Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

Seo Ha’s heart was pounding rapidly.

Ryu Kyung Jun, whom she met again after three years, was so different from the person she knew. The eyes she thought were just slightly slanted were now as sharp as a blade, and his speech, though still blunt, no longer contained even a trace of human warmth.

“I’m asking. Why did you come?”

Kyung Jun took another step closer and slammed the door shut.

“Do you want to extort money for what happened earlier today? Or did someone send you to spy?”

If this person is still by mother’s side, it must mean that Kang Yoon Company hasn’t been taken over by Taeyang Group yet.

Seo Ha removed her hand from her mouth with a frightened expression.

“I’m sorry for coming secretly. I was worried about the lady.”

Kyung Jun furrowed his brow as if to ask what she meant.

“My mother is also ill. The lady seems to be about the same age and similarly ill… When she suddenly called me her daughter, I became concerned and came up to see her.”

Kyung Jun stared at Seo Ha for a long time with a suspicious gaze. Seo Ha did not back down and lifted her chin to meet his eyes.

“… Fine. Let’s say that’s true.”

Finally, Kyung Jun straightened his back and took a step back.

“Thank you for your concern, but our CEO is in very good health, so please refrain from unnecessary meddling or approaching. Get well soon.”

Unlike his polite tone, his finger was pointing straight down the stairs. It clearly meant for her to leave quickly.

‘Going down is even harder.’

Seo Ha had no choice but to start descending the stairs one by one with unsteady steps. Even though he should have supported a patient, Kyung Jun just stood with his arms crossed, glaring until the end to see if she really went down or not.

Seo Ha’s attempts to meet Hae Sun, even from a distance, repeatedly ended in failure. That’s not all. Her constant lingering around caught Kyung Jun’s attention, making it even more difficult to approach.

Meanwhile, Seo Ha discovered that her real body was actually lying quietly in the VIP hospital room.

‘That’s a relief. Really.’

How terrible would it have been if Jo Seo Ha had woken up as Yoon Seo Ha, just as Yoon Seo Ha had woken up as Jo Seo Ha?

As a few more days passed, even rehabilitation ended and the discharge date arrived. Naturally, there was nowhere to contact.

One address on her ID card. Twenty thousand won in cash.

Seo Ha took these and went to find her ‘home’ by asking around. A neighborhood with high, narrow cement paths and stairs winding about, and crude murals weathered by wind and rain making it even more desolate.

The ‘home’ was a worn-down house barely sitting in the middle of that hillside shantytown.

The rusty gate had frightening letters scrawled on it in red paint. Seo Ha hesitated before carefully opening the door.

“Yap! Yap yap!”

At the same time, a dog that seemed to be the subject of the warning sign came charging out, barking fiercely.

“…?”

Seo Ha looked down blankly at the Chihuahua, too pathetic to be wary of.

“What are you? Want a dog treat?”

“Yap?”

Whether responding to ‘dog treat’, the Chihuahua stopped approaching and just whimpered a bit from a distance.

Just then, a large man suddenly flung open the front door and lumbered out from inside.

“Kim Min Ji! Why are you making such a racket… Huh?”

He looked to be about thirty. He was wearing a t-shirt stained with kimchi juice and gray sweatpants with holes in the knees, and even his worn-out three-stripe slippers were slightly split on one side.

In other words, he was the type of person Seo Ha had never exchanged a word with in her life.

“Jo Seo Ha!”

The man shouted roughly.

“Jo Seo Ha, where the hell have you been all this time! Leaving your phone and everything behind! Damn it, girl, don’t you know how dangerous the world is! Hey, do you know how much I’ve been looking, ah shit! Three years! Not one or two, but three whole years! If you were dead, you should’ve at least let me know!”

He clearly knew Jo Seo Ha. And for some reason, he was extremely angry right now. Seo Ha stared at him blankly for a moment before calmly opening her mouth.

“Excuse me.”

