*Do you want to be forgiven?*

For the first time since waking up, Hyunseok wondered whether the dream had been nothing more than a nightmare created by his own guilt, or whether it had been trying to remind him of something buried deep inside his mind that he desperately wanted to forget.

He slowly turned his head toward Yihan, who was still beside him, and noticed that his face was covered in sweat from trying to wake him while he was trapped inside the nightmare. Hyunseok stared at him for a moment before gently placing both hands against Yihan's cheeks and looking directly into his eyes, his expression filled with a strange mixture of guilt and confusion.

"I don't want to be forgiven."

His voice was quiet, almost as though he were admitting something to himself rather than speaking to Yihan, and before Yihan could even process what he had said, Hyunseok slowly pulled away and walked toward the bathroom to freshen up.

For a few seconds, Yihan simply remained where he was, staring blankly at the bathroom door as his mind struggled to understand what the hell Hyunseok had just said.

"What was that?"

He shook his head in confusion before raising his voice so Hyunseok could hear him from inside the bathroom.

"After you freshen up, come downstairs; I made some food!"

When Hyunseok heard that, he stopped for a moment and stared at his own reflection in the bathroom mirror, unable to hide his disbelief.

He had never once seen Yihan cooking, nor had he ever seen him willingly enter the kitchen, so the thought of Yihan preparing food by himself immediately raised a strange question in his mind.

*When did he learn to cook?*

Even if Yihan's memories had somehow become mixed up with someone else's, how could someone who had apparently never cooked before suddenly prepare an entire meal?

The thought continued bothering him, but without finding an answer, Hyunseok washed his face, freshened himself up, and eventually stepped out of the bathroom wearing only a bathrobe, with water still dripping from his damp hair.

When he reached the stairs and looked toward the dining table, he stopped in surprise.

The table had been arranged neatly, with several side dishes placed around bowls of freshly prepared food, and for a moment, Hyunseok genuinely thought that Yihan had somehow prepared everything himself.

Yihan, who had been waiting downstairs, immediately noticed the water still dripping from Hyunseok's hair and the fact that he had come downstairs wearing nothing but a bathrobe.

He immediately covered his eyes with both hands.

"Fuck, for God's sake, put some clothes on!"

Hyunseok looked at him with a faintly amused expression, tilted his head slightly to one side, and raised the corner of his lips into a playful smile.

"What, are you tempted just by looking at my body?"

He deliberately loosened his bathrobe slightly, only enough to tease Yihan, but the moment Yihan realized what he was doing, his entire face turned bright red.

"Fuck! If you're going to act like that, I'm going to eat alone."

Yihan quickly turned away, walked toward the dining table, and sat down before beginning to eat without waiting for him.

Hyunseok couldn't help but laugh at his reaction.

"Okay, okay, I won't do it again; let's eat together."

He waited until Yihan stopped glaring at him before adding with a small laugh, "I'll put some proper clothes on and come back, so wait for me."

Hyunseok returned to his room, changed into something more comfortable, and then came downstairs again before taking the chair beside Yihan.

The two of them began eating together, but before Hyunseok took his first bite, his attention was drawn to the dining table, which was filled with neatly arranged side dishes that made the meal look far more elaborate than he had expected.

He glanced at Yihan with genuine surprise.

"Did you make all of this?"

Yihan immediately shook his head.

"No, I didn't make all of it; I just made the bibimbap and the mushroom soup, and the side dishes were already in the fridge, so I only took them out and arranged them."

Hyunseok suddenly laughed.

"Haha, I thought you made all of this; I guess I misunderstood."

Yihan's expression tightened as he clenched his fist beneath the table, and for a brief moment, he genuinely wanted to punch Hyunseok in the face, but instead he simply glared at him with obvious annoyance.

"At least I made the bibimbap and the soup, so if you don't want them, don't eat them."

Hyunseok quickly stopped laughing and raised his hands slightly in surrender.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry."

He picked up his spoon and took his first bite, expecting nothing more than an ordinary homemade meal, but the moment the food touched his tongue, his expression changed.

He slowly chewed the first bite, genuinely surprised by how good it tasted, and before he even realized what he was doing, he reached for another bite.

After swallowing, he looked at Yihan with clear disbelief.

