BFRS 5

“…Yes?”

What kind of drug was he given? If it were hydrochloric or sulfuric acid, he couldn’t be this fine. If he had taken a lethal dose, his lungs would have already been destroyed. If he had taken cyanide, he wouldn’t have been delivered alive in the first place.

It was questionable in many ways. The man was incredibly large. He looked similar to Chairman Jang. A man like this wouldn’t have obediently taken drugs either. If he was forced, there should have been signs of resistance, but even those were not visible.

“This is strange.”

Just in case, I checked his wrist once more, but that too was perfectly fine. Occasionally, a wrist was slit to fake a suicide. It was rare among the bodies brought to me, but it happened.

“What are you talking about?”

“Do you happen to remember how you almost died?”

“I do not. …Was I about to die?”

“Ah.”

I belatedly realized that my question itself was wrong. The man seemed to have no idea where this place was or why he had come. It was natural. Because he had lost his memory. How should I explain it? Should I explain that this is a place where more corpses come than living people? I was at a loss for words and stared blankly at the man’s face when a cough suddenly burst out. It was the aftermath of being choked.

“Forgive my rudeness on our first meeting. It was instinctive, I didn’t even realize.”

The man was quick on the uptake. Seeing me cough, he quickly apologized.

“It’s not that. It’s alright.”

Pain flared up every time I spoke. But I could understand. People who lost their memories generally took a defensive posture in all situations. The female lead in the drama was like that. This man probably attacked me instinctively as soon as he opened his eyes and saw a stranger. It was a relief, at least. If there had been a knife in his hand, I might have sent one of the man’s fingers flying.

However, he was not an ordinary person. An ordinary civilian couldn’t choke someone like that. The man, who said he had no previous memories, had accurately blocked the passage where breath flows. While gripping the entire neck, the way he pressed on the windpipe with only his thumb and index finger was clearly the work of an experienced person.

“You have no memory at all.”

“I’m sorry, but… yes.”

When I asked the man, who was frantically looking around, if anything came to mind, his expression darkened again. He, the one who had lost his memories, must be having a harder time than me.

I looked down at the floor, feeling helpless as well. This was a first for me too. What should I do with a person who has lost his memory? I couldn’t just send a man who didn’t even know his own name out, telling him to go back home. No, that’s not right.

This was a man whose body remembered how to kill people. He was a trained person who could aim for vital points and attack even without direct experience of killing someone. Just thinking about the possibility of getting involved in a difficult situation if I sent him out gave me a headache. Besides, if a person like this had been in a life-threatening situation, that place would have already turned into a scene of pandemonium.

Stepping up to find out his identity wasn’t a good idea either. I didn’t want to get involved in anything tiresome. Whatever they did among themselves, all I had to do was my own work.

In the end, there was only one answer.

“…”

It seemed like I would have to keep this man with me.

“You can sleep here.”

There were a few unused rooms in the house. Since I was very young, my father and I had used separate rooms. My father used the master bedroom, and he gave me a slightly smaller room. Even so, there were rooms left over. Some rooms were filled with things needed for farming or my father’s personal belongings, but there was also a room I had never entered before. And some rooms were completely empty with nothing in them.

I gave one of those empty rooms to the man.

“Thank you.”

“You can change into these clothes.”

I brought him a spare set of bedding and also brought him clothes. When I told him to change, the man wore a thoughtful expression for a moment, then picked up a T-shirt and lightly held it against his body.

“They’re not mine. They’re spare clothes.”

To be precise, they were Chairman Jang’s clothes. During the time I lived with my father, Chairman Jang had stayed at our house for a short while. It was before he became a chairman. To be exact, he became a chairman after that.

When I asked why he was staying at our house, he said it was for adult reasons and didn’t tell me, but I later happened to hear that he had fled to our house to escape the police. At that time, Chairman Jang had left some of his clothes behind, saying he might come again, but so far, an occasion for him to stay at our house had not arisen.

“The bathroom is to the left after you leave the room. It takes a while for the hot water to come out, so turn the water on in advance when you wash up.”

“…Thank you.”

“It’s late today, so I think it would be better to talk tomorrow.”

“I understand.”

“Sleep well.”

