“Seo Yutae.”
“Stop calling me. My name will get worn out.”
As I bluntly answered the voice calling my name over and over again, tears suddenly fell from Choi Jeokhyeon’s eyes.
“Wow, it’s Seo Yutae.”
His face was smiling, but his eyes were overflowing with tears. No matter how I looked at him, his condition didn’t seem normal, so I hurriedly turned my head to check if anyone was around. Fortunately, it was late, and since we were in the parking lot where few people passed by, there were no signs of anyone nearby.
I immediately grabbed Choi Jeokhyeon, who was crying uncontrollably, by the collar and shoved him into the car. As soon as he got into the passenger seat, I yelled at him.
“Who told you to drive in such a way, you crazy bastard! Are you drunk?”
“Hahaha, you’re really Seo Yutae.”
In response to the harsh insults that were thrown at him, Choi Jeokhyeon burst into a refreshing laughter.
Somehow, he looked very happy even after being insulted.
“Are you drunk?!”
“Thank goodness. We finally met.”
He was crying, laughing, and making a scene all by himself, yet he never answered my question and only said what he wanted to say. If a normal person responded like that, I would have considered them drunk, but this guy, who performed eccentric acts every day, was a different case.
I eventually gave up trying to get an answer from him and checked to see if he smelled of alcohol. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to be drunk.
Having confirmed that much, I quickly grabbed Choi Jeokhyeon’s face and spoke through clenched teeth, “Slow down when you’re driving in an apartment complex. Did you get your license with bribes? Unless you’ve got udon noodles in your head instead of a brain, you should know these basic things, right?”
“Ouch, your temper is still the same. Haha.”
I glared at Choi Jeokhyeon, who was grinning, let out a deep sigh, and released him. He behaved like this, yet I still called him my friend, huh. Let’s just say it was my fault for running around like a wild deer at this hour.
Then, Choi Jeokhyeon, who had escaped from my grasp, smiled brightly and said, “Since you keep running away … I had no choice. I’m sorry I almost hit you. But you’re not dead, so it’s okay, right?”
“…….”
If it were even somewhat reasonable, I might feel like arguing back, but when he really only picked insane things to say, I had no idea where to even start pointing out the problems.
…Should I just send him to the police?
“Shall we switch seats?”
I was so baffled, I could only sit there dumbfounded. In the meantime, Choi Jeokhyeon, having calmed himself down in his own way, blinked a few times and made a suggestion to me. I, doubting my ears, asked him back.
“….You’re going to drive?”
You nearly caused an accident, and you have the nerve to?
Noticing my doubt, Choi Jeokhyeon shyly rubbed the back of his neck and answered, “I don’t have to chase you anymore, so I won’t cause any accidents.”
I grabbed my throbbing head and spoke, “Go, go…….”
“Got it!”
.
.
.
Just when I was dumbfounded by how well he was driving, the car stopped at a place I was quite familiar with. It was Choi Jeokhyeon’s house, where I had stayed for quite a long time back when I didn’t have a place to live.
As I walked down the familiar path, almost unchanged from my memories, and reached the front door, Choi Jeokhyeon leaned back, waiting for me to open the door. He was clearly checking if I knew the correct password.
‘How dare you test me?’
I scoffed at his actions and quickly typed in the door lock’s password. It wouldn’t open with just that anyway, since Choi Jeokhyeon had to use fingerprint recognition.
The door opened, and I casually walked down the long hallway and sat down on the sofa in the living room.
Then, Choi Jeokhyeon, who had been watching me with a hand over his mouth, spoke in a slightly playful tone, “How is it? How does it feel to come back to your friend’s house after a long time?”
I waved my hands in annoyance and opened my mouth, “Enough of this nonsense. How the hell did you find out?”
He smiled slightly at what I said and sat down on the sofa beside me. And then, with a bright smile, he answered casually.
“Your body disappeared right before my eyes, without a trace.”
“….What?”
I had already prepared myself, knowing he was the type of person to say something crazy, but I never expected him to say something like
that
. Completely taken aback by his unexpected words, I blankly asked him again.
