Come Back

“It’s not that I don’t remember…”

“It’s okay, Hyean. Your memory may be unstable temporarily. It’s quite possible. There are no special signs at the moment, so it’s probably a temporary phenomenon. We’ll start the detailed examination tomorrow, and for today, just focus on keeping your body and mind comfortable. Okay?”

It’s not that I don’t remember.

Rather, I remember everything in detail.

This time, Choi Hong-seo felt a gap that was misaligned. The gap that had been just enough for light from the outside to seep in was widening and making a creaking sound.

That’s why I was afraid to confirm it clearly. I felt like I had to turn away. It wasn’t a thought, it was a premonition.

The two noisy people barged in just after the doctor and nurse left the room.

“Hye-an, you punk! I knew you’d wake up! I knew a rascal like you would come back from the dead!” A middle-aged man with short, graying hair that was just beginning to fall out appeared, practically shoving the door open. Despite his harsh tone, his eyes were filled with tears, and no matter how hard I tried to recall his face, I couldn’t remember it. The large young man who followed him and stood at his feet was also unfamiliar.

“Brother, you’ve worked hard. I thought you’d wake up.”

The young man standing at the foot of the stairs called him “hyung” with reddened eyes, but no matter how I looked at him, his face looked at least three or four years older than Choi Hong-seo.

The two people, dressed in suits that didn’t really match their body types or atmosphere, looked like a gangster couple at first glance. However, their clothes and hairstyles didn’t really show any gangster vibes. As for the customers, I knew their characteristics well because I had dealt with them quite a bit during my time at the host bar.

“I’m sorry, but what about me…”

The two men’s faces froze at Choi Hong-seo’s question. It was the same reaction the doctor had shown a moment ago. They had frightened expressions, wondering if there was something wrong with the patient’s brain after waking up.

The middle-aged man bent down first and thrust his large, round face into Choi Hong-seo’s eyes.

“Now, look at my face carefully. ENA Im Dae-pyo. Im Sang-jin, who has been eating from the same pot as you for 10 years! This is Yongjae. Koo Yongjae. Your manager. Tiffany was also taken care of by Yongjae, Inma.”

ENA… ENA… Choi Hong-seo opened his eyes slightly and quickly searched his memory, finding a clue. ENA, it was definitely a word that remained in his memory.

“ENA… isn’t that the company that ‘Titan’ belonged to?”

“Yeah, ‘Titan’! I remember! Hey Inma, I got chills for a second!”

The middle-aged man sighed in relief, took a handkerchief out of his jacket pocket, and wiped the sweat from his forehead. But that did not mean that the gap between the man’s words and Hongseo’s memories was closed at all.

I remember the company called ENA Entertainment and the idol group ‘Titan’. However, Choi Hong-seo himself had no connection with the company or the group. At least that’s what I remember now.

Or maybe the famous CEO of UB Entertainment that I belonged to and the CEO of ENA were close friends? I haven’t heard anything like that…

President Myeong. President Myeong. At the thought of that name, Choi Hong-seo’s eyebrows and lips wrinkled.

Yeah, what happened to President Myung? If the X-Group scandal had really blown up, that bastard wouldn’t have been able to get away with it this time.

As his blood pressure rose with anger and hatred, a headache immediately came. Choi Hong-seo grimaced at the pain in his temples that felt like being stabbed by needles.

“What would have happened if you hadn’t woken up, Inma? You were trying to scare President Cho, right? You smart-aleck, do you think President Cho would blink an eye because you did this? That punk, you haven’t contacted me in months while I was lying down, and you’ve been a snob…!”

“Boss, let’s stop for today.”

“uh?”

“The doctor also said that resting completely is the top priority today.”

A young man stopped the ENA representative, who was talking nonsense that Choi Hong-seo couldn’t understand while his face was red with excitement.

“Yeah, yeah. You just have to live well from now on. What’s important is that you woke up.”

Of course, Choi Hong-seo could not understand the conversation they were having at all.

“What about Mom? My mother or… Don’t you know about other family members? Or, the people in our company… What happened to UB?”

“… … ”

The ENA representative’s face became thoughtful once more. He couldn’t take his eyes off Choi Hong-seo and groped for the giant’s arm.

“Yongjae, what’s really going on here? Is something wrong with your head? Huh? Should I call a doctor?”

