“So,” Seungri began, breaking the silence, “you really must have lost your memories if you’re this compliant.”

Daesung looked up from the window to the man next to her. “What do you mean?”

“Normally, if I were to order you around, like how I told you to go put on jeans, you would either roll your eyes or laugh at me,” he explained. “Not to mention how you’re usually not this quiet.”

“Oh.” She absently the leather strap of her purse. When Seungri told her that he was taking her out to lunch, she wasn’t sure what to expect, but she figured that she would be gone for awhile. Before leaving the house, Daesung wrote a note to her parents about her absence and grabbed the spare keys. She later realized that, after sitting in Seungri’s fancy car and listening to the rap and hip-hop that blared out of the radio for the past five minutes, this man could basically take her anywhere. For all she knew, he was taking advantage of her vulnerable state and had particular plans lying wait for her.

But that would be silly because, after all, this was someone who Daesung—the other Daesung—knew. For how long, she didn’t know, but certainly long enough for him to whine out “Hyuuung!” and unhesitatingly jeer at her and know the location of her apartment when her mother didn’t even show her the residence.

Which was why she was staring out at the window, tolerating the rap and hip-hop that sounded quite unpleasant to her ears, and idly wondering how manufacturers could make cheap leather feel like real leather. Being quiet and trying not to be paranoid. There was no reason for her to be so wary. Why was she being wary before? Why was she even following Seungri anyway?

To have lunch with him, she reminded herself. To discuss about her amnesia.

“Yeah. You’ve always been the cheerful sort, talking and joking around with the other hyungs,” Seungri went on.

Cheerful? Didn’t her mother describe her to be unsmiling when she came home? And hyungs? “I hung out with men?”

“Anything wrong with that?”

“No, I was just…” What’s the word? “Surprised.”

He hummed.

“Were we all friends?” she inquired.

“I guess so. Although, you often fooled around with TOP—Seunghyun, I mean.”

Jiyong’s reprimand echoed in her mind. “Who is Seunghyun?”

The man sighed.

“Is something the matter…?”

“Wow, seriously?” He looked at her from the corner of his eye. “You pulling my leg, right? C’mon, hyung, enough with the amnesia charade already. You’re surprisingly a good actor, but I’m not falling for it. I played along this far for kicks and giggles; now it’s time to be serious here.”

She frowned. “I’m not acting.” She wasn’t a hyung either.

“Uh huh, and you’re totally not going out of your way just so you have an excuse to run away from your problems,” he bit sarcastically. “And, yeah, I know I’m being a little here and you can smack me upside the head when I’m not driving, but I’m telling it how it is: you’re running away. You don’t want to face the disaster that you’ve started so you’re pulling the ‘I have amnesia so I’m ing innocent’ card.”

“I-I’m really not acting,” Daesung insisted weakly. To say that she was taken aback was an understatement. She couldn’t think of anything else to say to counter Seungri’s claims, which were unexpectedly bombarded on her. If he wasn’t convinced that she didn’t have amnesia from her current disposition, granted what Seungri had described about her adult self to be true, then how else could she prove to him? However, that didn’t leave her as dumbfounded as what he had to say next. 

“I know,” said Seungri.

“I…” She paused. “Uh...”

“I mean, halfway when I was talking, you would’ve cut me off or something, but you didn’t. Besides, you’re not the kind of person who would make up excuses, although we were suspecting that you might’ve taken off to who-knows-where just to avoid Seunghyun when you were missing.”

Daesung didn’t know what to say. Actually, what she did want to ask was “Why?” but to let the word pass through her lips seemed to be a difficult process at the moment. Fortunately for her, Seungri happened to be very fond of hearing his own voice. 

“To be honest, I was bordering on disbelief when you asked me who Seunghyun was because I didn’t think that, loss of memories or not, you would ever forget about him, so I decided to test you for confirmation. And lucky you—you passed.”

She should have probably taken the nonsensical chatter from last night as a warning, but she definitely didn’t foresee this precipitous slope of differing attitudes and opinions coming from one person, especially when he was trying to make an assessment of her. “Um, okay…” she trailed off.

“Okay,” Seungri parroted agreeably.

Daesung was so confused.

“So…who’s Seunghyun?” she tried again.

He made a dismissive gesture with his shoulders. “A friend? Well, I’m not sure if I should say. You’ll find out soon enough, anyway.”

“Oh.”

Neither one of them said anything after that, not until when the traffic light ahead turned red, causing Seungri to make a disgruntled sound. “Dammit. It always gets slow at this lane,” he grumbled.

