Seo Jaehoon’s voice was filled with irritation. Yet that night, the voice that regretted getting angry at me was definitely Seo Jaehoon’s.
Standing face to face, I stared blankly at his handsome face before I knew it and took a step back. I wanted to be even a little bit farther away from the Seo Jaehoon standing before me. My palms grew damp with an unexplainable tension.
Seo Jaehoon, who had been watching me back away as if he found it absurd, reached out his hand. He was already too far to reach by extending his arm, and thanks to the distance, I wasn't caught and managed to take one more step back.
Just then, Seo Jaehoon’s eyes, which had been looking at me with a calm gaze, suddenly widened. In that moment, his well-shaped lips parted as if to call my name.
The question of 'why' was brief; my name, screamed like a shriek, slammed into my ears. By the time I turned my head towards something rushing at me as if I were its target, it was already too late.
I saw a car that had come right up in front of me. There was no time to dodge.
*Hoooonk*—the car horn blared. Even in that moment, I think I frowned because the sound hurt my ears.
Thud—
A heavy sound echoed loudly, and a dull pain spread throughout my body.
As I was thrown into the air, screams erupted from all around. My airborne body was quickly slammed into the ground.
It felt like it hurt, and it also felt like it didn't. To be honest, I couldn't feel much.
But I knew exactly what the warm substance soaking my head was. The dark red blood, which had instantly pooled like a puddle, seemed to be pouring out so much that it was a little scary.
As I slowly blinked, Seo Jaehoon's face, kneeling in front of me, filled my vision. Seo Jaehoon, sitting on the ground where the blood had begun to spread widely, his face was so deathly pale that I was worried about him instead. He looked surprised, flustered, and angry, but somehow, his expression was filled with guilt.
The white hand reaching for my face trembled so much it was concerning. I wanted to grab that uncharacteristically shaking hand, but unfortunately, I couldn't even lift a finger.
The touch of the hand rubbing my cheek was familiar. The metallic smell of blood filled the air, but the moment Seo Jaehoon’s hand touched me, a familiar scent wafted over.
It was a sweet smell. The familiarity made me laugh. Through my slowly closing eyelids, his handsome face disappeared and reappeared repeatedly.
A ringing in my ears wouldn't stop. Thanks to that, my ears felt clogged.
Seo Jaehoon seemed to be saying something continuously, but the words scattered into the air before they could reach my ears. Looking at his shocked face, I thought, 'serves you right', but at the same time, I felt sorry for his face, which was pale with shock.
I wanted to say that I was okay, but I was definitely not okay. Every time I tried to speak, my chest tightened. At first, I didn't even know it hurt, but as time passed, aside from the pain, even breathing became difficult.
Every time I contorted my face and my lips moved, Seo Jaehoon winced as if he were in more pain. My Housemate No. 3 caressed various parts of my blood-soaked face and muttered my name, "Yeoul-ah," as if he were crying.
People gathered in a circle around me and Seo Jaehoon.
Even my twitching fingers had gone stiff, and now, my body, unable to move any part, felt even heavier. My body, damp and heavy like a water-soaked cotton ball, felt like it was sinking deep beneath the surface of the water. 'Is this how I die?' I felt a bit of regret, then resentment.
I still had to answer Nam Kangwoo's question, have a sincere conversation with Housemates No. 2 and 3, and most importantly, I had to tell these bastards how I felt.
My constantly drooping eyelids felt heavy and frightening. The last thing I saw before my vision turned completely black was Seo Jaehoon’s desperate touch, trying to force my eyelids open.
It was a blackout.
***
Rather than a memory passing by like a film, it felt like I was looking down at something.
It was a familiar place… and just as familiar as the space was my own familiar figure, scurrying through various spots.
My gaze naturally followed my past self, but unlike the clear surroundings, my own figure was blurry as if covered in fog, which was a little frustrating.
But the frustration was brief; I quickly got used to the view and was busy following my own movements.
The outside was pitch black, and I was tidying up the table, which looked like it had been through a war, with a dry touch.
