# Chapter 73.
Doha carefully peeled off the photo card that was precariously attached to Jaei’s smooth, round forehead. Since it was attached with masking tape, he could remove it without causing pain. After checking his own face in the photo once, he collected the Polaroids attached to Jaei’s crimson cheeks and cute chest one by one.
With photo cards in his left hand and Polaroids in his right, he compared the photos, alternating his gaze between them. Although he couldn’t recall the memory of when they were taken, he could clearly sense what emotions his photographed self was feeling.
“Do you know who took these? If you know, please tell me too.”
Doha asked while gently waving the Polaroid. Jaei, whose soft cheeks were completely soaked with tears, sniffled and answered.
“I took them. Do you like them? They’re pretty, right? I took them well.”
As if he had expected that answer, Doha nodded.
“I look very happy. I must have been having a great time with you, Sunbae-nim.”
“Yes, we had fun. That day.”
“I thought so.”
No matter how much his memory had been erased, and no matter how insensitive his disposition might be, he couldn’t help but recognize what his own expression was saying. The photo cards were probably taken by a photographer, while the Polaroids were taken by Lee Jaei. The look in Ryu Doha’s eyes and his expression were completely different in the two photos.
In the Polaroid taken by Jaei, Ryu Doha was wearing a white t-shirt, lying on a bed, smiling widely at the camera lens with eyes overflowing with love and affection.
Doha clutched all the photos in one hand and wiped away Jaei’s tears with the other. Despite appearing in such an absurdly dramatic state, Jaei was unbelievably beautiful. After carefully wiping away Jaei’s tears, Doha lightly held his hand and headed toward the bedroom.
Since the apartment was just superficially furnished without any signs of use, there wasn’t a single appliance or piece of furniture in the living room yet. He couldn’t possibly seat his first visitor since birth on the living room floor, so he had no choice but to head to the bedroom.
He carefully laid Jaei down on the bed. Jaei’s already flat and thin body sank deep into the plush bedding. Doha, with only a large towel wrapped around his waist, sat down next to Jaei without bothering to get dressed, remaining in his undressed state. After looking in the mirror while showering yesterday and today, he had concluded that he looked slightly more handsome without clothes than with them.
When Jaei realized that Doha had no intention of getting dressed, he hurriedly rubbed his eyes against the blanket to wipe away the pooled tears so he could see Doha more clearly.
Doha knew that Jaei’s gaze was very explicitly scanning him, but he pretended not to care. He just exerted all his strength to control his sympathetic nervous system to maintain his white and clear skin while receiving Jaei’s heated gaze.
He thought that feeling embarrassed and turning red in the face and body in this situation wasn’t cool at all. If this were a scene in a drama, viewers would throw their remote controls the moment the male protagonist’s chest turned red. It would be like dumping a bucket of ice water on their heated hearts.
With a composed expression, he gently squeezed Jaei’s hand. He interlaced their fingers and began carefully removing the stickers attached to Jaei’s left arm and the back of his hand one by one. There was a doll cradled in Jaei’s right arm. Doha had been very suspicious of the small figure nestled snugly in Jaei’s arms since he first appeared.
After removing all the stickers attached to Jaei’s smooth skin, he lightly stroked his hair. This made Jaei extremely happy, narrowing his eyes and shrugging his shoulders as he smiled.
Having removed the photo cards, Polaroids, and stickers in order, the last thing Doha needed to remove was the mysterious plush doll cradled in Jaei’s arms. Feeling somewhat eerie and strange, he rolled his eyes around before carefully addressing Jaei.
“Please tell me what happened, why you came looking for me while crying.”
“…”
“I think we were close enough to be open with each other about these things. Even if we weren’t, let’s become that kind of relationship from now on.”
Jaei, who had appeared crying in an unusual manner and maintained silence, filled his eyes with sympathy. It wasn’t as if he didn’t want to speak.
If only Doha hadn’t forgotten their intensely attached relationship because of his trip to the afterlife, Jaei would have considered this a great opportunity. He would have shouted in a lovely voice, “Doha, Doha. I’m scared of ghosts, I think I’ll dream about ghosts,” while rolling around in his arms, acting childishly in a way unbefitting his age.
