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“…….”
That didn't happen.
What had just happened was all in my imagination.
“Sigh.”
I'm a web novel author.
I'm currently serializing a novel on a platform called Soseol Joa, and despite how I might look, I'm a published author, not an aspiring one.
‘The problem is…….’
I'm damn near unpopular.
By my rough calculations, I wasn't even making half the minimum hourly wage.
Still, if I included the income from my older works, I made enough to put food on the table.
“Do I……?”
“Myaa.”
Honestly, I wasn't sure.
Once I added up all this one's food and treats, things were always tight.
“……Let's watch TV.”
As I picked up the remote, a snow-white lump sprang onto my lap.
Louie.
Apparently, Louie was a Turkish Angora mix. The cat's whole body was white as snow, with just a hint of cream at the tips of the ears.
I'd had Louie since I lived in America and brought the cat with me when I moved to Korea.
The cost of quarantine, paperwork, and a plane seat still made my chest ache when I thought about it, but what else could I do?
In this little world of mine, Louie was the only living being who interacted with me.
“……I really don't get why anyone watches this stuff.”
An observational variety show was in full swing on the screen.
It was the kind of program I understood least of all.
What was so entertaining about watching celebrities live in luxury?
I couldn't relate to any of it.
Were we supposed to get some vicarious satisfaction out of it?
‘I don't care how good you have it!’
Speaking as a backseat critic from the comfort of my room, shows like that were pretty awful.
All they did was make me feel deprived by comparison. They were the first programs that ought to be canceled.
Ironically, though, observational variety shows remained consistently popular.
Just then, my phone vibrated.
A Soseol Joa notification.
“?!”
I'd just gained a subscriber.
I sprang to my feet on instinct.
“Louie!”
I scooped Louie up and spun around once in place.
Louie stared at me, tail standing straight up.
“Myaaaargh!”
I didn't know who it was, but somewhere in the world, there was now one more person who'd read everything I'd written of my novel and even pressed the subscribe button.
Maybe this was what happiness was.
It wasn't that showy stuff.
I carefully set Louie down and looked back at the screen.
‘They're still at it.’
The way they were making such a fuss among themselves over nothing was quite a sight.
For the record, someone had just made a simple dish, and the panelists were clapping like seals over that alone.
I clicked my tongue and changed the channel.
‘Oh, hi.’
After I pressed the button a few times, I appeared on the screen.
It was a movie that had come out some time ago, but to repeat myself, that was me.
My face, to be precise.
‘Park Song-hu.’
I have an older brother who is my identical twin.
But the lives we lead couldn't be more different.
Unlike me, who spent all my time in my room, my brother was what you'd call a top star.
If you're wondering how that was possible, the answer was simple.
We grew up apart.
Our parents divorced when we were six.
Our father stayed in Korea with Park Song-hu, while our mother took me to America.
From then on, we were practically strangers.
The only thing we shared was a face.
Our backgrounds and the environments we grew up in were entirely different. We'd lived completely different lives.
My brother grew up in the heart of Seoul with our father, wanting for nothing. I lived with our mother in an old apartment on the outskirts of California.
Oh, and what was my life in America like……?
Well…… I don't think I need to explain at length what happens when an Asian kid who can barely speak English gets thrown into a local school.
Whenever they saw me, they'd pull their eyes sideways and chant ching chang chong.
As things like that piled up, simply standing in front of people became terrifying, and I grew more and more timid.
By the time I was in high school, I'd become someone who stayed shut in his room all the time.
Then my mother died.
I was twenty-three.
After that, I couldn't find any particular reason to stay in America, so I returned to Korea.
And ever since, I'd carried on living without setting foot outside my room.
‘That's worked out well for Park Song-hu. I've been holed up in my room, quiet as a dead mouse.’
The public had no idea Park Song-hu had a younger twin brother, either.
I didn't know whether it was his agency's decision or his own, but they'd chosen not to reveal it.
Imagine having a celebrity you were a huge fan of, then finding out there was another person who looked exactly like him.
That would feel a little strange, wouldn't it?
It didn't matter anyway.
What difference did it make when I stayed home all the time?
I just liked my life as it was.
My peaceful little room, where no one looked at me and no one spoke to me.
Park Song-hu and I had agreed on that.
He must have had a conscience, because he occasionally sent me some money by way of consolation.
I didn't know whether it was unspoken pressure to stay shut in my room or what.
“It's dangerous outside the blanket. Right, Louie?”
“Prrrr…….”
When I pressed a finger into Louie's belly, a hind paw shot out like lightning and smacked the back of my hand.
The claws stayed in, so that was Louie's way of warning me.
Do it again and the claws would come out for real.
I obediently withdrew my hand.
‘Wow…… He's really bad at acting.’
On the screen, Park Song-hu was gazing at a window with a mawkish expression.
Typical wooden acting.
I'm thinking. I'm sad. I've got so much on my mind…….
“Pfft!”
Oh, this was funnier than the variety show.
Park Song-hu got a lot of criticism for his acting, too.
He was one of the entertainment industry's poster boys for wooden acting.
And yet Park Song-hu was playing the lead now.
If you're wondering how that was possible, the answer was simple.
‘One trick: his face.’
You know the type.
The one considered an extraordinary beauty in the entertainment industry.
The male celebrity whose name always came up first whenever looks were discussed.
He was also 186 centimeters tall and had a tiny face, so his proportions were great.
“……Oh.”
Was I complimenting myself?
I was looking at the mirror hanging beside the TV when I heard it.
[So pleeease!]
[Just listen to me, okay?]
[We don't have tiiiime for this!]
“Puhahaha!”
That had to be an impression of someone who urgently needed to take a dump.
There was no way that was his emotional performance at the movie's climax!