‘There are too many drunkards in the early morning. Crazy bastards… why do they buy cup noodles if they’re not even going to eat them.’
After emptying the noodles that had become bloated in the broth and finishing the recycling, I wiped the table clean with a fresh cloth. As I looked around to see if there was anything else to clean, something square caught the edge of my vision.
That… I remembered. I thought whoever left it must have been out of their mind.
After picking up the thick book that was just lying there and tucking the chair in, I was finally able to return to the counter. I scanned the inside once more and then perched on the round stool at the counter. After letting out a few long yawns that kept erupting, the book I had picked up a moment ago caught my eye.
Glancing at the time, I gave myself the reasonable excuse that it was a slow period for customers and, as if possessed, opened the book and turned the pages. The book, which didn't even have a title, seemed as if it had been waiting just for me to discover it.
A low laugh could be heard from my past self sitting at the counter. A mumble of ‘Ugh, so cringe,’ too.
The thin fingers turning the pages were covered in scratches. As if proof of a hard life, a sense of fatigue was layered in the occasional bursts of laughter.
It seems the me of back then was living a pretty tough life.
Losing track of time as I turned the pages, I closed the book at the *ding-a-ling* of the bell. Outside, the sky was already brightening with the bluish light of dawn.
After ringing up the customer, with the shift change coming soon, I started restocking the empty shelves and closing up. I opened the register and balanced the cash down to the last 10-won coin before my work was truly finished. And then, the guy for the next shift came in, looking just as exhausted as I did.
‘Good work. See you tomorrow.’
Feeling the hand patting my shoulder and hearing his hoarse voice, I left the counter and, in a familiar routine, packed a few discarded lunch boxes and triangle kimbap before leaving the convenience store. Of course, I didn't forget to pack that square book in my bag.
The convenience store where I worked wasn't far from my home. After crossing the intersection and turning into the first alley, my home was about 100 meters away. It was a shabby goshiwon, too humble to be called a home, but it was a home to me nonetheless. My only sanctuary where I could rest.
Why did my dazed figure, stopped at the crosswalk, look so pitiful…
As I thought, 'I can go home and get some rest when the light turns green', a strange sense of déjà vu made me clench my fists. My palms were damp.
The me that my gaze was following was still in a daze, half out of it. When I turned my head, which had been fixed on the back of my own round head, I saw a car staggering as it sped towards me. The car didn't slow down, even though the signal was changing from green to yellow.
"Oh, oh—" I muttered, looking back and forth between my own figure and the oncoming car.
'Snap out of it and move! Move!'
Only then did the memory come flooding back.
The car, rushing as if I were its only target, only stopped after it had completely crashed into me. The accident scene looked as if it were in slow motion.
Thud—!
My body, which flew up with a heavy sound, was as gaunt as a dry branch. The black plastic bag hanging from my wrist tore, and the shabby lunch boxes I had packed scattered in the air.
After rising slowly and then crashing slowly to the ground, my whole body twitched. Dark red blood poured out as if gushing. My hand, which had fallen to the ground, twitched.
The driver who got out of the car saw my condition, his face pale, and collapsed to the ground. 'You should be calling for help, not doing that. You crazy bastard, trying to kill someone.'
I became furious at the driver’s stupid behavior and scanned the surroundings. Fortunately, it seemed a few people were making calls. From the mouths of the people who had circled around me, only sounds of ‘What do we do, I think he’s dead,’ echoed.
In that moment, I think I thought, I can’t die.
I was curious about the rest of the nameless book in my bag, and I was also worried that people might misunderstand that tacky book as mine when it wasn't, and I remembered I had plans to eat meat until I burst since payday was in a few days.
*Wee-woo, wee-woo*, an ambulance came rushing with its siren blaring. The ambulance door opened as it arrived at the accident scene at high speed, and the paramedics who poured out checked my condition and moved my body onto a stretcher. I, who might have lost consciousness or might have died as people said, was loaded into the ambulance.
