MIM 9

It seemed their conversation had been overheard in the small space. Being the center of attention wherever he went, it was no different in this tiny ice cream shop. Jae-seung brushed off the cone crumbs on his hands and turned his body. As he started to feel the gazes, he wanted to leave this place immediately.

The shorter man was the first to stand up, dragging his chair with a scraping sound. The man sitting across from him followed, tidying up their spot. Standing, their height difference was much more pronounced than expected. The smaller man was thin to the point of being unremarkable, while the larger man had a thick build with even developed trapezius muscles. Walking side by side towards the door, they were an ill-matched pair.

Even this sense of incongruity felt familiar. Jae-seung observed them while holding his breath.

“Oh, sorry about that.”

The smaller man’s eyes widened after almost tripping over Shin-woo’s foot as he passed by. It was closer to almost falling over his foot than kicking it, but the man apologized instead of getting angry. “It’s fine,” Shin-woo said with a small wave and a smile, and they bowed their heads before leaving the shop.

Even after they disappeared from sight, Jae-seung continued to stare at the door for a while. The faces he’d glimpsed as they passed lingered in his mind—those smug eyes, the faintly pigmented lips. That unpleasant expression seemed familiar from somewhere. His stomach churned strangely. His tension suddenly spiked, and nausea welled up. He felt dizzy.

Someone… held his hand. Rough, calloused skin warmly rubbed his palm. Scars. Calluses. As he recognized each sensation, the nausea gradually subsided. As his blurred vision cleared, his sense of reality slowly returned. He could see the ice cream shop table, Shin-woo’s face. The guy was looking at him with unwavering eyes.

How much time had passed? Shin-woo carefully pulled his hand away. Jae-seung watched blankly as he threw away the trash and said goodbye to the owner, then trudged along as Shin-woo led the way. Walking on the sun-heated street, he received the usual stares. Long eyes, black eyes, narrowly slanted eyes, smiling eyes, coldly frozen eyes, eyes hidden by bangs, droopy eyes under sparse eyebrows. Amidst the dizzying array of thousands of eyes, only the guy walking ahead was clear.

Jae-seung looked down vacantly at their joined hands. He felt like he might go crazy, and a faint smile crept onto his face.

He was finding comfort in the hand holding his so tightly that the veins stood out.

* * *

The next morning, Jae-seung remembered the two men.

He was lost in a burning mansion in his dream. Though aware it was a dream, he couldn’t wake up. No one could hear him no matter how loudly he screamed. The mansion was crumbling, blackened by the raging fire consuming it. Desperately, Jae-seung stumbled away from the crumbling rooms, trying to escape the fire. It was a dream he’d had countless times before.

The massive mansion was like a maze. Despite it being his home, Jae-seung didn’t know the way. There were many doors. All the doors he passed were locked from the outside, and strange screams could be heard beyond them. Even as his toes burned, his heart ached at the terrible realization that the people in the mansion were burning to death. Tears poured down, blurring his vision. No, it was the floor that was shaking.

Without realizing it, he was running on a wooden suspension bridge. The bridge creaked as it burned bright red. He ran like mad, trying to escape the flames spreading at a terrifying speed. Everywhere his feet touched started to burn, and he flailed his limbs like a madman on the swaying bridge. Just before the bridge completely collapsed, he threw himself to the other side with all his might. After rolling over and over, he reached a dead end and crashed into something.

It’s hot. It was still hot. Was he burning alive? Groping the floor in terror, he opened his eyes. He saw two feet. Two feet… no, four, six. There was one head.

In an instant, his vision widened and he saw the men. A small man holding his father’s head like a basketball under his arm, and a large man with a face covered in blood, both laughing as they watched the fire spread through the mansion. And then…

Shin-woo was beside them. Coldly looking down at his father’s headless corpse.

“Gasp!”

As soon as he opened his eyes, his consciousness became crystal clear. The drowsiness vanished instantly, and the short yet intense dream was vividly etched in his mind. He felt a sharp certainty about what was real and what was false. Jae-seung quickly jumped out of bed and frantically began jotting down notes on his phone. He had to record everything he remembered before he forgot.

In the burning mansion, he had witnessed the two men he had encountered at the ice cream shop, as well as Shin-woo.

There wasn’t actually a swinging bridge, and the mansion wasn’t a maze, but they were clearly standing on the third-floor stairs of the burning mansion, specifically where his room and his father’s room were located. He couldn’t tell which of the three had killed his father, but they were all suspects. They were the ones who had decapitated his father and set the fire.