Anyway, Park Song-hu had become a top star on the strength of his face alone, but these days, he wasn't appearing on TV.
Last year, a video surfaced of the crazy bastard swearing at a private gathering.
I didn't know who filmed it, but Park Song-hu had been furious and hurled every kind of curse there was.
‘The headlines screamed about a top star's conduct scandal, and the gossip vultures happily spread it everywhere…….’
Things had calmed down a little now, but for a while he got an enormous amount of abuse.
‘Come to think of it, didn't he have to pay a contract penalty, too?’
I didn't contact him when the scandal broke, either.
I just ate rice with egg and soy sauce while watching people dig up my brother's past in real time on online forums.
‘Once that scandal about his character broke, every old comment of his got dragged back into the spotlight, and people tore into him for those, too.’
They said his emotions always showed on his face, that he couldn't hide his temper, that they'd known it was only a matter of time before he fell from grace…….
When his career was going strong, people had spun his bluntness as a charming quality. Now he'd long since been reduced to someone with a rotten character.
‘Being a celebrity isn't all it's cracked up to be.’
Bzzzz—
Right then, Park Song-hu called me.
‘Why's he calling all of a sudden? Did something happen? I can't think of any reason he'd call.’
For the record, my brother hadn't called me once in the past several years.
‘Ah, it's going to be awkward if I answer…….’
I swallowed and picked up.
“……H-hello?”
And then came his words.
“……?”
***
As soon as I hung up, I started getting ready to go out.
When was the last time I'd left the house?
It had been so long I couldn't remember.
I only had a few outfits anyway, so there was nothing to deliberate over. I put on a black cap and a black mask.
Since I had the same face as Park Song-hu, I had to cover it thoroughly.
“Myaaow.”
Once I was ready, Louie followed me to the front door and looked up at me.
It seemed strange to the cat that its butler was going out, something I never did.
“D-don't worry. I can get there and back on my own.”
“Mya……?”
“I-I mean it! I'll be back!”
I opened the front door with an air of confidence.
‘Calm down.’
The finger I used to press the elevator button was trembling.
It's okay.
I'm just going to the hospital and back.
Then I'll take a taxi home, and that'll be that.
‘It's simple.’
The doors opened.
There was one person inside the elevator.
‘Eek!’
Our eyes met.
I instinctively lowered my head and squeezed myself into a corner.
Why did the ride down to the first floor take so long?
[First floor]
I darted out.
Two women walking in the distance glanced at me.
A man turned his head as he passed by.
Could they have recognized me?
Could they tell just from the eyes showing above my mask?
Oh, was I walking strangely?
Once I became conscious of it, I could feel my gait turning unnatural.
How was I supposed to swing my arms to look natural?
When you walked, did your arms go this way or that way?
The more I thought about it, the more I felt like I was moving like a robot.
The Kakao Taxi I'd called ahead of time was waiting in front of the villa.
As soon as I climbed into the back seat, I gave a quick nod and pretended to stare out the window.
“You're quite tall. Careful you don't bump your head.”
“…….”
“Lovely weather today.”
“…….”
The taxi driver had unleashed small talk on me!
“Ah, yes! The weather's nice! The weather's great!”
The driver looked at me in the rearview mirror, puzzled.
His expression said he was wondering if I was sick.
“Your destination's a hospital. Are you unwell?”
“Ah, well, no, it's…….”
For some reason, the driver nodded as though he understood and didn't speak to me again.
A little while later, after all that trouble, I arrived at the hospital.
As my brother had instructed, I went in through a separate entrance by the underground parking garage. You could reach the VIP ward without going through the lobby.
Security was everything, or something like that.
Park Song-hu was the one who'd fallen from grace, but somehow I felt like I was the one who'd committed a crime.
[VIP Room]
“Phew…….”
I took a deep breath and knocked.
Knock, knock—
“Come in.”
Only after going inside did I take off my cap and mask.
My brother, dressed in a hospital gown, was sitting propped at an angle on the bed.
“Oh, you're here?”
I kept stealing glances at him before I finally managed to speak.
“H-hello.”
“I told you, you can speak casually to me.”
“Ah, but, um, on the phone you definitely said…….”
My brother had called out of the blue to tell me he'd been given a terminal diagnosis.
But the person in front of me looked perfectly fine.
His complexion was good, he didn't seem to have lost any weight, and his voice was strong.
He had exactly the same face I'd seen on TV earlier.
“What, you don't believe me?”
“Ah, no. It's not that…….”
“It's true. Pancreatic cancer.”
“…….”
“They say pancreatic cancer hardly has any warning signs. That's why they found it so late.”
My brother gave an awkward smile.
“I only found out yesterday myself. I'd been feeling like absolute shit lately, so I got a checkup. I never expected them to say it was pancreatic cancer.”
“But, um, don't celebrities make a point of getting health checkups……?”
“I had trouble digesting things, and my back hurt. At first I figured it was just stress. You know what I've been going through lately.”
He was lying low.
Because of the scandal over his conduct.
“And they said I've got about three months left.”
“…….”
I didn't know what expression I had on my face.
“Hey, we came out of the same womb. We're twins. At least pretend to be sad.”
That was what Park Song-hu said.
……Honestly, he was right.
It was a shock, but I wasn't overwhelmingly sad.
Even though we were identical twins, we'd lived like strangers ever since we were separated at six.
I didn't know what his childhood had been like, what he liked, or what he usually did. I didn't know anything about him.
We hardly even kept in touch.
Louie was all I had.
So, to put it coldly, he was a stranger…….
“You little bastard. I gave you spending money now and then, and it was all for nothing.”
“Ah, um, I'm grateful for that!”
“Hey, if you're really grateful…….”
Park Song-hu looked me straight in the eye.
“Go on a variety show in my place tomorrow, will you?”
“?”
What?