When the light turned green, the car made a sudden lurch forward that the seatbelt dug deep into Daesung’s chest and forced the air out of her lungs. She yelped, startled. Seungri spun the wheel and, amazingly enough, managed to maneuver around the vehicles that were heading towards their direction by making violent swerves.

 If that didn’t nearly give her a heart attack, then watching the teetering speedometer and being pressed against her seat by the force of the increased acceleration surely did. The car climbed high onto the ramp, entering the roads of less regulated traffic and more space for driving, and raced by as though it was flying.

Cold sweat was beginning to accumulate on her forehead. “Sh-should you be going so fast?” she squeaked.

“What was that?”

“You should slow down! You’re going too fast.”

“No, you see, this is normal. The driving back there was slow since there were too many cars in the way.”

“You’re passing the speeding limit!” she pointed out, her voice almost breaking into a cry.

“Don’t worry about it,” he replied offhandedly. “We’re not going to crash—oh! That’s right, you were in a car crash. Did I incite a fear or something?”

Not that Daesung even recall the car crash that she was involved in, but she would do anything to get the man to stop his insane driving. “Yes! Yes! Please, just slow down.”

“Alright, alright.” Thankfully, he did as told. Seungri gave her a cursory glance before flouncing, “But just so you know, I’ve never gotten into an accident in all my years of driving!”

What was he? A child? “Doesn’t mean you’ll never have one,” she sighed, placing a hand to chest as though to calm her rapidly beating heart.

“Nope, never will,” he argued. “But I’m curious—did you sustain any injury other than the one to your head? “

“I broke a couple bones…”

“But you said that you stayed in the hospital for three weeks. Were you recently discharged? Wouldn’t a broken bone take about eight weeks or so to heal?”

“I was, um, discharged recently—yesterday, in fact. Th-the doctor said that I broke my nose and a couple ribs, but they were tiny fractures so they were able mend within the three weeks I stayed at the hospital.”

“I thought your nose looked kind of crooked.” Then, taking his eyes off the road, he peered into her face. “Well, more crooked than usual.”

“The road!” she gasped, ing a finger before them.

“Huh?”

“Look at the road, not at me!”

“Jeez, calm down! What’d I say about me never getting into an accident? Unlike you, I happen to be a skilled driver,” Seungri huffed but complied nevertheless.

Folding herself so that her elbows were propped on her knees, Daesung wearily rubbed her face and cradled her temple. Careful driver? He was practically turning his fancy red car into a deathtrap due to his careless driving. For certain, Daesung was fearful for her life. Just what did she do to deserve this? Maybe Seungri was behaving this way on purpose, simply picking on her out of spite or just for the sake of picking on her; although, she had a feeling that it was likely to be the latter.

Speaking of which, Seungri was taking quite a long time searching for a place to stop. She could feel her brows furrow. Why did he take the ramp anyway? Why couldn’t he go to the nearest restaurant? They must be headed for somewhere relatively far if they were taking this route. Maybe there was a particular place he had in mind when he planned on taking her out?

She pulled herself up and rigidly reclined into her seat. “Wh-where are we going?” she timidly asked.

“My place.”

That was that last place Daesung would’ve expected they were to go. “B-but I thought you said that we were going somewhere to eat.”

“We are, but at my place.”

Perhaps it wasn’t so silly to be wary after all.

“You know, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. I just got home yesterday and I have amnesia and my parents are going to be worried sick. You should just take me back—“

He chortled. “Oh yeah, like I’m going to make a turn after getting this far,” the man snorted as though she made a joke. “Besides, I told you last night that I was going to take you to the bar. Might as well go to my place if we’re heading to Seoul.”

That was right—Seungri did tell her that amidst his rambling. Daesung numbly nodded resumed back to watching outside the window, trying to ignore the trepidation bubbling in her stomach.

//00//

It wasn’t so bad once they got out of the car. Albeit, the scrutinizing was rather unnerving.

Daesung tried not to fidget under his stare and focused eating her food, which was, ironically, omurice. It tasted good though, for a man who practically dumped the ingredients into one frying pan with the trademark negligence.

Looking at the food didn’t last her interest for so long, so her gaze drifted from the kitchen to the living room behind her. The kitchen was tiny, just around the size of the bathroom in her house; however, the living room was moderately spacious with two couches and a lounge chair encircling a large flat-screen television. A painting was hung against the wall, situated between a pair of tall bookshelves. Adjacent to the room was a balcony that was suspended above the busy streets of Seoul.

