I tossed the rag onto the floor and headed toward the wooden porch. Reaching to pull the latch on the sliding door of the room where Choi Seol was, I lowered my hand at the sound of a vacuum running inside. Suddenly barging in didn’t seem like a great idea. Instead, I went over to the display cabinet in the corner of the porch. Underneath it sat the various teas my mom kept stocked and the electric kettle.
For a conversation, I needed to set the mood first. If I lured him in with the suggestion of taking a break over a cup of tea, Choi Seol would probably go along with it, playing reluctant. Hot tea in the middle of summer was a bit much, but there was that saying about fighting fire with fire.
I filled the kettle with water and pressed the power button. Hurry up and boil. Watching it impatiently, the time it took to boil felt agonizingly slow today of all days. As I reached for the cabinet where the tea leaf tin was stored, just to get things ready, something dropped to the floor by my feet. A document envelope.
I knew immediately what kind of envelope it was. It had to contain the documents noona had printed out as a favor to Choi Seol—papers with his current address and other personal information. My shoulders sagged in an instant.
What would even be the point of bringing it up now. Maybe I’d gotten swept up in the same illusion as noona, with her talk of him being seventeen. Memory loss or not, the Choi Seol in front of me now was the same one I knew—the one who’d handed me a cruel spring and then walked away.
Don’t fool yourself. Han Yeoreum was never your friend, or anything else.
I couldn’t afford to fool myself. By some twist of fate our paths had crossed again, but my first love, my one-sided love, had already ended ten years ago. Honestly, even a week was too long. For two people who’d never even been friends, three days would’ve been more than enough to meet, part, and go back to being strangers.
With a beep, the water started to boil. It felt like waking up from a dream. Instead of picking up the tea leaf tin, I turned my head to find Choi Seol standing just past the threshold.
“Done cleaning?”
“Not yet. The vacuum can’t reach under the bookshelf, so I came out for a broom.”
As he spoke, Choi Seol’s gaze drifted to the envelope in my hand.
“I’ll find you a broom. And this—I was about to grab the tea tin and it fell right onto my foot.”
Choi Seol took the envelope without a word. He didn’t look like he was about to open it right away, though. I hesitated, then spoke up.
“Shouldn’t you be heading home soon?”
Choi Seol, who’d been staring quietly at the envelope, lifted his head. I couldn’t read anything from his expression.
“You want me to go?”
There it is again. That feeling of having messed up. But I couldn’t keep stalling and reading the room any longer.
“Of course you should go. You don’t even know what state the house you used to live in is in right now, and… who knows? Maybe a partner’s waiting for you there.”
It would’ve felt stranger for someone with that face and that body to not be seeing anyone. If he’d been married, noona would’ve mentioned it already. There wouldn’t have been this whole headache over guardianship in the first place either. But there were plenty of bonds in this world that couldn’t be proven on paper. Even without blood ties, there could be someone he loved just as much, and the possibility of a live-in partner had to be considered too.
“So it’d be best to go check as soon as possible—”
“What about you?”
“Hm?”
“Do you have a partner?”
“…Me?”
“Yeah.”
Why does it feel like he keeps circling back to me. Sensing a slightly sharper edge to his tone, I flinched and shook my head.
“Not right now.”
“Right now?”
“How old do you think I am, you think I’ve never had a partner once? We broke up while I was in the military. So I’m single right now.”
Of course, it wasn’t actually the army that caused the breakup. I’d shown up unannounced on leave to surprise him, only to find him rolling around with some young punk, so I’d thoroughly worked him over to the brink of impotence before dumping him. Even now, just thinking about it made me grind my teeth, the anger nowhere near settled. I quickly looked over at Choi Seol instead. Looking at a handsome face really did wonders for peace of mind. Drawing on that hard-won calm, I continued.
“I get why you wouldn’t want to readily go back, but let’s think positively for now. Right now, with no one familiar except me, it’s natural to feel anxious, but you never know what’ll happen. Maybe once you get home, there’ll be people you remember besides me too—”
“No, that’s not it.”
At the firm tone, I shut my mouth in surprise.
“There’s nothing like that for me. I… you—”
Choi Seol’s face contorted. His mouth opened and closed several times as if swallowing back what he wanted to say, then he abruptly turned his back to me.
“I’m not done cleaning yet. We’ll talk later.”
“W-wait. Choi Seol—”
Choi Seol ignored me completely and walked back into the room. Left alone on the porch, I stared blankly at the closed sliding door before letting out a hollow laugh.
“What on earth is wrong with that guy?”
Going by his attitude just now, it felt like I was the one who’d messed up again, somehow. Having to feel this way over and over was uncomfortable. By rights, Choi Seol should be recovering and then heading back to the address noona had given him. Even if his memory returned, that’s where he should start from. And yet the document envelope still sat there, unopened.
What is he even trying to do here?
It wasn’t like he wanted to play out some nostalgic school-days reunion with me here.
So I went looking. I missed summer.
Right, there was that too.
