"Ugh!"
Sihyun woke up under the blanket, gasping for air amidst the suffocating sensation. He threw off the covers and took a deep breath. Blinking rapidly, he focused his eyes, seeing a white ceiling coming into view, a far cry from the pitch darkness, but still a distant hue.
"......"
In a daze, Sihyun fumbled and reached out for his phone placed beside the bed. As he pressed the power button, the time 3:03 a.m. appeared. It was an early hour to wake up, but considering his usual bedtime, it was an excessive amount of sleep.
Kang Sihyun.
He muttered the name he couldn't bring himself to call out, staring at his own hand with a dry gaze. From the knuckles to the shape of the nails, everything seemed foreign, though it was all part of someone else.
"It's your body now."
He had said it was his own now.
It didn't sink in. Sihyun covered his sight with the back of his hand. Strangely, he felt feverish.
The conversation with seventeen boys echoed vividly in his mind. Suddenly, he recalled the boy who had spoken with a tone hinting that some dreams could reveal the truth. Sihyun remembered his last words.
Yoo Sihyun.
It was the name called out after a month. Not Kang Sihyun, but Yoo Sihyun. Hearing that name after possessing it for himself was a first. His stomach churned. It felt like a stranger's hand rummaging through his insides.
Emotions surged like waves. Instead of calming with time, they intensified. Pushed by the unsettling sensation, Sihyun sprang from the bed, covering his mouth, rushing towards the bathroom.
"Ugh."
Doubled over the toilet, he struggled to expel whatever churned inside him. Even retching yielded nothing. The moment his body floated after being hit by a car flashed back. Ugh. Sihyun dry heaved once more.
The shattered phone came to mind, as did the first day he woke up here. Despite his repeated dry heaves, his mouth tasted acidic, as if bile might have come out. His eyes stung with the repeated heaving.
What did I choose?
Now asking a question with no one to answer, Sihyun, with his eyes closed, slumped against the toilet seat. His energy drained away. His stomach still churned, but it felt worse to force anything out; it seemed pointless.
"......"
There's no going back.
Suddenly, he was certain. He could also be sure his body was dead.
Many doubts arising from the single conversation with Kang Sihyun haunted him as certainties. Whether fortunate or not, at least for the current Sihyun, it was unfortunate.
Why did you save me?
And by giving up your own body.
With whose help, how, choosing what. He held onto a meaningless question within his mouth before retching again. This time, it happened involuntarily. Ugh, foam-like substance dripped from his mouth. His throat stung. His nostrils burned, and his eyes grew hot.
I wish I hadn't known.
Holding onto precarious hope was better than plummeting into hopelessness. So, even when suffocating, he endured, even when frustrated, he endured. But now, realizing the frayed lifeline, everything seemed bleak. The signposts vanished.
It was sinking.
...Should I just die?
When he first arrived here, his attempt to jump from the apartment rooftop was halted by an unknown man. So, perhaps this time, if he went through with it, something might change. Maybe a miracle could happen.
Returning to the place where he lived as if by miracle, going back not dead but alive to meet his sobbing sister. It was like entertaining every hypothesis that started with 'if.' Sihyun chuckled wryly, moving away from the toilet seat and leaning against the bathroom wall, closing his eyes slowly.
The unfamiliar air disrupted his breathing, and the unfamiliar body felt stiff like a wooden log.
Exhausted.
Tired of not revealing himself in front of others, tired of enduring alone, tired of not voicing a single word against the provider of his misfortune.
Sihyun, worn out by many things, lifted his eyelids after a long silence. His unfocused eyes stared into empty space.
Time passed. Minutes or perhaps tens of minutes went by, and just as he thought his still body might have stiffened, Sihyun's fingertips twitched. After a long escape, he finally organized his thoughts.
Starting from the belief that there would be a place to return to, it turned out that life belonged to someone else, immobilized him. But...
"I can't go back to that body now."
The boy's voice rose amidst denial and avoidance. His expression, as he imagined it, also surfaced. Clenching his lips, Sihyun slowly rose, looking down at his hand, both familiar and strange.
There was still much unheard and unknown. To die without knowing all of it would have been unjust.