My breathing seemed too shallow. The faint rise and fall of my chest made it seem like I was still alive, but my condition was too terrible. Every place that could be called an orifice was a mess, pouring out blood.
After being transported to the hospital, doctors and nurses swarmed around to check my condition. The expressions of the doctors and nurses who cut off my clothes, which had lost their original color from being soaked in blood, and checked my body all over were grim.
I can’t die, I thought, my heart aching. My pulse was gradually dropping. My heart rate on the square machine was showing numbers that were getting lower and lower, just like on TV.
The movements of the people were urgent. The man whose white coat was stained red with my blood shouted, ‘Get the AED, quick!’ What's that? I wondered, tilting my head, and then I saw the defibrillator being brought over my exposed chest and realized what it was.
Every time a shock was delivered near my heart, my limp body would twitch and jump up as if having a seizure. I grew more and more anxious. Afraid that I might die.
It was when I was muttering, ‘Please, please, I can’t die.’ *Beeeeeep*—the machine that displayed my heart rate with numbers stopped with a long sound.
‘Ah… fuck… what is this—’
‘I’d rather just die.’
‘What?’
A voice from nearby made my head turn to the side on its own. The sight of Ha Yeoul, standing next to me and looking down at my figure, was devastatingly depressing.
I stared blankly at the all-too-familiar figure of Ha Yeoul, and he stared blankly at my dying figure, repeating only the words, ‘I’d rather just die.’
The man in the red-stained coat got on top of me and started compressing my thin chest. Every time he performed CPR, counting numbers with his dry lips, my shallow chest would sink in and rise back up. My own expression crumpled involuntarily.
‘I… even if my life is in the gutter, I want to live.’
I mumbled as if answering Ha Yeoul's low voice. 'I want to live, even if it's like that.'
Even if it was the gutter, I wanted to live in it. I believed that my life couldn't possibly stay in the mud like this forever, and that if I lived diligently as I had been, I would one day be rewarded with happiness. I had been through nothing but hardship, and I had never imagined I would die young in a traffic accident like this.
So to die now was really, very. Very unfair.
'Damnit… I want to live. I want to live.'
I knew what my own face looked like, staring blankly at my dying self, without even having to see it.
Cold sweat formed in beads on the forehead of the doctor who was perched on my thin body. Those surrounding us were already solemn, as if they had foreseen my death.
‘Don’t die, you’re too young to die now.’
The man’s voice, muttering as he dripped with cold sweat, was sorrowful. He knew nothing about me, yet he was trying to wake me with such sorrow.
‘He’s going to die, soon. So…’
A low voice echoed right next to me.
‘…How do you know that.’
I too muttered as if answering that low voice. I knew. There was no way I couldn't know. To anyone looking, I was on the verge of death.
‘What if I die instead.’
The low voice echoed. But it was a little strange. That voice, for some reason, wasn't directed at me standing right next to him, but…….
Only after turning my head slightly to the left did I finally face my own figure. The face that had been blurry all this time was now clear.
My past self, who had been standing by the bed and watching my chest sink and rise with a depressed face, turned his head towards Ha Yeoul. Ha Yeoul looked at me and muttered, ‘What if I die instead,’ without a single word out of place.
A faint memory surfaced in my mind as I observed the two of them. I knew what my answer would be.
*How can you do that.*
‘How can you do that.’
My bloodless lips moved. At my low question, Ha Yeoul moved his feet and approached my dying self.
‘I will send you to the place where I was.’
His low muttering voice, face, and eyes were filled with as much loneliness as his depressed face. My lips, facing him, moved.
Only today did I finally understand the full story of how I came to wake up as Ha Yeoul.
I had thought that I had become Ha Yeoul of all people, but it wasn't that; it was the result of my own choice. I had forgotten the most important thing, the very first thing I should have remembered.
*Beeeeeep*—the mechanical sound landed in my ears. I knew what my answer would be without having to hear it.
*Then I want to live, even if it's like that.*
‘Then I want to live, even if it's like that.’
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