Contract Marriage with Memory Loss on Top - Chapter 14
The sky was unusually clear, and the air was sweet. Where is this place? Yeon-woo looked around. In the white space with nothing but the sky, the ground began to form and buildings started to appear.
It’s a dream, he could tell without thinking deeply. Is this what they call a lucid dream? It was something he had never experienced before, so out of curiosity, he pinched his cheek. Naturally, he didn’t feel any pain.
‘Wait a minute…’
Yeon-woo stopped pinching his cheek and looked down at his hand. It wasn’t his original body. The adorably short and chubby hand made Yeon-woo perplexed. Since it’s a dream, can the body size be adjusted too? Yeon-woo realized that not only his hands but his whole body had shrunk. The exact age was unknown, but it looked like a young body. At most seven years old. It was so young that estimating the age was meaningless.
Around the time when Yeon-woo was looking around his small body here and there, the faint surrounding scenery changed into a complete form. It feels really realistic even though it’s a dream. Yeon-woo peeked around the single-family house that appeared in front of him. Perhaps because his height had decreased, even an ordinary gate looked as big as a path for giants to go through.
Woof woof!
‘What the hell is this barking all of a sudden…’
Maybe because it was a dream, his body started moving on its own. Yeon-woo stood close to the gate where the sound was coming from.
“Puppy… It’s a puppy!”
Yeon-woo’s pupils widened greatly.
‘Is this sound coming from me right now?’
As the body became smaller, the voice was also quite young. It seemed like the teeth had fallen out, so the pronunciation was all messed up. Just because it was a lucid dream, it didn’t seem he had the authority to control his body. Yeon-woo decided to enjoy the situation that was flowing arbitrarily. It felt like watching a vivid movie.
Yeon-woo pressed his face close to the gate and looked inside. It was strange. The dog sound he heard was definitely the voice of an adult dog. But what was revealed in front of his eyes was a puppy wearing brown socks. A couple of puppies running around on the lawn seemed to have also noticed Yeon-woo, so they came running wobbly towards him.
“Puppy!”
The young body shook the gate constantly as if wanting to go inside and touch the puppies. Of course, the tightly closed door didn’t budge at all. It would be understandable to give up by this point, but the young body was quite stubborn. He forcibly stuck his arm through the door gap and sneakily stroked the approaching puppy.
It felt like a blanket dried hard in the sun. The puppies didn’t guard against Yeon-woo and lay down flat to be touched as much as he wanted.
That’s when it happened.
Woof, woof woof!
The bark of an adult dog was heard loudly. Not only that, but a large dog that was hidden by the wall suddenly popped out. The dog seemed to be trying to protect its puppies and bared its large teeth at Yeon-woo, barking countless times. Fortunately, the adult dog was tied to a leash, so there was no biting accident, but the young body burst into tears as if startled.
‘Doberman…? Ah, Rottweiler.’
Now the situation was understood. The puppies the young body had touched seemed to be the Rottweiler’s puppies.
‘Sigh, that’s why you shouldn’t touch recklessly.’
It was so distressing to hear the crying that even Yeon-woo felt uncomfortable. He wanted to cover his ears, but his body wouldn’t move. While he was crying like that for a long time, the closed gate began to open. Yeon-woo, shedding the moisture that had gathered under his eyes, looked beyond the gate.
‘Who is it?’
The face was not visible as if it was mosaicked.
“I’ve been looking for you for a while. Why are you crying here?”
“Brother, I puppy…”
“Didn’t I tell you not to touch the puppies when I’m not around? You’ll get bitten. Come, come here.”
The man in front of the young body reached out his hand. Judging by his solid build, Yeon-woo thought he was an adult, but based on his voice, he was a student going through puberty.
‘Why is it so… familiar?’
It was the thought that came as soon as the young body entered the yard. Maybe because it was a dream. There was no way a place he had never been to could be familiar. A thought that he himself couldn’t understand. Yeon-woo tried to put away the useless thoughts and focus on the scene shown through the young body.
“…woo.”
That’s when it happened. A faint voice seeped into Yeon-woo’s ears. A warm voice…. Yeon-woo listened to the small sound.
“Yeon-woo.”
This time the call was clear. The startled Yeon-woo looked up at the man holding his hand. Was it this person who called me? For that, the voice was a bit thicker and lower.
Just like…
Yes, just like Ki-won’s voice. The scenes in front of him began to collapse rapidly.
“Wake up, Yeon-woo.”
With Ki-won’s last call, Yeon-woo’s mind was pulled into reality.
Yeon-woo rubbed his eyelids several times as the area around his eyes was sticky. The boundary between dream and reality was blurry. Yeon-woo, whose mind was not yet fully clear, turned his head in the direction of the sound.
“…Hyung?”
Ki-won, who had entered the bedroom, was taking off his coat.
“Why are you here so early? Isn’t it time for you to still be at the company…? Ah, is this also a dream?”
He was half-asleep, so he couldn’t even grasp what he was saying. Ki-won approached Yeon-woo, who was continuously mumbling nonsense.
“Seems like you’re not fully awake.”
Ki-won covered Yeon-woo’s eyelids with his cold fingers. The chilly coldness played a role in chasing away Yeon-woo’s sleepiness.