He burst into laughter at my reaction, then tilted his head to the side and said, “Haha, you don’t really like listening to other people talk for long. That’s why I got straight to the point.”
“…Explain it in detail. There must be something else you left out.”
“It’s exactly as it sounds. When I heard the news of your death, I couldn’t believe it unless I saw it with my own eyes, so I went to the morgue. And there I saw you, cold, pale, and stiff, looking every bit like a dead person.”
I had never really thought much about my body after I died.
I listened to Choi Jeokhyeon’s words with a complex feeling, unable to grasp the reality of his story.
“Even after seeing that, I couldn’t accept it, so I sat there for a long time. During that time, I watched you without taking my eyes off you for even a moment. The mortician was also standing beside me.”
“…….”
“But then, suddenly, your body disappeared right before my eyes. I even reached into the space where you had been just moments ago, but I couldn’t feel any sensation, not even a sense of weight.”
Even though I was hearing it for the second time, it was still a story I couldn’t understand.
I was originally a human living in the real world, not someone who casually used superpowers like a character from a novel or a comic. I didn’t even fully understand the principles behind this possession, so I never imagined that something as absurd as this would happen again.
The first thought that came to mind was that Choi Jeokhyeon had a mental problem.
“If you’re seeing such hallucinations, shouldn’t you go to a psychiatrist first?”
“If I was the only one who felt something was strange, then it probably was just a hallucination. But while they were covering your body with a white cloth and moving you, even the morticians were tilting their heads, saying ‘
This is strange
‘, ‘
It’s too light
‘, ‘
Is there really someone inside
?’. So, I stopped them and asked if we should remove the cloth and check again in case there was something wrong.…”
“…….”
“They groaned as if they had a headache, then suddenly asked, with a completely calm expression, ‘
What’s the problem?
‘. Even though they had just said it was strange, they acted like they had no memory of it at all. In the end, I insisted on opening it again, and when we did, you were still gone. But they just replied, ‘
See. He’s fine
‘, and then left as if nothing had happened. Isn’t that strange?”
If Choi Jeokhyeon had been seeing things alone, I would have just ignored him, thinking he’s always been a weirdo. But if other people were involved, then it was a different story. With a troubled mind, I rested my chin on my hand and let out a deep sigh.
Something about it felt too unsettling to just ignore.
The classmates who had almost no memory or impression of Han Seungbeom, my frequent headaches and unclear memories, and the story about the morticians that Choi Jeokhyeon recounted.
These three things, which I had found the strangest since I opened my eyes in Han Seungbeom’s body, had something in common.
The idea that a person’s memories or thought processes were being manipulated by something.
And the fact that it happened to me, or to people connected to Han Seungbeom.
‘What Choi Jeokhyeon experienced might not just be a delusion. After all, the fact that I, an already dead person, am walking around in the world is just as unrealistic. Could there be some kind of special power at work?’
As countless questions flooded my mind, I shook my head and continued the conversation with Choi Jeokhyeon.
“So, what does the disappearance of my body have to do with you recognizing me?”
“After that, I realized something strange was happening. So I started watching everyone around you. I didn’t want to live without knowing who, why, and how your body disappeared. And I thought the most promising thing was to find out
who
did it.”
“…….”
“So, I started periodically provoking the people around you to see how they would react. Your funeral was held completely in private, and I even visited the morgue before the funeral took place. If someone took your body that day, it’s highly likely it was someone close to you.”
‘So, he’s suspecting that it was someone close enough to know the location of the morgue in advance.’
At those words, I recalled the memory of the third mission and asked, “You were the one who gave Cha Woon and Jay access to the cloud, weren’t you? Was that also part of the plan?”
“That’s right. Especially the Prism members, they were the primary targets. In the end, that really helped in noticing your existence.”
If the cloud incident really helped him notice my existence, the first hypothesis was that the members who had access to the cloud informed Choi Jeokhyeon about my existence.
However, Cha Woon was still uncertain about my identity, and Jay was the only one who knew about it. And no matter how much Choi Jeokhyeon tried, there was no way Jay would reveal anything about me to others.
