SATURDAY 42

“Take your time washing up and come out. Call me immediately if you feel dizzy.”

“I understand.”

Mr. Taeseon left the bathroom after repeatedly urging me with concern. He didn’t need to worry that much….

After I finished washing up with lukewarm water and came out, Mr. Taeseon entered the bathroom as if we were switching shifts. In the meantime, the bedding had been changed to new ones, and Lili was lying stretched out in the middle of the bed.

“….”

I couldn’t help but pause. Of all things, the bedding was… the one I liked the most when we chose it together. The memory of when we picked it out came back to me.

‘Mr. Taeseon, how about this? This is pretty.’

‘Hmm…. It is pretty. But isn’t it a bit too pretty?’

The bedding set, composed of two colors—indigo blue and white—was the most flamboyant among everything we saw that day. On the white part, thick vine patterns were engraved in a pale sky blue.

When I, who usually only picked monotonous single-colored designs, suddenly pointed it out, Mr. Taeseon seemed a bit flustered.

‘Is it not pretty?’

‘It’s pretty, but, well, I said it’s too pretty. Isn’t it a bit flashy….’

‘Then can we get this too?’

Rarely, even my eyes sparkled. I thought it wouldn’t be bad to have at least one bright set of bedding in the house, and it felt like it would be a nice change of pace. Above all, I really liked it.

Mr. Taeseon had seemed a bit indifferent, but he finally burst into laughter at that face of mine.

‘Alright, let’s get that too.’

I immediately imagined Mr. Taeseon sleeping on this bedding. All the bedding Mr. Taeseon used at home were navy blue sets of the exact same design. Thinking about him lying on this burdensomely flamboyant bed made me laugh just imagining it.

…That bedding was spread across the bed.

“Meow.”

Lili cried shortly. Indigo blue didn’t quite suit Lili’s personal color—cheese-colored—but Lili, who couldn’t care less about such things, was stretched out comfortably.

Following Lili, I cautiously climbed onto the bed in my pajamas. I heard the sound of water from the bathroom. At that moment, suddenly, anxiety surged along with a stinging sensation in my eyes.

What if he comes out of the bathroom with a cold expression again? What if he tells me to get out of this room….

What if he says it was actually all your misunderstanding?

Or, what if this is all my delusion? What if Mr. Taeseon is actually making an absurd face, but I’m just misunderstanding on my own and he’s looking at me with an expression of worry, agony, and sadness?

“….”

I suddenly got scared. Shivering, I pulled Lili into my arms and hugged him. “Meow,” Lili cried in a small voice and began to lick my face with the tip of his tongue.

“Inyoung.”

“…!”

Before I knew it, Mr. Taeseon had come out wearing a robe and was looking at me, lowering his gaze while sitting beside the bed. I was startled. I felt like Mr. Taeseon would spit out harsh words at any moment. My mouth opened instinctively.

“…I’m sorry.”

“….”

Mr. Taeseon remained silent for a moment and then spoke in a low voice. I thought he would ask what I was sorry for, or what I did wrong. But the words that came out of his mouth were unexpected.

“I’m sorry, Inyoung. It’s all my fault.”

An apology was returned with an apology. I just blinked blankly, not knowing what he was saying sorry for. If it was about past events, he had already done it several times. To the point where I told him to stop.

“W-what for…?”

“Then, what about you?”

“Pardon?”

“Inyoung…. What are you sorry for?”

“Ah, that’s.”

That was just something that came out reflexively. I don’t want to be like this, but I was walking on eggshells around Mr. Taeseon. I worried about every little thing, wondering if Mr. Taeseon would get angry at a single trivial word of mine, or if he would return to how he was before. That’s why those words came out.

But I became restless at Mr. Taeseon’s reaction. From that day until now, had even a single thing been resolved by apologizing? Even now, Mr. Taeseon was just looking at me with a sorrowful face. It was awkward because I didn’t even have anything to answer the question of what I was sorry for.

“Just because….”

“Inyoung.”

“….”

Soft pheromones flowed from Mr. Taeseon. I felt my heart rate, which had been racing anxiously, gradually slowing down. Along with that, the breath I had been holding back for who knows how long finally began to flow properly again. When I hesitantly raised my head to look at Mr. Taeseon, he was looking down at me with a complicated face.

There was no trace of anger to be found on his face at all.

“No matter what you do in the future, you don’t have to apologize to me.”

“…Pardon?”

“No matter what you do. Even if you accidentally kill someone. You are not at fault for anything. Consider the words for apologizing to have vanished from the world starting today, and don’t say you’re sorry to me, or to anyone else.”

“How can there be such a thing?”

When I asked instinctively out of absurdity, Mr. Taeseon let out a short sigh that was barely noticeable and spoke. A faint smile was hanging on his lips as if to reassure me.

“It’s right here.”

“Ack.”

“….”

Following Mr. Taeseon’s absurd answer, even Lili added a word. I lost my speech and just blinked my eyes.

“I’ll touch you for a second.”

Having said that, Mr. Taeseon cautiously reached out his hand, gently picked up my body, and laid me straight next to Lili. The moment Mr. Taeseon pulled back and touched Lili’s forehead with his fingertip, Lili made a “Hiss” sound and swung his front paw.

