“Why not just cancel the investment?”
Ivan calmly continued speaking as he tried to soothe the now-pale Eugene — but if anything, the words that followed only sent a throb of pain through the back of Eugene’s skull. If there’s no money, you pull the investment. That was simple logic. If your son runs off with the family fortune, you stop the investment immediately!
“We already stamped the family seal on the contract. Kyle eloping and breaking the engagement with the Chelsea family has already made us the gossip of the season — if we withdraw from the investment on top of that, the Primrose name will end up rolling around in the gutter like horse dung.”
Eugene barely managed to swallow the urge to burst out, “That’s just a fancy way of saying you can’t afford to look bad!”
“What I mean is — it’s something both you and I will step in once, and then learn to walk around.”
Ivan seemed to want to give Eugene the impression that the current situation wasn’t all that serious, and so he went on calmly laying out the particulars of “Kyle’s crimes.” In short, to sum up the situation: the eldest son, Kyle, had an esteemed fiancée in Lady Chelsea — and yet he had gotten himself entangled in a reckless, burning affair with a woman named Camilla, who wasn’t even gentry but a Romani woman.
So consumed was he by that heat that he’d abandoned all his responsibilities as a nobleman and fled to the New Continent with Miss Camilla — a place where they could start fresh, with something of a clean slate in terms of identity.
And he’d taken everything he could get his hands on — the assets he’d been gradually managing as viscount and acting earl — all of it. On top of that, as if it weren’t enough to slip away quietly, whatever kind of ending he’d given Lady Chelsea, the woman — her proud dignity wounded — had been publicly railing against Kyle Primrose as a shameless scoundrel who’d taken up with a vulgar woman, and was apparently lying in wait for the social season to have her say.
One could argue that rumors are just rumors, and a reputation doesn’t put food on the table — but in this era, reputation was enormously important. Of course, Park Yujin wasn’t from this era — but having lived as something of a minor public figure himself, he understood very well how much a name and an image were worth.
Even a slightly well-known ordinary person from the 21st century felt the weight of their name — and on top of that, this was a world with a rigid class system. Literally a world where your name did put food on the table.
In such a world, the eldest son had made an epic mess and fled — and the furious Count Primrose was now in the process of stripping Kyle from the family registry and revoking his viscountcy. All as quietly and discreetly as possible, of course.
False listing! I’ve been had! I’ve been had again! The dream of a noble life in a grand earl’s estate was nothing but a hollow fantasy! In the end, I’m a debtor all over again!
As he’d said more than once — unlike himself, who had woken up in the home of wealthy nobility, he had felt genuinely sorry for the real Eugene Primrose, who must have woken up as a debt-ridden Park Yujin somewhere in the Republic of Korea. But now? He took that back. He no longer felt quite so sorry. If both sides were debtors, then he’d need to rethink things entirely.
What’s more, this side’s debt was sure to be far larger. A rental deposit scam versus investment funds for a venture into the New Continent. Just from hearing those two things side by side — didn’t the latter sound like an absolutely staggering sum?
The corners of Eugene’s eyes trembled. And it wasn’t just his eyes — his hands trembled too. When he had first accepted the fact that he had no choice but to go on living as Eugene Primrose for the foreseeable future, Park Yujin had thought perhaps God had taken pity on his difficult life and was giving him a short vacation.
A hollow laugh came out of him. The thought that grew stronger now was this: God’s favorite was the real Eugene Primrose, and Park Yujin had been nothing more than a seasoned stand-in — someone experienced enough to live through the hard times in his place. Right. That must be why someone so beloved by God had been born with a face like this.
How does debt collection work in this era? Does one simply become a ruined noble? It wasn’t his father’s debt, but the memory of struggling through poverty flashed through his mind.
If the debt had to be paid either way, it seemed better to go back and pay off his own than to suffer under someone else’s — but he had no idea how to leave this body and return to his original one. With his mind suddenly tangled in complexity, Eugene let out a silent scream somewhere deep inside.
I want to go back!
