Since everything he had to shoot was done anyway, Sihyeon hurried to offer his goodbye to the director and left the set—and a swarm of eyes followed him. His profile looked like he didn’t care at all. When the Manager said he’d go with him and Sihyeon flatly insisted he’d go alone, the Manager let out a short sigh and said he’d at least drive him to the hospital; that, Sihyeon couldn’t refuse, and he got into the passenger seat without a word.
At the hospital entrance—reaching it in a flash while barely keeping the lights legal—Sihyeon was about to just get out without thinking, and the Manager, startled, hurriedly handed him a cap and sunglasses, scolding twice that he wasn’t a civilian.
Sihyeon nodded perfunctorily, gave a light wave, put on the cap and sunglasses he’d been handed, and stepped out of the van.
Maybe she’d wanted to run away from the reality that even her only remaining Oppa had died; even after her fever broke, the child didn’t wake. The doctor who examined her this way and that only shook his head like he pitied her, saying it seemed psychological. Not knowing her brother had come back to life, she’d surely think that even if she opened her eyes there would be no one left in the world but herself. Because Lee Sihyeon’s younger sister had not regained consciousness before his own discharge, he’d not only failed to meet her properly—he hadn’t even made eye contact. The attending doctor, seeing the phone number Sihyeon had left with a note to call if she came to, had called in a fluster and said the younger sister had regained consciousness and was desperately asking for him—he hoped Sihyeon could hurry to the hospital.
So at the call that the child who’d slept like the dead had finally woken up, he’d run straight from the set.
“Ha….”
Idol, acting, and now even cleaning up after his younger sister. Muttering that life was going swimmingly, like it was absurd, he was striding for the hospital entrance when his steps stopped of their own accord at a figure standing a little off in the corner of his vision.
A threatening scar that ran long from cheek to jaw—an alien air that didn’t suit a hospital at all.
A face that could probably make even a crying child faint with a single scowl—yet one that had always turned gentle and mild like a lamb in front of him—was sunk dark. He said something to subordinates a head below him and jerked his chin for them to go. The man in a hospital gown—a look that didn’t suit him at all—was a face Sihyeon knew.
Of course—he was Han Daejun, who had been with Lee Hajin right up to the moment of his death.
He hadn’t expected to run into him like this, and his first feeling—at seeing he didn’t look as bad as he’d feared—was relief.
Right after he learned his body had changed, Sihyeon had quietly checked the situation without telling the members who were keeping their mouths shut. As expected, things had been neatly gagged, and the death reported in the article—handled as a separate incident from Lee Sihyeon—was just one person.
“Mr. L, twenty-eight, deceased.” The feeling that rose at the word referring to himself wasn’t despair—it was brief relief. If there was only one deceased, at least Daejun hadn’t died.
That guess proved true: admitted to the same hospital, Daejun had been injured thanks to his seat belt and an airbag that deployed immediately, but his life was not in danger. The one in the back seat—who hadn’t fastened a seat belt and was in the car when it left the guardrail—had died on the spot. Naturally, that drew no particular emotion. Lee Hajin remembered the moment he died. The instant his breathing stopped had been real.
“……….”
Still, isn’t that something to be grateful for. Seeing that Daejun, though he looked depressed, was breathing fine, Sihyeon gave a short smile.
Daejun had been beside him since he was in high school. You should learn how to handle the ones under you, his father had said, personally picking and sticking Han Daejun to him; he’d been only twenty then, just a punk. Did he even finish high school. Given their small age gap, the aftermath seemed obvious. He couldn’t have entered the organization just to babysit a child—of course he’d be resentful.
He would hear later that, thanks to his steady nature and uncommon mettle, Daejun was already the subject of great expectations. Contrary to expectations, Han Daejun was always composed in a way that didn’t suit his age, and never once went against Hajin’s words. So at some point Hajin realized lightly that the man had been attached as his watcher.
There was no room for something like betrayal to be felt. Lee Hajin already knew a darker world, and in a situation where he couldn’t trust even his parents, he’d had no expectations of others to begin with.
He simply survived, kept surviving—and by the time he suddenly found himself wondering why he should live at all, Han Daejun was still at his side.
Hajin didn’t particularly order or demand anything of Daejun, but Daejun took it upon himself to see to what Hajin needed and acted like an extra pair of hands and feet; that didn’t change even when Hajin graduated high school, became an adult, and was forced into the organization.
It turned out to be a longer time than he’d thought. Isn’t it humiliating to work under a kid three years younger than you—can’t you at least say it? He’d asked that once. I’ll tell my father and send you somewhere else—where would you like to go? If he was going to send him off anyway, he figured it should be somewhere the man wanted, but Han Daejun—like half his world had collapsed—fell to his knees and pressed his forehead to the floor, saying he would correct anything that displeased Hajin.
