PIA 159

#Two People from Different Worlds.

The last week of December, Christmas Eve, when the glamorous year-end atmosphere was reaching its peak. Jeong Hee-seo left the company before lunch time even began.

Employees who didn’t know the circumstances wondered what was going on as they watched him stride quickly across the hallway. If they hadn’t seen it with their own eyes, they wouldn’t have believed that the General Manager, notorious for being a workaholic, was taking a half-day off for the holiday.

But Jeong Hee-seo wasn’t leaving the company because of the holiday. In fact, even he found it difficult to understand why he was acting this way. He started his car, recalling Secretary Yoon, who had seen him off with an indescribable expression

“Tsk.”

It was just a few days ago that another dimension’s ‘Seo Ji-an’ had suddenly visited.

Everything that Seo Ji-an, his in-law with a chaotic family background, had said turned out to be true – the one he’d thought might have been mentally broken from lifelong familial violence. He tried to understand this difficult-to-accept phenomenon by watching fantasy and sci-fi movies he normally wouldn’t enjoy, and searching for all sorts of documentaries and books.

Not that it would help organize his thoughts. This time, it seemed like the Seo Ji-an who had thrown his daily life into chaos would disappear. It was just thirty minutes ago that he’d received a report from Secretary Yoon about Seo Ji-an trying to sell his officetel.

Jeong Hee-seo consciously loosened his grip on the steering wheel. Why did he feel so anxious and frustrated? He pressed hard on the accelerator, trying to shake off these unfamiliar feelings.

* * *

“You came sooner than I expected?”

Jeong Hee-seo, entering through the wide-open front door, shifted his gaze at those words. The voice came from deep inside, quite far away.

“…”

Jeong Hee-seo swallowed a slight sigh. The officetel was a mess from the entrance, with large boxes everywhere. He reluctantly raised his hand and knocked twice on the wall. Though the owner had already acknowledged him, it was a habitual action.

The officetel was freezing cold with the heating completely turned off. The temperature was no different from outside, and white breath flowed out every time he exhaled. Jeong Hee-seo neatly took off his shoes on one side of the entrance. Then, he lifted his long legs and stepped over the moving boxes blocking the entrance and went inside.

By the sunlit window, Ji-an was emptying the bookshelf, wearing a loose knit sweater. The edges of his soft-colored hair held the light, appearing golden. A red hardcover book rested on his slender fingers.

He was looking through each neatly arranged book before moving them into boxes. Jeong Hee-seo quickly noticed they were mostly essays. Ji-an spoke without even looking at him.

“I knew Secretary Yoon would report that I was moving out, but I didn’t expect you to come right away. Isn’t it still work hours?”

“Are you packing the moving boxes yourself?”

“Ah, to be honest, I knew you would come.”

Giving up on getting an answer from Ji-an who was talking past him, Jeong Hee-seo surveyed the situation with his own eyes to make his judgment.

His gaze moved from the books whose titles he recognized to the fingertips reddened from cold, then to the pale white exposed neck. The knit that Ji-an was wearing had holes all over it, as if it were the work of a designer with a strong experimental spirit, and it was hard to call it winter clothes.

Jeong Hee-seo slightly furrowed his brow, suddenly wondering if dressing so scantily in the cold was some kind of strategy to attract attention.

“It’s not like that. As you can see, I’m busy. I got hot from moving around.”

Ji-an answered as if he had heard Jeong Hee-seo’s inner thoughts. When Ji-an lifted his gaze from the book he had been focused on and met his eyes directly, his flushed face did indeed look warm, just as he had mentioned.

Jeong Hee-seo took his gaze away from the one that had met his. He looked around again and asked.

“Now that you’ve achieved everything you wanted… are you planning to run away in the night or something?”

Ji-an chuckled lowly.

“What would I be afraid of to run away? Besides, it’s broad daylight right now.”

“…”

“Haven’t you heard that saying? That people with nothing to lose are the most frightening.”

Jeong Hee-seo didn’t respond. He looked between the open boxes, briefly showing interest in the box containing piles of photographs.

Most of them were torn, making them seem more like garbage than cherished memories, but upon closer inspection, he noticed expensive accessories like watches and cufflinks mixed in. The classification criteria for the box contents was puzzling.

“Are you throwing all this away too?”

“Ah, that.”

Caught off guard by Jeong Hee-seo’s unexpected question, Ji-an ran his hand through his hair with an awkward expression.

“Originally, I bought lots of these as gifts for when this body’s owner returned, but that person said they hated this whole world. I worked too hard for nothing. In the end, I didn’t need that much money…”

“Rather than throwing these away, you should donate them. It’s the end of the year, after all.”

