Come Back

He had taken off his jacket and rolled his sleeves up comfortably below his elbows. The tie that Yun Hye-an had given him was hanging from the collar of his shirt.

“Uh…”

Choi Hong-seo’s gaze followed the tie, and his eyes also dropped to look at it. He gave a small laugh and lightly shook the knot of the tie.

“You just noticed it now, even though you gave it to me yourself? That’s a bit much.”

Back when he went to Hanseo Group, he had worn a different tie, so he thought this gift had become useless.

Instead of replying, Choi Hong-seo tightened her grip around her mug with both hands.

“The color doesn’t overlap with the tie you gave me last time, so I think I’ll be able to use both. Thank you.”

“…What?”

His voice wavered, and his gaze trembled as it landed on her. Even though she was holding the warm mug, her hands were still shaking. But despite all this, he didn’t offer any explanation. He just smiled bitterly and took a sip of his coffee.

The tie from before…

It was a remark directed entirely at Yun Hye-an as if he were addressing Choi Hong-seo right now. It wasn’t because he recognized her as Choi Hong-seo, but because he wanted to. He wanted to erase the absence of Choi Hong-seo by doing so.

Knowing this, her heart raced uncontrollably.

“Why don’t you sit down? If the couch isn’t comfortable, you can sit at the dining table.”

Pointing to the table behind him, Lee Hae-seong spoke to the still-standing Choi Hong-seo. There was only a two-seat sofa in the room, so if she sat on the couch, it would have to be right next to him. Very close.

Her already disorganized thoughts became a mess. She couldn’t sit down immediately, moving the chair this way and that as she flustered, and finally placed it in a somewhat awkward position, sitting down at a distance from him.

Watching this quietly, Lee Hae-seong rubbed the handle of his mug with his thumb, then asked in a slow voice.

“Do you want me to leave that quickly?”

“It’s not that… It’s just that this place is too small. If you have something to say, we can go to the café downstairs…”

“Why do you want to send me away like that?”

“You’d be uncomfortable here.”

“I’m fine. I don’t think I’m the one who’s uncomfortable.”

He took another sip of his coffee and lowered his gaze to the black drink in the mug. Then, he sighed deeply without saying a word. His broad shoulders, wrapped in the shirt, rose and fell slowly as he exhaled.

When he lifted his eyelids, his gaze once again fell on Choi Hong-seo.

“If you’re going to be so pensive, why give me the tie?”

His tone seemed like a rebuke, but there was no serious weight to it. Letting out a brief sigh, he added in a somewhat lighter voice.

“Don’t look like you’re going to die. I won’t be here long.”

It wasn’t that she wanted him to leave quickly or that she felt like she was going to die. In fact, she wanted him to stay longer.

But despite that, she had no choice but to wish for him to leave quickly, and the longer he stayed, the more uneasy she felt. He wanted Choi Hong-seo, but she was no longer Choi Hong-seo. That was why…

Rustle, rustle.

Tiffany, who had been calm until now, suddenly began to make a loud noise, as though it had found a toy under the bed. With no proper storage space, she had shoved boxes under the bed, and it seemed like Tiffany was trying to navigate through the maze of boxes. Lee Hae-seong also looked toward the bed.

After a brief pause, Tiffany’s furry face suddenly popped out from under the bed.

Not completely emerging, Tiffany lay flat under the bed, sticking only her face out, tilting her head as she looked up at the unfamiliar visitor.

Meow?

It sounded like she was asking who this was, her voice laced with uncertainty. Trying to calm her down, Choi Hong-seo quickly got up and brought Tiffany’s favorite treat, Churu. As soon as Tiffany saw the treat, she quickly darted toward the kitchen, avoiding the guest.

“Alright, I’ll give it to you. But you need to stay calm, okay?”

As she returned to her seat, she urgently told Tiffany, who was following closely behind her, to behave while Lee Hae-seong was still there.

Sitting at a slight distance, she began feeding Tiffany the treat. As always, Tiffany placed her front paws on Choi Hong-seo’s hand and eagerly licked the treat, completely absorbed in the snack. It seemed like she had forgotten all about being wary of the guest.

“What’s her name?”

He asked, looking at them with an expression that didn’t seem particularly interested. It felt like he was asking just to make conversation.

“Tiffany.”

“Tiffany?”

“Yes, I didn’t name her. She was named that before… Well, before the accident, I was told that’s what she was called.”

“Ah… So, Tiffany?”

“……”

So, Tiffany? Not understanding the meaning behind his question, Choi Hong-seo looked at Lee Hae-seong, who was sitting on the couch.

“White fur with gray patches scattered around, especially around the eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. It looks like it’s been dyed gray.”

“……”

“Did you not know you gave her that name? Well, I guess you wouldn’t remember, since you said you named her yourself.”

As she stared at Lee Hae-seong, Tiffany meowed loudly, perhaps because her hand had moved higher. She pressed her front paws down on Choi Hong-seo’s hand to signal that she wanted her hand lowered. Choi Hong-seo quickly complied.

“There was a long-haired cat owned by Freddie Mercury from the rock band ‘Queen’ that had exactly this color. Its name was Tiffany.”

“Ah… I didn’t know that. I just…”

“Did you think it was named after a jewelry brand?”