At some point, the form of address had changed from young master to boss, and with a firm face he said there was nowhere he needed to be except at his boss’s side—looking ready to commit seppuku, Hajin kept his mouth shut and, as always, kept Daejun by his side.
── I serve only one person.
Even at that orderly phrasing that seemed to ask him to trust him, Hajin ultimately didn’t give an answer. Thinking now, he could have answered once. Even so, Daejun, far from being disappointed at Hajin’s cold treatment, only kept closer to Hajin’s side. Maybe he thought his loyalty was being tested. Even so—there was nothing to be gained by staying at his side. Even if he became the legitimate wife’s son, he had no thought of inheriting the family business or taking over the organization; and even if that changed, his half-siblings would still see him as a thorn in their eye and threaten his life all the same. His viper of a mother whispered that he was the only heir to the organization.
Lee Hajin had known for a long time already that not one of the humans wearing the mask of parent regarded him as a son.
Perhaps the clearest proof was that finger. It was attached to this body whole, but the pinky that had once been severed—he himself had cut it off. One day, under the pretext of “testing his loyalty,” his cold-blooded, merciless father handed him a sashimi knife honed to a blue edge and languidly ordered him to slice open Han Daejun’s belly—Daejun was bowing his head at Hajin’s side.
It wasn’t that surprising—he’d expected it.
At the time his father first stuck Daejun to his side, the added phrase “how to handle the ones under you”—Hajin already knew this was what it meant.
His conception of harming a person had already thinned and faded, left like a stain; even so, slicing into Han Daejun’s belly wasn’t particularly difficult. When he took the knife and looked to the side, Han Daejun—who had been looking down—closed his eyes wide like he’d resolved something, then slowly lifted his head toward Hajin. Blind, straight gaze. The kind of face that would grit his teeth and swallow his scream even if a knife were driven into his own belly without a hint of resistance. That face.
And at that face—why?
He knew that if he killed Han Daejun here, for a while, the ridiculous surveillance and suspicion would ease a little. He knew—and yet….
Without time to even think why, Hajin slowly lowered the sashimi knife that had been pointed at Daejun. He stared at his father, whose eyes flashed keen and unrelenting, and the motions followed like a painting: he laid his left hand on the table. Fingers spread wide. He lifted the knife again. The blue edge caught the light, and the very tip of the sharpest point touched his pinky without hesitation. Flesh, weak, parted further as pressure grew. In a scene that continued without pause, as if slicing a hunk of meat, someone’s sucked-in breath split the stillness like a farce. Lee Hajin began to cut his own finger—very slowly.
Starting from the tip of the edge he pressed in, the sensation of his own finger being sliced crept up his right hand, eerie. When he reached the middle of the blade, he could feel the hard bone meet the steel.
At some point the sweat running down his forehead wet his cheek. The stark, brazen pain whitened his vision, but he never stopped his hand. The edge went in deeper. When he’d nearly reached the hilt, the palm of his right hand, which held the handle, slid up and pressed over the back of the knife under which his pinky lay.
And then—without hesitation, using the strength of his shoulder—thunk! He pressed down on the knife’s spine, and crimson blood spattered in every direction.
Did he think that instant resembled a spreading petal.
Clatter. He didn’t even notice the sashimi knife he’d dropped roll across the floor. With his trembling right hand, Hajin pulled out his handkerchief, wrapped the severed piece—his own pinky, now nothing but a bit of meat—and handed it to his father, whose face had gone a little ashen as he looked at him. The other members ringed around them were already turning pale, frozen where they stood.
── I don’t care who I have to slice or kill… but I can’t bear having my loyalty to my father questioned.
It was a voice that somehow came out without shaking. His back, soaked with cold sweat already, felt damp.
── My wrist would be fine too… but that might interfere with work.
Silence. His father, eyes like a snake, stared, face suggesting he was weighing something. Hajin knew what he was thinking. He was weighing whether to tell him to keep cutting or not. He felt the vivid sensation of blood draining fast through the severed finger. His father glanced at the red drops that were soaking the table and falling plop, plop toward the floor and said, with false benevolence, that of course they couldn’t have it interfere with work—this would do for today—and he whisked out, carrying the handkerchief-wrapped finger. At the same time, the members who had been standing there at a loss rushed in all at once, crying, Boss!—and it was funny.
And in the middle of that hectic, noisy scene, oddly, Daejun’s face was the clearest.
Maybe because he didn’t even know shame—his face was soaked with tears, running so hard they drenched him; just then he’d looked young, and maybe that had been what was strange.