Jeong Hee-seo was even bending over to look inside the box. It was unclear whether he was looking at the accessories or the torn photos.

Ji-an quietly watched him for a moment before turning away and responding casually, “Throwing them away is faster. No need for extra hassle.”

“After you throw everything away, what are you going to do next?”

“Who knows.”

In truth, it was more like ‘organizing’ than ‘throwing away,’ but he didn’t bother to explain. Initially, he had planned to abandon the expensive items-filled officetel and disappear, but suddenly he disliked the idea of someone seeing his traces and trying to piece together his life. He also didn’t want Yoon Ok-hee to be contacted. That’s why he was going through the troublesome process of organizing everything himself.

Silence flowed in the room where the conversation had stopped, and only the sound of small objects being tossed into the boxes filled the air.

Now Jeong Hee-seo had stopped looking at the items and was openly staring at Ji-an.

‘General manager, about Seo Ji-an’s officetel. The real estate office contacted us. You asked us to keep an eye on it before.’

‘The real estate office?’

‘Yes. We had recruited all the nearby agents just in case, and they said Seo Ji-an put the officetel up for sale at a price much lower than market value.’

‘…’

‘The agent said he seemed like someone who was going to organize everything and leave for somewhere far away.’

The first word that came to mind upon hearing this was ‘midnight runaway.’ But immediately, thoughts turned to how strange it was. Running away when everything was over, wasn’t that strange? No, when you think about it, his own action of coming here without hesitation after hearing Secretary Yoon’s words was even stranger.

Jeong Hee-seo, who was typically clear and straightforward about everything, was getting a headache because of this complicated person. He leaned against the bar table with a strangely crumpled expression and crossed his arms.

Everything had been strange from the beginning.

It started when he kept an eye on his brother-in-law, who was digging into the pasts of his younger brother Jeong Han-joo and Seo Ji-hyuk. He thought he had caught a suspicious guy, but instead of confessing, he suddenly asked for help. And his own action of stepping up to help him.

Come to think of it, it was strange that he had even listened to Seo Ji-an’s story in the first place.

Among all the strange things, the strangest was standing here right now. He had never used the word ‘strange’ as much in his life as he had recently. He had acted impulsively, convincing himself that he needed to check on Seo Ji-an’s condition, that he couldn’t leave him alone. Jeong Hee-seo felt unfamiliar with himself.

What had he come here to confirm? The most incomprehensible thing was how his unpleasantly anxious feelings had settled down like a lie after coming here and seeing Seo Ji-an in person.

‘I have no reason to look after him. What am I to that guy?”

More than the outlandish tales about coming from another world or having another self, Jeong Hee-seo was more concerned about his face that seemed to lack any color. Seo Ji-an, who had just claimed to have finished his revenge, was becoming increasingly faint, as if he might disappear at any moment.

Jeong Hee-seo suddenly wondered if his suggestion about donation and other meddlesome comments were meant to give Ji-an something to do. Had he thought about giving him tasks to buy time, to keep him here?

It was strange anyway. As Jeong Hee-seo was scratching his eyebrow, consumed by inexplicable feelings, Ji-an turned around and suddenly provoked him.

“You haven’t left yet?”

“…”

Ji-an raised his index finger as if he had suddenly remembered something.

“Mister. If you don’t have anything to do…”

“Mister?”

Jeong Hee-seo cut in with a displeased tone.

“Then what should I call you? What, perhaps… should I call you ‘hyung’? I’m not like ‘that person.’ Our age difference is too big.”

Ji-an grumbled in disbelief before clapping his hands once.

“No, actually, if you add up all the years I’ve lived, I’m much older.”

Jeong Hee-seo came closer and tapped the box in front of Ji-an with his fist. Breaking off the frivolous conversation to get his attention, he met his eyes.

“Continue what you were saying. I’m not exactly free, but.”

“Ah.”

Ji-an swallowed briefly as he looked at Jeong Hee-seo, who had come right up to his face. This was a body he had desired sometimes with hope, sometimes with despair and anger, through dozens of time loops. His body scent and pheromones were like a switch for Ji-an. Heat immediately rose to his ears.

Ji-an pretended to be unbothered as he avoided his gaze and stepped back. Then he turned around abruptly and put on the coat he had thrown aside. Feeling the intense gaze on his back, he forced his voice to sound calm.

“Even though you said you’re not exactly free, would you like to go to Jeju Island with me?”

“Jeju Island all of a sudden?”

When he turned around, he could see that the man’s eyes were shining with a different light. At that moment, Ji-an felt like he knew that he would never refuse.

“There’s a place I want to go.”

One last time. He didn’t bother to say those words.