# Chapter 62
Seungha said that he had checked all the news articles being updated in real-time while taking the KTX with his mother. Doha had spent only 14 years with his mother. Even then, it wasn’t his mother but he who left the world first, parting from her. Though they hadn’t spent that much time together, it was the first time he’d seen her face turn so red despite her tendency not to show emotions even in difficult situations.
When she appeared at the police station, she walked right past Doha and Jaei despite seeing them. She asked others to find Hong Duyoung. Her face was so red it seemed about to burst, and her teeth were clenched, but she wasn’t in an excited state of unleashing emotions. Rather, she was calmer than usual. When told by the police that he was being questioned, she nodded and waited patiently.
Finally, Doha’s mother stood face to face with Hong Duyoung. She knew Hong Duyoung’s face, but he didn’t recognize her. To Hong Duyoung, who was still treating the situation as merely “a trial for an artist,” she quietly said:
“I want to slit your stomach, crush everything inside you, and throw it into the sea. That’s how I feel right now.”
She wasn’t shouting because they were in a crowded place, and probably because she had a lot to say. This was how Doha’s mother had always been. When they used to watch dramas together when he was young, during scenes where victims’ families confronted perpetrators at the police station, she would say, “I would say everything I wanted to say in that situation. People would pull me away if I grabbed them by the hair first, preventing me from finishing what I have to say.”
At this moment, it was Jaei who was deeply moved by Doha’s mother’s burning love. So this is how a mother’s confession of feelings toward the child she bore and raised carves into one’s heart? Learning the depth of love for Doha by watching his mother, Jaei blinked his reddened eyes. Hong Duyoung, conscious of the reporter who had sneaked into the police station with ears perked up, treated the mother as an uncultured person while spouting incomprehensible, academic words. Jaei spoke to him:
“Shut up. That’s how it will end up. Even if you come out of detention as a corpse, I’ll slit your stomach for you. Your future is to be food for great white sharks and orcas.”
This was the harshest sentence that the mild-mannered Lee Jaei had ever uttered with his own mouth, excluding lines written for him by others. For reference, the knowledge that great white sharks and orcas are the top predators of the sea was something he learned while reading books with Doha at the children’s library when they were young.
As Doha’s mother placed a spoonful of white rice, Jaei added side dishes on top, and then his mother added seaweed on top of that.
“If you don’t become a corpse in prison and walk out alive, I will tear you to death with my own hands.”
So Jaei prepared dessert.
“I’ll pull out every single strand of your hair. The follicles will bleed.”
Though Jaei was still somewhat clumsy compared to Doha’s mother, his love for Doha and anger toward Hong Duyoung were no less than hers. The two people who loved Ryu Doha the most in the world showed fantastic teamwork as they calmly slaughtered Hong Duyoung with words.
Doha, who had secretly returned alive, looked back and forth between them, rolling his eyes, and feeling that it would be impolite for him as the victim to be left out, added the final words that would shock Hong Duyoung the most.
“You’re finished, mister. You should have known when to stop playing games. If the tail is too long, it gets stepped on.”
Thinking of Jaei, who has numerous tails but not particularly long ones, Doha continued.
“Now other directors will make films about you. The story of a pervert criminal who pretended to be an artist.”
And he smiled brightly at him.
Currently, Lee Doha, who is the same age as Ryu Seungha, the younger brother of the “deceased Ryu Doha,” unavoidably gained the official setting of being a child his father had brought in from outside, considering various circumstances.
He was raised without a family registry as an illegitimate child, and after Ryu Doha died and the family fell apart, he became alone. He met new parents and gained a resident registration number and family. He used his dead half-brother’s name as his own. He became close to Jaei, who was a friend of his half-brother, learned the truth about his half-brother’s unjust death, and debuted as an actor dreaming of revenge against Hong Duyoung—this was the dramatic narrative he gained.
For Ryu Seungha, to whom all this was sudden and unexpected, they gave him a choice between two options: either believe in Ryu Doha’s reincarnation or consider him a half-brother—it was up to him. Seungha, who had been constantly tilting his head, soon accepted Doha as his pitiful half-brother. And he dared to say to his blood brother who was born 7 years earlier, “Doha, you’ve been through a lot,” while patting his shoulder. Doha smiled brightly and agreed to become a same-aged brother to his kind-hearted Ditto.
