SDM 61

The sensation was so vivid that Seong-woon couldn’t possibly consider it someone else’s. ‘Ryu Chae-yoon’, the 7% of the soul that had lived an entire life tormented by thirst and feeling the loss of soul acutely, was now rejoicing that the 93% of the soul had finally recognized the fully revealed wish and its meaning.

“Ah…”

The tears that had barely stopped started flowing again. Seong-woon hurriedly covered his face with a handkerchief and turned around, walking quickly towards the waiting room.

Fortunately, no one bothered Seong-woon, perhaps understanding that his intense emotions were due to acting, and no one followed him to the waiting room. That is, except for Baek Sang-hyun.

” Jeon Seong-woon Sunbae.”

Closing the waiting room door hastily in shock, Seong-woon looked up at Baek Sang-hyun, unable to properly hide his wet face. Sang-hyun looked like he was forcibly holding back something that kept welling up inside him.

“…Sunbae, I think you’ve called the wrong person.”

“Will you… Will you not tell me until the end? After giving such a performance, and worrying about me… like that, can’t you tell me?”

Sang-hyun approached Seong-woon more closely as he spat out these sentences. Yes, ‘spat out’ was a more fitting expression than ‘said’. Words that had been forcibly suppressed for too long, compressed endlessly, and now bursting out like a spring.

He should have called him ‘sunbae’ as usual, but that title just wouldn’t come out. Seong-woon glared at Sang-hyun with his lips tightly bitten. But the surging emotions simply wouldn’t subside, and tears fell in drops along his chin.

Sang-hyun’s trembling hand caught those teardrops and moved up along the wet chin and cheek. When those fingertips’ trembling touched the corner of his eye, Seong-woon ended up closing his eyes.

“I tried to pretend not to know until the end. If that’s what you wanted, I always did that. But that end… was your death, wasn’t it?”

He should have snapped back, saying he didn’t know what Sang-hyun was talking about, asking if he was crazy. But at that pleading voice, Seong-woon could only act like someone whose tongue had stiffened.

Even after finishing the drama “Collaboration”, Sang-hyun would occasionally contact Seong-woon just to check in, sometimes to seek advice about acting, sometimes without any particular reason for calling.

Those contacts, slightly scary and reluctant yet welcome, excited Seong-woon. That’s why he even went so far as to meet Sang-hyun outside, didn’t he?

It was a weekday with almost no people, at a cafe on the outskirts of Seoul. Even though the coffee tasted really bad and was expensive, and a small cake cost almost ten thousand won, which seemed wasteful, the time spent sitting face to face was precious. At least until the sighting reports came out in the evening.

“Why is Baek Sang-hyun meeting someone like that?”

“How much must JSW have begged to meet…”

“That one hasn’t been showing up much lately.. Is it because he has no one else to pretend to be close with except Baek Sang-hyun?”

“So tactless…”

“Birds of a feather flock together, don’t you know? lol”

It was okay for them to insult him. He was used to it. But he couldn’t bear Baek Sang-hyun being insulted because of him, so Seong-woon called Baek Sang-hyun for the first time on his own initiative.

Telling him not to contact him anymore, strangely enough, made him feel sad, and he waited for Sang-hyun’s response while holding the phone with both hands.

After starting to speak several times, Sang-hyun reluctantly gave only one answer:

‘If that’s what you want, I’ll do that.’

That was the last conversation between Baek Sang-hyun and Jeon Seong-woon. Not even a few months later, Jeon Seong-woon died meaninglessly. On that day, the light disappeared from Baek Sang-hyun’s world.

“Am I crazy? Really?”

“…”

“Ryu Chae-yoon, am I crazy?”

Sang-hyun gripped Seong-woon’s shoulders with both hands. Seong-woon, who had barely been avoiding his gaze, looked up in surprise.

Though reddened around the edges, Sang-hyun’s eyes sparkled more than ever before. Seong-woon belatedly realized it was because of tears.

As someone else’s tears fell on his cheeks, Seong-woon could no longer keep his mouth shut.

Having removed his watch for filming, he felt his bare left wrist with his other hand and squeezed his eyes shut. Sang-hyun pleaded, seizing the moment when Seong-woon’s lips were half-open.

“You know what? You’re a star, sunbae. I’m the moon. The moon can’t shine without stars. It dies.”

“…”

“You had a similar scar, didn’t you? On your left wrist.”

