TIN 165

While the employee the secretary called cleaned the floor, Logan silently wiped my face. After wiping away the tears and snot with a handkerchief, Logan secretly stroked my hair, then stepped back. It was a kind gesture, but it wasn’t very comforting.

‘Do-hwa.’

‘…….’

I straightened my back. The pheromone-laden voice felt like it was strangling me. Ever since I was very young, my whole body would stiffen whenever my father called me.

‘You have to forget the dead.’

Even if he said it kindly, it was an order. Forget him, don’t look for him anymore. That’s what he was saying.

‘Or do you want to perform the funeral with your own hands?’

‘…….’

I stared blankly at the corpse. Beyond the blurry vision, I could see the hideously damaged body. Not Hyung, an unidentifiable drowned corpse that couldn’t be Hyung. The gruesome sight made me shake my head involuntarily.

‘You have to answer with words.’

‘No… no.’

Hearing my stammered reply, my father smiled contentedly. His lips, which drew a gentle curve, had never seemed so chilling. After looking at the corpse with indifferent eyes, my father quickly erased his smile and kicked me out.

‘Then go back.’

Logan held my hand on the way home. Normally, I would have pulled away without hesitation, but instead of shaking him off, I blankly stared out the car window. I never understood the reason for his whispered apology, “I’m sorry.”

I don’t know how the day passed. I couldn’t eat, and even drinking a sip of water was difficult. As soon as I saw the meat on the table, I felt nauseous, and the best I could do was not throw up again.

The Bada painting hanging in the hallway had never seemed so terrible. Beyond the crashing waves, the corpse I had seen at the main house came to mind again. That corpse must have drowned there. As soon as I thought that, I felt miserable.

So I went to bed and did nothing. I covered myself with the blanket up to my head, quietly held my breath, and tried to empty my mind. I forcibly stopped thinking, and inwardly wished I could stop breathing like this.

‘…….’

Hyung didn’t die. That corpse, that disgusting remnant, couldn’t be Hyung.

‘No…’

That’s right, he couldn’t have fallen into the water. He was such a good swimmer. How much fun we had playing in the sea together. The way he swam so gracefully in the clear seawater, like a mermaid, was so vivid.

‘…He didn’t die.’

I repeated the same words over and over, as if brainwashing myself. I forcibly ignored my anxiously beating heart and desperately turned away from the lingering image of the corpse. I squeezed my eyes shut and rummaged through my memories to recall the memories I had with Hyung.

‘…….’

But Hyung’s face was no longer drawn in my blackened mind. The features that had been clear until yesterday gradually began to blur. His pretty eyes, his sharp nose, and his red lips all came together and became a mess.

And what appeared was a corpse swollen from drowning. A grotesquely distorted figure, with eyes, nose, and mouth indistinguishable, covered Hyung’s face.

As if Hyung had really become like that.

‘Ugh…’

I felt sick, so I curled up like a shrimp and groaned. I wanted to run out of the room, but even if I left, there was no one by my side. Even if Logan held my hand all night, he was still not Hyung after all.

‘…Heu.’

Belatedly, I felt the hot liquid flowing down my eyes. It was the sorrow that I couldn’t show in front of my father, the sorrow that I had kept inside without being able to take it out.

I’ll remember when I wake up. Hyung abandoned me, but I won’t abandon Hyung. Just like I told Hyung everything about me, I’ll remember everything about Hyung too.

Perhaps because I had put all my energy into it, I thankfully felt sleepy soon. Beyond my fading consciousness, I thought I vaguely saw Hyung’s face. And the greeting he whispered to me.

‘Goodbye, Do-hwa.’

When I fell asleep, the villa appeared in my dream. The sandy beach where Hyung and I were sitting, and the wide-open horizon.

It was a dream where Hyung drowned in the sea.

---

Is there anything more difficult to forget than a memory you think you should forget? After seeing the corpse at the main house, several changes occurred in my life. First, I couldn’t eat meat anymore, second, I felt nauseous when I saw the sea painting, and lastly, I often woke up screaming in the middle of the night.

Not long after my changes were reported, all the employees in the house were replaced. All the familiar faces disappeared, and even the CCTV recordings that I used to check from time to time were erased. The doctor said it was trauma therapy, but it wasn’t very effective for me.