Of course, as Mr. Taeseon quickly withdrew his hand, the attack ended in vain. Lili feigned innocence as if he never did such a thing, licked his front paw a few times, and then began grooming starting from his indifferent-looking face.

At that sight, laughter came out of me involuntarily. It felt like the tension that had been stiffly wrapping around my entire body was melting away. Mr. Taeseon also gave a small chuckle.

“Meow.”

Lili climbed up to my face and covered my neck. It felt as if that warmth was telling me that all the scary things were over now, and that the terrible days that began on a certain Saturday would not come again, so I quietly closed my eyes.

∞ ∞ ∞

Lee Taeseon sat on the floor, resting one arm on the bed, and watched the sleeping Yoon Inyoung. He didn’t know how many hours he had been doing this. Inyoung tossed and turned several times, alternating between light and deep sleep, but fortunately, he didn’t wake up.

Today, a few days after leaving the hospital. He still didn’t know what would be best to do for Inyoung. He was treating him cautiously, like a sugar sculpture in his hand, but the decorations on the corners of this precious, precious sugar sculpture would break even from a passing breeze. He felt anxious and uneasy, with no way to help it.

Inyoung said it must be because of the Bodhisattva’s spell. That the reason Lee Taeseon couldn’t recognize him and kept perceiving him as Yoon Inha was due to the spell the Bodhisattva cast while he was unconscious. So he told him not to blame himself too much.

Don’t blame himself? It is true that Inyoung looked like ‘Yoon Inha’ starting from the funeral hall. At the time, he looked even more so because of his swollen face and the bruises covering it. But how was that the fault of a spell?

There were several opportunities. There were definitely times when he looked like ‘Yoon Inyoung’. Each time, he rejected it. He did not admit that fact. He thought Yoon Inha must have used some kind of trick.

Twin brothers with the exact same pheromones.

He even thought it was disgusting that the pheromones that surged and mixed with the scent of flesh when sexually aroused were exactly the same as Inyoung’s. That it was hair-raising. How could they be this identical?

Why would a human like Yoon Inha have the same face and the same body scent as Inyoung?

There were times when he instinctively treated Yoon Inha well because he kept being reminded of Inyoung. After that, a sense of self-loathing surged. What was he doing to this demon-like human who caused Inyoung’s death…. even to the man who said he had developed a personality disorder due to a mental breakdown and began imitating Inyoung.

He didn’t know how to take it. He just wanted to kill him. In fact, while he was sleeping, he had entered the room a few times and looked down at him sleeping blankly. If that sleeping figure hadn’t looked exactly like Inyoung, he didn’t know what he might have actually done.

He hated seeing him constantly imitating Inyoung. He wanted to torment him more, somehow. A murderer, a monster, a devil, a snake in human clothing. To Lee Taeseon, Yoon Inha could be nothing more than such an existence. But then, that man started looking like Inyoung and kept pulling at his heart.

That led to self-hatred, and the self-hatred was refracted and linked back into even greater hatred toward him. That feeling grew every time he acted like Yoon Inyoung.

The reason he brought Yoon Inha to the honeymoon home while even telling an unbelievable lie, and the reason he decided to marry him, was for Inyoung’s revenge. He wanted him to wither away while living a life treated like something less than human.

No matter if the opponent was Yoon Inha, Lee Taeseon was confident he could completely snap his flower stalk and make him unable to even lift his head until the day he died. A snake knows the path a snake takes, and a large snake is meant to devour a small snake.

But….

The person he had tormented like that was Yoon Inyoung.

Now, Yoon Inyoung wouldn’t even try to meet his eyes. Would it be more accurate to say he couldn’t? If he raised a hand to tidy his hair, Inyoung would stiffen and flinch, and if he touched him lightly to call him while he was spacing out, he would jump in fright.

The one who made him that way was none other than himself.

Lee Taeseon quietly reached out his hand to try and touch Inyoung’s hair, then clenched his fist tightly above it and withdrew his hand again.

His whole body trembled. Lili had opened his eyes wide before he knew it and was glaring at Lee Taeseon while threateningly thumping his tail.

He stood up. The room was very dark, and thunder could be heard in the distance as if it were about to rain again. The room was filled with the densely damp air unique to a rainy day.

After turning on the dehumidifier and returning, Lee Taeseon stood by the bed and looked at the empty space. It was a spot left empty enough for him to lie down. He calmed Lili by placing a finger to his lips and cautiously picked Inyoung up to move him to the center of the bed.

Whether he was in a deep sleep, Inyoung didn’t wake up, but the moment a hand touched him, he flinched slightly and frowned. A small voice flowed from his mouth.

“I’m sorry, Director….”

“….”

Lee Taeseon paused, but finished laying Inyoung down and covered him with the duvet up to his neck. Lili, who had been trapped under the duvet, let out a small “Meow” as if protesting and climbed out, then boldly climbed on top of Inyoung’s body. Inyoung suddenly groaned in pain.

“…Come down.”

“Why.”

“You’re heavy now.”

“Ugh….”

When he lifted his body and placed him next to Inyoung, Lili stayed quiet despite being dissatisfied. After watching the sleeping Inyoung quietly, he turned his gaze back to Lili.

Lili looked at Lee Taeseon with a pathetic gaze.