NTH 27

“Can I come with you next time too?”

For a moment, Jeha’s chest throbbed with a sharp pain as he remembered Gu Minho’s words that Nana had only about a year left to live. Jeha forced his expression to remain impassive.

“Sure.”

“Thank you. It was my first time touching a fox, they were really cute and their fur was so fluffy. I feel like I can still feel it on this hand.”

Nana spread his white, thin hand. Looking at his hand, Jeha recalled Gu Minho’s words, ‘if you want to have a dream of a past life, you need to increase the intensity of the stimulus’.

Jeha wanted to find out, as much as possible, what connections remained between himself and Nana.

To do that, he had to dream more.

The life in which he had lost the falconer Man-bong, that is, when Jeha had lived as ‘Shin Il-woon’, was around the mid-17th century.

Since then, Jeha had been reincarnated three more times before living his current life, so there would certainly be an undiscovered connection with Nana remaining.

The fact that the one with sanpaku eyes and Nana continued to be reincarnated together could be understood as the sanpaku-eyed one being a parasitic soul that absorbed Nana’s energy. However, he had no idea why he, Jeha himself, was also reincarnated in a similar region and at a similar age every time, so he needed to gather as much information as possible.

So far, the only thing he and Nana had done together was mostly sit opposite each other and eat. He had held Nana’s hand at the rest stop that day, worried that Nana might get lost or hit by a car, but it had only been for about two or three minutes.

Jeha needed a reason to hold Nana’s hand.

“But you know, your hand felt so cold when I held it for a moment at the rest stop earlier. Are you okay?”

Jeha started by just throwing out whatever came to mind. At that, Nana brought his own hand to his cheek.

“Really? I thought your hand got hot because you were driving so hard. Am I the cold one?”

“Give me your hand.”

Jeha held the steering wheel with his left hand and extended his right hand to Nana. When Nana placed his hand on top, Jeha naturally intertwined their fingers.

“It’s still too cold. Are you cold right now, by any chance?”

“No? I’m fine. Your hand is really warm. Still, mine is like a hand warmer compared to CEO Cheon’s. That man’s hand is really cold like a snake.”

Jeha felt an inexplicable displeasure and muttered in a low voice.

“I didn’t know you were close enough with CEO Cheon to even hold hands.”

“Hey. We didn’t hold hands nicely like this.”

“Then?”

“CEO Cheon once told me not to think about making any useless moves and grabbed the back of my neck. His hand was so cold, like he had just been touching ice, it gave me the chills.”

“…I see.”

“And his hand is so big, I thought he could strangle me with just that one hand. You probably won’t get a good sense of it from my description alone, but if you see that guy’s face once, you’ll never forget it either. Anyway, I have to go to CEO Cheon’s office tomorrow and I really don’t want to go.”

At the unexpected words, Jeha’s brow furrowed.

“You’re going to the office tomorrow? On a Sunday?”

“I have to go on the second and fourth Sunday of every month. On the fourth week, I also bring the rent. Since I don’t have a bank account, I always deliver it in person. And when there are instructions, I receive them.”

“Are you planning to keep living like this with CEO Cheon? He seems like a rather dangerous person, wouldn’t it be better to cut ties with him completely?”

“I haven’t really thought about it deeply. I don’t have a place to live if I leave right now, and although he’s a bit scary, CEO Cheon hasn’t hit or harmed me yet.”

After finishing his words, Nana yawned, his mouth tearing wide.

If CEO Cheon was really Nana’s parasitic soul, as Gu Minho had said, he would soon attempt to absorb Nana’s energy. Because that has been the one and only reason for his existence over the past few hundred years.

In that case, it would be safer to keep Nana as far away from CEO Cheon as possible first. Arranging a clean room for Nana to live in was not a difficult task for Jeha at all.

Thinking that he should find a house and have him move as soon as possible, he glanced at Nana, who was already asleep. Unlike a vigorous young man in his twenties, Nana always tired easily.

Only a year left to live, at most.