So, I scowled and immediately denied his statement.
“There’s no way Jay would have told you about me. Don’t lie.”
He chuckled at my adamant attitude, then nodded and continued, “Of course, Yoo Jay didn’t say anything to me directly. But do you know this? Just because you keep your mouth shut doesn’t mean you can hide everything.”
“What kind of nonsense is that?”
“You deleted the songs on the cloud. Those kids would never throw away what you left behind on their own. But Yoo Jay deleted them all without any hesitation. And then, he noticeably regained his stability. Can you guess what that means?”
“…….”
It was always difficult to understand the inner feelings of Jay and the Prism members. Completely clueless, I sat there with a sullen expression, hesitating before finally speaking up.
“He must have overcome it. Through mental strength.”
“Haha, that’s never going to happen. Everyone around you knows, but you’re still the only one who doesn’t. I really like that side of you.”
Choi Jeokhyeon openly laughed and looked down on me before explaining again.
“Both Yoo Jay and Cha Woon underwent a big change while participating in the survival program. And naturally, the only thing that could bring them peace would be something related to Seo Yutae, the source of their anxiety. The two of them found something that could replace Seo Yutae among the cast. But there can never be anyone who can replace you. I know that better than anyone else.”
Come to think of it, I remembered that Choi Jeokhyeon started intervening after Kang Baeyoung began to bother me, even though he hadn’t taken any particular action against Frick, who had picked a fight with me at the beginning. This was around the time I asked Jay to clear the cloud for me.
‘This bastard….’
“….That’s when you started looking into the participants. Looking for someone who had a close interaction with Yoo Jay, finding a trainee who shared a lot of similarities with the original me.”
“That’s right. You’re a special person. Obtaining all the unedited footage, analyzing your habits and patterns of speech, and gathering information from relevant people was a piece of cake. I started out just trying to solve a mystery, but I ended up finding someone who resembled you, how could I possibly just stay still? If I hadn’t noticed beforehand that something unrealistic was going on, I might have overlooked it.”
In other words, it meant that he analyzed me by going through even the footage that wasn’t aired.
Honestly, it gave me goosebumps.
As I watched Choi Jeokhyeon casually recounting his weird antics, I suddenly recalled something Yoo Jay had said to me.
“Be careful. Hyung, the abnormal people were barely able to adapt to society with your help, but if you disappear, everything will go back to square one.”
I muttered as I rubbed my arm, which showed no sign of calming down.
“You really, seriously need to go to the hospital…….”
“So what if I have a mental illness? This is how we ended up meeting each other again. If the abnormal side of me that you’re talking about helped me find my only friend, then I’m okay with that. I’m not going to get treatment. I’m really happy to meet you again.”
“You’re really the worst.”
“Thank you for the compliment. Now that I think about it, you worked really hard to change your handwriting. You know, if you were to get a handwriting analysis, even forged handwriting could be detected. What kind of trainee tries to hide their handwriting? You should have just spread a rumor saying,
‘I have something to hide
‘.”
“F**k … Stop it! This is why you don’t have any friends, you bastard!”
Hearing Choi Jeokhyeon’s gentle voice, I couldn’t help but let out a stream of curse words.
He was the type of person who didn’t have friends in the first place, but I couldn’t tell if I just happened to be unlucky or if it was because he didn’t have other friends that things ended up like this. I couldn’t just abandon the one friend I have, though. It was driving me crazy.
Choi Jeokhyeon didn’t even pretend to listen to my heartfelt scolding, and he brought a wine opener and wine. He smiled brightly as he asked me, “Do you want some wine?”
“You know I don’t drink. Stop trying to tempt me, you bastard!”
“Hahaha!”
Among the trio lunatics in my life—Choi Jeokhyeon, Seo Yuseong, and Yoo Jay—I had only been dealing with the Lunatic No. 3, who was the mildest and most obedient. Because of that, I had momentarily forgotten the glory of the lunatics.
…..I missed Yoo Jay.
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Translator’s Corner:
Happy 123 chapters and happy 500 releases for me …..
I need to sleep, but you guys will totally love the next chapter