Chapter 02
Was I Married?
Time flew by like an arrow, and already a month had passed since I woke from the coma.
Unlike someone who’d been to the threshold of the afterlife, my body recovered quickly, but my memory was still as dark as if the lights had been turned off.
During that time, the twins—seven years younger than me, fresh-faced college freshmen—took turns visiting the hospital to keep me company whenever they had gaps in their classes.
Other than the two of them, there were no visitors. Forget about our parents—was it possible I didn’t have a single friend who’d rush over at a time like this? I spent quite a lot of time alone in the spacious, comfortable private room.
The twins deliberately didn’t say out loud that no one besides themselves visited this hospital room. So I didn’t ask either.
There was no point in bringing it up since I wouldn’t remember anyway, and I didn’t want to make my kind, cute younger brothers uncomfortable again.
“Are you really okay being alone?”
“Of course. I’m fine.”
“Call us right away if anything happens. You saved our numbers, right?”
“Yeah, don’t worry and go quickly. You’ll be late for school.”
It was my discharge after two months since the accident. Maybe there really was something to blood ties, because I’d grown quite close to the twins in a short time.
Dam and San had initially found my post-accident self unfamiliar, but now they seemed somewhat adjusted and treated me much more comfortably.
Where exactly did these affectionate, good kids have to hit to make me act so badly? I felt like finding my past self and giving her a stern scolding.
My lovely little brothers, please just forget the old Baek Ijun completely. Noona will do better from now on.
With that resolution, I waved until the car the twins were in became a dot and disappeared. The morning sunlight swept through the gaps between my spread fingers.
“So this is…… my house.”
The season I faced after two months was past winter and preparing for spring. Early spring flowers had bloomed sparsely in the garden of the detached house standing smartly before my eyes.
It should have been neglected for quite a long time, yet the garden was as neat as if someone had tended it. That’s when I reached the front door.
“……Huh.”
Sure enough, it was a hurdle from the very start.
I stood stupidly before the firmly closed door, staring intently at the sleek, dust-free digital lock. Having not even remembered my own name, there was no way I’d remember the house password.
“Maybe they were careless about locking up?”
Acting on a perfectly plausible assumption, I pulled the handle recklessly—and with a cheerful chime, the lock actually opened.
Standing frozen in bewilderment, the LED screen displayed “Fingerprint recognition complete.”
“And here I was thinking what. This is cutting-edge.”
Letting out a sigh of relief, I carefully stepped one foot inside the open door. At the same time, chilly air brushed the tip of my nose.
“Excuse me……?”
Fortunately, there was no giant mountain of trash or dozens of abandoned cats. If anything, the inside of the house was excessively spare.
The living room, low in saturation overall, had only the essential furniture—no knickknacks, not even a single common flowerpot—and the full-length window was covered by blinds, making it dark even in broad daylight. Perhaps because of that, even though there was nothing out of place and everything was tidy, it felt eerie.
“Was I a minimalist?”
I passed through the living room that seemed to have had much excluded, heading toward the innermost room. Even that place—presumably used as a bedroom—had only a bed and a vanity.
The attached dresser room was laughable, with only a few pieces of clothing hanging there, enough to give the illusion of being in a model home.
“Guess I wasn’t a shopaholic.”
My assumption that my spending habits might match my supposedly fiery personality fortunately turned out wrong.
Since there was no luggage to unpack and organize, I changed into whichever clothes looked comfortable and came back out to the living room.
“Mm…….”
The leather sofa was extremely comfortable, yet somehow awkward. I sat stiffly like a new hire invited to the boss’s house and turned on the TV for no particular reason.
I listened for a while to nameless people chattering and meaningless laughter, then turned it off. This house didn’t seem to suit such noise.
I flopped back against the sofa and looked up at the high ceiling.
“…….”
However empty this house had been for two months, it was strange that there wasn’t a single trace of lived-in life. I probably spent the most time here, so did that mean I endured this silence alone every day?
“What kind of person were you?”
I tapped my knee with my fingertips, then suddenly stood up. I found paper and a pen in the console beside the sofa, sat on the floor, and began writing whatever came to mind.
[Name: Baek Ijun
Age: 27
Family: Parents (relationship seems not very good), twin younger brothers (committed many sins)]
“Open parenthesis, currently in the process of repairing relationships…… close parenthesis.”
Occupation……
The VIP hospital room I’d stayed in for two months, the foreign car the twins—barely twenty—drove around, the detached house I lived in alone. Plus, the few clothes all looked expensive, so……
[Occupation: Born with a silver spoon]
No friends, no lover, obviously unmarried. Recently in a car accident, comatose for a month. Currently suffering from retrograde amnesia.
[No telling when memories will return]
The attending physician said my inability to remember the past was due to the shock of the major accident.
You can lose memories of a few hours or days, but losing your entire life the way I had was a rare case, and he couldn’t guarantee when or at what moment the memories would return.
So the best I could do for now was rest as much as possible at home and stay stable—but stable, my foot. I’d come here hoping something might trigger a memory, but this isn’t a haunted house—it feels like it’ll only give me trauma.
“I don’t know. Memories will come back when it’s time for them to come back.”
Suddenly everything felt tiresome, so I threw down the pen and sprawled out on the sofa.
The chandelier on the ceiling glimmered faintly, catching the light seeping through the gaps in the blinds. Watching the geometric patterns that light carved, my eyes slowly closed.
Well, I guess home is home—I’m drowsy…… I mumbled, then drifted off into sleep.
And when I opened my eyes, a man I’d never seen in my life was looking down at me.
“…….”
Is he a grim reaper? Have I finally come to the afterlife this time?
With sleep-heavy eyes, I blankly looked up at that face as cold as the chill of the underworld, and a voice just as icy dropped vertically onto me.
“Barely survived death, and this is what you do.”
Flutter flutter—paper drifted softly down before my eyes.
“Is this all you can do—this kind of pointless nonsense.”
Meeting those pitch-black eyes that stabbed sharply into me, I had no choice but to ask myself once again.
Baek Ijun, what kind of life did you live?
– * *
– Yeah, noona. What’s going on?
“Dam…… did I get married?”
What kind of question is this, I thought, but I had no presence of mind to worry about that.
‘If you were going to make a point of not recognizing your spouse, you shouldn’t have shown up in front of me.’
The face that had spat those sharp words came to mind and my body trembled. I anxiously bit my lips and waited for Dam’s answer over the phone.
– Huh? Why are you suddenly asking about marriage? Why that?
“I met a man named Han Jeha. He says he’s my husband—is that true?”
– Why is brother-in-law there?!
Brother-in-law.
“So it’s true…….”
I wasn’t the crazy one—that man was.
“Dam, I’m really confused right now. Why didn’t you tell me I was married?”
– Noona, hold on, listen to me. We didn’t do it on purpose, we were worried…… You’d already lost your memories from the accident shock, and if it got worse, that would be bad, right? We thought keeping quiet for now was the best thing—we absolutely weren’t trying to hide it from you.
Even so, I was the person involved, and there had been two months. There must have been a reason they’d kept silent until now.
I lowered my voice soothingly and called Dam.
“I know you did it because you were thinking of me. But just because you leave something unknown doesn’t make it not exist. It’s okay, so tell me honestly. Is there anything else I should know?”
– Noona, so the thing is……
His hesitation carried clearly through the phone. What could it be that he was beating around the bush like this? Nervous about what other bombshell might drop, I futilely clawed at my head.
Finally, after seconds that felt like an eternity, the words that came through were truly shocking.
– Noona and brother-in-law, you’re currently separated.