The man substituted a greeting with a brief nod of his head. The man really seemed to have completely lost his memory. They said that if you receive a strong impact to the head, you temporarily lose your memory. But if you tried to regain your memories by force, the rebound could make the memories hide even deeper. The doctor in the drama said that if you just go about your daily life as usual, your memories might naturally come back one by one.

However, this man was not someone who lived in this house. He probably wasn’t someone who lived nearby either. There were many problems with him living a normal life. I pondered for a moment about what to do, but my head started to hurt, so I stopped. Is it necessary for me to worry like this when it’s not even my business? For now, I planned to keep him at home and send him off if he said he wanted to leave. Or, well… I don’t know. Let’s think about it later.

Lying in bed, I thought for a moment before closing my eyes. I was too busy taking care of my own life to think deeply about a stranger who had suddenly appeared. That man… will be fine somehow.

CRASH-BOOM… Again, the sound of thunder that seemed like the world was collapsing came from outside. I squeezed my eyes shut for no reason and pulled the blanket up to my chin. Heat rose up quickly, but I didn’t want to kick the blanket off.

In the end, I slept poorly that night. The rain, which I thought was a sudden shower, did not stop until after midnight. Every time I was about to fall asleep, I was startled by the sound of thunder and kept waking up. Exhausted from being in a state that was neither sleeping nor awake, I stared blankly at the ceiling and waited for the rain to stop. The clock on the wall pointed to one o’clock.

It was rare for me to stay up this late. Staying awake was a meaningless act for me. This was a neighborhood with no amusements to endure a long night. Thunder struck again. I hunched my shoulders and covered my ears. It wasn’t like it was the first or second day it rained, but I hated the sound of thunder. Even in broad daylight, if thunder struck, I would stop what I was doing, lie down in my room, and wait for the sound to cease. That’s why I wanted to fall asleep quickly, but it seemed like I was out of luck for sleeping today.

Two in the morning. The sound of the rain was finally subsiding a bit. It had been a little while since the loud thunder had stopped as well. Only then did I relax a little, and sleepiness slowly crept in. I have a lot to do tomorrow. I’ll have to postpone my routine a little. Thunder of this magnitude isn’t a weather phenomenon, it’s a natural disaster. At least, it was for me.

Not long after I closed my eyes, my consciousness sank below the surface of sleep. I vaguely felt the strength naturally leaving my limbs. I could barely hear the rain either. I wasn’t sure if the rain had stopped, or if my hearing had dulled as I fell asleep. In any case, it was peaceful.

Screeeak. At that moment, I heard the sound of a door opening. Because it was an old, rundown house, it made an unpleasant sound every time a door was opened. I knew I needed to oil it, but my procrastination had continued until today. I felt a presence nearby. I felt a gaze on me, but my body, exhausted from not being able to sleep for a long time, did not budge.

Suddenly, I felt a slight pressure on my neck. Something gently pressed down on the part where the bone was located and then slowly wrapped around my neck. The moment it slowly pressed down on my entire neck.

“Cough!”

As I let out a dry cough, the pressure on my neck quickly disappeared. What was that? What was happening? Before I could think more deeply, my consciousness completely vanished. The sensation of being choked also ended there.

When I woke up and went outside, the rain had completely stopped. I was dumbfounded by the sight that unfolded before my eyes. It was utterly peaceful. My worry that something might have been swept away was rendered moot; the soil and flowers, holding a moderate amount of moisture, were full of life. And this was despite the fact that someone had slept poorly because it was so loud.

I sat blankly on the wooden porch, staring outside, and then put on my shoes. I needed to check the levee I had seen last night once more.

“Ah.”

A large drop of water hanging from the eaves fell right on the crown of my head. The drop was so big that it felt like I had been flicked on the head. I had come out without even tidying my bedding, so I roughly combed my messy hair with my hand, then opened the main gate and went out. Fortunately, no collapsed areas were visible. I should fix it up once the rain dries. From outside, the parking lot was clearly visible. The dirt and dust on the car, which hadn’t been washed in a long time, had been completely washed away, and it shone brightly.

