Sweetheart, if he acts too rotten, just slap him across the face.
What a ridiculous thing to say.
Through the first bout of amnesia, aching and frightening.
Through the second, anxious and sad.
Through the third, shitty and infuriating.
Through the fourth, absurd and almost funny.
Not once had Dojun raised a hand against Hanul.
Sure, they'd traded punches before they started dating, but even so, how do you raise a hand to someone you love?
You know it's fine. A few hits won't kill me. Who knows? I might fall for you all over again, since you'd be the first person who ever hit me.
Hanul's focus slipped in strange places often enough that it might actually happen.
But even if Hanul liked it, once things went that far, this relationship would stop being love.
And if I still couldn't leave you after that, it wouldn't be love keeping me here. It'd be guilt.
Mm, my mistake. Give me a deep kiss instead. That would be far more of a shock than getting hit.
He said things he didn't mean so easily.
After the scene he made before that.
It was all him in the end, so Dojun couldn't understand why he'd get jealous over something like that.
Understanding Hanul's thinking always took a great deal of effort.
And even with the effort, plenty of his behavior made no sense by ordinary standards.
But Dojun loved him anyway.
Even with his memories gone, the parts of him Dojun had fallen for kept poking through, as if to prove he was the same person, and so Dojun couldn't let go of that hand.
More than anything...
No matter how much you act like it's nothing, you're hurt and suffering over this too.
Pupils blown wide with shock the moment his memories returned.
What did I do...
Dojun, it isn't true, is it?
Tears spilling from eyes that stared at him blankly, unable even to blink.
Should I let you go? Do you want to leave?
No, I can't.
Don't go.
Hands trembling, unable to bring themselves to touch him even while his mouth held on.
Don't throw me away.
I know it's selfish, but... no.
You, emptying your stomach day after day out of hatred and disgust for yourself, and still forcing a smile in front of me.
I've gotten a bit sluggish, so I'm watching my weight.
I'm fine. Really.
A sickly beauty has its charms too, doesn't it?
In the small hours, a hand stroking his hair with aching tenderness while he slept, and a voice that came through clearly even in his haze.
Why do you worry about me? I'm only getting the punishment I deserve.
It's nothing next to the wounds you've taken, but this is the price I have to pay.
Still, you're too kind, so you'll go on worrying about me, won't you?
I'll overcome it. I can overcome it.
I love you.
It was a side of him he'd never shown again after the first time, but Dojun knew.
He simply didn't let it show, so as not to load another burden onto Dojun. The Hanul who got his memories back was always afraid, always in pain.
In the past, Dojun had known that and still hadn't had the strength to hold him through it.
Now it was different.
Facing a Seon Hanul whose aftereffect has flared up again settled it.
He had recovered enough to look Hanul's pain in the face.
Which meant he had to haul Hanul out of the pit he insisted on digging for himself.
That would only be possible once Hanul had his memories back, though, so the immediate priority was handling the Seon Hanul who'd lost them for the fifth time.
The less trouble this Seon Hanul caused, the less the Hanul with his memories would suffer.
Fully awake now, Dojun looked up at the white ceiling and yawned.
“Slept like a rock.”
He'd been genuinely worn out, so he'd washed up and dropped straight into bed the moment he got home. It had also seemed better to give Hanul time to look the place over than to explain every last thing himself.
They kept separate rooms ready for occasions like these, so his sleep hadn't been disturbed.
Blinking slowly, Dojun listened for sounds beyond the door.
Seon Hanul definitely didn't sleep properly.
With Dojun out of the way, he'd have been going over the apartment, checking his own belongings, combing the internet, working to catch up on the time he couldn't remember.
His personality's a disaster, but he is diligent.
He hated falling behind anyone.
Dojun got out of bed, finished getting ready for work in the attached bathroom, and came out to the living room.
Hanul, brewing coffee in the kitchen, greeted him with a bright face.
“Good morning.”
Dojun walked over and studied his complexion.
“Did you sleep at all?”
“Of course.”
His eyes were clear and his color was good, but a night or two without sleep had never shown on him, so that answer wasn't to be taken at face value.
I'm not taking him into a dungeon for a while, so I guess it doesn't matter.
Barring a special situation like a dungeon break, there was no need for Hanul to set foot in one right now.
As Dojun swallowed his nagging, Hanul smiled and tossed out a question.
“Did I decorate this place?”
“Most of it. Turns out I have no talent for that sort of thing.”
He'd realized it while they were choosing a place to live together and hunting down the interiors each of them wanted. Dojun had no sense for it whatsoever.
Fortunately Hanul had clear tastes, so decorating the apartment had fallen almost entirely to him.
Still, even a home this polished, the kind you'd find in a magazine, had its blemishes.
Dojun explained to Hanul, who was looking down at the two mugs sitting side by side.
“Anything that doesn't measure up to your eye is something I picked.”
Without a moment's hesitation, Hanul identified the mug Dojun had chosen.