Young master…. Using the old form of address he no longer used, Daejun wept, big drops, as he stanched the bleeding with his tie and handkerchief. He looked so pitiful that Hajin lifted his hand, thinking he should pat his back and tell him it was okay—but his own hand was a mess, smeared thick with blood….
In the end, he couldn’t bring himself to stroke that back—he lowered his hand.
Young master, young master. It hadn’t even been that big a deal. The voice calling him was so earnest that the usually silent Hajin finally answered, gently, Yeah.
After that, for a long time, Han Daejun couldn’t stop crying—only staring at the severed finger.
“…Ah.”
Snapped out of the wandering chain of old memories, Sihyeon lifted his head to look where Daejun had been—but he was already gone, or had gone elsewhere. Only an empty scene met his eyes. I won’t see him again, will I. Lee Hajin remembered the final moment. When the car left the guardrail, the face of Daejun, who had turned back with a desperate expression and reached out his hand.
Isn’t that enough.
Sihyeon smiled faintly and started walking for the hospital. As his back receded, something white and soft began to spread slowly, and like a clear announcement that winter had arrived, pure white snow began to fall in December.
It was an evening close to three weeks since Lee Sihyeon had opened his eyes again.
It was a familiar room. Except now, the girl who had always lain with her eyes closed was looking at him like she couldn’t believe it. The face watching Sihyeon, who opened the door and came in, was pale and gaunt. Already thin, she looked so much worse that the small frame of the child looked even smaller, and Sihyeon faintly knitted his brow.
“…Oppa…?”
A face like she was dreaming.
Well—her brother she’d thought dead was walking in looking perfectly fine. No wonder she couldn’t believe it. He answered “Mm” in a voice softened gentle, and the child—who had been sitting on the bed—fumbled and moved to climb down. That looked precarious in itself, and as he moved to go to her, she suddenly rushed toward him with an urgent motion, like he might vanish, and the look of it was raw and aching.
Pop! The IV needle in her wrist snapped free and sprang with a sharp noise.
Red spread under the thin wrist. She didn’t seem to notice at all; throwing herself into his arms, she only kept letting out a thin cry, Oppa, Oppa. Her thin fingers clutched his clothes so hard they went white. Like she was saying don’t disappear.
He’d known it would be like this, but seeing it was different from knowing it—Sihyeon looked down slowly at the child in his arms, at a loss. Her trembling shoulders were like a little bird, so fragile she looked like she might topple again at any moment. The crying that wouldn’t stop was the sort you could get a nervous disorder from, it was so wearisome.
Instead of don’t cry, Sihyeon called her name in a voice that resembled kindness.
“Ahyeon.”
Lee Ahyeon. The younger sister Lee Sihyeon had worried over and loved fiercely. Sickly since birth, with a congenital heart condition; like a caged, sick bird who’d hardly ever been outside the hospital. She puts on a brave face, but she’s still so very young. The face that used to shine bright in front of her brother was now a mess of tears and sobs.
“…Ahyeon.”
“Oppa.” As if that voice were a lifeline, Lee Ahyeon cried like she was dying and burrowed deeper into his arms. He could feel the shaking even here; Sihyeon clicked his tongue softly and bent to carefully reach out his hand.
A body so light it was irritating.
Scooping up Ahyeon—who wouldn’t let go—and holding her like he was soothing a baby, Sihyeon’s face shaded with something complicated and delicate.
As if this were the only thing she had in the world, Ahyeon wrapped her arms tight around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder. “Oppa.” Her voice, calling him again, was still wet, and as he gently stroked her frail back, Sihyeon answered low, “Yeah.” The child’s stuffed-up emotions spread, contagious. I was scared, said the small voice in the motion of a monologue.
I was so scared to open my eyes.
Because whether I open them or close them, it’ll all be hell either way.
It’s bound to be….
The damp voice melted in like snow. Sihyeon’s eyes closed once, slowly. A familiar space, the two of them within it. Sunlight spilling across the window; air that seemed to say peace lived here. The touch of hands on something precious. Like a dream, the scene rose and faded—Lee Sihyeon’s face, loosened with relief like he had finally returned to a refuge after wandering somewhere in hell without direction.
── Please… watch over this child.
Words begged through a wet face by Lee Sihyeon—worn out and gloomy.
When he slowly opened his eyes again, the space was no different than then, unfolding softly. Something about it felt faraway; Lee Hajin, who had never known such a thing in his life, bit his lip, a lump catching in his throat. The hand that stroked her back became endless gentle, and to the child in his arms who still couldn’t stop crying, a voice came down:
“Don’t cry.”
Sweet as a lie.
“…I’m here.”
I’ll protect you. So now—please… smile.