It was when he was about twenty-three. Seong-woon thought he couldn’t live anymore. But the moment he made the wound, he realized. He realized that he was someone who couldn’t even kill himself. The moment the blade cut his skin, his desire to live flared up, frustrating him even more.

The hands gripping his shoulders loosen. Frustration etches itself in Sang-hyun’s eyes. Seong-woon inhales deeply, staring intently at that expression.

“The person who brought me back to life died… How could I live on?”

‘So you’re saying you’d rather die?’ 

Seong-woon grabbed Sang-hyun’s arms as they slipped off his shoulders. His tear-soaked face looked no different from the photo taken at Seong-woon’s funeral.

On Sang-hyun’s palm, sliding down, there was a long scar extending to the back of his hand. Whenever anyone asked about the origin of that scar, he would just laugh it off. Thinking he would have responded exactly like that if asked about the scar on his left wrist, Seong-woon had swallowed his doubts, thinking “surely not”.

‘What if he made such a wound again?’ 

Unlike Seong-woon’s shallow scar, Baek Sang-hyun’s was enough to cut a major blood vessel. Feeling goosebumps all over his body, Seong-woon approached him. Ryu Chae-yoon’s wish, the quest, that Yoon Gwanwi and karma – none of it came to mind.

“Even if I say so, how can you believe it? What if I’ve gone crazy? Maybe Ryu Chae-yoon suddenly went mad and created Jeon Seong-woon’s personality. I think I might be crazy…”

“Then we can live as crazy people together.”

“…Baek Sang-hyun.”

“We’re long past the point of worrying about that.”

Baek Sang-hyun’s trembling hand touched his cheek again. In Sang-hyun’s eyes, Seong-woon saw both Ryu Chae-yoon and Jeon Seong-woon in his own crazed reflection.

“Sunbae.”

“…”

“Sunbae, please…”

“…Sang-hyun.”

Next to Baek Sang-hyun’s strange face, smiling through tears, a hologram suddenly appeared.

—The final wish has been completed.

‘Right now?’

—Initiating soul adjustment project termination sequence.

With that, consciousness abruptly cut off.

* * *

‘What on earth is this situation?’ 

Seong-woon barely revived his dazed consciousness. It felt like floating in an infinitely expanding universe.

He had fainted several times before due to Ryu Chae-yoon’s frail body, but this was different. It was as if the connection to his physical body had been cut off, like a battery suddenly dying.

All he could see was literally a black space, and a hologram with just one sentence written on it:

—Initiating the soul adjustment project termination sequence.

‘Couldn’t you give some explanation before doing this?’ 

If he had lost consciousness, he would have collapsed in front of Sang-hyun, so how would they deal with the aftermath? His family was already overprotective, surely Baek Sang-hyun wouldn’t join in too?

─ The project is finally ending.

‘C1012?’

─ Yes. It seems that while the soul and body are merging, it’s difficult for the body to function properly. So we shut it down and proceed…

‘Everyone will be worried. What are we going to do about this? Collapsing like that in front of Baek Sang-hyun… And what about the family?’

─ We didn’t expect the final wish to be considered fulfilled with just that one call.

‘Why? Is this also something karma handles on its own, so you don’t know?’

─ No. It’s Ryu Chae-yoon’s wish, so Ryu Chae-yoon decides.

‘So Ryu Chae-yoon is…’

─ Ryu Chae-yoon is Jeon Seong-woon, and Jeon Seong-woon is Ryu Chae-yoon, right? In other words, the moment you were convinced that the wish had been fulfilled, the termination sequence began.

Seong-woon nodded with his imperceptible body while floating in the black space. He could now accept that Ryu Chae-yoon was Jeon Seong-woon, and Jeon Seong-woon was Ryu Chae-yoon.

‘So do I have to stay like this?’

─ It will take a little time. But time flows differently in this space compared to the real world, so not much time will have passed.

Seong-woon blankly stared at the blue hologram and the black sky, recalling his conversation with Baek Sang-hyun. Sang-hyun pleading while crying, Sang-hyun demanding to know if he was crazy, Sang-hyun smiling the brightest in the world after hearing his answer… He couldn’t tell when this one person had become so embedded in him.

…Well, he was the only one from the beginning. The only person who didn’t dislike Jeon Seong-woon, no, who liked him.

‘I’m curious about something… You, Baek Sang-hyun, and Ryu Chae-yoon kept talking about light.’