“What do you mean ‘excuse me’!”

The man stomped over and was about to grab Seo Ha’s arm when he cursed and just ruffled his own hair instead.

“Have you eaten?”

When Seo Ha shook her head, he got even angrier.

“See! If you can’t even get a meal, why did you leave home? I told you to pay the rent when you can! Ah shit, I only have ramen right now. This is so annoying!”

The man turned around abruptly and flung the front door wide open, then turned back to Seo Ha and barked.

“Aren’t you coming in? Just stand there forever then!”

“That’s not it.”

“If you don’t come in now, there won’t even be ramen! Kim Min Ji, you’re not coming either? How are you going to guard the house if you can’t even recognize Jo Seo Ha!”

The ‘Beware of Dog’ Chihuahua wagged its pathetic tail and went into the house. Seo Ha hesitated for a moment before reluctantly following.

“Excuse me for intruding.”

“Drop the formalities and just sit down.”

The man grumbled as he roughly pulled out a chair at the dining table, making room for Seo Ha to sit.

“Shit. It’s only green onion ramen. Damn it all.”

The small kitchen was soon filled with clattering sounds and the bubbling smell of cooking ramen.

As soon as she smelled it, Seo Ha’s stomach suddenly growled and her mouth watered. But a moment later, seeing the pot of ramen placed on the table, she hesitated to pick up her chopsticks.

“… Thank you for the meal.”

This was a Han River unlike any Han River. There was so much water you couldn’t even see the noodles, and the two floating eggs looked like duck boats on the Han River.

“Eat.”

The man scooped a generous portion of ramen into a green germanium plate and handed it to her, then slurped up a mouthful from the yellow enamel pot lid himself.

“This tastes like crap.”

He grumbles well for someone who cooked it himself. He grabbed two pieces of kimchi from the container all at once and chewed noisily.

“Aren’t you eating?”

Seo Ha took a bite of ramen out of politeness. It really did taste bad.

It must have shown on her face, because the man grumbled again.

“Just eat it even if it’s bland. What can I do when there’s only green onion ramen? It’s your fault for not being able to eat spicy food.”

“I can’t eat spicy food?”

The man replied gruffly to Seo Ha’s question.

“What kind of nonsense is that? Did you hit your head or something?”

“Yes.”

“What!”

The man jumped up shouting, nearly causing Seo Ha to drop her chopsticks.

“Damn it, where are you hurt? How badly? You should have called if that happened! Hospital? You didn’t go again, did you? Damn it, if you die like that, who am I supposed to collect the overdue rent from! Let me see!”

He looked ready to ruffle through Seo Ha’s hair at any moment. Seo Ha calmed him down despite her surprise.

“That’s not it. Please calm down and sit so I can explain.”

“Let me just take a look. I’m not going to eat you or anything.”

“I’ve already received treatment at the hospital, so don’t worry.”

“Worry? Why would I worry about you!”

“If you’re not worried, then sit down.”

Seo Ha said firmly. The man hesitated before sitting back down and crossing his arms. Neither of them touched the Han River duck boat ramen.

“Fine, let’s hear what you have to say or whatever.”

Seo Ha tore off a piece of the paper towel roll on the table and wiped her mouth.

“I am Jo Seo Ha.”

Actually, Yoon Seo Ha, but.

“So what?”

“That’s all I know about myself. I don’t remember anything else. What my job was, what kind of person I was, not even how old I am.”

The man stared at Seo Ha with the blankest expression she had seen yet.

“… What did you say?”

“Amnesia. They say I was in a car accident. My memories might come back over time, or they might not. I came here because this was the address on my ID, and of course I don’t know who you are either.”

Seo Ha explained as clearly and slowly as possible so he could understand. It wasn’t very rewarding.

“So, you were in an accident?”

“Yes.”

“Which bastard was it? Who hit my tenant with a car?”

“The prosecutors are investigating.”

“Shit.”

The man cursed and ruffled the back of his head.