I thought of Choi Seol that early dawn and absently rubbed the back of my neck. It still felt like the heat lingered there. I’d thought it before, but he had this habit of casually crossing physical boundaries with other people without much hesitation.
It had been like that the first time we met too. And when he lent me that book…
Wait, didn’t he say under the bookshelf earlier?
I looked at the door Choi Seol had gone through. My blood ran cold for a second. I started to rush into the room, then turned back and grabbed the broom I’d left propped in the corner of the porch. And this time, I really did kick the door open and burst into the room.
“Choi Seol, I almost forgot, here’s the broom—gah!”
Choi Seol was standing in front of the bookshelf, staring intently at a cover with a little wizard drawn on it. I’m dead. Despite how loudly I’d burst in, Choi Seol didn’t take his eyes off the book. His expression gave nothing away about what he was thinking. Feeling like I shouldn’t be the one to speak first, I just kept gripping the broom anxiously, watching for his reaction.
“This.”
Finally, Choi Seol spoke to me.
“It was under the bookshelf.”
“Huh?”
“Isn’t this the one that fell on your foot before?”
“O-oh, is it?”
“Seems like it. Otherwise there’s no reason a book would be wedged under there.”
Yeah. There is a reason. It’s because of you.
If it weren’t for Choi Seol, that book would’ve long since been wrapped in plastic and tucked safely away in my treasure box. But that wasn’t the point right now.
“Anyway, what’s up?”
Choi Seol asked casually as he slid the book he’d been holding back onto the shelf.
“You were looking for the broom earlier.”
Good thing I brought it. I hadn’t expected to end up using it as an excuse like this, though. If he hadn’t noticed at all, fine, but now that Choi Seol had found the book, I’d assumed he’d press me on why it was here.
“Just leave it there, I’ll use it when I need it. Thanks.”
That was it.
Why isn’t he saying anything?
Choi Seol turned his gaze back to the bookshelf as if it didn’t even matter whether I left or stayed. I’d thought he’d recognize it the moment he saw it. Even with memory loss, he still remembered every period from back when he could’ve known that book. If that was the case, there was only one possible reason.
It must have just been a memory not even worth holding onto.
It was a precious memory to me, sure, but to Choi Seol it had probably been nothing much at all. I felt embarrassed for having made such a fuss inwardly, worried about getting caught. Eager to get out of the room, I propped the broom haphazardly by the door and turned to leave, when—
“Oh, right. There’s something I’ve wanted to ask you for a while now.”
I stopped walking and turned back around. Choi Seol, who’d seemed like he was deliberately ignoring me, was now walking toward me.
“…What is it?”
“Why’d you do it?”
The question, stripped of all context, made me frown.
“Do what?”
“Why’d you take care of me when we weren’t even friends? Even brought me into your home.”
“…What?”
Before I could even register the distance closing between us so quickly, Choi Seol’s words came pouring out.
“You don’t even know who I really am. How could you trust me like that?”
“Choi Seol?”
“Han Yeoreum. How are you going to prove that I actually lost my memory?”
It felt like getting hit over the head.
“Why would I be the one who needs to prove that?”
“Just, got curious about it.”
“Wait, are you seriously sulking because I told you to go home earlier?”
“Could be that too.”
At his utterly half-hearted answers, I finally snapped.
“Hey. Choi Seol. What exactly are you trying to do with me here?”
I’ve only got so much patience for reading the room. I couldn’t keep quietly putting up with this unreadable guy any longer. Ready to glare him down and have noona send him home immediately if this turned out to be more messing around, I found that the mouth that had been teasing so freely just moments ago had gone completely shut. Instead, the eyes looking at me were nothing but serious.
“That’s the thing. What exactly do I want to do with you?”
The words that finally came out rang low. Since it hadn’t really been a question to begin with, I had nothing to say back.
“You’re the only thing I remember.”
In that moment, the distance between us closed further.
“You’re the only one I can trust, and home…”
This time too, Choi Seol’s words went unfinished, swallowed up by his own lips against mine. Instead, his shoulders dropped weakly along with his bewildered eyes. I felt a sudden urge to reach out.
Honestly, I was shaken—quite a lot, actually. Seeing him, with a face like a seventeen-year-old’s, say that I was the only thing he remembered, looking so pitiful, made it feel impossible not to do something for him. The house felt unusually hot today, of all days.
Get a grip, Han Yeoreum. That’s not a confession of love. It was just a twenty-seven-year-old with amnesia acting like an unconvincing little chick, completely out of character. My chest tightened. Instead of reaching out, I took a step back instead. That’s when it happened.
“Whoa!”
Something caught at my foot, and my body, unable to keep its balance, swayed backward. I instinctively reached for the door panel right beside me, but a flash of memory made my grip go slack. Having missed the moment, my body fell back helplessly. At the same time, I squeezed my eyes shut.
“…….”
“What are you doing?”
Not quite ragged breathing, but a fairly irritated sound, along with a familiar scent suddenly rushing toward my nose.