He said it was pretty, but it really wasn't his taste after all.
Hanul poured the coffee and held out a mug. But Dojun reached for the other one instead of the one being offered.
“Like I said, that one's yours.”
Unflustered, Hanul switched hands and offered the other.
But the glance that flicked to the cup and away made its meaning perfectly clear.
Disbelief.
“You were the one who insisted that since we live here together, we ought to pick things out for each other.”
Knowing full well Dojun had no talent for it, Hanul had stubbornly held out until they chose each other's cups.
Which made using a cup he didn't like Hanul's own responsibility.
Dojun took the view that as long as a thing did its job, it made no difference what he used, and he'd said there was no need for any of it. Even so, whenever they matched a pair like this, Hanul made sure Dojun's taste was represented.
That was why a home this well coordinated had the occasional object mixed into it that didn't suit the mood at all.
I can never tell whether he was always like that, or whether it's a habit he picked up after the aftereffect.
Before he could land on an answer, Hanul pointed at the largest bedroom.
“Is that the room we used to share?”
“It is.”
“If I use it, will I be angry about it?”
Did it bother him, being told he gets jealous over physical contact?
His mouth was smiling, but the ends of his words had sunk lower than usual.
“You're past the stage of getting angry. It'll end with you turning the bedroom upside down, that's all.”
So he could use that room if he wanted.
They swapped out furniture and fixtures often enough for a change of atmosphere that it was hardly a crisis, he added, glancing toward the bedroom. Then warmth settled over the back of his hand.
Dojun had noticed the hand coming, so he wasn't startled. He simply looked at Hanul.
“You're not pulling away?”
Only when he saw the corners of that mouth curl up did Dojun grasp what Hanul was after.
So: Hanul had been irritated by what Dojun said yesterday, and annoyed that things weren't flowing his way, so he'd taken Dojun's hand first. If it was true that he got jealous, then let his future self choke on it.
A germaphobe putting himself through something unpleasant just to land one on somebody else?
The man was rotten with perfect consistency.
It was so ridiculous that a laugh slipped out of him.
“Pull away or don't. The result's the same.”
He held grudges for a filthy long time and had an excellent memory, so a Hanul who'd overcome the aftereffect always found some way to air his grievances.
“The only difference is whether it's ‘so you don't like the younger me’ or ‘so you like the younger me.’”
Don't get too friendly with him, but don't keep too much distance either. Meeting every one of those demands was realistically impossible.
So Dojun had made him choose which he hated more, and as a result they'd settled on keeping physical contact with a memoryless Hanul to an absolute minimum.
I wasn't the one who started it this time, so he'll understand.
There was no way he didn't know how exhausting his own personality was.
Dojun shrugged, slid his hand free without any fuss, and pushed the sanitizing wipes sitting nearby toward Hanul.
“I've got a raid today. What are you going to do?”
In the early days, whenever this happened, he'd tried to stay glued to Hanul's side no matter what. Now Dojun kept to his routine as much as he could.
Dungeons weren't going to accommodate their circumstances or wait around for them, and he didn't want the aftereffect wrecking their lives any further than it already had.
Hanul, who had been staring vacantly at the hand that touched Dojun, lifted his head with a smile.
“I was thinking I'd keep to my original schedule.”
Today's schedule meant attending the guild's regular briefing.
“Hanyeong will be with you, so that should be fine.”
Dojun checked Hanul's schedule, saved on his phone, one more time.
He'd cancelled every unnecessary public engagement the moment he found the aftereffect had flared up, so Hanul had nothing much to worry about for now.
He needs time to adjust to the present.
And the current Hanul would find Hanyeong easier company than Dojun.
Twenty-one or twenty-five, his brother didn't change.
Dojun let Hanyeong know that Hanul would be attending the regular briefing.
He'd already have been told his older brother had lost his memories, and Hanyeong was just as accustomed to this kind of situation, so with that one piece of information he'd handle the rest himself.
Hanul, looking down at Dojun's phone screen alongside him, asked.
“Are you close with Yeong?”
“Same guild. And he's your brother.”
It was only natural for the people who had to put up with Hanul, one way or another, to grow close.
Exercising a little social grace, Dojun left that last part out and handed over the phone, telling him to look if he wanted. Hanul didn't decline. He skimmed through the messages.
“Hanyeong's coming up from Busan, so you can wait in the guild leader's office.”
“All right.”
Dojun's gaze went to Hanul's left hand, tucked into his trouser pocket, unlike the right one holding the phone.
Displeased, apparently, that Dojun acted like he knew him so well, Hanul hadn't so much as touched the sanitizing wipes he'd been given.
The only one suffering for it is him.
But instead of offering them again, Dojun leisurely drank his coffee.
Not wiping his hand wasn't going to make his flesh rot, and he used to carry those wipes around like they were part of his body anyway.
He's not a child. If he really can't stand it, he'll go running to the bathroom.
