Ji-woo woke to the throb of a headache, the morning light a harsh intrusion. She pushed herself up from the bed, her mind a blank slate where the end of last night’s dinner party should have been.
Just then, the bathroom door opened. A man emerged, wrapped in a large towel, his skin still beaded with water.
Her eyes landed on him immediately—the breadth of his shoulders, the rivulets of water tracing paths down his toned chest.
“Good morning.”
“What… what are you doing?”
“What?”
“I mean, why are you…?”
Ji-woo found she couldn’t look away. She knew it was impolite to stare at a half-naked person, but human curiosity proved more stubborn than she’d expected.
Her hangover vanished as if by magic. Her gaze drifted lower, to the white towel knotted at his hips. The silhouette beneath the fabric…
“Ji-woo, do you remember what I said after the dinner party yesterday?”
“Y-yes?” Ji-woo flinched, her eyes snapping up to meet Seo Tae-joon’s. She tried to smooth her hair, feigning a composure that the blush rising in her cheeks completely betrayed. “What… what did you say?”
“I said some of my memory came back,” he said, his brow furrowed.
“What?!” Her mouth fell open, the color draining from her face. The very air in the room felt thick, heavy with dust motes that seemed to choke her. Suddenly, it was hard to breathe.
“Wh-what did you just—?” Her voice trembled.
He stepped closer. A single drop of water fell from the tip of his hair, landing on her knee and tracing a cool line down her skin. Seo Tae-joon looked down at her, his voice unnervingly calm.
“I was going to kill myself.”
Time seemed to stop. Her eyes widened. He was going to kill himself? This was something she had never known. Her body went rigid, her jaw locked so tight she couldn’t speak.
She had always held the upper hand in their strange relationship, being the one who knew the truth he couldn’t remember. But in an instant, the dynamic had completely shifted.
“I died two years ago.”
Seo Tae-joon knelt on the bed, looming over her. The posture might have looked like a plea for forgiveness, but to Ji-woo, it felt utterly authoritative. Her legs were trapped between his knees, and she was so close she could see the tiny droplets of water clinging to the ridges of his abdomen.
“I’m dead,” he repeated, the words a steady, insistent rhythm, as if trying to brainwash her. “That Seo Tae-joon is dead.”
She remained silent.
“I never wanted him to wake up.”
It wasn’t only Ji-woo who had taken advantage of his amnesia. Seo Tae-joon had wanted to erase his past, to offer her comfort by telling her the man who’d given her such unhealable wounds was gone forever. If he could just find a crack in her shuttered heart, a place for a new seed to sprout, then the guilt of the lie wouldn't matter.
“…Do you… do you really remember?”
“You don’t believe me?”
Confusion clouded Ji-woo’s eyes. The man she’d seen burying a person was trying to kill himself? It made no sense.
She narrowed her eyes, studying him, but Seo Tae-joon did not avoid her gaze. Suddenly, she remembered that night on the dark mountain, the moment their eyes had met. He’d seemed surprised to see her.
Come to think of it, she knew nothing about Seo Tae-joon. What nightmares plagued him every night, or why, as Seo Ki-seok had said, a man with such sensitive hearing could have been attacked from behind. There were too many unknowns. Trying to doubt his confession felt as useless as any other attempt to understand him.
In that, she was no different from the man who had lost his memory. She knew nothing.
He held her gaze, his expression a mask of earnest sincerity.
“There is only one thing you need to remember from now on.”
She wanted time to sort through her thoughts, but he gave her no room to breathe. A cold sweat broke out across her skin, despite his mellow, soothing tone.
“You told me I was a kind and gentle husband. From now on, I want to become that man. So, I filled my empty head with only your words.”
She said nothing.
“Your words are my only guide. They are the start of everything.” He leaned closer. “Keep this in mind: your first husband died two years ago. I’m not him. If you still have his ring, throw it away. If you have any pictures of him, burn them.”
Ji-woo didn’t know how to react.
“You have a new husband now,” he said, a fierce possessiveness surfacing in his voice. “And I refuse to lose to ‘that Seo Tae-joon’ in your memory. You’re the one who started taming me. You have to take responsibility until the end.”
Ji-woo held her breath. The man who had just shackled himself was beaming, and she had no idea if that was a good thing or not.
Clear eyes, a brow free of any crease—Seo Tae-joon was calmly enjoying the morning sun that streamed through the window. Ji-woo couldn’t get used to the sight of him sitting across the table, eating breakfast with her as if nothing had happened.
Why isn’t he asking anything? If his memory is returning, he must have questions. Did he really try to kill himself?
But Seo Tae-joon seemed interested only in the present. He’d even made bean sprout soup for her hangover.
She studied his face. He sat with a perfectly straight posture, his grip on his chopsticks textbook-perfect. There was no clatter of tableware, no sound of chewing. An unexpected silence stretched between them, and Ji-woo frowned.
She set her spoon down, rubbing her cheek. “Seo Tae-joon.”
“Yes?” His gaze snapped to her instantly.
“Don’t you have anything to say to me? Anything you’re curious about?”
“Not really.”
“Why?” Ji-woo bit her lip.
Clack. Seo Tae-joon set down his chopsticks. It was the first sharp noise he had made since sitting at the table.