But since this wasn’t the situation, he spoke maturely in a serious voice to maintain his dignity.
“After I finished showering, there was a man standing in the living room.”
In that moment, Doha’s white face strangely turned greenish. The blue-tinged Doha naturally reached for his phone to call 112 (emergency services), but Jaei grabbed his wrist and asked in an eerie voice.
“Before that, let’s talk about this. Do you believe in ghosts?”
Turned white again from the sudden question, Doha looked upward and fell into thought. Although he had no experiential memory of ghosts, he left the judgment to the instinct that remained in every corner of his brain and body cells. At this moment, Ryu Doha had the following view about ghosts:
“Ghosts exist. I can’t remember, but I think I’ve seen one.”
At that moment, Jaei clapped his hands in delight. Indeed, there was a dimensional difference between when Doha lost his memory and returned to being eight years old, and now at twenty. Encouraged by the thought that communication with Doha would be much easier than before, Jaei tightly gripped his thick, firm fingers like handles with both hands and continued.
“The man I saw was a ghost. He had no shadow, and he suddenly disappeared in front of my eyes. You don’t have to believe me if you don’t want to, but it would be better if you just did. It’s more comfortable for both of us that way.”
“I believe you. I trust people easily. I believe in ghosts too.”
“Thank you, Doha is the best as always.”
Smiling brightly as he interlaced all his fingers with Doha’s, Jaei recalled what the ghost had said: “Why isn’t it here, is this the wrong house?” So Jaei could only think of the ghost’s identity as this: a grim reaper who came for Doha.
Meaning, he came to take Doha but couldn’t find him because he wasn’t in the place where he was supposed to be. Could Doha have attempted to escape from the afterlife without permission because of his sense of responsibility to film the drama within three days? Perhaps the bold and courageous Doha had found a passage connecting the afterlife to this world and escaped.
Of course, all these speculations were likely delusions stemming from his imagination. Currently, Jaei’s brain had grown considerably larger due to excessive and frequent brain development training, and he was displaying an extraordinarily vivid imagination from countless readings of various genre scenarios including mysteries, science fiction, and religious materials.
As Doha had said before, Jaei didn’t know much about the world of the afterlife. He was just imagining everything. But whatever the ghost’s identity was, the fact that he had come looking for Doha was certain.
While Jaei was thinking hard, Doha was also rolling his thoughts around, making his own assumptions about the situation. Soon, with a light bulb figuratively flashing above his head, Doha momentarily rose from the bed and began rummaging through his bag. What he took out was a sewing kit that the stylist had given him today, saying, “You’ve been working out your chest so much lately that the buttons on your shirts keep popping off.”
Jaei, who had been slightly raising his waist to lean against the back cushion and admiring Doha’s backside, opened his eyes wide at the sudden appearance of the pointed weapon and asked.
“Doha, what’s that for?”
Doha caressed the cheek of Jaei, who was deeply immersed in shamanism, and then took the small plush doll tucked at his side. And to quickly restore his relationship with his senior Lee Jaei, whom he presumably greatly admired, he responded to Jaei’s shamanism with shamanism of his own.
“This, this is the right use, isn’t it? This is how it’s supposed to be done. Right?”
Doha, with the face of a child wanting praise, stuck a large needle right into the doll’s chest. He clearly thought it was about sticking lots of needles into the doll to defeat the ghost. If not that, why would a grown adult carry around a small human-shaped doll? It was exactly the size a shaman would like.
However, the moment the 20cm ball of fluff Doha was stabbed with the needle, Jaei screamed in shock.
“What are you doing! Stop! Our baby is in pain!”
“What? Baby?”
Doha, who had been happily about to stick a second needle into the small nose, dropped the doll at Jaei’s sincere cry and continued.
“Is this your baby, Sunbae-nim? Did you give birth to it?”
He asked in a voice full of questions, but even more shocking words flowed from the lips of Jaei, who was hurriedly pulling out the needle and kissing the doll’s face.
“This is my boyfriend!”
“What? Why? Why are you dating this?!”