─ Yes.

‘It seems like you’re saying light comes from me… but I don’t really see it.’

─ You need good eyes to see it.

‘Eyes?’

─ Baek Sang-hyun has more than enough qualifications to become a Yoon Gwanwi handler later. Because he’s someone who sees souls, not appearances.

‘So that’s why he didn’t dislike me. You said other people disliked me because of the discrepancy between my soul and body. If he could see souls from the beginning…’

─ There would be no reason to dislike you. Jeon Seong-woon is a soul that C2217 fell for at first sight, enough to pull out of karma.

‘What about Ryu Chae-yoon?’

─ Ryu Chae-yoon was… desperate.

‘…Because of the thirst, right?’

─ That’s right. If Baek Sang-hyun was born with naturally good eyes, you could say Ryu Chae-yoon developed them later.

‘…What am I to them?’ 

Seong-woon tried to calm his welling chest. Even though it was clearly a space where his physical body didn’t exist, he felt as if his heart was fluttering strangely.

─ Once the soul is perfectly adjusted and merged with the body, diseases caused by the difference between the soul and the body will disappear.

[So now Ryu Chae-yoon’s body will be completely healed?’

─ Yes, that’s right. Although we can’t completely erase all traces of having been ill.

This is one piece of good news. At least he won’t be taken away from Ryu Chae-yoon’s family. …It seems like he can call them his family now, too. Of course, even if the illness is cured, they will continue to worry and overprotect, but knowing it’s all out of affection, he will accept it gladly.

And he can return the light to Baek Sang-hyun, too. If he had a body, his face would probably have turned bright red, but since he didn’t have one now, Seong-woon thought shamelessly.

As if stars had suddenly appeared in the black sky, the space began to split. Light gradually fills up.

─ …All of this was a mistake by the Reincarnation Management Committee. So we’ll grant one wish for Seong-woon, within our capabilities.

Seong-woon quietly stared into the void, and C1012 waited for quite a while.

‘I don’t have one. All my wishes have already come true.’

─ …Is that so?

‘Yes.’

Seong-woon answered without a hint of regret. The text on the hologram that had been floating in the now light-filled space slowly changed.

—Terminating the Soul Adjustment Project.

***

“…Chae-yoon!”

“What on earth, young master…”

This situation feels somewhat familiar. Seong-woon recalled when he first woke up in Ryu Chae-yoon’s body. All family members except Ryu Chang-yoon were surrounding the bed, looking down at him.

As soon as his fingertips twitched, the surroundings suddenly went quiet. Thankfully, his body didn’t hurt. Rather, it felt as good as it could be, as if he had just woken up from a very long, restful sleep. Of course, compared to Seong-woon’s original body, it still felt as heavy as water-soaked cotton.

“…Ryu Chae-yoon.”

The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was Sang-hyun’s pale face. His eyes were already red from crying at the filming site, but now they were as red as if blood had coagulated in them.

“…I’m okay.”

“Okay? You just suddenly…”

Seong-woon reached out and hugged Sang-hyun’s head. He had wanted to do this the entire time he was floating in that black space.

“…Young master? Are you alright?”

Hyeong-seok, who had boarded the van, turned around and asked, inhaling sharply. It seemed someone had carried the collapsed Seong-woon from the waiting room to the car. He thought a lot of time had passed, but it was shorter than he expected.

“Yes. I guess I relaxed after the filming ended.”

Seong-woon answered calmly while still holding Sang-hyun’s head. Hyeong-seok, who had been staring at the scene with his mouth agape, tried hard to maintain his composure.

“The filming site was in chaos.”

“I’m sorry for causing trouble.”

“It wasn’t that bad… Let’s go to the hospital quickly.”

“I don’t think I need to go to the hospital.”

“What?”

“I think I just had a momentary blackout because the tension suddenly released after acting… My heart rate is fine now, and the defibrillator didn’t activate, so it doesn’t seem to be a heart problem.”

“…Young master.”

Seeing that Hyeong-seok was unlikely to back down easily, Seong-woon decided to compromise first.

“Then please give me some time to talk. I’ll go to the hospital after that.”

Hyeong-seok looked alternately at Seong-woon and Sang-hyun with a disapproving face, then reluctantly nodded and got out of the van. Finally, they were alone in the small space.

“You should go to the hospital.”

“It’s okay. I’m all better now.”