The atmosphere of Seunggeon who came out later after asking him to excuse himself for a moment wasn’t very good. It was clear that they had either fought or something equivalent had happened.
Shim Jeongmin, a competent secretary, didn’t ask what was the matter. He just thought Seunggeon was strange today. More precisely, he had been like this for the past few days.
Seunggeon had an indifferent and cold personality. Though he showed a bit more patience and consideration to his people, it wasn’t to the extent that he would volunteer to nurse a patient. If he were going to do that, he would rather hire someone. Finding a trustworthy person wasn’t a difficult task either.
But last night Seunggeon personally did the nursing, and this morning he even obtained porridge and delivered it.
Shim Jeongmin reflexively thought of Chaehun.
In many ways, Chaehun was a very special existence. It had been like that from when Seunggeon gave the order to look into Chaehun.
Shim Jeongmin felt it was familiar somewhere when he heard the name Kang Chaehun. Then he soon recalled that Chaehun was Seunggeon’s high school classmate who had been swept up in a past incident. It was because Shim Jeongmin was one of the people who had dealt with the attempted kidnapping incident.
Finding out that Chaehun’s older brother had been scammed and ended up with a large debt wasn’t difficult. He thought it made sense that Seunggeon had paid off the debt through a somewhat complicated method and had the thugs removed. Since if it weren’t for Chaehun, Seunggeon wouldn’t have been able to stay alive, it was understandable to say he was repaying a debt of gratitude.
But Seunggeon’s next move was strange. He was meeting Chaehun after binding him in a personal restraint contract. If you had to define it, it was a situation that could be called volunteering to be a sponsor.
Sponsors were common in this world. But Shim Jeongmin hadn’t expected Seunggeon would be like that.
Seunggeon, who had lived in America from age twenty to twenty-nine, was an upright man. He didn’t cause any problems with alcohol or love affairs, let alone drugs, which were a regular trouble menu for rich young masters. He studied diligently and graduated from university with good grades and even got a job.
It was definitely strange that not long after such a Seunggeon returned to Korea, he would find his high school classmate and lifesaver and have that kind of relationship. On top of that, preparing a card with no limit and purchasing seven expensive wristwatches too. Especially the watch designs—Seunggeon had personally looked at catalogs and chosen them, carving out time he didn’t have.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t guess what was going on. Such cases were common too. Giving one’s heart while sponsoring. When bodies mixed, hearts that didn’t exist could be born.
Chaehun was a handsome man who looked cold enough for a chilly wind to blow when expressionless. But when he smiled brightly, the atmosphere changed again. On top of that, his personality was decent too.
Usually when money got involved, people became greedy. Since he had watched from the side as Seunggeon casually spent 2 billion won, he could have cultivated various schemes. However, Chaehun had never shown greed.
Only 3 months had passed so he’d have to watch more, but he didn’t seem to be the type with much desire for power or wealth.
Actually, from Shim Jeongmin’s position, Chaehun didn’t matter either way. The core was Seunggeon. Seunggeon had few emotional ups and downs and strong self-control, but he had problems physically and mentally. The worry was not knowing what effect the relationship with Chaehun would have on Seunggeon.
While Shim Jeongmin was worrying about the young master he had served for so long, the traffic light turned green. Shim Jeongmin, who smoothly started the car, checked the rearview mirror again. This time Seunggeon had his eyes closed and was pressing his furrowed brow.
“Do you perhaps have a headache?”
“I’m fine.”
“Shall I give you painkillers?”
“It’s because I’m tired. I’ll close my eyes for a bit.”
Seunggeon hated taking medicine. Because he was a dominant alpha, medicine had almost no effect. So he usually endured without taking medicine if possible. When Seunggeon said he’d close his eyes for a bit, Shim Jeongmin didn’t talk to him anymore.
Seunggeon, with his eyes closed, consciously tightened his lips. The cause of the headache was simple. It was because a few memories from the past had surfaced.
Late autumn 11 years ago, Seunggeon, who had fallen into a coma for nearly half a year from an attempted kidnapping incident and then woken up, had lost his memory. His body was twenty years old, but his memories were around the vicinity of summer when he was sixteen.
Seunggeon, who heard the circumstances of the incident, understood what situation he was in. Other than his eye level being different from his memory, accepting the time difference wasn’t difficult. However, what made Seunggeon perplexed were the abnormal symptoms from the accident’s aftereffects.
The stab wound, organ damage, and brain hemorrhage had all healed by the time he woke from the coma. But as aftereffects, his sense of taste and smell disappeared.
The symptoms appeared slowly. At first, tastes became bland and scents became faint. Then after 2 months of being awake, the world became tasteless and odorless. He could smell trait holders’ pheromones, but even those felt like cheap, nauseating perfume.
The cause was unknown. Though a detailed examination diagnosed that it wasn’t nerve damage, that was all. All they could do was guess that the trait holder hormones had caused problems due to shock from the accident.