Carefully wrapping his hand around Nana’s cold one, Jeha felt an unspeakable anxiety.

As October approached, the wind grew quite cold. Nana took out a long-sleeved black sweatshirt from a basket of folded clothes.

After changing his clothes, he checked his charged cell phone. There was a message from Jeha.

• Jeha: Wouldn’t it be better to take your phone with you?
• Jeha: You never know what might happen.

Jeha seemed to be unusually worried about him going to see CEO Cheon. Nana didn’t dislike this concern from Jeha. No, far from disliking it, his heart fluttered and he felt good. For Nana, it was the first time in his life he had received such interest and protection.

It was surprising enough that he remembered his face, unlike other people, but this gullible professor didn’t stop there. He bought food for the thief who stole his things, offered him a job, gave him a cell phone, let him open and use a separate bank account, and now he even checked on his well being every day.

Nana recalled that when he was living on the streets before, he would sometimes flirt with men coming out of gay bars alone for the sake of a meal and a motel room.

Although Nana was treated as an invisible person by most people due to his lack of presence, men with such purposes strangely noticed Nana’s existence. They all, without exception, asked to touch his body or demanded sex.

At first, he thought Kwon Jeha also wanted that kind of encounter. But he just repeated a life of university lectures and studying that was so monotonous it was yawn inducing, and only checked on whether Nana had eaten or arrived home safely, like a parent.

He had no idea why he was being so nice to him. Whether he was originally a kindhearted person, a type who enjoyed his own generosity in doing good deeds, or if it was because it bothered him to see a young man of a similar age to his students in an unfortunate situation.

He didn’t know, but he didn’t want to know either. It was a relationship that would change according to Jeha’s heart anyway. Nana would not have any say in it.

An apartment worth tens of billions of won with a view of the Han River from the terrace, and the stylish and modern high-end furniture that filled every corner of the house. Designer clothes, shoes, and watches that would be insufficient to cover the cost even if he sold all his organs. Limited edition foreign cars that would easily cost hundreds of millions of won. The title of a professor at the country’s top university and looks that didn’t match that title at all, the kind you would only see on screen.

All these unbelievable things about Kwon Jeha reminded Nana every day. ‘You are not someone who deserves him. You are not even a friend or an acquaintance, let alone a lover, just an unqualified, temporary employee.’

Nana thought that the reason he, an orphan with no one in the world, had been able to survive until now was because he had no expectations for life.

The miserable things that happened almost every day, and the joyful things that came as rarely as beans in a drought, Nana had been able to breathe until now because he didn’t hold onto any of them in his heart for long.

This unbelievable luck he was having now would surely not last long. Nana hoped that he would be able to live on without being affected even if Jeha turned his back and walked away as if nothing had ever happened. Therefore, it would be troublesome if he got too used to Jeha’s warmth and the abundant days he provided.

• I’d probably get my phone taken away if I did that.
• They search your body before you go in.
• Thanks for worrying about me. I’ll contact you as soon as I get home.

After sending the reply, Nana turned off his phone and hid it deep inside the clothes basket. Last time, CEO Cheon had made him steal a doll filled with drugs, so he didn’t know what he would be asked to steal this time.

Letting out a light sigh, he pulled a black baseball cap down low and left the house.

「Angel Cash Loan」

CEO Cheon’s business, which had a shoddy sign that reeked of cheapness, was located on the second floor of the building. It was a very old building with a butcher shop and a real estate office on the first floor, a karaoke bar in the basement, and a private academy on the third floor.

As he went up the stairs, he saw an entrance door with a sheet attached, on which the promotional phrases of Angel Cash Loan were written.

★For you who are cornered,

the angel of salvation, Angel Cash Loan!★

• Same day loans
• Unsecured․unguaranteed credit loans
• Fast loans! Emergency loans!
• Full time housewives․college students․credit defaulters welcome
• A true friend who helps in times of need
• Absolute confidentiality guaranteed

Nana did not think that people actually believed such phrases and opened this gate to hell. They probably just wanted to postpone the pain they would experience today for another 30 days.