SDM 1

His head hurt like it was about to break, his eyelids stubbornly closed no matter how many times he tried to open them. His whole body aching as if it had been beaten somewhere.

“…-yoon-ah!”

As soon as he winced, he heard someone calling from all directions. As he frowned at the bone-chilling feeling, the surroundings fell silent in an instant.

After much effort, he was able to move one finger. At that moment, a voice filled with excitement interjected.

“Chae-yoon!”

Who is Chae-yoon? As he frowned, a huge hand lightly squeezed his shoulder. His body was already in pain, but when the other person’s hand touched him, the pain became even more severe.

When he finally opened his eyes, he saw one, two, three heads under the pure white light… Why were there so many? There were five heads.

“Are you okay?”

If they hadn’t made a sound, the pain would be less severe. When he raised his hand to touch his head, he felt the bandage that was tightly wrapped around it.

“Doctor! Hurry and call the doctor!”

There must be something like a nurse call button around here. As he fumbled around on the bed, someone who realized the existence of a nurse call, pressed the button, and doctors and nurses rushed in as if they had been waiting.

A collective sigh of relief was heard around the room as the doctor checked his vital signs and thoroughly examined various aspects, confirming that his condition had stabilized. One person even slumped back into their seat.

The person who slumped was a man dressed in clothes full of brand logos that looked very expensive at first glance, but as soon as their gazes met, he jumped up from his seat with tears in his eyes.

“Chae-yoon-ah, you, I really thought you were going to die this time…”

“Don’t talk about dying, you jerk!”

Before he could say a few words, his head was held in the hands of another woman. He watched the skit as if he was dreaming, and then he turned his gaze to a very soft hand touching his cheek.

“Sweetheart, are you okay?”

…Sweetheart? The moment he opened his mouth to respond to the unimaginable nickname, he realized how absurd the situation was.

What caught his eye as he flinched in surprise were fingers like dry oak trees, and wrists that were much thinner than the ones he originally had. Moreover, the name they were calling from wasn’t even his!

Jin Seong-woon was an actor. He began his career in the entertainment industry through a diaper commercial before his first birthday, and except for his time in the military, he had never taken a single year off. So he had been an actor for 29 or 30 years, he was a seasoned actor and the works he had done until now were countless.

Therefore, he was more familiar with fiction than anyone else. Ghosts, zombies, historical dramas, fantasy… It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say he appeared in almost every story except for the space opera genre that could never be made in Korea.

So, even if the sense of reality was put aside, it could still be perceived as something. Sort of… Possession?

He might not know what happened to his original body and the soul of this body right away, but it didn’t matter that much at the moment. Because it has already happened.

“… Chae-yoon-ah!”

The people around who couldn’t withstand the silence called out. There were a total of three men and two women? Looking at their age ranges, one pair seemed to be parents, while the others looked like siblings.

“Who is Chae-yoon?”

First… Let’s go with the basic formula for possession stories. Memory loss.

* * *

Jin Seong-woon’s words brought about an enormous aftermath. Several people rushed out, grabbing doctors, completely forgetting the existence of the nurse call. One person sat back in shock, and the woman, who seemed to be the owner’s mother, couldn’t even open her mouth due to shock and just gently stroked his cheek and whispered, ‘It’s okay, it’s okay…’

Seong-woon was dragged away and released only after taking several pictures of his head and answering countless questions from the doctor. As expected, the conclusion was ‘short-term memory loss.’

“I think it was probably because you went into low blood pressure shock and hit your head when you fell.”

It was a convenient conclusion. Well, they couldn’t argue with the doctor’s words. In the first place, the fact that Seong-woon is in the body of ‘Ryu Chae-yoon’ is the problem itself. Unless this surreal phenomenon came to mind, there was only one conclusion a doctor could come up with.

“Other than that? Is there no other problem?”

“There was no internal bleeding.”

The doctor looked like he was about to cry. Because there were more than one person who questioned him.

“What about the defibrillator? It hasn’t been long since it was inserted.”

“Not a problem. This time, the loss of consciousness was caused by low blood pressure rather than ventricular fibrillation…”

His concentration deteriorated as unfamiliar words came up. Seung-woon didn’t understand much of what the doctor said, but the majority of those surrounding him seemed to comprehend. It seemed to be a familiar situation, familiar words to them.

There were surgery marks left on the chest, visible through the bluish patient gown. And it wasn’t just one. The surgical history remained like scars left by the passage of time.

If there were several chest-opening surgeries, there must have been many more incidents of collapsing or being brought to the hospital than usual. It wasn’t surprising that they were making a fuss. The problem was that Seung-woon had no sense of reality about it at all.