Not long after cautiously starting drug treatment, he had a seizure. In the end, a treatment plan was set up not in Korea but in America, which was ahead in trait holder-related treatment technology.
He balanced studies and treatment for about a year in America. Though there was no progress in treatment, he caught up with 3 years of high school studies in 1 year and entered university.
After that, he lived normally. He graduated from university and got a job. The world was still tasteless and odorless, but it was livable. Life’s stimulation could be felt from things other than taste and scent. What he was most passionate about was exercise. The surging adrenaline confirmed to him that he was alive.
He thought he would settle in America like that. But the situation changed when his grandfather collapsed.
Taehwa Group was a top-ranking chaebol in South Korea. When his maternal grandfather, the chairman of Taehwa Group, collapsed, the successor issue was immediately raised. With his only maternal uncle having died a few years ago, the only blood relative of his grandfather was Seunggeon’s mother.
But Seunggeon’s mother had lived a life far from management. And that was the same for his grandmother. His half-brother with a different father was being raised as the successor, but he was still too young. In the end, the only alternative was Seunggeon.
Seunggeon didn’t want to get involved in complicated family affairs, but his grandmother earnestly requested. She said she couldn’t bear to see the results of what her husband had built up his entire life disintegrate in the air.
When his parents divorced at age eight, Seunggeon was raised by his grandmother’s hand. His grandmother, who raised Seunggeon in place of his mother who had ostensibly left for America for studies, always devoted herself. Seunggeon couldn’t refuse the request of his grandmother, who was both his guardian and the teacher he respected.
Life that started in Korea was as troublesome as expected. He was always busy, and dealing with people blinded by money was just tiring.
When he had regretted coming to Korea about three times, he met Chaehun. Seunggeon recognized Chaehun passing before his eyes at a glance.
While living in America, the lost memories were returning very gradually and randomly. Like watching a boring movie, like being struck by lightning in an instant, or with emotional investment, the memories that surfaced were mostly related to high school life.
And Chaehun appeared in those memories with a very high probability.
He had known objective information about Chaehun even before recalling memories. He was a high school friend, and during the kidnapping incident, he had saved his life with help from him who was walking home from school together.
He was a lifesaver, but Seunggeon had no memories of high school at all. Gratitude to Chaehun aside, he was just a person who existed only in text. Though he felt strange because Chaehun had been so affectionate in the memories that returned one by one, that was all.
Meeting Chaehun at Taehwa Hospital was by chance. Recognizing him at a glance was because he in the memories was quite impressive. Before the brief admiration of being able to meet like this in a place like this could end, he realized the change.
The VIP ward prioritized comfortable service above all. Still, because it was a hospital, it couldn’t completely eliminate the characteristic smell of disinfectant.
The moment Seunggeon realized he could smell the sharp scent of disinfectant and the perfume of Shim Jeongmin standing right next to him, he experienced a thrill like being struck by lightning. And reflexively, he found himself looking at Chaehun. The only variable that had changed from a moment ago was Chaehun alone.
When their eyes met, Chaehun seemed to recognize him. However, there was no time to speak. When the elevator doors closed and Chaehun disappeared, the fragrance of the world vanished as if it were a lie.
Even in the shock of facing a miracle, Seunggeon thought coldly.
One of Seunggeon’s abnormal symptoms was that the pheromone scents of trait-carriers felt nauseating to him. It was usually a symptom that appeared when one imprinted on a specific partner, and based on this, Seunggeon’s attending physician had established one hypothesis. That Seunggeon had imprinted on someone.
Of course, various numerical tests showed nothing related to imprinting. Therefore, the attending physician offered the opinion that his body and mind might be mistaken, thinking he had imprinted when he hadn’t. Like phantom pain, so to speak.
When Seunggeon first heard that hypothesis, he thought it was an unfunny joke. Of course, the possibility wasn’t entirely absent, but he didn’t take it seriously.
However, Seunggeon’s maternal grandmother thought differently. Through his grandmother’s arrangements, he met the most likely candidates among the Omegas he had known before losing his memory, but there were no results. His grandmother was anxious and fretful, but Seunggeon didn’t think it was that serious.
In society, trait-carriers’ imprinting was regarded as a romantic device, an eternal vow of love. But in reality, it was merely the action of hormones following emotions. And if the other party didn’t accept it, one would suffer through various disorders before the imprint eventually broke. Sometimes it led to death, but that was very rare.
Even after 10 years had passed, the imaginary imprint hadn’t broken, but he hadn’t died either. Other than not being able to taste or smell, there were no other abnormalities. It was a disorder that could be serious if one thought it was, but Seunggeon lived without feeling particularly inconvenienced.
But the imaginary imprint partner was Chaehun. He, who hadn’t even made it onto the list because he was a Beta, had been holding his leash.
