BFRS 7

After the rain last night had made a mess, I cleaned up, and then the sun slowly began to set. Should I head in soon? Even though I had eaten four packets of instant noodles, I was hungry again. Noodles tended to leave you feeling hungry again quickly, so I always regretted eating them afterward. The man who had been sitting on the wooden porch greeted me.

“Are you all done?”

“For today, mostly. Yes. Would you like dinner?”

“Yes.”

I asked as I placed the hat I had been wearing on a shelf. It seemed my assumption that the man was a small eater was a misunderstanding. Either that, or he digested food very well.

I didn’t stop the man when he said he would help prepare the meal. He kept stepping forward to help with anything and everything, and it wasn’t easy to keep refusing him. Farming was more strenuous and required more attention than it looked, so I didn’t particularly want his help with it, but helping with a meal seemed fine.

“Mr. Kim Mooyoung.”

“Yes.”

“What is this.”

“…Ah.”

What the man held out was the beef that Chairman Jang had brought for me to eat. It seemed to have caught his eye while he was taking out side dishes from the refrigerator.

“It was a gift.”

“You don’t eat this?”

“I’m not particularly fond of it. Do you want some?”

“If it’s alright, yes.”

When I told him it was fine to eat it, the man offered to cook the meat himself. That too was something I had no reason to refuse. I got out the cooking oil and a frying pan for him, and soon the smell of grilling meat filled the house. He looked practiced as he cooked the meat. Could his original profession have been a chef?

A moment later, the man came and sat at the dinner table, holding the entire frying pan.

“Can you eat all of that?”

“Aren’t you having any?”

“I’m not, no.”

“Then I’ll have no choice but to eat it all myself.”

No matter how I looked at it, it didn’t seem like an amount for one person. Would he be okay? When I told him it was fine to leave some, the man replied that he would try his best.

I wasn’t sure if it was just my imagination, but the man was eating at a remarkably fast pace. He was clearing his plate distinctly faster than when we had brunch. I think he had even eaten the instant noodles more slowly than this.

“I’m going to get another bowl.”

“Go ahead.”

He even ate a second bowl of rice. The meat was also disappearing at a rapid pace. I had been worried there would be leftovers, but it seemed I had been wrong again. Was he a picky eater? Still, eating well is better than not eating at all. I decided to think of it in a positive light.

This time, I didn’t stop the man when he said he would do the dishes. Seeing him wanting to go into the kitchen so often made me think he might have had a profession related to cooking. Who knows? He might regain his memory while working.

While he did the dishes, I turned on the TV. It was a kind of habit. It was a scene where the female lead in the drama was strolling along the beach with the male lead. He had taken her to the beach they frequented to help her regain her memories.

Unlike the man, who was lost in memories, the woman’s expression was dark. I knew very well what happened next. On the drive back, the woman would tell the man she was breaking up with him. The woman, who had no idea who the man was, had felt burdened by his attention and affection the entire time.

Her memories of her family and coworkers were slowly returning, but she couldn’t recall a single thing about the man who was her lover and fiancé. She would even complain of headaches and suffer whenever the man showed her things imbued with memories or the rings they had gotten together.

The scene where the fed-up woman finally declared she couldn’t take it anymore and broke up with the man had a certain magic that made me watch it again and again, even though I knew what was going to happen. It was tedious to watch the same drama dozens, hundreds of times over, but whenever this particular scene came on, I would watch it without skipping.

“What drama is this?”

The man, having finished the dishes, asked as he sat down next to me. His forearms were a little wet, as if he hadn’t worn gloves.

“That woman also lost her memory before her wedding, just like you. It’s about her fiancé, who promised to marry her, helping her to remember.”

“What kind of efforts does he make?”

“Just things like going to restaurants they frequented, showing her the ring they bought together. Things like that. If we had known each other, I would have done that, but…”

My eyes met the man’s.

“I don’t know anything either.”

Perhaps the only thing I could do to help was to let the man do the dishes. I didn’t add the rest of the thought out loud. The man sat next to me and watched the drama for a long while, and when I turned the TV off, he returned to his room.

“Have a good night.”

“Yes. Sleep well.”

The moment I lay down in bed, I remembered that I hadn’t stopped by the warehouse this morning. I couldn’t help it since I had overslept. Tomorrow, I had to get up early and finish dealing with the bodies I hadn’t taken care of. First, I’d have to drain the blood, dismember them, then freeze them in the freezer for a bit before putting them in the incinerator and burning them while the man was asleep.

When I was alone, I could do it whenever I wanted, but with an extra person, there were many things to be mindful of. I have to remember to do it tomorrow, I thought, and closed my eyes.

Having one more person around didn’t change anything in particular. Maybe just that there was one more person to eat with. However, the speed at which the rice disappeared was unexpected. The same went for the speed at which the meat disappeared. The man seemed to be a picky eater. When there was meat, the man ate a very large amount of rice.

It was nice to have someone eat the meat that I didn’t eat much of when I was alone. I wasn’t a fan of meat, so I would often force myself to eat a few bites before being unable to finish it and throwing it away.

There was one thing, though. Sometimes I would sense a presence while sleeping. I would be sound asleep, and then my consciousness would sometimes return, feeling someone’s eyes on me. And I also occasionally felt a sensation of my neck being squeezed. The feeling of a hand wrapped around my neck was somehow familiar.

“Ugh…”

I would toss and turn, letting out a small groan. Was this what sleep paralysis felt like? When I said I’d never experienced sleep paralysis, Chairman Jang had said I must have a stronger spirit than I looked, so I’d assumed that was the case, but I guess I must have a weak constitution. One day, I gathered my courage and opened my eyes to check the ghost’s appearance. The ghost’s appearance was far from what I had imagined.