This was a condo, as Seungri had informed her.

She shifted in her seat—stools weren’t very comfy—and shoveled another spoonful of omurice.  

“I don’t know,” Seungri finally spoke. His face was pinched in thought. “Can you prove to me that you’re a girl?”

Was her hoodie really that baggy? Well, it wasn’t like she possessed an impressive chest and, if her hoodie really was baggy, her curves were concealed, but at least he could have noticed the roundness of her hips. Unless her jeans were too loose as well.

Daesung simply tugged down the collar and exposed her neck.

The man stared at her blankly. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”

She swallowed her food and said, “I don’t have an Adam’s apple.”

His eyes lingered on her bare throat for a second longer before nodding. “You know, this pretty much explains why you always worn scarves. You had a whole collection of them, I swear, and you’d even wear these designer ones during the summer. Here I thought that you were just trying to set a trend like how Jiyong always does.”

She nearly snorted aloud. Her? Trendy? Her tastes in clothes were just as plain as her father’s, who usually resorted to a t-shirt and a pair of shorts. There were times when Daesung did want to dress prettier, but putting up the effort in shopping for whatever would suit her was beyond her. Buying anything simple was easier. However, looking back to how crammed her luggage was with stylish outfits, she could see that she had undergone a development.

“Does this prove that I’m a girl now?” she asked.

“I dunno. I might need a little more convincing, if you know what I mean,” he said in a teasing voice, waggling his eyebrows.

It didn’t take long for her to understand the implication, and there was certainly no way that she was going to comply to it—how could she bother to strip before someone who she didn’t know, much less someone who could have killed her on the road? Needless to say, if she wasn’t wearing her hat, he could have seen her ears burning in embarrassment.

Seungri pulled away from the counter that he was leaning on and headed towards the sink where he placed his empty plate in. “I gotta say, it’s a bit of a shocker. You had us fooled for the long run.”

Daesung lowered her spoon from . Her appetite diminished and the half-eaten meal before her didn’t appear so delicious anymore. Rather, her stomach performed flip-flops of discomfort, and she willed herself not to tug her hat over her entire face.

“Do…” She hesitated for a moment. “Do I really look like a man?” Was she really that ugly?

“It’s not that you were easy to distinguish as a man or a woman,” Seungri said, “because it was your body that everyone took notice of the firsthand, not your face.”

She blinked. “Wh-what about my body?”

“When I first met you, you were seriously buff.” He grinned. “Ha! It’s kind of funny now that I think about it. A woman who happened to be just as ripped as Youngbae.” He then began to snicker, shaking his head.

“I was?” She was fashionable and muscular?

“Not anymore, obviously. You started becoming thinner, mentioning about how you stopped working out due to a health issue. Now that I know you’re a woman, it probably has something to do with your menstruation cycles.” He quickly placed his hands in the air. “Hey, don’t blame me—my girlfriend can never stop talking about them.”

Daesung blushed. “Oh, p-please don’t say things like that!”

“I won’t, promise.” And then he continued with ease, as though he didn’t say anything embarrassing. “Anyway, while there are some obvious traits that separate men and women, my whole perception has been skewed thanks to Jiyong—and you. When I first met Jiyong, I thought he was a woman—until he opened his mouth.”

 “Oh.”

“Don’t tell him that I told you that, though. He would kill me!”

She nodded. “Um, Seungri-shi—“

“Bah!” He made a face. “Don’t call me that—sounds weird. Just call me Seungri.”

“O-okay.” It didn’t feel right for her to address the man so informally, but she didn’t want to argue about it. “Um, what time are we going to the bar?”

“Once you finish eating, we’ll go. It’s a good thing that you’re wearing jeans—you would’ve stuck out like a sore thumb in your sweats.”

“And how long will we stay there?”

“Dunno. Maybe midnight?”

Daesung chewed on her lower lip. “But…I’m not sure if I can stay out late.”

“Please, you’re twenty-two! Why can’t you?”

She squirmed in her seat.

“Hold on a minute,” Seungri started, eyeing her a tad incredulously. “Did you regress to a certain age or something?”

“I’m psychologically eighteen,” she informed him reluctantly.

For the first time, Daesung saw Seungri with a dumbstruck expression. “You lost five years! Wow, that’s crazy.”

She forced down another spoonful of omurice.

“And here I was thinking about calling you noona. Would sound bizarre if a twenty-one-year-old called you that, eh?”

Daesung shrugged. “You can call me Daesung.”