“What… What time is it now?”
“Six thirty.”
“I only intended to close my eyes for a bit, but I slept until your quitting time…”
The time in the dream was just a moment, but it seemed reality was different. Definitely, as he slept for a long time, the fatigue disappeared and his body felt light.
“Did you have a bad dream while sleeping? You were tossing and turning.”
“Really? It wasn’t a particularly bad dream. If I had to say, it was a strange… dream?”
Speaking of which, he tossed and turned. He suddenly worried if he talked in his sleep when he shared a bed with Ki-won. It was a belated worry since they had already been living together for about half a year. Well, it would be okay to toss and turn a little. Yeon-woo, who shrugged his shoulders, retraced the still vivid dream in his head.
‘Why a Rottweiler of all things. It’s really out of the blue.’
Among the many breeds, the one that appeared in the dream was an unfamiliar Rottweiler. If it had been a small dog, he wouldn’t have cried so much. His eardrums still hurt because of the crying sound of the young child in the dream. The voice was also good. The sound coming from the small body was quite loud for its size.
“What kind of dream was it?”
Ki-won asked as he sat down next to Yeon-woo.
“It was nothing special. Just a dream of crying in front of a single-family house?”
“You?”
Ki-won shook his head, saying it must have been a strange dream.
“Well… I don’t think so. It was from the perspective of a young child. He was hanging around the door wanting to touch the puppy, then encountered the mother dog and cried a lot. The dog did look fierce.”
A large dog’s puppy. Moreover, a Rottweiler, famous as a guard dog, suddenly appeared, so he was more than startled.
“Really?”
“Yes, it looked like a Rottweiler. Isn’t it out of the blue?”
“It is…”
Ki-won’s voice gradually became faint as he answered. Yeon-woo, who had been talking smoothly, glanced at Ki-won. Is he not feeling well? Thinking the dream story was boring, he was about to change the subject when Ki-won suddenly continued.
“Have you seen a Rottweiler before?”
“No, how could I? Unlike small dogs like Maltese or Pomeranian, Rottweilers are not a common breed.”
He had seen them in passing on TV animal channels or through YouTube algorithms. It was a breed he remembered because it looked similar to a Doberman. He just answered as Ki-won asked, but an indescribable emotion flashed across Ki-won’s face.
“Why?”
“Just asking.”
The bland answer made Yeon-woo feel uncomfortable too. Yeon-woo, scratching his cheek, got up, shaking his butt.
“By the way, if I had known I would sleep this long, I should have set an alarm.”
As he stretched his arms, cracking sounds came from his joints.
“What if I can’t sleep at night because of this?”
Yeon-woo smiled brightly and pulled Ki-won’s arm. It meant he must be hungry after coming back from work, so let’s go eat quickly. Ki-won obediently followed as Yeon-woo led.
“Do you usually have such dreams often?”
Ki-won asked, standing behind Yeon-woo as he tried to take out food that could be eaten simply from the refrigerator. He thought it was a topic Ki-won wasn’t interested in because his reaction wasn’t very enthusiastic, but it was unexpected. Yeon-woo, rolling his eyes, shook his head slightly and said,
“No, this is probably the first time. Oh, that’s right! What’s even more amazing is that I had a lucid dream. Have you ever had a lucid dream, hyung?”
“No.”
Again. Ki-won made an unsatisfactory face for someone who spoke first. His voice was also a bit quieter than usual. Did something unpleasant happen at the company? Yeon-woo, who was getting worried, looked at his complexion.
“But hyung, are you sick somewhere? Why do you seem so weak…?”
Ki-won felt unfamiliar. Yeon-woo, who was standing close, looked at his face seriously, and Ki-won took a step back. Even if he stood on his toes, it wasn’t like he would become similar in height to Ki-won, but it was because Yeon-woo was on his toes.
“You’ll fall over like that.”
“Or are you hungry?”
Yeon-woo was quite serious as if he had become a doctor treating a patient. Ki-won laughed at Yeon-woo’s absurdity.
“I get treated like a patient after answering wrong once.”
“It’s really rare for you to answer ambiguously, hyung.”
Joking aside, he had never seen anyone as clear in expressing their intentions as Ki-won in his life. Yeon-woo, who laughed along with Ki-won, shook the sandwich he was holding.
“Do you want to eat this for dinner today?”
“Sure.”
Yeon-woo took four individually wrapped sandwiches by flavor and headed to the dining table. Ki-won sat across from him and quietly watched Yeon-woo unwrapping the packaging.
“Did you not go out today?”
“Yes, there was nothing to do, so I stayed at home.”
“Not playing the claw machine, I see?”
“Ah, that, doll, claw machine? You already got me a teddy bear, hyung. So I’m not going to do it for a while.”
Yeon-woo was flustered for a moment but soon answered calmly. He thought it would be okay to give the nuance that he was gradually losing interest in the claw machine.
“Now that I think about it, even if I get dolls, there’s not much use for them. At best, they’re just indoor decorations. I’m content with just the teddy bear.”
“I guess you’re right.”
When Ki-won seemed to believe him, the delighted Yeon-woo nodded his head greatly.