[May 12, 2070, CityBay District A-14]
He woke up an hour before his alarm. As always, Jin Doyoon lay still for a moment before getting out of bed, staring at the ceiling while steadying his breathing. The faint light of dawn seeped through the blinds, casting dim shadows across the familiar objects in his room. On his desk sat an old leather notebook where he wrote names every night before sleep—his personal ritual to "never forget."
This morning, like any other, the world seemed to begin peacefully. At least until he walked to the kitchen to brew his morning coffee and habitually turned on the wall-mounted display.
"Today in CityBay, clear and pleasant weather continues. Fine dust levels are at 'good' ratings, making it a perfect day for outdoor activities. Meanwhile, there was exciting news last night for CityBay's food enthusiasts. Chef Moon Gahyeon, owner of 'Table M,' has been nominated as a finalist for the Best Chef in Asia award. His innovative cuisine has already gained worldwide recognition..."
Doyoon paused mid-pour. Chef Moon Gahyeon. Right, he'd watched the chef's documentary late into the night. It had popped up in his MainNet recommendations—he'd clicked on it by chance but found himself completely absorbed. The chef's desserts themed around memory transcended mere food and approached art. Particularly his modern reinterpretation of his grandmother's childhood yakgwa called "Memory Square"—it was so impressive that Doyoon wanted to make a reservation immediately.
"Chef Moon Gahyeon, how impressive. Did you watch his documentary too?"
Doyoon called out to his younger sister, Jin Sora, who was sitting on the living room sofa looking at her tablet. Sora tilted her head and looked back at him with confusion.
"Moon Gahyeon? Who's that? Some celebrity?"
"No, a chef. He was on the news yesterday, and his documentary is super famous. Don't you know 'Table M'? It's the hottest restaurant right now."
Sora's brow furrowed slightly. "Oppa, aren't you too tired lately? 'Table M' is where your friend had his wedding reception last time, and the chef there was a woman. What was her name... Kang Minhee?"
A sudden chill washed over Doyoon's mind like cold water. Kang Minhee? It was definitely Moon Gahyeon. A male chef. He could vividly recall the man's intense gaze and the interview scenes filled with his culinary philosophy.
"No, it was a male chef. Moon Gahyeon. You watched the documentary with me yesterday. You said you wanted to try that 'Memory Square'..."
"Me? Oppa, I was already asleep before you got home from work yesterday. And you know I don't really like desserts."
There was a hint of irritation in Sora's voice, as if she were dealing with someone talking nonsense. Doyoon felt his heart sink coldly. His memory and Sora's memory were clearly at odds.
"...I must have remembered wrong."
He forced a smile while muttering, but inside, chaos churned. He was a memory restoration specialist—someone who recovered people's tangled memory data and restored damaged records. For someone like him to doubt his own memory was absurd.
While getting ready for work, Doyoon tried to forget what had just happened. It must be a simple mistake. He'd been pulling all-nighters frequently due to recent projects, so accumulated fatigue might have caused errors in his memory. He might need to check his biometric data logs recorded on his neural chip.
Arriving at the office, Doyoon first searched through his MainNet access records from the previous night. "Chef Moon Gahyeon Documentary." There should definitely be a viewing record. But his timeline showed no such record, as if he'd never watched such a video in the first place.
"This can't be right..."
He muttered unconsciously. His fingertips grew cold. Just in case, he searched for "Chef Moon Gahyeon" on a portal site. No search results. He searched for "Table M." The restaurant information appeared, but the owner chef was listed as "Kang Minhee," the person Sora had mentioned. The name Moon Gahyeon was nowhere to be found. No photos, no related articles, no traces whatsoever.
As if he had never existed in the world from the beginning.
Doyoon shot up from his chair. His unusual neural structure would occasionally detect "echoes" of deleted information from MainNet as abnormal data. It was a logically inexplicable, extremely subtle and subjective sensation. And now, Chef Moon Gahyeon's face and voice, his passionate explanations about cooking, remained too vividly in his mind. As if he had just been conversing with the man moments ago.
Through his office window, the 2070s cityscape moved within the perfect order of data. Every citizen's daily life was recorded through neural chips, and MainNet managed and preserved it all. An era where being forgotten officially didn't exist.
But Doyoon realized something was wrong. Something fundamentally wrong.
He pulled out his notebook and wrote the name with trembling hands:
"Moon. Ga. Hyeon."
This wasn't a simple memory error. If he wasn't wrong, then the world was wrong.
And in that moment, Doyoon felt an inexplicable fear along with a strange certainty. Perhaps what had disappeared wasn't Chef Moon Gahyeon, but the entire world that remembered him.
Everyone except himself.