While I was at it, I decided to take care of the greenhouse before going in. I happened to be wearing rain boots, and although I was hungry, I felt bothered because I had woken up later than usual. The flower buds of the peonies, which I had cultivated for several years, had formed. It was about time to send the bulbs to the client.

Peonies were not a variety I liked because they required a lot of work and took a long time, but there was a client who liked peonies. It takes several years to receive the flowers, so I recommended they choose another flower, but they didn’t break their stubbornness until the end, so I had no choice but to start growing them. Still, now that I had actually grown them, they were certainly pretty to look at, so I would feel a sense of pride around the time I sent them for delivery. Peonies are pretty when in full bloom, but they are especially pretty like this with their buds formed, so I was also satisfied.

I crouched for a long time, checking the condition of each one, and after adjusting the sprinkler timer, I came outside. I hadn’t realized it when I was sitting, but now that I stood up, my legs were trembling with hunger. It was already time for the mid-morning snack.

“Hello.”

“Ah.”

“You seem to be back from a walk.”

The man was sitting on the wooden porch and greeted me. It seemed he had woken up while I was out working for a bit. The clothes he was wearing were different from yesterday. Last night he had been wearing a wrinkled and dirty dress shirt, but today it was a collared casual shirt. Fortunately, the clothes Chairman Jang had left behind seemed to fit him well.

“I was just working for a bit.”

“Work?”

“Yes. I run a flower farm.”

“A flower farm.”

The man repeated what I had said. After looking for a moment at the path I had come from, the man shifted his gaze to me.

“What kind of work did I do?”

“Ah.”

I had completely forgotten the fact that he had lost his memory. The man seemed to think that he worked together with me. It was understandable, since he didn’t even know who he was. I forgot that my explanation had been insufficient. I hadn’t expected it, as I rarely have to deal with people.

“First… would you like to eat?”

“…That sounds good.”

First, we decided to eat and then talk.

The side dishes were the same as yesterday. Seasoned vegetables, soy-braised black beans, dried radish strips, and kimchi. The man seemed to have no appetite. I gave him a large serving of rice, but he left nearly half of it. I had given him an amount thinking of how much Chairman Jang eats, as he eats a lot to match his build, but it seems this man is a light eater.

“So.”

“Yes.”

“I am not from this neighborhood, and you also saw me for the first time yesterday.”

“Yes. You can call me Mooyoung. Kim Mooyoung.”

“Someone abandoned me in front of your house, Mr. Mooyoung.”

“Yes.”

“And I can’t remember anything. Is my understanding correct?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

After finishing the meal, I briefly explained the situation to the man. The man listened to my story silently and even summarized it to ask again. Contrary to my expectation that he would be surprised, the man looked very calm. The man, who was staring into the air with a placid face, asked me again.

“Then why was I abandoned here?”

Because I’m the one who dismembers corpses and burns them.

…No matter what, I couldn’t answer like that. I couldn’t tell him the story that I, too, had thought he was already dead, and had found out he wasn’t yet dead while taking him out of the bag with the intention of draining his blood first.

“Um.”

The man’s gaze touched my cheek. It had only been a few hours since we met, but the man seemed to have a habit of staring at people intently.

“Perhaps it’s because this place… is remote.”

“Because it’s remote.”

“Yes. There aren’t many people in this neighborhood.”

A cough suddenly came out. It was the aftermath of being choked last night. Was it because of sleep paralysis? The feeling of a foreign object was much worse than last night. My throat must be swollen, because I automatically frowned every time I chewed and swallowed food.

In any case, this was all I had to say. It was a fact that this place was very remote. It took 30 minutes by car to get to the town center, and the city was much farther. I rarely ever went to the city. The man stared at me intently for a long time before belatedly nodding. He seemed to have realized that I couldn’t give him the answer he wanted.

This time, it was my turn to ask a question.

“Do you really not remember anything?”

“No.”

“Ah…”

A groan escaped me without my realizing. That was a really difficult situation. I had hoped that the man would remember at least something after sleeping and waking up, but it seemed he really couldn’t remember anything. That must be why he asked me such a question.

I looked at the wall for a moment. A man who lost his memory, a strange place, and me. No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t think of a way to send the man back.

“There’s no other choice.”

Our eyes met. There was only one thing I could do.

“Stay here for the time being.”