Were those men also from Mangwol District? If so, had they conspired to kill his father? For revenge? For money? He had heard that nothing valuable was stolen from the mansion at the time of the incident. Then, could Shin-woo be regularly siphoning off money now? That bastard had been relentlessly saving money and requesting additional allowances.

“Time for breakfast!”

The door suddenly burst open without a knock, startling Jae-seung and causing him to drop his phone. He quickly picked it up, hid it under the blanket, and pretended to have just woken up as he raised his head.

Shin-woo, who had entered the room as if it were the most natural thing, was dressed in a suit. It felt strange to see him in such perfectly formal attire after having seen him in t-shirts or hoodies at school for so long. It was ironic that he had just remembered the unchanging true nature of this guy, regardless of what he wore.

Shin-woo tilted his head as he looked down at Jae-seung, then wiped the sweat from his face with the back of his hand. His eyes, looking down, seemed quite concerned. If Jae-seung had been naive, he might have been fooled. Jae-seung pushed Shin-woo’s hand away and sat up. The early morning sunlight filtering through the curtains spread across the blanket. He fumbled for the intangible warmth before grabbing the blanket. His racing heart showed no signs of calming down.

“Did you have another nightmare?”

Shin-woo bent down to meet Jae-seung’s eyes and asked. His pale eyes in the natural light were disgustingly clear. Jae-seung turned his head away, not wanting to answer. As he kicked off the blanket and quickly got out of bed, Shin-woo slowly followed behind.

“I’ll be back by 7 PM today. I’ll call you once before 5 PM, but if it’s too hard, feel free to call me first.”

Jae-seung silently looked Shin-woo up and down. Whatever the reason for dressing up, it seemed he had a special appointment where he needed to make a good impression on someone. He had neatly trimmed his hair in a two-block style and wore an expensive watch. His shoes were polished, and his shirt was crisp without a single wrinkle. He looked so perfect that even the small cut on his cheekbone and the red scab at the corner of his lips seemed to suit him.

Where was he going? Was he meeting those guys from the ice cream shop yesterday to plot how to deal with him? Jae-seung struggled to control his rough, emerging breath. He couldn’t show any sign of agitation. He couldn’t let Shin-woo know that he had remembered part of “that day.”

Shin-woo looked at his watch and sighed lightly. Then, like an office worker reluctant to go to work, he playfully drooped his shoulders and pulled up the corners of his mouth.

“I heard breakfast is avocado sandwiches and warm milk. If you want to eat in your room, I can bring it up for you.”

“It’s fine. I’ll manage on my own.”

“You haven’t seemed well since yesterday, so don’t push yourself and get some rest.”

At the mention of his condition, Jae-seung lowered his gaze. He hadn’t been able to sleep until dawn due to unrelenting anxiety since returning home yesterday. Jae-seung didn’t even know when or where Shin-woo, who had stayed by his side until late into the night, had eventually fallen asleep. Shin-woo usually stayed in the room until Jae-seung fell asleep, and sometimes even long after, before returning to his own quarters to sleep.

Shin-woo’s quarters were in a small annex located next to the mansion. He lived in this annex detached from the large mansion, but it was so unsightly that it could be called a doghouse, marring the overall appearance. It was hard to understand why his father, who was also in the real estate business, had left such an ugly structure standing.

Come to think of it, Shin-woo had continued to live in the annex even after that incident. There was no one to say anything if he moved into the mansion, yet he chose to stay there.

Could he be hiding something there? Jae-seung’s mind raced. Today would be a perfect opportunity since that guy would be away. He could sneak in and look for any incriminating evidence. Even if it was locked, it wouldn’t be difficult to get the key from Butler Hwang. Jae-seung muttered to himself, pretending to be hungry, and casually asked:

“Are you leaving now?”

Shin-woo, who was about to leave the room, stopped abruptly and turned around. With his hair neatly combed back, the twitching of his eyebrows was clearly visible.

‘I didn’t say anything that should sound suspicious.’

While Jae-seung was flustered, Shin-woo silently approached and placed his hand on Jae-seung’s chest. Remembering the cold eyes of the guy looking down at his father’s corpse, sweat broke out on his neck. He tried to swallow his tension along with his saliva, but it was in vain. His wildly beating heart pounded against Shin-woo’s palm.

“I’ll be back soon.”

Shin-woo slowly withdrew his hand and met Jae-seung’s eyes. Although Jae-seung had worried the conversation might drag on, instead of continuing to speak, Shin-woo lightly tidied Jae-seung’s messy hair and then left the room. Along with his body heat, the faint scent of his cologne faded away.

“Phew…”

Jae-seung plopped down on the bed and sighed. Then he counted to thirty minutes.