SATURDAY 28

“…Director.”

I barely suppressed the habit of almost calling him Mr. Taeseon and found the appropriate title. Mr. Taeseon was looking in my direction, but he did not gaze at me. It was a half-hearted look.

“Inha, do you not see the professor and only see your fiancé?”

“Ah, no, that’s not it.”

It was a “no” that contained many meanings. I spoke while even shaking my head and then cautiously checked Mr. Taeseon’s reaction. His face was cold, but the face of Professor Jang, who looked back at him, was even more frigid. The professor spoke stiffly.

“These days, you rarely see it—malnutrition.”

“….”

“Young people on extreme diets, major surgery patients, or the elderly. Malnutrition appears almost exclusively in those three groups. Managing Director.”

Mr. Taeseon still said nothing.

“Do you not feel anything?”

“What am I supposed to feel.”

“A person who is supposed to have a wedding in a few days was brought to the hospital with malnutrition and pneumonia. Malnutrition is one thing, but pneumonia on top of it. What is this, the 70s? Are we filming a drama from that era right now?”

“….”

Mr. Taeseon seemed displeased. I didn’t want to see him displeased. Of course, lately, that is the only side of him I have been seeing.

“Pro-Professor, it’s not like that. It’s because I didn’t eat properly. Um… I was trying to lose some weight.”

“Where do you have any weight to lose? If anything, you should be gaining some.”

“….”

It sounded almost like worry. My face flushed red involuntarily. Even in the midst of this, hearing words that expressed concern for me made me feel secretly happy.

“He is an adult. He should take care of himself.”

Mr. Taeseon finally said a single sentence. Those words only fueled the professor’s anger further. Frowning deeply, the professor turned back to Mr. Taeseon and said:

“Even if he’s an adult, he’s only twenty-two. Shouldn’t you, as the elder, look after him a bit?”

“I don’t know if he’s lived being put on a pedestal by his family until now, but I won’t do that. Marriage is just something inevitable anyway, and I have no intention of acting affectionate like a real couple.”

“I’m not telling you to be affectionate. I don’t even hope for that. I’m just saying treat him like a human being. Even if it’s a stranger passing by, isn’t it basic human decency to look after them when they are sick?”

My heart was heavy. While a sharp pain arrived at the words “marriage is just something inevitable,” I ultimately confirmed once again that Mr. Taeseon had no intention of marrying Inha by choice.

Inha, who tried to marry Mr. Taeseon by going to such lengths, would never truly have him in the end.

As these thoughts surged, I felt myself becoming dark and gloomy. What am I thinking about the deceased Inha? No matter how much Inha tried to frame me for that, I was the one who made Inha that way in the first place. Because I took everything that belonged to Inha…

And yet, to feel jealousy toward Inha, who doesn’t even exist anymore.

For a moment, I just watched the arguing professor and Mr. Taeseon, scanning their moods. The professor said that since they live in the same house, he should do the bare minimum, while Mr. Taeseon maintained a consistent attitude, saying there was no need for that.

“How was Inyoung treated at home?”

“….”

The professor was momentarily speechless.

“I am treating him the same way. I think you should consider it a relief that I even brought him to the hospital. Wasn’t Inyoung left neglected until his uncle, returning from a business trip, found him? I heard he almost died then.”

“…Did Inyoung tell you that?”

No. I had never spoken of that story. It happened when I was quite young. Back then, while I was in the intensive care unit, my uncle supposedly turned the house upside down.

After that, whenever I was sick, I would be taken to the hospital even if I had to be led by a staff member’s hand. It was around that time that I started meeting Professor Jang frequently.

Since Professor Jang, who originally only treated Inha, began to see me as well, I remember thinking that I had stolen something of Inha’s once again.

But we were twins. It is rare for twins to have separate primary care physicians. Talk would surely arise, and sooner or later, my parents had to make a choice anyway.

“I heard it from Mr. Yoon Chaein.”

“…Have you been in contact with the children’s uncle?”

I also opened my eyes wide in surprise. My uncle and Mr. Taeseon are in contact? This is the first I’ve heard of it. However, I couldn’t ask for details.

“Ha, wow…. If that’s really how you feel.”