“Everything is really okay now. From the ECG, heartbeat, blood pressure to blood tests… all the results are normal.”

“But that can’t be true…”

No, why deny that it’s normal. Except for the father figure, the man who appeared the oldest teared up, looking at Seong-woon with tears in his eyes. He hadn’t said anything up until now and just looked pale, but he seemed to have broken down when he heard that there was no problem.

“Chae-yoon-ah. I’m so glad… Ugh…”

Seong-woon sighed briefly as he looked at the crying man and looked around. The look in his eyes was asking for an explanation.

“Um, so…”

The man who had been sitting down and crying earlier, and whose eyes were now as red as a rabbit, most likely from crying too much, squinted at the corners of his eyes before introducing them.

“These two people are your father and mother…”

The man who was making the introduction shouted in an agitated tone.

“Chae-yoon, do you really not remember? How could you forget us too?!”

“Hey, Ryu Ho-yoon, why are you yelling at the kid?”

“Why are you yelling! And call me oppa!”

“Oppa my foot. Looks like I wasn’t the one who yelled…”

The siblings, with eyes, noses, and mouths that looked exactly the same, frowned collectively as they looked at Seong-woon’s eyes. Ryu Ho-yoon took a deep breath, spoke again.

“Father name is Ryu Byung-chan, and mother is Choi Ji-won.”

“Sweetie…”

The mother came closer and stroked his cheek, while a man with a kind but somewhat familiar face patted the back of my hand affectionately.

“And the eldest siblings is Ryu Hae-yoon, the second who is flying from the United States is Ryu Chang-yoon, I am the third Ryu Ho-yoon, this troublemaker is the fourth, Ryu Ha-yoon… and you are the youngest in our family, Ryu Chae-yoon.”

All have the character ‘Yoon’ in their names. Moreover, five siblings. They really have given birth to a lot. Seung-woon nodded and looked at Ryu Byung-chan’s face again. It looked familiar no matter how he looked at it.

And this family composition… the Ryu family with five siblings. It seemed like he had heard this somewhere before…?

“…Ryu Shin?”

“Do you remember?”

When those two syllables were unintentionally said, the entire family crowded around. How could he not recognize ‘Ryu Shin’? It was the top-ranked chaebol(conglomerate) in the Korean business world! Seong-woon shook his head, completely hiding his surprised expression beneath his skin.

“Oh, no… I know about the name Ryu Shin, but about my parents and siblings…”

“Siblings, you say!”

He had a general understanding of memory loss, but he didn’t know the details. In that sense, his single line of dialogue that was spoken without much thought, was about to shock everyone to the point of collapsing.

“Chae-yoon-ah! You, you are the adorable youngest in our house. A baby! But siblings, siblings…”

Ryu Ho-yoon, unable to withstand the shock, held his head and staggered.

Seong-woon was just around the corner from turning 30, but since he was called a baby, his soul was shocked. No, from this body’s point of view, it looked like he was at least a high school student, but baby was a really ridiculous title.

However, in order not to instill any more strangeness in them, Seong-woon smiled a little and stretched out his hand. Seong-woon made a quiet request to Ryu Ho-yoon, who held his hand with tears in his eyes.

“Hyung, please give me my phone.”

“Y-yes!”

Maybe it was because he was the lovely youngest, but it was nice that he listened to him endlessly. The back of the cell phone he handed over was completely broken.

“I bought you a new cell phone. You can get a new one if you need it.”

“Yes.”

Seung-woon tried to say it was okay, but stopped. If they were really Ryu Shin Group, no… if it was Ryu Byung-chan, the chairman of Ryu Shin Group, then a phone would not be a problem… It was a company that made cell phones in the first place, right? Meanwhile, it was funny that Ryu Chae-yoon’s phone was from a competitor.

“But Chae-yoon, why… do you speak so formally? I’m your older brother…”

“… Ah.”

Ryu Ha-yoon dragged Ryu Ho-yoon away after Seung-woon shut his mouth in embarrassment.

“Hey, right now, to Chae-yoon, you’re just a stranger.”

“How am I a stranger to Chae-yoon!”

“Shut up.”

Are these two twins? They didn’t seem to have much age difference no matter how he looked at it. When he tilted his head, the father who had been caressing his back all along turned towards them.

“Stop making my baby confused and let’s go out.”

He rose awkwardly, supporting the mother, who had been staring at Seong-woon’s face absentmindedly, and drove his children out like rounding up sheep.

“Rest well.”

After saying that, he brought in a bunch of people again. They were probably bodyguards. Their eyes were glazed over with determination to make sure nothing happened to him.

Seong-woon, who was quietly looking at them, lay down on his back while holding his cell phone. Now it was time to figure out what on earth had happened.