt, so he closed his mouth and held back tears while sniffling. Just as he was about to apologize for keeping a secret, Jaei put down the phone and suddenly started winking his left eye. His long eyelashes fluttered like a fan. It was all an act.
“Haah,” Doha sighed in relief and nestled into Jaei’s arms with a pitiful expression, whining, “You really scared me. I thought hyung was angry.”
“Sorry, sorry. I was just kidding. Hurry and tell me your secret. I’m dying of curiosity.”
To prevent Jaei from dying, Doha began explaining everything that had happened to him and how he felt at the time. He had decided that if even Jaei rejected his ‘Ryu Doha Suddenly Appeared Out of Nowhere Theory’ as nonsense, then he would really withdraw the claim.
Jaei listened to Doha’s words with a serious expression, swallowing from time to time.
“So you just opened your eyes and found yourself on the playground?”
“Yeah. Really. There weren’t even any footprints from me.”
“What were you doing on the playground?”
“I was on the horizontal bars by myself.”
“How did you end up at the tteokbokki shop?”
“I just wanted to go there.”
After urgently asking these questions with a confused expression, Jaei didn’t say anything for a long while. He just stared at Doha intently with a serious face.
Doha felt a little scared when Jaei wasn’t smiling. Although he had large, round eyes without pointed corners and no double eyelids, occasionally when the whites showed beneath his black pupils, he looked angry. At those times, Jaei resembled a red rose with its thorns raised.
It seemed Jaei didn’t believe what he was saying. Doha anxiously waited for his answer, rolling his eyes from side to side. Just then, Jaei suddenly scrunched up his face like an idiot and giggled. It had been a misunderstanding after all. He wasn’t angry, just organizing his thoughts.
“I’ve been praying for months that I wanted a younger sibling!”
“Wow! Really?”
“Yes. It’s true. But my mom and dad, it’s hard for them to have another baby right now. So a baby angel brother just dropped in front of me. My prayers came true. I’m sure of it.”
“So I’m an angel!”
“Where are my baby angel’s wings? Did you drop them on the playground? Are they buried in the snow?”
Jaei dramatically caressed Doha’s shoulder blades while asserting his ‘Lee Doha Baby Angel Theory.’ Finally feeling that his mysterious existence had been clearly established, Doha kicked his feet happily under the blanket and smiled brightly. He probably wasn’t quite an angel since he had no memory of losing wings, but he was certainly a being created to become Jaei’s brother, just as Jaei said. If not an angel, then something roughly similar to one.
“Ah, Lee Jaei. Of all things, you end up picking up an angel in front of a tteokbokki shop. I’m really lucky, I tell you.”
Jaei kissed Doha’s round head with its thick hair and proudly boasted with an arrogant expression. Then he crumpled his flower-like pretty face into a funny expression. Doha copied his expression exactly and laughed brightly.
“I really like you, hyung. What about you?”
“I like Doha too. You’re so cute I want to squish you three times a day.”
Doha really liked him enough that he could be squashed like a stuffed toy anytime Jaei wanted. At that moment, he couldn’t yet know how much that love would grow in the future.
In the coming spring, Doha was scheduled to enter Haesung Elementary School. The baby angel Lee Doha, who had personally visited earth from heaven, was going to choose his own school supplies for the first time since his earthly arrival. And right now, he was keenly realizing that the more choices there are, the harder it is to choose, as he stood before dozens of pencil cases lined up side by side. He carefully narrowed down the candidates to select the one pencil case that he liked best.
“This one, this one, and this one.”
“Okay. Let’s buy all three. I’ll buy them all for you.”
“No. Just one.”
A more careful choice was needed because Jaei was giving it as a gift with his own allowance money. The three finalists Doha had selected each featured a polar bear, a fox, and a dinosaur. As he wasn’t yet old enough to establish his own preferences, Doha hadn’t yet recognized that he liked animals.
Rolling his large eyes back and forth to make the final selection, he reached for the one he liked most. At that moment, Jaei picked it up first and asked:
“This one, right?”
“Uh…?”
Jaei held the pencil case with the cute fox character on it and waved it gently. Surprisingly, the animal that had been selected as the winner in Doha’s heart was indeed the fox with the big tail.
“Right?”
After putting the pencil case in the cart, Jaei winked and shrugged his shoulders arrogantly. His long eyelashes fluttered like a fan again.