There was no way anything like illegal debt collection prohibitions or personal rehabilitation systems — things that existed in 21st century modern society — could possibly exist here. A film began playing automatically in Eugene’s head, with himself as the protagonist. Debt collectors swarming the beautiful estate, a villain delivering some sleazy line like “My, the youngest son is quite the looker” — and then being dragged off to become a slave.
Imagining himself being whipped mercilessly as he hauled enormous boulders, he shot upright in bed. The sudden movement sent a wave of dizziness through him. Eugene’s skin, pale as though it had never seen sunlight, drained to a white so complete it looked as if there wasn’t a drop of blood left in him — and Ivan clicked his tongue.
“I shouldn’t have said anything. There really is nothing for you to worry about, so please calm down. At this rate you’ll fall again and hurt your head.”
“Is this what I was hearing when I collapsed before?”
“Yes. You fainted before I even finished explaining.”
“That’s understandable.”
“I’m careful about it, but I was afraid you might hear a rumor going around, or catch word of it from somewhere else, and collapse from shock again — so I wanted to tell you in advance.”
A bit late for that. He had assumed Eugene had simply fainted from the shock of being close to his brother — but hearing the full story now, he thought that even a person without a weak constitution might well have passed out cold at this.
Now that he’d heard everything from start to finish, he couldn’t smooth out his expression the way Ivan had suggested. Well — if this had been the real Eugene Primrose, perhaps he might have naively believed his second older brother’s reassurances.
The fact that he had, round and round, ended up a debtor again — it hit Eugene like a bolt of lightning out of a clear blue sky. Falling into a completely different world wasn’t enough; he had to possess the body of a child in a household the eldest son had run into the ground. Should he, in the manner of a cold and practical modern person, declare the family’s debts had nothing to do with him and sever all ties? From what he’d learned in his etiquette lessons, the third son technically stood to inherit nothing.
If Kyle hadn’t run away, even the second son Ivan would have had to make his own way — become a military officer, a clergyman, a lawyer, or something, and fend for himself. Of course, the kind attendant had spoken with great confidence that as far as Eugene was concerned, there was nothing to worry about whatsoever. That the bond between the brothers was very strong, and that even if the parents couldn’t pass down a title, they would spare no support — in material and every other way.
In other words, it was roughly the equivalent of a beloved youngest son from a wealthy family striking out on his own. Not like a poor boy who had to start adulthood with a rental deposit already in debt — but like someone born with a silver spoon, stepping into the world with a studio apartment in the heart of Seoul and generous financial backing to lean on until he could fully stand on his own.
Eugene swallowed dryly and pressed a hand to his forehead. It was the kind of gesture that looked rather like a well-born young lady signaling “I’m about to faint.” He was already lying in the soft bed as a precaution, but Ivan looked at him with a worried face and pushed him back down again.
“Do we have to go into debt?”
“No, no, it’s not that bad, I’m telling you. Eugene. We simply need to cut spending for a while and live as frugally as possible.”
“Really?”
As if trying to reassure his ashen-faced younger brother, Ivan waved his hand and kept soothing him. The voice and manner were quite carefree, to the ear. But this was Eugene — someone who had already been swindled in his original world and left saddled with debt that was hard for a young man his age to bear. Hearing Ivan’s words alone and going “Oh, ha-ha, is that all” felt far too trusting; he was full of suspicion.
Eugene lifted the hand from his forehead, looked up sharply, and asked again — and the composed Ivan faltered.
“Hmm… don’t worry. If it comes to it, your hyung here will…”
Realizing his words had already lost their credibility, Ivan’s eyes darted around like a puppy that had done something wrong. Eugene’s gaze was sharp and dangerous.
“Debt is something I absolutely cannot stand.”
Eugene muttered to himself, in a tone that sounded half like a lament. The quiet murmur was so soaked in deep-seated bitterness that it gave Ivan a chill. Ivan found it rather odd — Eugene, who had never so much as been near debt and had lived the comfortable life of a high-ranking noble his whole life, gritting his teeth and saying “I absolutely cannot stand” it.
The way Eugene was grinding his teeth — unelegantly, with grating intensity — made it look as though he had a visceral, personal aversion to the very word “debt.”