Chairman Jang had said ghosts had long, pitch-black hair and wore white funeral clothes, but the ghost I saw was a man, his hair wasn’t long, and he wasn’t wearing funeral clothes. Strangely, his face was familiar.

These days, I had one new worry.

“Welcome back.”

“Yes.”

The man always greeted me like this when I returned from the greenhouses. It was incredibly awkward at first, but now I was a little used to it. The man’s daily routine consisted entirely of eating meals with me or going for walks. The rest of the time, he sat on the wooden porch and watched me work.

That was the problem. The man woke up around the same time as me and went to sleep at the same time as me. Since I woke up early and went to bed early, that meant he also woke up early and went to bed early. On top of that, he would go for a walk while I was working, so it was difficult to pick a time to go to the warehouse.

But if I went there openly, he would likely get curious. Perhaps because he had lost his memory, he was curious about many things. The other day, too, he had persistently asked how to grow flowers, what kind of flowers I grew, and so on. He said he was curious about how I worked, so yesterday he even followed me into the greenhouse and watched before leaving.

If he saw me going to the warehouse, he would obviously ask if he could go with me. I knew very well that it was not a sight to be shown, no matter how little he knew due to his memory loss.

What should I do? If I put it off for too long, the bodies would decompose. Cleaning and airing the place out would take another full day, so I had to finish it quickly before that.

There was no other way. If the man started his day early, then I would have to go to the warehouse and finish the work after he had fallen asleep.

“I have a favor to ask.”

It was the day I had decided I absolutely must get the work done that night. The man spoke to me as we ate dinner together. It had been an uneventful day, just like any other. I spent the whole day in the greenhouses taking care of the flowers, and the man spent a leisurely day without anything special to do. I also didn’t forget to call the delivery man and tell him to come pick up the peonies.

The man had made the rice today. Since I spent a lot of time outside, cooking rice naturally became the man’s role. He had cooked a lot of meat too. Every time I saw him eat that much, I wondered if he was a carnivore. It wasn’t that he didn’t eat other side dishes, but the amount of meat he ate in one meal was on a different level.

Instead of answering, I looked at the man’s face. What could he possibly have a favor to ask about? Rice? Meat? I couldn’t think of anything he might ask a favor for.

“It’s inconvenient… not having a name.”

“A name?”

“Yes.”

Is it inconvenient? True, the man always called me Mr. Kim Mooyoung, or Mr. Mooyoung, but I always referred to him with the word “you.” It had happened more than once or twice, so it was understandable that he would feel it was inconvenient.

“Did you remember your name?”

“That’s not it. What would be a good name?”

Ah, so I’m supposed to help. I put a piece of dried radish in my mouth and chewed it, crunch, crunch. What would be a good name?

“Then how about Seonggoo. Mr. Seonggoo.”

“…Seonggoo.”

“Yes.”

One of the man’s—no, Mr. Seonggoo’s—eyebrows shot up. For some reason, his face looked a little dark.

“I think it suits you well.”

“…You think so?”

“Yes.”

Isn’t Seonggoo a fine name? The man chewed his rice slowly and then, after a long while, nodded.

“…Ah!”

I stared at his silently eating face for a long time, then belatedly cried out. It was this face. The face of the ghost I had seen. The ghost had resembled this man. When I suddenly raised my voice, the man flinched.

“What is it.”

“You, you look like the ghost.”

“…Pardon?”

“It’s nothing. Do you not like the name?”

Instead of telling him that I had been having sleep paralysis every night lately, I asked him a question. The man let out a small sigh and then slowly nodded. Fortunately, he seemed to like it.

“No, it’s fine. Then please call me that from now on.”

“Yes, Mr. Seonggoo.”

The man—no, Mr. Seonggoo—smiled faintly, raising only the corners of his mouth. Thankfully, he seemed to like the name.

“I’ll be turning in now.”

“Yes, sleep well.”

Mr. Seonggoo watched the drama with me for a while before going into his room. Was it because he lost his memory? He would get very absorbed in watching dramas. Was he empathizing with the female lead’s situation? Whatever it was, I hoped the drama would be helpful in recovering his memory.

I waited in my room for Mr. Seonggoo to fall asleep. I was tired from staying up late, but I had no other time to work. A little past midnight. I quietly opened the door and went outside. I had intentionally not closed my door all the way, planning to sneak out. I grabbed my work clothes and was about to go out onto the wooden porch when I paused and looked at the room where Mr. Seonggoo was sleeping. What if he’s still awake?

Thinking I should check just once, I approached Mr. Seonggoo’s room. I carefully put my ear to the door, but I couldn’t hear anything. Just in case, I slowly opened the door.

I could faintly see the outline of the room’s interior. Mr. Seonggoo was lying down, covered with a blanket.

“…Mr. Seonggoo.”

I called his name in a whisper, but there was no response. It seemed he was sound asleep. It was late, so it was understandable.

Relieved, I left the house and headed straight for the warehouse. I unlocked the padlock, went inside, turned on the light, and quickly changed into my work clothes. An unpleasant and familiar smell greeted me. I took one corpse out of the bags lined up on one side. It was a middle-aged man with a slight belly but an overall thin frame. There were signs of a knife wound in his side and on his left chest. Just in case, I stuck my nose in the bag and sniffed; the smell of blood was strong. It seemed he had been bleeding the entire time he was being transported.