# Chapter 21
Every day after returning from school like a zombie, he shut himself in his room and laid his body where Doha used to sleep. It felt like if he pushed himself into pain by maximizing his guilt, he might be able to meet Doha. However, Doha’s apparition didn’t appear for more than a week, and Jaei withered away like a ghost, losing his vitality as he struggled with longing. Maybe his cowardly inner self, which didn’t simply want to die, had created Doha.
He groggily got up and gathered all the pills in the house, sitting on the floor. He was thinking of pouring them all down his throat at once and following Doha. At that moment, hearing the familiar crying of an idiot, Jaei raised his head and looked up with his mouth full of pills.
That day, Jaei learned how to meet a ghost. When he tried to put death into action, Doha hurriedly came to prevent his death. No, more precisely, his cowardice hurriedly created Doha to postpone death.
He spat out all the bitter pills and rinsed his mouth with water, frowning.
“Doha, because of you, I don’t think I’ll be able to grow taller than 180cm. Since you left, I eat one meal every two days.”
“Even if you don’t want to eat, try eating just enough not to die. Humans can survive on just water for a month. I know it’s hard, but try to endure somehow. You can do it, right? Lee Jaei, fighting!”
“Damn, it’s really so hard I could die!”
Perhaps because it was a ghost created by the shameless Lee Jaei, this was the first time he had met such a shameless ghost. Anyway, having figured out his visitation pattern, Jaei was subsequently able to meet him about three times a week in a more intelligent manner.
Doha, who had been appearing with tears for a while, soon earnestly requested “Please refrain from pretending to die anytime as I’m busy accumulating reincarnation points, let’s do our best in our respective places, let’s show off our fantastic teamwork.”
As autumn was ending, Doha’s father called Jaei’s mother. He asked if Doha’s mother had gone there with Seungha, or if she knew anything about her whereabouts.
Unable to escape from the shock of losing Doha, she had started treating Seungha, who looked very much like Doha, as Doha, he said. That made sense because she had hardly shared maternal affection with the child until Seungha turned seven. All that remained in her memory was only Doha’s angelic childhood.
When Seungha said his name was “Ryu Seungha,” she would scold him severely and correct it to “Ryu Doha,” and she taught him Doha’s birthday, favorite side dishes, treating all of Doha’s information as if it were Seungha’s, he said.
As she brainwashed Seungha into believing he was Doha, the child began to feel a great confusion about his identity. Doha’s father judged it would be good to separate her and the child for a while. However, noticing this, she fled with Seungha first. Despite filing a missing person report and making inquiries, he couldn’t find where they had gone.
Jaei could do nothing except wish for his aunt’s happiness. Recent regrets gradually became regrets from the more distant past. Countless regrets accumulated as he traced back through the past.
If he had noticed Doha’s pain during their phone conversation that day, if he hadn’t met Director Hong Duyoung in the first place, if they hadn’t moved to this apartment, if Doha hadn’t come to live with him, if she hadn’t worked at his house, and thus if he hadn’t met Doha, would this not have happened?
* * *
He didn’t know how he had spent the past half year. He couldn’t remember in what state of mind he had spent autumn, welcomed winter, and turned fifteen. He had just desperately endured and survived as the “Drill Instructor from Hell Ryu Doha” told him to. It was almost no different from being dead, but he was alive nonetheless. Day by day, like a performance assessment, he accomplished “surviving another day.”
In the process, Jaei came to know that human life is surprisingly tenacious. Humans really don’t die easily for the most part. With that fact, he could gauge the magnitude of physical pain that Ryu Doha must have felt in accomplishing this difficult thing. His greatest flaw was enduring pain without making a sound.
“Jaei, remember this well. The only place where you can see me is in this apartment.”
“Why? Couldn’t you come find me wherever I go?”
Even though the accident didn’t happen in this apartment, why could he only see Doha, who had become a ghost, here? But Doha didn’t tell him the reason and just quietly smiled. With a meaningful smile on his lips, he answered calmly.
“So if you can no longer see me, then I’ve returned to you. So then, look for me in your world.”
“Do I have to go looking for you? Could you be in a far-off place? Can’t we just meet in front of the Angel Snack Shop?”
“I might end up in another country. I’m worried I might be reincarnated in the Arctic. If I’m reborn as a polar bear, please make sure to recognize me. Can you do that? Just go to the Arctic and pick the cutest baby bear. Lee Jaei, fighting!”
“What?! You might become a bear?”