A young man named Yongjae pushed the representative away and approached Choi Hongseo.

“Brother. Today, it’s important to stay calm. Don’t think about anything else. You can solve everything one by one slowly. Got it?”

Their words seemed right. I don’t know why these people I didn’t know were being so friendly, but for now, I felt like I should figure out the situation myself rather than asking them questions. Now that I knew this was reality, there were too many facts I had to confirm.

X-group scandal, Lee Seo-kyung and the famous president of UB Entertainment, and… the person we are most curious about.

“What happened to my cell phone and other belongings?”

“When we found you, you had no cell phone, no wallet, nothing, Inma. You were just barely wearing the clothes on. Yongjae brought the second phone from the officetel here.”

The ENA representative opened the bedside drawer and rummaged through it.

“Yongjae always charged it so that the power doesn’t go out. When you wake up, you’ll definitely look for your phone first.”

“… … ”

“But you really start looking for the cell phone first, you punk.”

Representative Lim handed over the cell phone, grumbling in vain. However, the phone that Representative Lim was holding in his hand was not the model that Choi Hong-seo had used, or the ARA Electronics cell phone that Lee Hae-seong had given him as a gift.

Choi Hong-seo couldn’t understand what the two duo were talking about at all. He trembled his dry lips and forced his voice.

“Thank you. I need to… rest.”

“Yes, yes. The doctor said that you would be tired even if you just breathed right now. Get some sleep and recover. I’ll come back tomorrow.”

“… … ”

“How cruel. I was just thinking about whether or not I should put my officetel up for sale today…”

Representative Lim, who said that with a complicated expression, took Yongjae and left the hospital room.

The appearance and exit of the two strangers was like a ridiculous play unfolding before my eyes. I watched the play from the middle, missing the first 20 minutes without any information.

Choi Hong-seo thought.

As the doctor said, is it because my memory has temporarily become unstable after the ‘incident’? Will I remember the names and faces of those people from a little while ago tomorrow, or the day after?

No, the doctor’s guess was wrong. It’s not that I don’t remember my name. It’s not that I don’t have a memory.

The problem was that their memories and my memories were different.

My body felt heavy as if I had been beaten up, but it was not a situation where I could sleep comfortably. I had to check what the gap was that was out of alignment.

The phone’s lock setting was easily unlocked with Choi Hong-seo’s fingerprint. Everything, including the background screen and the layout of the apps, was different from his own phone. However, this was not the time to be nitpicking over such details.

First, Choi Hong-seo, who had started the Internet, entered his own name in the search bar. It was his own name that he had searched obsessively dozens of times a day, sometimes even over a hundred times.

I had to look through all the information I could access, including articles, posts on various communities, personal blogs, and mentions on SNS. I couldn’t stop myself even though I knew it was self-harming.

Choi… Hong… Seo…

“… … ”

He entered all three letters of the name, which was not long, but he could not easily start the search. Choi Hong-seo stared at the blinking cursor behind the name for a long time, then erased all the letters. Then he entered a different name.

This… year… is… a castle.

My fingers trembled as I tapped on the LCD, and my heart started beating faster.

The pain in my throat as I swallowed dry saliva felt like swallowing a fireball. The short time it took for the results to load felt cruelly long, and I bit my dry, crusted lower lip with my teeth. I was afraid that all traces of the understanding I knew had disappeared from this world.

Fortunately, that didn’t happen.

At the very top of the page was his official profile registered on the portal site. It was the same profile I had seen countless times.

Understanding. Entrepreneur.

Affiliation: Vice President, ARA Electronics Wireless Business Division.

Family, father Lee Woo-hyuk, mother Yoo Ha-young, grandfather Lee Kang-moon, younger sister Lee Do-yeon, younger sister Lee Joo-seong

Education: Completed Ph.D. program in Business Administration at Stanford University Graduate School of Business

Next to the profile, which simply listed the very basic details, there was also a small photo attached.

The moment I first searched for his name in my room, it was the same picture I saw then.

He once complained about that photo. He said it was not good because it made him look like a salaryman going to work in Yeouido. He said that it was a photo selected by the PR office, so there was nothing he could do about it, but he didn’t like it. He seemed a little embarrassed, like a boy who was embarrassed because his secret was revealed.