Before his collapse, Eugene had always had a slightly cold edge to him, not quite what you’d expect of a youngest son raised with an abundance of love. He was somewhat pessimistic, but at his core, he’d been nothing more than a sheltered noble dreamer. He’d always had money like a spring that never ran dry, and could spend as much as he liked, whenever and wherever. For him to speak as if he’d personally lived through debt felt deeply out of place.
Truthfully, Ivan had expected that if he played the part of the reassuring older brother and said a few words to placate him, Eugene would nod in a detached “do as you see fit” sort of way. But defying Ivan’s expectations, as Eugene took in Kyle’s crimes and the family’s situation, a blue flame began to burn fiercely in his eyes.
It was unlike the Eugene who had never paid much attention to the workings of noble society or the world outside — the one who had simply stayed home, sponsoring impoverished artists by correspondence and sending people out to acquire artwork on his behalf.
He had heard from the family physician that a severe head injury might leave someone confused, behaving as though they were a different person — but experiencing the change firsthand over these past few days, his younger brother felt genuinely unfamiliar to him.
Somehow, faced with Eugene’s sharpened gaze, Ivan found himself shrinking and watching Eugene’s every cue. Those burning eyes didn’t give off the feeling of his youngest brother Eugene Primrose — someone he was supposed to protect — but of a debt collector showing up with a fistful of promissory notes. It felt as though Eugene might any moment fix him with an icy stare, thrust a pile of debt certificates in his face, and demand to know, point by point, exactly what repayment plan he intended to put in place.
“W-well. For now, we’re making inquiries to track down Kyle and recover the embezzled assets — but it seems he’s already crossed over to the New Continent with Camilla. We’re trying to get someone over there too, but the costs make it no easy matter.”
Ivan even stumbled over his words without meaning to the moment he made eye contact with Eugene’s cold, flashing gaze. He shook his head, dismissing the thought as ridiculous.
It’s just the head injury. It was far better than lying there like a corpse, or barely breathing in a state of listless vacancy. If only he’d recover quickly and get his memories back — with that thought, Ivan made sense of the change in his brother.
“Anyway, leave it all to me. Don’t think too deeply about it, and focus on recovering for now.”
Returning to his original purpose, Ivan put on an easygoing face and played the part of a dependable older brother standing in for Kyle. Back when Kyle was around, it had never been Ivan’s turn to play the responsible one.
“Your hyung and Father will take care of everything.”
Feeling that he’d cut quite a fine figure just then, Ivan gave a satisfied shrug. But Eugene clearly didn’t share that impression — he sat bolt upright again and asked:
“Take care of it how, exactly?”
“There are ways.”
Even under the pressure of Eugene’s almost interrogating tone, Ivan kept his words close. It wasn’t a grand plan, but Ivan and Count Primrose did have one to turn the situation around. Just as Ivan had told Eugene — they only needed to live frugally for a short while, just a brief while, until the father and son’s plan could be set in motion. But for some reason, Ivan had the distinct feeling that he shouldn’t share that plan with Eugene — not as he was right now.
Eugene tried to hold him back, insisting he be told too — but Ivan made his excuses about needing to sort out Kyle’s mess as quickly as possible, and slipped out. Leaving behind only the words “you’ll find out soon enough,” Ivan fled — and Eugene was left alone, clutching his aching head and groaning.
He spent a moment directing his resentment toward the man who had temporarily stood in as his second older brother — the one who had barged in, dropped an enormous bombshell, and then disappeared. But soon enough, the arrow swung toward the true culprit: the eldest son. His teeth ground together with a grating sound.
Eugene had been clenching his molars so hard they creaked — and then, catching himself, he massaged his jaw. In this era, there would be no such things as veneers, implants, or resin restorations — so he had to take care of what he had, as best he could.
And on top of that, this wasn’t even his body.
The cheeks beneath his hands were soft as silk. The skin was so smooth it was as if there wasn’t a single imperfection — Eugene found himself stroking his own face. This was skin that would draw gasps of admiration even without anyone going out of their way to compliment it. The kind of skin that looked as if the word “dermatologist” had never once needed to enter its owner’s vocabulary from birth.
Right — there aren’t any dermatologists here to begin with.
