Chapter 01
What Was My Name Again.
“Let’s stop with all this, you and I.”
A spring breeze passed through the space between him and me as we stood apart.
Somewhere far away, a night insect chirred, and our eyes met without the slightest deviation, facing each other.
“I want to live under the same roof as Han Jeha again.”
Even in the darkness, those vividly shining eyes—I couldn’t read what emotion they held. His face, revealing not a single crack, was like the calm before a storm, no telling when it might rage.
A moment passed as if the world had stopped, and finally, when he parted his lips, what came out was—
“Alright.”
“What?”
“I said let’s do it.”
It was an awfully clear answer. I looked up at him with a dumbfounded expression.
What. Is that it? He’s got that prickly face and he just says okay without even asking questions? I felt almost embarrassed at myself for having been fully prepared to get an earful of curses.
“On one condition—”
Just as I was mulling over how absurdly simply this had ended, his words washed over me and I grabbed hold of my loosening grip on sanity.
Of course. There’s no way things would go this smoothly.
In the brief moment I waited nervously, wondering what condition he’d impose, a clear voice cut through the night air.
“This time, let’s do it properly.”
As I hesitated, unable to grasp his meaning, he spoke again in an unmistakably firm tone.
“I’m saying we should discard the condition—that as long as we fulfill our responsibilities publicly, we don’t interfere in each other’s private lives.”
“Then…….”
In an instant, the shadow that had drawn close gripped my shoulders with force.
Lips pressed close to my ear whispered in an dreadfully low voice.
“Not a show-window couple—let’s be a real married couple.”
The hand subtly rubbing against my collarbone was hot. Paying no mind to me, stiff and frozen beneath that heat, he kept murmuring.
“To do that, I think we’ll need to start by sharing a bed…….”
“…….”
“Can you handle it?”
The eyes boring straight into mine glinted coldly.
– * *
My head felt like it was splitting. My body was so heavy it seemed it might sink, as if being dragged underground.
In that moment of endlessly falling into a darkness where I couldn’t tell dream from reality, this world from the next—
“Noona?”
“Noona!”
My eyes flew open at the shout that rang in my ears like thunder. At the same time, bright light poured in and every sense came sharply alive.
“Ugh…….”
With my senses flung wide open without resistance, everything around me rushed in at once.
The sharp smell piercing my nostrils, the busy noise, the hands shaking my body, the discomfort of organs not yet fully awake grating against each other from that touch.
“Noona! Are you with us? Do you know where you are?”
The time that had stretched endlessly suddenly regained its proper speed and pressed against my skin. The abrupt acceleration was enough to make me motion sick.
I think I’m going to throw up……
My lips moved, but what came out was a more instinctive sound.
“Bleugh—”
“Sana, hurry and call the doctor!”
“Yeah, yeah, doctor, doctor!”
It’s complete chaos. Soul and body separated—my soul is still here but it feels like it’s being dragged off by the hair.
“Noona, you can’t lose consciousness, okay?”
Through my blurry vision, like being pulled up from deep water, I glimpsed an unfamiliar man gripping my shoulders and shaking me. He was looking down at me from so close it was overwhelming, and those moist pupils were so big and pretty they looked like carefully crafted glass beads.
“I’m Dam, remember? Can you recognize me?”
I had no strength to speak, so I shook my head side to side, and the man’s expression immediately crumpled into tears.
With a face that cute, there’s no way I’d forget it.
His sullen look was so pitiful that I rummaged frantically through my messed-up head, but nothing surfaced.
“Please stop shaking me…….”
So please, just stop those hands. I’m about one second away from throwing up.
“Ah, sorry noona! I didn’t mean to—no, I’m not making excuses—no, I just did wrong……!”
Suddenly startled, the man hurriedly let go and babbled his apologies. I stared blankly at his terrified face.
Excuse me…… this makes it look like I threatened you with a knife or something. It’s embarrassing.
“You don’t have to…… anyway, more than that—ah, my head. Where is this—”
Before I could even finish, the man who’d dashed out earlier came back in with urgent steps and shouted.
“Please look at our noona, quickly!”
“Huh…….”
Am I in my right mind right now?
The reason I tilted my head was that the face of the man who’d just returned to the hospital room and the man who’d been holding onto me the whole time were identical, as if printed from the same plate.
I was staring blankly at the neat features of the man—no, the men—when the doctor suddenly shone a light into my pupils.
“Patient, are you feeling a bit more lucid?”
“Yes…….”
I answered that way, but honestly I wasn’t sure. Those people look exactly the same, like cells that just divided—am I actually lucid right now, doctor?
The doctor told me to move my fingers and toes, checked the devices dangling all over my body, and asked again.
“What month and day is it today?”