The professor looked at me for a moment as he spoke. The “treatment Yoon Inyoung received” that Mr. Taeseon spoke of was, in other words, the treatment I received. He is saying he will do the same to the “Yoon Inha” who lives with him. In the end, it meant I was in the same position even after leaving that house.

Brief sympathy appeared in the eyes of the professor as he grasped this.

“If you’re going to treat him the same way regardless, it would be better to assign a dedicated staff member. Before the Inha family finds out and causes a riot.”

“Is there a need to go as far as assigning a dedicated staff member? It’s not like he has a weak constitution like Inyoung, and as I said earlier, he is an adult.”

“He is weak now. Should we call it the aftereffects of the car accident? You can consider him to have become as physically weak as Inyoung was when he was alive.”

“Ha, really, it’s one thing after another….”

Ignoring the muttering Mr. Taeseon, Professor Jang personally measured my blood pressure and temperature, then slipped a stethoscope inside my patient gown to listen to the sounds from my chest. Before the stethoscope was withdrawn, Professor Jang’s hand touched my side and then swept down.

“Why are you so thin? No wonder you have malnutrition. Does it make sense for someone 178 cm tall to weigh 58 kg, you rascal? Are you planning to be an idol?”

I used to weigh more, but I’ve lost a lot of weight recently. I laughed softly at the professor’s joke but quickly shut my mouth after catching Mr. Taeseon’s eye. At that, the professor clicked his tongue with a tisk and checked my IV.

The painkiller was half-gone, the antibiotics were about the same, and there was plenty of nutritional fluid left. The professor adjusted the dripping speed to be a bit faster and said:

“The antibiotics and painkillers will be in soon. This is making it hurt, right?”

The professor tapped the antibiotic bottle with his fingertip.

“I’m okay.”

“Like you’re okay. Are you eating all the food they serve well?”

“Yes….”

“I heard you always leave leftovers.”

It seems he even has a grasp on that. Is it because of the malnutrition?

“It’s because the portions are large….”

As we talked comfortably, a laugh naturally came out. With a smile on my face, I exchanged a few more words of small talk with the professor, then felt a gaze and turned my head.

Mr. Taeseon was looking at me with that usual strange expression.

“Pro-Professor, aren’t you busy?”

“I am. It’s time for rounds now. I’ll stop by one more time while I’m doing rounds, so think if there’s anything you want to say.”

“Yes.”

Leaving only those words, the professor gave a slight nod to Mr. Taeseon and left the hospital room. Mr. Taeseon approached the bed quietly. Then, after staring at me for a long time, he said one thing.

“Being like that….”

“….”

“You’re exactly like Inyoung.”

I flinched. Being like Inyoung was only natural. Because I am Yoon Inyoung. But until now, there had been no such words. Is my soul gradually taking over Inha’s body? That shouldn’t happen.

The Shaman went so far as to say this. That even after becoming Inha, they would leave a bit of Yoon Inyoung’s personality behind. I didn’t ask in detail what would happen to me when that time comes. I don’t know what it means for the personality to remain a little.

I only knew it was something that normally shouldn’t happen. And yet, the Shaman had offered to do that much. For me. I could not betray that heart. I must never become Yoon Inyoung.

The moment I tried to say something, Mr. Taeseon strode closer and reached out his arm. He had an impulsive, enchanted face. Or he looked like someone who hadn’t fully woken up from sleep. With a blankly extended hand, he touched my hair very carefully. As if touching an object that would break if handled roughly.

His hand traveled down my hair, his fingertip caressing my temple, then slowly stroking my cheek. My whole body trembled. Pheromones leaked out involuntarily, and as they mixed with his, my chest swelled as if it would burst. My lungs were so full of air I couldn’t even breathe properly, and my pulse pounded like the striking of a hammer.

Mr. Taeseon’s hand slowly moved down and gripped my chin. And he looked at me with an expression that was truly indescribable. As if he had found a precious lost object… However…

“You must have seen wrongly.”

His movement stopped as if he had been doused in cold water. I actually didn’t want to speak this way. I didn’t want to speak so coldly, like Inha. I had no choice. If left like this, Mr. Taeseon, as if possessed, might have kissed me.

While I wanted that, I also hated it. Because this body belongs to Inha.