The Man Who Rolled In — Episode 12

"So this is what you usually eat."

San frowned deeply as he looked down at the sad excuse for a meal on the table: a bowl of instant rice, a few haphazardly fried slices of Spam, seasoned seaweed flakes, and three-minute meatballs from a packet.

She had sifted and re-sifted through what little she had to put together the most presentable spread she could, and this was how he repaid her consideration. A man trampling over someone's sincerity should at least have some limits.

"I told you there was nothing to eat. I said it clearly, and you were the one who insisted on staying for a meal, Mr. San... If you don't like it, feel free to starve."

As Yun-seo set her spoon down with a clatter, San let out a long sigh.

"No wonder your body's so weak. You have to balance your carbs, protein, and fats to stay healthy. You're a doctor — I'm sure you studied hard enough, but when it comes to taking care of yourself, you're a straight-F student."

"The supply ship hasn't come on its regular route lately, all right? And I haven't really had anywhere to go. Processed food actually has a decent amount of carbs and protein, so it's a perfectly good energy source..."

Yun-seo heard herself rattling off one flimsy excuse after another before she could stop herself, and abruptly shut her mouth.

Why on earth am I explaining myself to him?

She was fundamentally weighed down by guilt toward San, so she kept deferring to him, but the more she thought about it, the more absurd it seemed. Lecturing her about nutrition — in someone else's kitchen, no less.

"B-but you haven't contributed a single thing to this household, Mr. San, so why are you fussing over my dinner table..."

"Then I'll start contributing now. Got any ingredients at all?"

"Why are you suddenly asking about ingredients?"

"Mind if I use the kitchen? Does the gas work?"

"You can actually cook?"

Instead of answering, San strode straight to the refrigerator and flung the door wide open. He gave the nearly barren shelves a cursory scan, then pulled out some leftover vegetable scraps shoved in a corner and a mystery chunk of frozen meat.

He even headed to the sink and located the cutting board and knife with practiced ease, then began prepping the vegetables one by one.

Hypnotized by his surprisingly professional knife work, Yun-seo soon found herself handing him seasoning containers exactly as he directed. By the time she'd dug out the dishes to help him, a full table had been set as if by magic.

"How's that? Can I officially call myself a contributor now?"

She couldn't bring herself to deny the smug look on his face as he tilted his chin up proudly.

"...I suppose you can."

"Then quit overthinking and let's dig in already. I'm starving to death here."

"Thank you for the meal, then."

To be honest, she'd had her doubts about whether leftovers could taste like anything, but the moment she took her first bite, Yun-seo's eyes went wide. The seasoning clung to her tongue with uncanny precision, the gaminess of the meat was completely masked, and the flavor ran deep.

"It's delicious...!"

"Figures. I had a feeling I'd be good at cooking too. Turns out there's nothing I can't do."

San picked up his spoon with an easy grin. Then, resting his chin on his hand, he watched her quietly as she chewed, his brow furrowing as if agonizing over something, before he finally spoke.

"How would I do as a husband? Honest opinion."

The direct approach came flying at her yet again, and she nearly choked on her food.

The man had no middle ground whatsoever. One minute he was grabbing her hand without warning, the next he was bulldozing his way back into her life the moment she thought she'd forgotten about him.

The real problem was her own heart, wavering every single time. This was a man whose identity she couldn't verify — and worse, their relationship was practically one of perpetrator and victim. There was absolutely no room for strange feelings to creep in.

The smart play was to shut it down with a plausible lie. She needed to draw a firm line. Having decided this, Yun-seo nodded with an impressively calm expression.

"...Right, I bet your girlfriend would absolutely love that."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

San's brow creased as he set his spoon down on the table.

"Well... you said it yourself. You're handsome, you're in great shape, you fixed that ancient television without breaking a sweat, and now it turns out you can cook too."

"Teacher, are you interested in my girlfriend's position?"

"No! Not even a little!"

Yun-seo's eyes flew wide as she waved her hands in frantic denial. She had to cut off that train of thought before he plowed ahead at full speed on his own.

"Actually, I didn't get a chance to tell you because everything was so hectic. When you collapsed — I heard you calling out some woman's name, desperately...!"

"Me?"

"Yes, you, Mr. San. You sounded absolutely heartbroken about it."

"There's no way. Didn't you imagine it, Teacher?"

San narrowed his eyes in disbelief, then leaned forward over the table, his expression grave. Under the intensity of that gaze — one that seemed to see straight through her — Yun-seo began sneaking her eyes away.