His parents finished the house construction earlier than planned. This was because the days were getting longer where Jaei would lock himself up all day in the room where he had last spoken with Doha, seeing things and talking to himself. To pull Jaei out from still lingering on the day he lost Doha, his father sold the Winners Castle he had bought as an investment.
Jaei cried like a child, rolling on the floor, saying he didn’t want to move. However, because he had lost 7kg, he was easily lifted into his father’s arms like a mannequin. That’s how he came to leave the room full of guilt.
Before getting into his mother’s car, Jaei met Hong Duyoung in the apartment lobby and greeted him. After Doha’s death, Hong Duyoung had found a new child actor and was continuing with the filming. Perhaps because of this, he too had become noticeably gaunt.
He rubbed his unshaven chin with his rough hand as he greeted Jaei.
“Go and pull yourself together.”
Jaei just smiled without answering. He thought he couldn’t do that. He gave an ordinary and formal greeting that wasn’t really in his heart.
“Take care of your health too, Director. You don’t look well.”
“Maybe because I went through something big, I keep seeing things when I come home. So I’m planning to move soon too. I should leave this neighborhood altogether.”
He spoke jokingly with a tired voice, smirking. For a moment, Jaei wanted to ask him, “Do you also see Doha at home, Director?” But there was no need to reveal the existence of the kind and pitiful Doha ghost with unnecessary words. He kept his mouth shut and bowed.
Hong Duyoung looked over Jaei’s face meticulously with snake-like eyes for a moment and said.
“Your eyes have deepened considerably.”
“……”
“Eyes that know what sadness and loss are.”
“……”
“You’ve developed a desolate atmosphere.”
There was a satisfied smile on Hong Duyoung’s face as he said those words. It felt like a kind of accomplishment, but Jaei thought it was because of his sensitive state.
* * *
Just as Doha had forewarned, after moving, Jaei could no longer see his soul. No matter how many times he attempted to follow him to the afterlife, Doha had no intention of appearing before him. As time passed like that, all the days of meeting Doha’s ghost felt like a lie. And while not meeting Doha’s soul, Jaei slowly completed his preparations to go to Doha.
He calmly prepared for the end of his life, reminiscing only about good memories with Doha in the house where they had spent their childhood together. During that week, Jaei laughed a lot. It was laughter regained after half a year.
In the limited time given to him, Jaei did all the filial duties he could. He diligently attended hagwon, acted cutely, and even acted spoiled like a child, being picky with his food. Seeing Jaei become spirited, his parents truly regretted not moving houses sooner.
And today, Jaei was on his way to get his last supper. The menu was tteokbokki, which he often ate with Doha when they dated during elementary school. The Angel Snack Shop had competed solely on taste and had now become the flagship store of a proper franchise. The business name had also changed from Angel Snack Shop to “Namdaemun Angel Tteokbokki.”
As they say a ghost who dies after eating has one less grudge, he planned to eat this to his heart’s content and then follow Doha. Come to think of it, he wasn’t sure if Doha had eaten before he left. If he had been hungry too, it would be even more pitiful.
Doha, today I’m going to get our favorite Angel Tteokbokki and eat it with Mom and Dad. It’s my last meal. I’ll hug Mom and Dad, tell them I love them, and then say I’m going to hagwon. I’ll go out and follow the path in reverse that you carried me on your back. Then I’ll sink into the river. When we meet again, if I’m very cold, hug me! If that’s too much trouble, just dry me by the fires of hell. Oh, by the way, is there tteokbokki there too? If not, should I bring some?
After paying, he greeted the restaurant owner, warmly saying things he normally wouldn’t.
“Angel Tteokbokki has become really famous. I saw it on TV too. I’m so happy it’s doing well.”
After saying his final goodbye, he left the store. Since his gaze was directed straight ahead, what entered Jaei’s field of vision was the bus stop, taxi stand, and road. He didn’t see anything else special. But a special scent brushed his nose. It was the sweet smell of a baby’s cheeks that he loved to death. He turned his body as if entranced towards the source of the smell.
Jaei saw a young child crouched in front of the store and made a small moaning sound with trembling lips.
“Ah…… Ah……”
Jaei, who brought home a child with Doha’s face who called himself Doha, dragged his mother and father into the master bedroom. And he explained the situation to them urgently with his mouth dry.
“Doha promised he would come back to me. Really. Doha has come back.”
They looked at Jaei with pity and held his frail body that seemed about to collapse at any moment, patting his back.
“Dead people can’t come back to life, Jaei.”
“Then who is that? He says he’s Doha. That coat and those sneakers are all Doha’s! Those gloves, I gave them to him!”
