Chapter 69: You can stop now.
“Grandma... I’m weird.”
The young Yoo Yeon Seo gently grabbed his grandmother, Park Geumju’s finger. Park Geumju had a dark and tired expression. She seemed to regard her grandson as a thorn in her eye.
“I keep seeing mom.”
Yoo Yeon Seo looked at the empty space over Park Geumju’s shoulder.
He saw a pair of feet floating in the air, then disappearing. It was probably because his memory synchronization was not complete yet that he saw it like that. Back then, the young Yoo Yeon Seo must have seen it more clearly.
“Uh...”
Park Geumju, who was looking at her grandson with a blank face, pushed away his hand that was asking for help. Her gesture was so harsh that his hand felt numb.
Why? He lifted his head with a confused expression, but the grandmother he knew, who always hugged him and greeted him with a smile, was gone.
‘I’m scared...’
He couldn’t bear the cold gaze of his grandmother, so he ran away from there, wiping his tears with his sleeve.
And yet, the ghost of Lee Heeseo that he saw through the window from time to time seemed to warn him not to tell anyone.
“Hic... Sniff...”
Now, in his own room that was prepared in the main building, not the annex, the young Yoo Yeon Seo hugged his knees and cried.
<Random memory synchronization complete, synchronization rate 31.19%>
When he opened his eyes, he was no longer the 8-year-old Yoo Yeon Seo, but the 28-year-old one.
“Ugh!”
He vomited blood on the bathroom floor as a result of the memory synchronization. He was dizzy and heavy, and he couldn’t get up.
“Ha ha!”
As he was staring blankly at the bathroom light or something, he suddenly burst into laughter. He didn’t know why he was laughing. He just laughed. He laughed and then grabbed the toilet and threw up again.
He roughly wiped his mouth with his sleeve, which was stained with blood, and so were his shirt and pants.Cheêck out latest novels on novel/bin(.)com
[You should tell your family. Or your friends...]
What did Jinsuho say next? That he could help me like he did?
‘It’s all bullshit.’
It wouldn’t make any difference if he told them.
The first person he asked for help was his grandmother, but even after that, she ignored him and was annoyed by him.
That’s why the original didn’t tell anyone in his family. It wouldn’t change anything.
“Ah, fuck.”
He swore involuntarily. He thought he saw something white like a skirt in the bathroom mirror.
He lowered his head and then gathered his courage and looked up again, but there was nothing. He just mistook the white towel for something else.
‘I’m going crazy.’
So was the original really crazy? Did he lose his mind and suddenly get angry?
Yoo Yeon Seo kept laughing. He laughed so much that he snorted, and he still had some blood that he hadn’t spit out, so he lowered his head and vomited again. If someone saw him, they would think he was in a horror or gore movie.
“Ah...”
He cleaned up the bathroom roughly and staggered back to his room. He looked at the picture that was clumsily propped up on the table next to his bed.
It was a crude but warm picture drawn by the kid, Raul. He felt his complicated feelings subside as he saw the words ‘Thank you’ written crookedly.
***
Honestly, Yoo Yeon Seo then and Yoo Yeon Seo now were different. His emotions were intense right after the memory synchronization, as if he was swept away by the past Yoo Yeon Seo, but now he was calm.
‘It feels a bit uncomfortable, though?’
But his heart was uncomfortable because he was absorbing the original’s memories and becoming the real Yoo Yeon Seo, not Kang Jinhu from 2207.
“Happy New Year, Grandpa!”
“Yeah. Sunwoo, I’m watching your videos.”
“Really?!”
“I even subscribed, didn’t you know?”
“Whaaat?!”
“Don’t film like a miser.”
Despite Yoo Yeon Seo’s complicated feelings, his family and relatives were harmonious.
They asked about each other’s well-being and exchanged greetings for the new year.
Sunwoo, who was stunned by the news that his grandfather watched and subscribed to his channel, was sitting in the corner.
Yoo Yeon Seo turned his head and looked at him.
“Yeon Seo, I enjoyed your movie.”
“Thank you.”
“Was that a vacation? I went there to work.”
“Work? I heard you were having fun with the production staff.”
“Really? This PD, he has a loose mouth.”
Yoo Yeon Seo grabbed his weight and said, and Choi Yujin smiled.
“It was half a joke. I only hear good rumors about you these days. They say you did a great job this time too.”
“What did I do? It was all Secretary Im.”
“Keeping someone like that under you is also your skill. I’m looking forward to the broadcast. I want to see it too. How you live normally, I... didn’t know well, did I?”
He scanned Choi Yujin’s face, which was lost in thought. The synchronization rate was now 31.19%. He still didn’t know how Choi Yujin treated Yoo Yeon Seo in the past.
But from what he understood, Choi Yujin tried hard to get closer to Yoo Yeon Seo, who kept pushing him away.
‘In that sense, he’s better than grandma.’
The original built walls around people. He felt a bit sorry.
“Oh, right. Mom.”
“Hmm?”
“You can stop now.”
Yoo Yeon Seo’s sudden words made Choi Yujin turn his head and squint his eyes.
“Stop what?”
“The articles.”
Choi Yujin laughed at his answer.
“You thought I did it.”
“Then you didn’t?”
“Well... Do I look like someone who would play with the media so obviously to you?”
Yoo Yeon Seo couldn’t answer. Would Choi Yujin, who brought JSENM to the top of the industry in a short time, play with the media so poorly? If he wanted to, he could manipulate public opinion without Yoo Yeon Seo knowing.
“Then is it dad?”
The original obsessed fan? Yoo Yeon Seo crossed his arms and tilted his head.
“My dad doesn’t mess with the articles, he likes to show off to you directly. He said he’s going to order a catering buffet this time.”
“Ha ha...”
After the coffee truck, it’s the catering buffet. That’s reassuring. The staff of the next project, which hasn’t been decided yet, will get to taste the catering buffet once a day.
“Then grandpa?”
Choi Yujin shook his head.
“There’s one person left.”
“Grandma?”
Yoo Yeon Seo frowned involuntarily. He couldn’t understand. The grandmother in the memory synchronization was not a person who would do a poor media play for her grandson.
“Why?”
Choi Yujin felt sorry for Yoo Yeon Seo, who didn’t understand. She knew well how Park Geumju treated Yoo Yeon Seo.
“Well... Why don’t you ask grandma directly? Are you going to the charity event this time?”
“Yes.”
“Try to talk to her alone if you have time.”
“I don’t know...”
He didn’t feel like it. He was intentionally avoiding his grandmother even now, when they were all together.
Choi Yujin smiled as she saw her second son hesitating.
There seemed to be a deep gap between him and his grandmother, and if she intervened clumsily, they might misunderstand each other. It was a problem that they had to solve.
“By the way, is there something wrong with Eunho?”
“Did you notice too, mom?”
“At first, I didn’t know... But then I saw you looking at him strangely, so I observed him a bit too.”
Choi Yujin and Yoo Yeon Seo turned their heads at the same time and stared at Yoo Eunho, who was talking to their uncles.
“I don’t know either.”
“Really? It’s probably because of his work. He’s been busy lately, right? He must have a headache from the material import issues or something like that.”
“Is that so?”
He didn’t know much about his work, so he had no way of knowing. But even the obsessed Yoo Geonmin noticed Yoo Eunho’s subtle changes. And yet he didn’t say anything, so maybe it was really because of his work.
Yoo Yeon Seo furrowed his brows.
‘But then... He got weirdly worse when he came to this house.’
He had a feeling that he shouldn’t ignore Yoo Eunho’s changes.