A chaebol family.
It means a household with mighty financial power and abundant capital.
“Where money gathers, there’s always bound to be noise tangled up with it……”
The first chaebol Rowoon had ever seen, the family of Chairman Seo of Taewoon, was just like that.
Chairman Seo held the center firm, but it was common knowledge to the whole nation that his sons beneath him were still, one way or another, at odds with each other.
“That’s why there was even someone who got sick of it and left home.”
That was the youngest great-grandson’s family, the one that had now safely received a bone-marrow transplant.
“…”
“…”
The man’s cool eyes stared silently at Rowoon.
It didn’t seem like a coincidence that the story of Chairman Seo’s youngest son’s family, the one who’d stormed out saying he couldn’t stand it, flashed through his mind.
There was that chilly atmosphere that pressed down on you, too.
A man whose looks shared nothing with Rowoon’s except the common point of being handsome.
But Rowoon instinctively sensed it.
That man was a chaebol and at the same time…
“Hyung…?”
… his older brother.
The man, who had been looking down at Rowoon with frost-edged eyes, finally opened his mouth.
“Yeah. That’s right. I’m your hyung. Looks like you managed not to forget me?”
The man unclasped his tightly folded arms.
Pushing off the wall he’d been leaning against, he came forward toward Rowoon.
“You were chewing up my messages so deliciously I thought you’d forgotten you even had a hyung.”
“Uh… I’m sorry……?”
“Do you at least know what you’re sorry for? Let’s say fine, you ignored all my calls. But on top of that, why aren’t you contacting Mother? Is it because everyone calls you cute that my words sound like a joke to you?”
A man with a noble air whose refined tone seemed like it could deliver a blade-sharp scolding.
But the reply coming back from the other side was nothing like what he expected.
‘This feels familiar.’
That way of speaking that starts refined but gets more and more raw toward the end.
It was unmistakably the same person who had sent the messages.
“It’s not like that…”
“This is why you shouldn’t raise someone with nothing but indulgence. Ha…”
The man swept his hair back.
It looked stylish, like a scene from a drama, but to Rowoon it appeared differently.
‘The original must have driven him crazy.’
Because he looked exactly like an older brother on the verge of losing it over a disobedient, troublemaking younger sibling.
As soon as he recognized that, his tension loosened.
He must have been unconsciously cowed after seeing the size of the house.
“Alright, let’s hear what the reason is.”
Because my soul got switched?
But he couldn’t answer like that.
He hadn’t come to see his family just to get dragged off to a hospital.
Should I bring up the amnesia?
He had only seen his brother so far, but you can know a lot from just one.
It was certain the atmosphere of the original’s family wasn’t as bad as he’d thought.
In a family like this, it seems impossible they wouldn’t know.
There were still questions.
If they knew, why hadn’t they reached out?
So naturally, there weren’t many answers he could give.
Rowoon rolled his eyes and chose the safest one.
“It just… sort of happened…?”
“Ah. So it ‘just sort of happened’ that you chewed up your hyung’s messages and also didn’t contact Mother?”
The man snorted.
“So, you also ‘just sort of happened’ to shoot a Taewoon commercial?”
That one he really had ended up shooting by chance.
“Yes.”
“Ha. And you answer that proudly, do you? When I told you to start by shooting an ad for the family company, you threw an absolute fit about not wanting to bask in the family halo. What was it? Taewoon?”
That was quite unexpected.
Judging from things like Instagram, the original seemed like the type with a strong urge to show off.
“It has to be one of two things. Either a burning drive to make it on his own or he really did have issues with the family.”
No matter how he looked at it, it didn’t seem like the former.
If it was the latter, the problem was he had no idea why.
If they really were a chaebol family, the original would have tried to use that.
“This kid really knows how to make a person’s insides explode.”
It was true that this side hadn’t contacted them and had, unintentionally, ignored them.
He quietly rolled only his eyes, offering his sincere condolences to that exploded patience.
“Why are your eyes getting that big? You think I’ll let you off just because you look up at me that cutely?”
He heard something shocking.
It sounded like he was trying to be stern.
But the content ruined it all.
“Cute… big…?”
They were words hard to accept as an adult man.
Was this why the original had sworn off the family? Even as that thought came, on the other hand…
‘He was so stuffed with blessings his belly burst.’
He accrued yet more exasperation toward the original.
Surely he didn’t leave home because of being treated like this?
“But somehow it feels like he might have.”
Exasperating as it was, he also felt envious.
It was better, after all, than being treated like a parasite eating away at the family.
Far, far better than being treated as a child who never should have been born—receiving overflowing love instead.
“Anyway. You think hyung will still let you off just because you’re keeping that pretty mouth shut?”
‘Feels like he will, though…’
To be honest, even though it was their first meeting, Rowoon somehow felt like he knew the answer.
“Right. What would I even say to you? Mother will be here soon, so when she arrives, hug her and comfort her well. She’s been very worried about you.”
“Yes…”
“Are you being timid because you know you did wrong? Ditch the honorifics. They’re creepy.”
“Uh… uh-huh.”
Even if it had been a while, he was certainly different in many ways from the previous original.