Instead of answering, she nodded, and Lee Hae-seong let out a quiet laugh.

When Tiffany finally stopped licking because there was no more treat, she turned without a second thought and hopped up onto the bed. Choi Hong-seo, feeling thirsty, began to coax her.

“Tiffany, stay calm. I’ll give you one more treat. Let’s have another Churu, okay?”

Not properly tidying up, Tiffany crawled into the pile of blankets and began wandering around inside. There was the sound of paper crinkling and tearing, likely from the posters that she was walking over.

“Tiffany, Tiffany, come here. Okay?”

Choi Hong-seo, from where Lee Hae-seong was sitting, lifted the blanket slightly and almost begged the cat to come out.

“She can’t seem to find the opening.”

Watching Tiffany cause a commotion under the blanket, Lee Hae-seong got up as if to help.

“No, no, it’s fine! Don’t worry about it, she’s just playing…”

“……”

She shook her head to stop him, but it was no use.

As Lee Hae-seong pulled the blanket open, Tiffany’s face appeared. Perhaps thinking it was time to play, Tiffany tilted her head and looked up at Lee Hae-seong, then quickly hid back inside the blanket.

However, Lee Hae-seong didn’t search for her again under the blanket.

The corner of a masking tape still stuck, and the poster for Eternal Sunshine was wrinkled and torn from Tiffany’s random steps.

Lee Hae-seong paused for a moment, then completely threw the blanket aside. He bent down to pull out other posters that were beneath Eternal Sunshine.

Choi Hong-seo, watching from nearby, could tell he was angry enough that she couldn’t bring herself to speak. He looked as though he had just witnessed a lover’s betrayal.

But something needed to be said. The tie, the card, and the fact that he had admitted to knowing something—it was all one thing, but this was different. He might erupt in anger and ask why she was still pretending to be Choi Hong-seo in this house.

“This… I got it cheap online…”

She offered a weak excuse, but it seemed like her words didn’t reach him.

The prints, with their low resolution, were nothing compared to the original Eternal Sunshine posters that he had given Choi Hong-seo. Without a word, Lee Hae-seong looked down at them.

After a long pause, he swallowed hard, his jaw muscles tightening in frustration.

“Do you want to keep going with the consultation?”

His voice, as if torn from his throat, sounded harsh and metallic. It was an unexpected statement.

“…What?”

“If you don’t want to, then don’t.”

“The consultation?”

“You were only doing it because of me. You didn’t want to do it in the first place.”

“Do I not have to do it?”

Finally, Lee Hae-seong turned his face toward her, who had been looking down at the posters. But his eyes were no longer on “Yun Hye-an.” He was looking at “Choi Hong-seo” beyond her. She couldn’t explain it logically, but she just knew. She couldn’t forget the look in his eyes when he had once looked at his lover.

He nodded repeatedly, his voice hoarse.

“You don’t have to. Don’t do it.”

Looking at the posters one last time, he turned to look at “Yun Hye-an” once more. He studied her face closely, as though he were about to say something, but he stopped, biting his lip tightly and turning away quickly.

“Did you enjoy your coffee?”

He grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair and headed toward the door, the sound of his footsteps echoing. As he was about to put on his shoes, the noise suddenly stopped, and the silence behind her grew.

“You said you were sorry for causing trouble… but that was a lie.”

“……”

“You were planning to torment me, weren’t you?”

His voice was trembling. “You were planning to torment me?”—those were the words he had once said to Choi Hong-seo, on the night he first slept in her guest room. The words meant for Choi Hong-seo in his arms.

It felt like a signal from him, and she couldn’t ignore it. Slowly, she turned around and faced him. She returned the words he had once said to his lover, now directed at him.

“If I act like this… do you dislike it?”

His face contorted with pain. His cheek was twitching, and his eyes were shaking.

Like a final breath being forced from his lungs, he said,

“…Do you think I’d dislike it?”

That was the last thing he said. Unable to face him any longer, she lowered her head.

The door opened, then closed again. She only heard his footsteps growing distant as he walked down the hallway toward the elevator.

It wasn’t that she wanted him to leave quickly. She wanted to be with him longer.

Wouldn’t she play with him? Didn’t they play together? Tiffany stuck her head out from the blanket and looked up at her. Looking at Tiffany, she forced a smile and then shifted her gaze.

Three posters lay crumpled and torn across the bed.

The posters he had given Choi Hong-seo were all original ones from the movie’s release, valued at tens to hundreds of thousands of won, premium editions. They were pristine, carefully stored, as if they had been printed just yesterday.

But the ones now scattered on Yun Hye-an’s bed were low-resolution scans… in other words, knockoffs.

Now, she felt like she was the fake, just like those posters. An imitation, a counterfeit. A poor substitute for Choi Hong-seo.

The perfume he gave her was also fake. It was the same bottle as the one he had given Choi Hong-seo, but the contents were different—fake.

Now, everything about her was fake. A “fake Choi Hong-seo” trapped in the guise of “Yun Hye-an.”

Telling her to stop the consultation meant telling her not to regain her memory of Yun Hye-an. To not regain that memory was essentially telling her to continue impersonating Choi Hong-seo. Whether that was a good thing or a curse, she couldn’t tell.

One thing was clear, though: as long as he wanted it, in the form he wanted it, she would have no choice but to stay by his side.