“You don’t remember anything, right?”

“Yes.”

“Me. You. And, uh, damn. Family too.”

“Yes.”

Seo Ha patiently nodded to each of his questions.

“So. Are you in any pain now?”

“My body has healed. They say it was quite a big accident, but fortunately it didn’t hit any vital areas.”

“Fortunate, my ass.”

The man grumbled in a strangely softer voice than before.

“Just eat this for now. It’s going to turn into green onion noodle soup.”

It really didn’t taste good, but Seo Ha ate all the ramen and eggs he served her and chewed and swallowed the fresh kimchi without complaint. The man seemed quite satisfied with that.

“You don’t know where your room is either, right?”

“No.”

“Follow me.”

The man put on his slippers and shuffled ahead. Following him up stairs so narrow and steep that two people couldn’t walk side by side, a rooftop painted green with a wooden platform and a shabby rooftop structure appeared.

“That’s it. The place you lived.”

How could it be this run-down?

Seo Ha was shocked by Jo Seo Ha’s living quarters, which were even worse than she had imagined.

“I lived here? As a tenant?”

“Yeah.”

She had been uneasy since climbing the hillside stairs. But even so, she never imagined she’d be living as a tenant in the rooftop room of an already dilapidated house.

“How poor was I exactly?”

The man’s expression crumpled roughly.

“Why do you talk like that? Just because your income is a bit low and expenses are high.”

“That’s what being poor means. I was poor. Dirt poor.”

To think that even when her body was switched, it was with someone dirt poor. Forget revenge, even the path to reclaiming the company seemed hopeless.

“So what if you’re poor! People can be a little poor sometimes!”

The man shouted angrily. Min Ji must have been startled, as she started barking and jumping up and down again.

“Why are you yelling? You just said I was poor too.”

“No, that’s… Anyway, stop talking about being poor.”

The man cleared his throat with a cough and took out a key.

“Go in, the room on the right is yours.”

“Is there someone in the left room?”

As if he hadn’t heard the question, the man opened the door without answering.

“The monthly rent is thirty… no, thirty thousand won. If you can’t pay, let me know at the end of the month. There’s a two million won deposit, so we can deduct from that. You’re a white heron. Just stay cooped up at home and rest for now. Come down for meals when it’s time, and if you’re bored, take Min Ji for walks.”

“I even got meals from the landlord?”

“You think you only got meals? Whenever you wanted something, you’d come running down demanding chicken or strawberries. If you had even the slightest pain anywhere, you’d wake people up in the middle of the night asking to be taken to the hospital. Whenever anything broke, you’d say the landlord has to fix it and ask me to change even a light bulb. And, uh, when you caught a cold once, you whined and asked me to clean and do your laundry too. I can’t believe it. What kind of trouble did I get myself into by letting in the wrong tenant?”

He seemed heated just thinking about it. He scratched his reddened ear vigorously and was about to turn away when he paused at the entrance.

“You forgot my name too, right?”

“Yes.”

“Kim Jae Wook.”

“Should I call you Mr. Kim Jae Wook?”

“What nonsense are you talking about strawberry seeds? You, uh, called me ‘oppa’. Jae Wook oppa.”

What kind of Pikachu jerky-making talk is this?

“That’s not an appropriate form of address for a landlord-tenant relationship. I’ll just call you Mr. Kim Jae Wook.”

“…”

Jae Wook stared at Seo Ha with his mouth slightly open. Seeing his expression as if someone had just punched him, Seo Ha asked again.

“Should I call you President Kim? Whatever you prefer.”

“Ah, no. Forget about that.”

Jae Wook stammered strangely before clearing his throat.

“I’m going downstairs. The shop’s closed today, so come down if you need anything or don’t. Let’s go, Kim Min Ji!”

“Yap!”

Jae Wook lumbered down the stairs with Min Ji. Thankfully, he seemed like a decent person, just with a rough way of speaking.