The manager was always saying things like:
“Even if the person changed, how can someone change this much. Thank you, Father in Heaven. Please let there be no cliché ‘memory recovery’. I’ll go investigate and wipe out all works like that.”
With stuff like that.
“If it’s family, there’s no way they wouldn’t know.”
Whether they truly said nothing because they didn’t know, or were keeping quiet on purpose—he couldn’t tell.
For now, Rowoon simply nodded obediently.
His brother looked at him with an unreadable gaze, then…
“…Right. Good boy.”
Tap.
A palm came down on the top of his head.
And then—
Scritch scritch.
“…?”
“Looks like you’ve been keeping up with your treatments.”
“…?”
“Keep getting them regularly. If you’re short on money, tell hyung.”
Then he turned his body and disappeared upstairs.
And how was Rowoon, left behind?
“…?”
Only question marks popped up over his head.
“Hair? Why is hair even coming up here?”
He did, admittedly, take good care of it.
Not that he did it himself. He went to the shop regularly, so the professionals handled it.
“Did he actually check my hair? Not… pet my head?”
Judging from the cold expression and what he said, maybe he really was interested in the condition of his hair.
But thinking of that absurd attitude just moments earlier, maybe, unexpectedly, it had been a fond head-pat.
“This place really is impossible to predict.”
First the size of the house made him shrink back.
Then his hyung suddenly poured out a scolding that might have been about cuteness, or nagging, or gladness—he couldn’t tell—steeped in affection, and left.
“Good grief……”
But it didn’t feel bad.
Rowoon slowly looked around the house that had imprinted such a distinctive first impression.
Even the size of the sitting room was astonishing.
The interior was as vast as what had impressed him from outside.
“At this level, it really must be a chaebol house, right?”
One wall of the sitting room was entirely taken up by display shelves, upon which family photos were lined up side by side.
“We don’t look alike…”
Family photos recorded in a straight line from childhood on.
The original, who smiled as brightly as sunshine when he was a baby, lost expression in his face at some point as he passed through adolescence into adulthood.
Somber and confused.
A face that seemed to hold a restless anxiety, as if he didn’t belong here.
“Money that lacks for nothing. A family that’s nothing but harmonious. Then why is your face so dark? What on earth are you hiding?”
Rowoon asked the photos behind the glass.
Naturally, no answer came back.
The original was definitely hiding something.
He could cover it up and move on, but Rowoon didn’t want to do that.
It was the body he would use for the rest of his life.
He didn’t want to leave any kind of risk factor behind.
Just then, he sensed the presence of someone at the front door.
When he turned, the faces he’d seen in the photos were there.
“You’re here.”
A middle-aged man who looked brusque spoke first.
It wasn’t hard to tell who he was. If his brother aged, he would be exactly like that.
“Dear, Rowoon’s here.”
He turned his head and spoke.
Behind the man, a cool beauty with a sharp impression was just coming in.
“Oh my, he’s here?”
Even without being told, he could tell who she was.
She was the original’s mother.
At his side, the father took the coat she was taking off.
The mother, now out of her outerwear, opened her arms wordlessly at the door.
“…?”
Was this some unique family greeting?
No way…
Ah. She means for me to hug her.
Next to his mother, his father rolled his eyes hard, sending him a cue.
Rowoon hesitated and stepped forward to carefully embrace her.
Squeeze!
Arms hugged Rowoon with a force you’d never imagine from such a slender frame.
“Good boy, our baby.”
And with that, a single added phrase.
Those words were clearly not directed at Rowoon.
They didn’t know Rowoon had switched with the original, so they were surely words for the original.
“…”
But they were not, to Rowoon.
As if a bolt of lightning struck the crown of his head, he could do nothing.
It felt like something warm was pouring down from the top of his head.
Like he was being submerged in warm water.
“Heh heh. It seems Rowoon felt very sorry to you since it’s been a while. Seeing him behave so admirably.”
Rowoon, suddenly choked up without knowing why, held his mother without a word for some time.
He came to his senses when his father, still wearing a brusque expression over a pleased smile, said that.
Suppressing his regret, Rowoon let go of the other’s body.
So… reluctant…
Even though the embrace hadn’t been meant for him.
This was the first warm hug he’d felt that carried the sense of unconditional love.
In his memories, a “hug” had amounted to a few half-hearted pats on the back—laden with obvious annoyance, the sort of “take it and go” gesture.
What is this feeling?
Rowoon stared blankly down at his own hand, the warm hand that had given his a last, firm squeeze before letting go.
Shaken to his core, they left for a moment to change their clothes.
Left alone, Rowoon looked down at his hand for a while, feeling a rush of inexpressible emotions well up.
Standing there vacantly, Rowoon was helplessly tossed about in a flood of feeling.
“What are you doing?”
Rowoon came to when his brother, who had gone up first, came back down and called to him.
“Mother was going in. Did you hug her?”
“Uh-huh…”
“If you’d refused again, I was going to scold you. Good job. But why are you spacing out like that?”
His brother didn’t give Rowoon a chance to answer.
“They’ll have gone to the dining room, so let’s go too. We need to eat.”
And, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, he took the lead.
Watching that back, Rowoon thought:
It felt like he had fallen into a strange world.
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