When I couldn’t remember Hyung, all that remained was the corpse my father had shown me. I couldn’t even think of his face anymore, and even the daily life I had with him gradually faded away. My memories were cut off like an edited video, and all the memories were far away, as if I were dreaming.

At first, I only hated him, but later I felt resentful. I started to get angry that he had left this house, that he had run away from me, and that he had left me nothing.

There was no time to learn about longing. The emotions that had been gradually diluted over several years ultimately left only negative things. I felt like all the sincerity I had poured out had collapsed like a sandcastle in an instant.

I tried to fill Hyung, but Hyung left me empty. He stole my sincerity, stole my memories, and finally stole my memories and ran away. Cruelly. He’ll never come back again.

Would it be better to think of him as dead?

The vague thought left me with various questions. How could someone with nothing have gone to the sea without me? What are the chances that Hyung, who is a good swimmer, would accidentally fall and die? If it was intentional, why would he go all the way there and die?

Then… Then who killed him?

“…….”

The question I finally reached was a valid suspicion that made my blood run cold. The person who found the corpse. The person who made the corpse look like Hyung. The person who took Hyung away from me and killed him.

Even though I was convinced that my father had fabricated everything, I thought that maybe my father was mistaken that it was really Hyung. If he knew the corpse was fake, he would find Hyung and kill him no matter what. It might be better to believe it’s real.

I had enough circumstantial evidence, but only lacked material evidence. No, even if I had material evidence, there was nothing I could do. What could I, a mere child, do to my father?

But as luck would have it, a few years later, I began to learn the company’s business in earnest. This was because my father became Chairman after my Grandmother passed away. I was the only one with the blood of a dominant Alpha, so my father had no choice but to raise me as his successor, even though he considered me a thorn in his side.

I started investigating my father’s background while handling the work that was given to me. Just to find out what he did to Hyung. It had already been several years, but I still couldn’t forget the memory of that day when I saw the corpse in front of me.

It wasn’t easy. My father didn’t want to show me to the world, as if he was trying to keep me in check because I was a dominant Alpha. There were many restrictions on my actions, but I wasn’t as afraid as I used to be.

The reason was simple. That’s when I realized it. The person who should be afraid of the other person is not me, but my father. The person who should be afraid of the golden eyes is that Alpha who even tried to feed me pheromone suppressants.

Once I was able to face my father, who had always seemed so big, my father called me less often. Now he only wanted to see me in video conferences. The man who had shoved a drowned corpse in front of a six-year-old boy couldn’t even show his face to his sixteen-year-old son.

In the year I turned seventeen, Logan died. It was suicide. Henry, who turned twenty that year, filled Logan’s vacancy. The son of Logan, who was said to be sickly and on the verge of death, a Beta who looked just like his father, made me think of one thing.

‘…He can be replaced.’

A person’s vacancy can be filled with a person. Just as my father filled the vacant Chairman position, just as Henry replaced the vacant aide position, a person’s vacant position can be replaced with a person.

I immediately bought a person. A Beta with black hair and fair skin, as pretty as a doll. A doll that I could pick up just because he was pretty, a doll that I could play with appropriately.

There was no one who was completely satisfactory, but there were many who met the conditions to some extent. Since I was paying a reasonable amount to buy them, there was nothing to be concerned about. After all, I had more money than I could ever use.

‘Try saying Do-hwa.’

‘…Yes?’

‘Say Do-hwa.’

All I remember is that. “Goodbye, Do-hwa.” Now I can’t even remember his voice.

‘Do, Do-hwa…’

But the Beta who mumbled and spat it out didn’t please me very much. As soon as I heard that one word, I thought, “This isn’t it.” So I bought a new person, and after repeating that process about three times, I finally got a call that was worth listening to.

‘Do-hwa.’

It wasn’t bad. His appearance, his voice, and the way he treated me. The face he forced to smile wasn’t great, but at least it wasn’t at a level where I wanted to get rid of him right away.

‘Now we’re going to play a role-playing game.’

You’re Hyung, I’m the younger brother.

I was able to eat meat again, and I threw up less often while looking at the sea painting. The moment I had a substitute for ‘Hyung’ in front of me, I didn’t even think of that shitty corpse. The face that had swollen and turned grotesque in the water was filled with the features in front of me.

But I still had dreams of drowning in the sea. Dreams of Hyung, who used to play with me, being submerged in the crashing waves. And dreams of crossing a river from which he could never return and becoming a cold corpse.

Dreams of losing Hyung forever.