Summer in San Diego is pleasant. I’d been to Korea once, and summers there were so miserable people literally called it a “steaming cauldron.” San Diego, unlike Korea, has low humidity, and even in the height of summer the temperature doesn’t soar.
Thanks to that, even in summer I slept with the blanket pulled up over my head and nearly overslept.
Luckily, when I didn’t wake up after the second phone alarm, the smartwatch paired to my phone started buzzing and shook me awake.
I silenced the vibration on the watch and pushed myself up, bleary.
“Ah……”
I sat there for a few seconds, blinking blankly, then lifted the blanket to check underneath. …Great. Hand-wash duty today.
“Having a wet dream at my age, seriously……”
Must be because I bought the smartwatch. Who knew I’d dream about doing that with Caesar O’n.
Sexy and all, sure, but when I think about the laundry it comes out to plus minus zero.
I yawned long and hard and muttered out of habit.
“Anyway, if a billionaire shows up in my dream, maybe I should buy a lottery ticket.”
If anyone heard me, they’d ask what logic connects a celebrity cameo in a dream to the lottery. But for me it wasn’t totally unreasonable.
My dreams tend to be pretty accurate.
It started around my early teens. If I dreamed something, it almost always hit dead on.
I’d even heard my mother once had a “conception dream.” In Korea, they say unusual dreams are fairly common, and apparently I, who inherited only the blood, am especially good at prophetic dreams too.
I rubbed at my puffy, reluctant eyelids and thought:
I’ll just set it so it buys a few automatically after work.
I added “buy lottery tickets” to my phone reminders, then got up and started getting ready for work.
Maybe because I’d dreamed of Caesar O’n, the day was full of run-ins related to him.
Like the printing on that customer’s T-shirt walking by, for one……
McQueen, amused by the billboard-sized print of Caesar’s face, kept sneaking glances at the back of the passing customer.
Then he suddenly said, “Must be nice.”
“Huh?”
He tapped the corner of his own left eye with a fingertip. “You’ve got the same eye color as Caesar O’n.”
“What?”
“Your left eye. The one with heterochromia. That silvery shine is gorgeous.”
Then he added, “Not flirting, by the way—I’m straight.”
“Really jealous. Must make flirting a breeze, huh?”
“Ahaha, funny.”
“Not a joke. Light-colored eyes are the symbol of romance to begin with. And yours are even the same silver as the O’n family.”
I burst out laughing at his strange compliment. “What, did you convert to the O’on church?”
Announcing you’ve joined the O’on church so you won’t be going to church anymore is a current social-media trend. It blew up after Caesar O’n—whose popularity borders on religious—was tapped as the next family head.
Of course it’s just a tiny bit of mischief from young Protestants who don’t feel like going to Sunday service. Not many people are seriously converting.
McQueen answered, sheepish, “I’m not some kid who hates going to church on Sundays. And I’m Catholic, for one.”
“I’m sure you are.”
When I gave a noncommittal reply, McQueen asked, puzzled, “If it were me I’d have posted hundreds of selfies by now, but you don’t seem moved at all. Sharing a trait with a celebrity is a good thing, no?”
“If you want to see it that way, you can. Looking special isn’t automatically bad.”
But being special isn’t automatically good, either.
“A lot of people hated me for it.”
“Who on earth?”
“Real O’on church fanatics.”
Right. There’s a reason people describe Caesar’s popularity as “religious.”
“As of now calling yourself O’on church is a joke, but when I was a kid it wasn’t a joke.”
As far back as I can remember—at least thirty years—the people with the surname O’n have been obsessed with giving.
Caesar, the current head, is one thing, but his parents, the previous heads, founded a slew of charities and scattered money everywhere.
“Counting from the grandfather’s generation, the family has donated an easy six trillion dollars (about 8,150 trillion won). It makes sense some people worship them like actual gods.”
“I get that. I’m asking why O’on church people dislike you.”
“The year Caesar O’n lost his eye in firearms class is the year I developed heterochromia. My accident happened a week earlier.”
It was spectacularly bad timing.
Thanks to that, I remember vividly the strange looks I got the day I took off the eyepatch I’d worn for a year. No one said it out loud, but everyone obviously thought of one person.