“……I don’t know.”
“Do you remember how you got here?”
At that question, I tried haltingly to recall memories from before I woke, but only the back of my head tightened—my mind was as hazy as if shrouded in fog.
“No…….”
“What were you doing before you came?”
“I don’t know.”
“Patient. What is your name?”
After repeating “I don’t know” like an idiot, I finally reached a question I could answer confidently and opened my mouth.
Ah, my name, of course—
“Huh……?”
What was my name again. My name? My name is……
In that moment, like the filament of an overloaded light bulb going pop—my consciousness cut out.
“Noona—!!”
As the two men rushed toward me, my body tilted.
Wow, their shocked faces are identical too.
With that observation as my last, everything went black before my eyes. Fade to black once more.
– * *
So, to sum up the story, it went like this.
I had been drinking and driving, and caused a major accident in the middle of Seoul where the car was half-destroyed. Fortunately, I hit a guardrail so there were no casualties, but I’d been in a coma for nearly a month.
During that time, I’d crossed the threshold of death several times, and everyone agreed there was no hope—so just around when they were deciding whether or not to declare me brain dead, I miraculously opened my eyes. That was the situation as of this morning.
“Noona, you really don’t know who we are?”
“You’re Dam and San. You really don’t remember?”
Baek Rokdam, Baek Dusan.
The two men—who resembled each other from their well-formed features to their slender builds, tall heights, and even their way of speaking—said they were my twin younger brothers.
So it wasn’t my imagination that they looked exactly alike.
Still, relieved that I hadn’t completely lost my mind, I shook my head. At my silent answer, the twins’ eyes drooped and they put their heads together, talking seriously.
“How could this happen?”
“If we tell her things about herself besides us, wouldn’t she remember something?”
Looking at them face to face like that, it must be like looking in a mirror.
One of the twins turned to me resolutely as I was having such carefree thoughts and spoke again.
Was that one Baek Rokdam? No, Baek Dusan?
“Noona’s name is Baek Ijun. Baek. I. Jun. Does hearing your name bring anything back?”
Baek Ijun.
I rolled it around in my mouth, but it felt as foreign as pronouncing someone else’s name. Still, I was somewhat relieved it wasn’t something like “Baek Wonman” or “Baek Manwon.”
The men who called themselves my younger brothers—their names were so unusual that I’d been secretly worried, but at least our parents weren’t that eccentric…… Huh?
“But where are our parents?”
At my question, both of them looked at each other simultaneously. In that decalcomania-like expression, the awkwardness of “how should we say this” was clearly written.
“Ah…… did they perhaps pass away? I’m sorry, as you know my memory…….”
“No, that’s not it—”
“Mom and Dad are busy, they couldn’t come because they’re busy. They said they had something incredibly urgent.”
“Ah, yeah, right, that’s right. They said to tell you they’re sorry.”
What could possibly be more urgent than their child who’d been hovering between life and death regaining consciousness after a month?
Thanks to the twins being just as bad at lying as each other, I learned one more thing.
That before losing my memory, my relationship with my parents wasn’t very good.
That perhaps it was bad enough that they wouldn’t even show their faces once despite me nearly dying.
“It’s fine. I can see them later.”
With my memories incomplete, there was no point nitpicking, so I just accepted it without complaint.
Even at my calm reaction, for some reason the two’s expressions remained uneasy. Their faces as they sneakily gauged my mood and brought up the subject were quite dark.
“Um, noona. From now on, could you maybe…… not use formal speech with us?”
“Yeah, hearing you use formal speech is a little scary…….”
What? What’s making our cute ones uncomfortable?
I hadn’t expected to wake up and suddenly have two strapping younger brothers, but since it’s come to this, I tried to lighten the mood like a proper noona and smiled brightly.
“Why would I be scary?”
“Ah, no! We must be talking nonsense again! Don’t mind us!”
“Just do whatever’s comfortable for you, noona! W-we’re fine with anything……!”
Why on earth is it backfiring?!
“You can speak comfortably. I’m just asking.”
Perhaps my desperate effort to make the most harmless expression possible worked, because the twins, who’d been frantically exchanging glances, finally confessed in shrinking voices.
“Because when noona hits us…… she always uses formal speech.”
“She hit us very gently…….”
……Another fact I’ve learned.
That the pre-accident me was not such a gentle noona.
Ah, my head. As I held my forehead and sank into worry, the twins hurriedly tried to salvage the situation with exaggerated gestures.
“Hey! You, what are you saying! When did noona ever hit us?”
“Uh, that was just, ah! Discipline! The rod of love!”
“Right! Thanks to noona, we grew up this straight and proper!”
Watching this unfold before my eyes, I had to weep internally.
Baek Ijun, what kind of life did you live?