While Doha’s mother agreed to this setup, his father, who was working abroad and didn’t know anything yet, couldn’t give his consent. They truly felt sorry for giving the role of a philanderer to the head of the household who had already destroyed the family finances. But it wasn’t exactly a matter that required his father’s consent.
To be honest, Doha had almost no remaining memories of his father. Even the good memories from before he was eight years old had faded, leaving only the image of “the person who made our mom struggle and suffer.”
* * *
After fighting a huge battle, Doha and Jaei slept for more than 30 hours. They heard that while they were soundly asleep, they had appeared on news worldwide. They couldn’t check all the encouraging messages, interview requests, and articles that were piled higher than Namsan Tower, so they just gave up on reviewing them.
What was certain was that Hong Duyoung had completely fallen to the bottom and shattered to pieces, Ryu Doha’s recognition had rapidly increased, and people who had needlessly hated Lee Jaei were now withdrawing their hatred.
After rolling around on the floor embracing each other, they went to work together. As they got off the elevator, a man was pacing in the hallway in front of the office. He couldn’t go in and kept peeking inside from outside. Jaei had never seen him before. But Doha recognized who he was immediately.
Jaei, in his capacity as the company representative, kindly asked him:
“Hello, how can I help you?”
Although Doha knew who he was, he couldn’t readily address him with any title. He didn’t know how to explain his identity, which had now become explainable to everyone thanks to this person, to the person himself. How would this man accept his existence?
The man, whose face was notably tanned from the sun, politely offered a handshake to Jaei. Then he silently examined Doha’s face for a long time. After scanning him from corner to corner, he suddenly contorted his face, quickly regained composure, and took out a bankbook and ATM card from his pocket, handing them to Doha.
“I came to give this to Mr. Ryu Doha.”
Jaei was greatly surprised by the appearance of a middle-aged male fan directly supporting with a bankbook, and as the CEO, he waved his hands. In fact, after Hong Duyoung’s case was revealed, many middle-aged people had been supporting Jaei and Doha in news comment sections.
“Thank you for your support, but I’m really sorry! Our company’s actors don’t accept gifts. Our company has plenty of money, so we don’t accept donations either.”
In truth, since his debut as an actor, Jaei hadn’t accepted gifts beyond letters from fans for one reason: because there was a possibility that Ryu Doha had been reborn as a white bear in the Arctic. Until then, Jaei had left open the possibility that Lee Doha was not Ryu Doha but Ryu Seungha.
If he received many gifts, he would eventually have items he couldn’t use, and even if he donated them, there would be limitations, which would mean having to throw them away, creating a lot of waste that would pollute the environment and cause polar bears to lose their habitat. He couldn’t let the reincarnated Doha lose his home.
Jaei maintained this mindset even after safely recovering Doha. When signing with Jaei, Doha had also agreed not to accept gifts from fans. In any case, he mentally considered polar bears to be his friends and family.
Cash would pollute the environment relatively less, but it was clearly a gift that shouldn’t be accepted from fans. Already, receiving paper letters was concerning for its environmental impact. That’s when Doha’s middle-aged fan spoke:
“This money originally belonged to Mr. Ryu Doha. I received this money from a murderer as the price for my son’s life. I paid off debts with it and only managed to put it back after more than ten years. It took too long.”
Doha shut his eyes tight and let out a painful groan as he dropped his head. Jaei, startled and covering his mouth with both hands, dropped tears. Doha, who had started crying, asked him:
“Who do you think I am?”
“Who else… You have this mole here. And your cheeks turn red when you cry or when you’re in a cold place.”
His father extended his finger and poked the mole on Doha’s red cheek. Indeed, there was no case of parents not recognizing their child. Doha, who had thought he no longer loved his father that much, regretted his feelings and prepared to cross the river of wailing. Just as he was about to fully open his tear ducts and cry like a child, Jaei was already crossing that river beside him, retching.
“Ugh, ugh.”
Because of Jaei, who was crying to the point of fainting from encountering this completely unexpected situation, Doha missed his chance to wail and held back his tears. Jaei had collapsed flat on the floor, calling out, “Father… Father…” as if he had met his own father. Doha, kneeling on one knee and lowering his body, embraced Jaei and stroked his soft hair.
“Dad, I’m sorry. He needs a lot of looking after.”
“I heard so much from your mother in the past. How kind and cute he is, but how much care he needs.”
Doha’s father, who had also lowered his body following Doha, carefully stroked Jaei’s hair.