“Wow. How did you know?”
“Baby, you’re in the palm of my hand.”
Doha thought it was amazing how Jaei could read his mind. But that wasn’t the end of it. The Fan Master, who fluttered his eyelashes like a fan whenever he got smug, now revealed his hidden ability without restraint.
When Doha was selecting school supplies, Jaei would stand with his chin up and his hands behind his back arrogantly, shouting “Correct!” And then he would pick out the products that best suited Doha’s taste. The accuracy was 100%. Even among about 30 different kinds of diaries, Jaei accurately selected the product with the color and design that Doha wanted and put it in the cart.
So at the last bag store they visited, Doha simply delegated the choice completely to Jaei.
“You choose for me, hyung.”
Jaei confidently took Doha into one of the many stores. As per Doha’s request, he went around the store once and came back with a backpack in hand. In Jaei’s hand was a navy bag with a shield and star from a movie hero drawn on it. Doha applauded his perfect personal shopper, Lee Jaei.
Such incidents continued to happen afterward. Jaei knew Doha’s tastes surprisingly well. It seemed like he had some kind of superpower. Ryu Doha, who was experiencing many things for the first time, felt immensely grateful to Jaei for helping him adapt to life on earth quickly.
The same thing happened when they visited an ice cream shop with Jaei. Among dozens of menu items, Doha chose “Brother is an Alien,” “Appearing with the First Snow,” and “Cashew Nut Vroom Vroom.” As the server was about to scoop the Cashew Nut Vroom Vroom that Jaei had chosen as the last flavor alongside strawberry ice cream, Jaei urgently said:
“Wait! Not Cashew Nut Vroom Vroom, mint chocolate please.”
“Why? Hyung, you said you don’t like that one.”
Doha tilted his head and asked, holding Jaei’s collar tightly.
“You’ll like this better than Cashew Nut Vroom Vroom, won’t you? Do you trust hyung? Just trust me once.”
The server had a dubious expression, but Jaei spoke with a voice full of confidence. Doha had no intention of going against Jaei’s words or being stubborn. If Jaei said so, it was naturally so.
And Jaei’s words were true. After returning home and starting to eat ice cream with Jaei, Doha quickly became addicted to the taste of the mint-colored ice cream that Jaei had chosen for him and excitedly shook his fist. However, Jaei didn’t bring his spoon anywhere near the boundary where that ice cream touched the other flavors.
“Hyung, why don’t you like this?”
“It tastes like toothpaste.”
“Toothpaste?”
Doha, who used strawberry-flavored toothpaste, couldn’t understand Jaei’s words at all. To Doha, the strawberry ice cream that Jaei was eating was the one that tasted like toothpaste. With sympathetic eyes, Jaei stroked Doha’s head and said with the expression of a mother duck who had brought food for her beloved duckling:
“If you enjoy it, I’m happy too. But you eat it all.”
As Doha grew up, whenever he faced conflicts among various choices, he sought advice entirely from Jaei. None of the things he had chosen for him had ever failed.
The songs Jaei recommended he listen to, the cartoons he showed him, even the books he put in his hands all perfectly matched Doha’s tastes. Jaei’s ability developed day by day, and he knew even before Doha himself that Doha was less sensitive to cold but very sensitive to heat. The Fan Master Lee Jaei explained the nature of this amazing ability as “being naturally sensitive and delicate so my intuition hits the mark, and these days my only interest is you.”
So as Doha grew older, he came to regard Jaei more and more as his whole life. He couldn’t help it. A person who knows you better than you know yourself, and therefore helps you make choices that won’t hurt you at any crossroads – falling in love with such a being was an irresistible force.
So he loved him helplessly, not knowing his place.
* * *
Jaei, who had been the number one cutest human in Seoul until Doha appeared, had been continuously receiving casting offers since childhood. Having actually worked as a formula model shortly after birth, he debuted through an audition in a popular teen drama series when he was nineteen.
Actor Lee Jaei, with his enchanting good looks, innate talent, and combined luck, was able to gain great popularity immediately after his debut without any time spent as an unknown.
When he earned enough money to buy a house with his own strength rather than his parents’ wealth, he purchased an expensive luxury apartment, ‘Haesung Winners Castle Building 201, Unit 902.’ It was an apartment where he said he had lived briefly when he was fourteen. Now at twenty-one, he was returning there after seven years.