Regardless of whether they wanted it or not, they had each fairly taken from the other. Despite resentment and anger towards seventeen, in Sihyun's memory, Kang Sihyun's expression remained vivid.
No one cherished the idea of dying. Though some faced such dire circumstances that death seemed better, few would willingly embrace death out of preference. Sihyun leaned more towards the former.
But now, he couldn't tell which was better.
"......"
With eyes as deep as if they had just emerged from the depths of the ocean, Sihyun, now Kang Sihyun, slowly clenched his fist and raised his head, scrutinizing my hand. Reflected in the mirror was my face, devoid of any smile, feeling a distance from the Kang Sihyun I'd seen in my dreams.
...It might have been better if I hadn't done anything at all.
It seemed like the warnings you hear in movies or novels about not meddling with fate carelessly. Sihyun, lost in thought, finally exhaled a breath resembling his own and headed back to his room, turning away from futile thoughts.
Maybe I needed to simplify things.
Recalling the admonishments of the person who ruined not only their own life with a disastrous choice but also others', taunting me for my foolish choices, Sihyun left the restroom and returned to his room. Keeping his composure, he glanced around the room and noticed a blue suitcase in his line of sight, absent before his sleep.
Staring at the suitcase, which clearly belonged to someone else and reminded him of the seventeen-year-old boy who had valued his people dearly, Sihyun, with a complicated gaze, eventually made up his mind and opened the suitcase, starting to pack things he hadn't packed before, as if leaving for somewhere.
He began sorting through emotions he couldn't contain while packing belongings that weren't his.
There was a sense of injustice, absurdity, despair, and frustration. However, always quick to accept, Sihyun chose resignation once again.
There's no turning back, so what can I do?
Unable to recklessly end a life that couldn't return, there seemed to be things I needed to uncover. At the very least, I had to know why Kang Sihyun made such a choice, how he knew about me, and how he managed to possess me.
And with no hope left, the seventeen-year-old Kang Sihyun seemed pitiable in an ironic way.
It was sympathy toward my own plight.
"Sigh."
Lost in a tangled mix of feelings about how things had come to this, Sihyun finished packing and realized a considerable amount of time had passed since he started spacing out in the bathroom. Dawn was breaking.
Finally, after putting a thin shirt into the suitcase, Sihyun zipped it shut. Checking the phone's screen, the date read March 3rd, 2019. It differed from the date he had seen before the car accident. Accepting these subtle differences little by little, Sihyun lay down on the bed, gazing at the unfamiliar yet familiar ceiling until it became more familiar.
They say in life you must set goals. They become milestones in one's life.
When I inhabited the body of "Yoo Sihyun," the goal was to graduate from university and land a job in a good company. Remembering his sister's face that suddenly came to mind, Sihyun realized those were memories to be treasured and decided to store them away in a small box, memories that should be embraced but left undisturbed.
Now, it was time to focus on the present.
With closed eyes, recalling the brief moments lived as Kang Sihyun, Sihyun furrowed his brow at the faces of the Four Heavenly Kings that appeared one by one.
First and foremost, he wanted to live a simple life.
To avoid getting involved with the Four Heavenly Kings or any other such individuals, to meet ordinary friends, engage in mundane conversations, and enjoy a normal, harmonious life. However...
As a Dual Ability user with a Copy class.
Sihyun pursed his lips at the thought of dealing with something that wouldn't resolve easily, feeling a headache looming over the unresolved issue.
I wanted to live a simple life. But damn it, this body wasn't ordinary. So, where in the world could I discuss a normal daily life?
Exhaling at the difficulty of it all, Sihyun got up and glanced at Daun's house visible through the window. Kang Sihyun's voice echoed in his ears like a spell.
If I had to live in this body anyway, I wanted to at least grant Kang Sihyun's wish in some small way. And if I added my own desire, it was to live as ordinary a life as possible, maybe taking care of Haru hyung.
If I couldn't have normalcy, at least I wanted my people to live a life they could protect, just like back then, without regrets or missed chances.
That, for now, was the current goal.
Thinking this far, Sihyun looked at the calendar hanging in one corner of the room.
March 3rd, 2019.
It was the day when Yoo Sihyun decided to live as Kang Sihyun after a long period of wandering.
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