"Is that what I look like to you, Teacher? Some lunatic whose heart races for a woman he's never met — while he already has a girlfriend?"

The low, level voice and sheer audacity of it nearly had her shaking her head and saying no.

His memory had evaporated entirely, so what exactly was he basing that rock-solid confidence on — the certainty that he wasn't a two-timer?

For a moment, guilt washed over her at the thought of branding him shameless. But the nagging conviction kept creeping back: if this went on, she was truly going to fall for that man.

Yun-seo swallowed dryly and managed an awkward smile.

"No, it's not exactly that... It's just, I heard what I heard. I heard it crystal clear."

"What did I say, then? Let's hear this desperately-called name at least."

San's eyes gleamed persistently as he closed the distance between them.

"Um, well, it was..."

Her breath caught — she hadn't thought that far ahead, all the way down to a name. As her panicked eyes darted around, a romance drama she'd re-watched recently flashed through her mind like lightning.

The name of the supporting heroine, the very symbol of innocence and grace — it had definitely been...

"Han... Yun-ju, was it?"

"Yun-ju?"

"Yes. Han Yun-ju."

Yun-seo nodded vigorously, as if to sell the conviction.

San murmured the name to himself a few times, then rubbed his right chest with an expression of utter bewilderment.

"My heart isn't racing at all."

"Well, you did lose your memory..."

"That makes no sense. Amnesia or not, shouldn't my heart do something the instant I hear the name of a woman I loved desperately? Even a purely physical reaction would be normal, at the bare minimum. But right now? I feel nothing."

The rebuttal was so airtight that she fell speechless — and San immediately leaned in closer.

"Then how do you explain my heart pounding around you, Dr. Ko Yun-seo?"

"That's..."

"That's what?"

Meeting that gaze head-on made her chest itch with a maddening tingling. Desperate to hide the heat flooding her face, Yun-seo snatched at the first plausible explanation she could find.

"...Side effects!"

"Side effects?"

She nodded hard.

"Yes! Think about it — how could anyone fall in love in just a day or two?"

"I never said I fell in love. It's been long enough to fall, though, hasn't it?"

"Th-that's not the point...! You were in extreme confusion, and the only person you had to lean on was a doctor — me. So your brain created a false association, that's all."

"So all this pounding is just a delusion my own brain cooked up?"

"Exactly. I'm the doctor here. I've seen plenty of patients like you, Mr. San. So from now on, I'd appreciate it if you thought of that pounding heart as a symptom. Imagine how heartbroken your girlfriend would be if she found out."

San stared at her in silence for a long while as she stumbled through the flimsy explanation, then finally asked, his face still carved from disbelief.

"Teacher, I'm going to ask you one more time. Is that the truth?"

His narrowed eyes were brimming with suspicion.

Yun-seo had never been any good at lying. And with her science-brain, her imagination had long since hit rock bottom — if she opened her mouth again, the whole improvised story would surely unravel on the spot.

So she pressed her lips tightly shut and simply nodded, hard. Doing her best to ignore the tenacious suspicion boring into her, she glared fixedly at the poor table until San gave up his probing and picked his spoon back up.

"I must have looked like a complete piece of trash to you, then."

With that, he ate in silence for a long time.

Did he buy it? He must have, right? The quiet was a decent sign that he'd taken it seriously, but his face gave away absolutely nothing about what was going through his mind.

As Yun-seo ran mental calculations and stole glances at him, their eyes met dead-on. She jolted, buried her face in her bowl, and started shoveling rice into her mouth with intense focus.

She kept her hands busy to smother the embarrassment, and before she knew it, her bowl was scraped clean. She was just setting down her last spoonful when —

"Guess it really was good. You inhaled it without coming up for air."

San tipped his chin toward her empty bowl, a faint smile tugging at his lips.

"Hm? Oh, yes. It was so, so delicious."

Yun-seo pulled the empty bowl toward her and echoed him awkwardly. Truthfully, she'd been so wound up watching his every reaction that she was lucky not to have given herself indigestion — but there was no denying that the food had been genuinely good.

"Glad to hear it."

San nodded slowly. Leaning back deep into his chair, he glanced around the room, then turned forward again and met Yun-seo's eyes. His expression practically reeked of scheme.

"Then I suppose it's my responsibility to handle your meals for as long as I'm on this island, Teacher."