“In school they even called me ‘eyeball thief’ for a while.”
“That’s ridiculous. There are successful cases of eyeball transplants, but it’s not a commercialized procedure.”
“Right. Logically it makes no sense. But religion is believing in things logic can’t explain.”
I smiled, unbothered. “Some people are just like that.”
McQueen looked at me like he still couldn’t make sense of it.
I didn’t bother explaining further. Since he was working with me now, I figured sooner or later he’d meet an O’on church zealot himself.
And with impeccable timing, that very day McQueen found out I was telling the truth—because at noon an O’on church zealot came to the department store.
A shaggy-haired man shouted, voice menacing. “You’re the bastard who begged God for his eye!”
Noting his unfocused gaze, I thought:
So much for buying a lottery ticket because a billionaire showed up in my dream. Apparently the warning was that I’d run into one of his zealots.
Should I really be wearing contact lenses at work like people say? But lenses wreck my corneas fast, so that’s not really an option……
I kept smiling helplessly, and McQueen, manning the other side, spoke to me over the radio.
A voice came through the in-ear in my ear.
“This morning they say Caesar O’n filmed nearby.”
Ah.
“You know the park behind the store? They shot a commercial there.”
So he’d stopped by the store after going to see that.
When I made a face that said I got it, McQueen brought his lips back to the radio. “Want me to call Security?”
I answered with the slightest nod.
By then the zealot’s patience had snapped. He swung his arm and yelled, “Give it back right now!”
He strode toward me and reached out. If I let him, he looked ready to try and scoop out my eye with his hand.
Yikes.
Good thing I asked McQueen to call Security……
I kept as calm as I could and said, “Sir, you can’t do this.”
“That’s Caesar O’n’s eye!”
“It’s my eye, sir…… this is unfair……”
The color’s a little odd, sure, but it was made by my own cells……
The zealot barely listened and kept bellowing in aggrieved outrage.
“You don’t even feel sorry for him?!”
I think you’re the one who might try feeling sorry for me……
He’s furious. Angry people don’t respond well to reason—how am I supposed to talk him down and send him away……?
Could I calm him by promising to “return it later”? Wouldn’t that be nice.
I was thinking that as I lifted both hands in surrender and smiled—when the zealot whipped something out and leveled it at my forehead.
……
A self-defense revolver caught the light and flashed, and screams erupted all around.
……
Security rushed in, drew a Taser, and aimed at the zealot, but he didn’t seem scared at all; he even grinned.
“The eye and the head have to go back to him. So I won’t shoot the head.”
He’s got nothing to lose. He’s decided it’s fine to die here.
Cold sweat trickled down my back.
“But you aren’t the least bit remorseful, and that makes me so mad……”
“Sir, please calm down.”
“What did he do wrong to lose an eye at the tender age of twelve?”
The zealot, brow knotted in injustice, lowered the muzzle toward my leg. There’s a major artery in the leg too, you dumb bastard!
“Give it back……”
As the madness pressed in and I went white, a quiet voice came from a distance.
“A Glock took my eye.”
A voice so low it radiated pressure, with crisp diction. And for all that weight, a tone so gentle it almost sounded kind.
“I was cleaning the gun when some debris got in. I didn’t notice and started target practice, and the Glock blew backward.”
Its owner closed the distance between us in a few strides.
He came up beside the zealot and, with a smiling lilt, whispered, “Be good. Don’t take your anger out on the wrong person.”
“My God……”
“I’d like you to hand that to me.”
The zealot’s hand shook as he passed the gun over.
Only then did the tension ease.
“Whew……”
I forced my stiff neck to lift and looked at the man.
Charcoal hair cut in layers with the nape left long. Tall, solid build. …An eyepatch.
I couldn’t see his face clearly while he spoke to the zealot, but every feature lined up.
No way. Really?
While I stared dumbly at the back of his head, he turned and checked my side. A face as flawless as a wax figure—and an eye that gleamed like melted silver came into view.
After seeing that face, there was no denying it.
Caesar O’n.
The man who’d shown up in my dream last night had really appeared here.