Knock, knock.
There was no sound from inside. When he carefully opened the door, he saw Cheonghyeon sitting propped against the bed, awkwardly toweling his hair.
They stared straight at each other without a word, and Hando spoke first.
“Your hair.”
“Huh? Ah.”
From the still-damp hair, tiny droplets fell, plip, plip. As he adjusted his grip on the towel, a shadow fell over the top of Cheonghyeon’s head.
“Shall I do it?”
Before Cheonghyeon could even answer, Hando naturally took the towel and gently rubbed out the moisture. His hands were big, so you’d think he’d be rough, but the way he worked out the dampness was very careful.
When he did it himself, it felt like his hair got tangled, but now, with meticulous motions, Hando dried his hair and even smoothed in a little treatment oil before blotting it with the towel.
Isaac suddenly felt as if the attendant Henry had returned. His mood lifted at once.
I wish he’d dry it for me every day.
As the stiffness around Cheonghyeon’s mouth loosened, the corners of Hando’s lips also rose faintly.
Hando studied Cheonghyeon’s face closely as he closed his eyes. The old Cheonghyeon’s face would already go fuzzy the moment you turned away, even if you’d just been talking…
But now, he looked every inch an entertainer. To the point Hando wondered how anyone could ever have thought this face was indistinct.
Having skin this porcelain-fair after even completing military service… wasn’t that cheating? A prettily sloped forehead leading into a sharp bridge of the nose; cheeks flushed and lips red, perhaps because he’d just come from the shower.
Gazing calmly at such a Cheonghyeon, Hando opened his mouth.
“May I ask why you did it?”
When the words, almost like talking to himself, sounded low in the room, Cheonghyeon flinched. The hands in his hair became even more careful. After a long moment choosing his words, Cheonghyeon finally spoke.
“I don’t remember.”
It was the best Isaac could say. Knowing what state of mind Gi Cheonghyeon must have been in when he made that choice, he simply couldn’t gloss it over as nothing. It wasn’t him who had lived in this body and left.
Hando, who had been tending his hair, drew the towel back and met Isaac’s eyes.
“Then don’t remember.”
“…”
“From now on we’ll do better. So it’s okay not to remember.”
After holding Isaac’s gaze for a long time, Hando pulled the blanket up over him and stood.
“Rest well. Your hair’s dry.”
When Hando turned off the light and left, sleep finally rushed in. With his tension released, his body allowed not even a dream and drifted off sweetly. It was the warmest night in a place where everything was unfamiliar.
At that hour, Cheonghyeon, who had entered Isaac’s body, snapped his eyes open. He didn’t think “souls got swapped” was nonsense… not at all.
Of course! His presence had been strangely faint all this time. And it was all because of the reapers’ mistake! Grumbling with anger, he was also inwardly thrilled.
He could finally meet his dad, his mom, his brother. No, he’d been told his father was dead. He’d been the emperor… had he perhaps been poisoned?
A lump of longing and tenderness surged up even for the father whose face he had never once seen.
Click.
Just then, he met eyes with someone who looked like an attendant.
“Your Highness! Are you awake? I shall have the imperial physician summoned at once.”
As the attendant finished speaking and dashed out helter-skelter, Cheonghyeon made a curious face.
I’m lying in bed and he found me immediately…
It wasn’t like this on Earth. Let people’s attention drift even a little and they wouldn’t notice Cheonghyeon planted right in front of their noses. If he was lying in bed like now, it was common to be treated like one of the teddy bears on the bed.
A little later, the imperial physician who arrived came straight to him and paid respects.
“Your Highness, would you extend your hand? I will take your pulse.”
“Here….”
When the shy Cheonghyeon held out his hand, the physician carefully felt his pulse.
“You have improved considerably, but your vital energy is still weak. I will prepare a tonic to restore your strength and have it sent to the Ivory Palace.”
Just then, he heard the sound of someone entering.
“Your Majesty. His Highness has only just awakened, so….”
“Is there any place in all under heaven I cannot go? Especially when I merely wish to look upon the face of my brother who has only now awoken.”
Beyond the attendant’s flustered voice, a voice as cold as hoarfrost fell, and the physician and attendants in the room stiffened with tension. But Cheonghyeon was too hung up on one word to come to his senses.
‘My brother—he said my brother!!!’
He felt like he was going to burst into tears.
No, already his eyes were brimming and his nose tingled.
Isn’t the emperor of an empire incredibly busy? Yet for the one reason that he was his younger brother, he came to see him!
So this is what real family is. That must be the brother the reaper mentioned!
To Cheonghyeon, the voice as cold as hoarfrost was drowned out by the words “my brother.” No, in his ears it was sweeter and warmer than any voice he had ever heard.
Before he knew it, Jeremy had come all the way into the bedchamber, and their eyes met. The physician and attendants were lined up against the wall, trembling and bowing their heads, but for Cheonghyeon, the joy of meeting family had long since blown away any sense of caution.
Resplendent attire and an imposing bearing. A face more handsome than the top-star seniors he’d met during his idol days.
That man… is my brother.
Unable to hide the tangled feelings of tenderness and happiness, Cheonghyeon tottered up and flung himself into Jeremy’s arms.