"This is really good; I don't think I've ever eaten something this good before."

He took another bite before asking, "Where did you learn how to make this?"

Yihan's expression softened slightly as a small smile appeared on his face.

"My grandmother taught me."

He paused for a moment before continuing, "When I went to visit her, she taught me how to make bibimbap and mushroom soup."

The moment Hyunseok heard those words, his expression slowly changed.

For a brief second, something inside him felt strangely wrong.

As he looked at Yihan sitting across from him, a fleeting thought crossed his mind that the person in front of him didn't feel entirely like the Yihan he remembered, as though there was something different about him that Hyunseok couldn't explain.

But his mind immediately rejected the thought.

"No."

It's probably because his memories have been mixed up with someone else's.

He spent so many days locked away in his room, barely leaving the house and constantly thinking about everything that happened, so maybe he created memories for himself and eventually started believing they were real.

That's probably all this is.

Hyunseok lowered his gaze and continued eating, refusing to allow the strange feeling to take root in his mind.

He ate faster than before, barely speaking as his thoughts became increasingly complicated, and once he finished his meal, he washed his hands and quietly left the dining table.

Yihan continued eating for a while longer before eventually finishing his own meal, washing his hands, and cleaning the dining table before returning all the side dishes to the refrigerator.

Once everything had been put away, he stepped outside and stood quietly beneath the night sky.

The cool night air brushed gently against his cheeks, carrying with it the faint sounds of the city in the distance, while above him, countless stars shimmered against the dark sky.

Yihan slowly raised his head and stared at them.

"Mom... Dad... Minsung..."

His voice was quiet as he spoke to the night, almost as though he believed his family might somehow hear him from wherever they were.

"What are you all doing right now? Are you missing me?"

His eyes slowly filled with tears, and a few slipped down his cheeks before he could stop them.

He quickly wiped them away with the back of his hand, but the tears continued to gather as the ache of being separated from his family became harder to ignore.

"Mom, Dad, Minsung... wait for me, okay? I'll come home as soon as I finish everything I have to do, so don't cry for me, and don't worry about me because I'll definitely come home."

His voice trembled slightly as more tears slipped down his face, and although he wiped them away again and again, he couldn't stop himself from missing them.

He had never been separated from his family for this long before, because he had always been surrounded by them, and their presence, and this was the first time in his life that he had found himself living far away from them while surrounded by people he barely knew.

Yihan wiped his face with both hands and took a slow breath before turning back toward the house.

He walked over to the couch and switched on the television, realizing that he probably wouldn't be able to sleep again after having already slept for so many hours earlier.

With nothing else to do, he opened Netflix and started watching a H-drama, something he had always been strangely obsessed with despite never having had enough time to actually sit down and watch one properly.

Back at home, he had always been busy with his family and his studies, leaving him with almost no free time for himself, but now that he had no immediate worries about his grades or anything else waiting for him, he found himself with more free time than he knew what to do with.

For a while, the drama managed to distract him.

Then, without warning, the atmosphere in the house suddenly changed.

A strong gust of wind swept through the open doorway, causing the doors to begin rattling violently against their frames as the sudden force of the air rushed into the hall.

Yihan's hair was blown across his face, and he instinctively lifted one hand to move it away from his eyes as the wind continued sweeping through the room.

He had left the door open earlier, and now the heavy gusts were making it repeatedly slam and shake, creating an unsettling noise that echoed through the otherwise quiet house.

Yihan frowned and reached for the remote, lowering the volume of the television as he looked toward the entrance.

"What's with this wind all of a sudden?"

As he stood up to close the door, something white suddenly skidded across the floor and brushed against his foot.

Yihan looked down.

A piece of paper had blown out from underneath the couch.

At first, he assumed it was nothing more than an ordinary sheet of paper, but when he bent down and picked it up, he noticed that something had been drawn on it.

He slowly turned the paper over.

His expression changed.

There was a drawing on the page that vaguely resembled a teddy bear, but something about it was deeply unsettling.

The face had been completely scribbled over, with dark, chaotic lines covering the features until there was almost nothing recognizable left.

Yihan stared at the drawing in silence, unable to understand why such a strange piece of paper had been lying underneath the couch in the first place.