“Hyung-ah!!!!!” (Big bro!!!!!)
(T/N: Oh my, please be happy here, Cheonghyeon ;-;)
With sunlight pouring in between the curtains, Isaac slowly opened his eyes. He’d clearly slept soundly for the first time in ages without even dreaming, yet for no reason the back of his neck felt cold.
Gi Cheonghyeon… he is living well in the empire, right?
Shaking off the uneasy feeling, he washed up and came out feeling refreshed, water dripping from his hair.
Without thinking, Isaac stepped out of the room looking for Hando.
It was fairly noisy in the kitchen. The manager and members seemingly making something, but the instant Isaac stepped in, it fell silent in a flash.
“Ch–Cheonghyeon, did the noise wake you?”
The manager asked cautiously, and Cheonghyeon replied offhandedly,
“Hando.”
“Huh?”
From behind the bear-like manager, Hando who wearing gloves and tossing japchae, poked his head out at the sound of Cheonghyeon’s voice.
Cheonghyeon naturally hooked a towel over Hando’s arm and sat at the table. When Hando, Sikyung, and the manager stood there in a daze with odd expressions, Cheonghyeon subtly knit his brows. Quick on the uptake, Sikyung hurried over to him.
“Cheonghyeon, do you want me to dry your hair? Hando was cooking. If he dries your hair with those hands, your hair might smell like sesame oil.”
“Mm.”
With a light nod, Cheonghyeon jerked his chin toward Hando.
Well? Aren’t you going to hand over the towel.
Taking the towel from the frozen, bewildered Hando, Sikyung gently dried Cheonghyeon’s hair.
Hando had thought his own touch was gentle, but Sikyung was no slouch either. As he kneaded and massaged the scalp, Isaac felt like a prince again.
For this year, he’d leave it to these guys. After the idol life ended, he’d have to find a few people to do this attendant work. For now, doing anything himself still felt unfamiliar to Cheonghyeon.
This wasn’t a status-based society, so hiring people would surely cost quite a bit of money, right? At least Gi Cheonghyeon didn’t seem the type with a severe spending habit. He must have saved well, not squandering the money he’d earned as an entertainer.
Good, diligent Gi Cheonghyeon.
For a year, he’d have four people to replace attendants. And unpaid, at that!
A hum escaped Cheonghyeon without thinking. Smiling at him, Sikyung gave his hair a soft final shake. Sikyung took this as Cheonghyeon’s way of saying he was okay and a signal that he wanted to be close going forward.
Your hair dries by itself; what does it mean to deliberately drip water and hand over a towel? Even though he’d gone to the army and was an adult man, to Sikyung, Cheonghyeon felt very much like a child. A cute kid.
“Hando, the japchae’s going to get soggy. What are you staring at?”
“…Right.”
Once his hair was roughly dry, hunger surged in. One by one, dishes whose names, appearances, and how to eat them he knew but not their tastes were set on the table. The moment he ate them, the knowledge that had floated like letters would become truly his.
When Cheonghyeon showed interest in the japchae, Hando heaped a generous portion into a bowl and handed it to him. The big mouthful he took was savory and pleasantly salty. The vegetables released sweetness the more he chewed, and the pork that was cooked dry with no moisture and without any off smell had a deep umami.
Whenever it truly hit him that he had crossed over into this world like this, Cheonghyeon felt strange.
In daily life, there were many moments when he wondered if this really was reality. Maybe he was dreaming, or lying in the back garden spinning daydreams. Maybe when he opened his eyes, he’d see the ceiling of the Ivory Palace again.
But when his whole body accepted it through the senses like this and the knowledge became fully embodied, he felt himself growing accustomed to this world, and his heart grew unsettled.
Foods that had once felt exotic now felt cozy and familiar. As if insisting this was the world that fit him. Eating feverishly, he suddenly remembered something and lifted his head.
“If we go to the company now, will the president be there?”
“Ah, you’re going to see the president? Well, you still have things to say, I guess? And next week is your birthday party too…. There’s a lot to discuss.”
“Birthday party?”
“Yeah. The venue’s booked, so we just have to put out the fan recruitment notice. It’d be best to hold the party before the variety filming…”
“No.”
Cheonghyeon cut the manager off at once and turned on his phone. His birthday was January 17. He’d be an entertainer only through this year anyway. If he was going to hold a birthday party, the end of the year would be much better than the beginning. He could combine it with a farewell to the fans.
“I don’t want to do a birthday party this year. The mood’s not right. Or could we maybe postpone it to the end of the year?”
“Uh, uh-huh. Sure. We can discuss that with the president too.”
Perhaps calculating the schedule in his head, the manager fell deep into thought. Meanwhile, Cheonghyeon emptied his bowl and stood.
“Oh, and before we go to the company, can we stop by a service center? My phone’s broken.”
The phone’s lock opened easily with a fingerprint, but there was no way to know the passwords. He tried entering his birthday, the last digits of his phone number, East’s debut date—but it was all in vain.
Rather than rack his brain and end up locking the phone altogether, it would be quicker to go to the service center and ask them to disable all the passwords.
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