Sangho Became Sangho
[Private loan #1! We’ll deposit without asking questions]
[Auto-payment – Declined. Lee Sangho, NK Communication auto-payment 24,800 won, insufficient account balance]
[B07, please pay your overdue rent from last month promptly. -Management]
“Hah…”
At the three consecutive phone notifications, Lee Sangho deeply inhaled the cigarette he was holding, then exhaled it in a long sigh. After roughly checking the messages, Sangho put his phone in his pocket, and the empty cigarette pack crinkled as it crumpled. The reflection of Sangho in the storefront glass across the street showed him wearing an old-fashioned suit he’d barely managed to borrow from City Hall not long ago. It didn’t fit his skinny frame, making the waist flap around like a sack. He’d borrowed the suit thinking he might find a proper job, but no company called back Sangho, who only had a middle school education. Every company he submitted a resume to rejected him one after another.
Tears came for no reason. There had never been any ‘good things’ in Lee Sangho’s life. In middle school, his father beat him nearly to death, so he ran away from home. After that, he wandered from PC bang to PC bang until he barely managed to get a part-time job at a restaurant. When work ended, he’d fall asleep at the PC bang with a headset on, then go back to work again, repeating this cycle.
He got so sick of working at the meat restaurant that he counted down the days until his military service. But because he didn’t eat properly, at 172cm tall and 45kg, he was designated as a social service worker during his physical exam. However, it was difficult for a middle school graduate to even become a social service worker. After three years without being assigned to a workplace, he was eventually designated for wartime labor service. Sangho, who couldn’t drink well, drank half a bottle of soju that day alone.
What came after was an obvious story. Sangho lived bouncing from part-time job to part-time job and became twenty-six years old.
After roughly putting out his cigarette, Sangho pulled out a book he’d picked up from a recycling station recently. On the cover was written ‘Korea University,’ the nation’s most prestigious university located near Sangho’s studio apartment. The plastic-bound book was a strange comic featuring three men. It was about a pretty rookie actor from the Theater & Film Department getting caught in a steamy love triangle between a macho Physical Education major and a Computer Science genius. Sangho, who usually only read martial arts novels when it came to books, opened the book out of pure boredom but closed it before even reading half.
Thud.
Sangho tossed the book aside and turned to head home. Or tried to.
HONK!
Looking at the dump truck lights that suddenly appeared around the corner, Sangho had to end his short life just like that.
***
“Huk!”
Sangho opened his eyes in a studio apartment, drenched in cold sweat. He was sure he’d been hit by a truck, but Sangho was perfectly fine without a single injury.
But the place where he opened his eyes was strange. Sangho slowly got up, looking around a room that seemed similar to his own but subtly different. He’d definitely been wearing an ill-fitting suit, but now he was wearing knockoff sportswear and a stretched-out t-shirt.
Staggering to his feet, Sangho was horrified by the photos covering one wall. Two people’s photos filled the wall—one person had their face completely erased with black marker, burned, or cut out with sharp objects so you couldn’t tell who they were. The other person was a pretty man with curly hair and a gentle smiling expression. The moment a sense of déjà vu hit him, Sangho muttered a name.
“…Jang Wonha.”
Jang Wonha was one of the protagonists in the comic Sangho had thrown away. Jang Wonha, a rookie actor rising as a super rookie, was someone who received love simultaneously from Han Kyungoh from Physical Education and Nam Dohyun from Computer Science.
Sangho recalled a scene from the comic where a janitor at the school fell for Jang Wonha and went too far with stalking, then was eliminated by Nam Dohyun, who had lost his mind, using terrifying methods. And then there was a bed scene between Wonha and Dohyun, which made him horrified enough to close the comic book. That comic book was left on the street just like that.
Sangho rubbed his eyes again and stared intently at Jang Wonha in the photo. No matter how he looked, it was a face exactly like Jang Wonha from that comic. His solid body and gently curving eyes were truly… pretty. But that was just an impression—not enough to fall for him. Sangho was, after all, thoroughly heterosexual.
Could I have entered that comic?
Sangho looked around in alarm at the ominous thought. No matter how he looked, the structure was the same as his studio apartment, but the furniture arrangement was different. The clothes Sangho was wearing also looked similar to the training suit that stalker janitor always wore. Muttering that it was an absurd thought, Sangho fumbled in his pockets as if possessed and pulled out a wallet and phone. The wallet contained a few thousand-won bills and an ID card. The name was Lee Sangho, the face was his own, and the birth date was the same. But the last digits of the resident registration number were different. And on the back of the resident registration card was a strange symbol with ‘Omega’ written in Korean next to it.
“Omega…? Was there content like this?”
His bewildered voice echoed faintly in the gloomy room. Not knowing what omega meant, Sangho flipped the ID card again and stared intently at the front. The face and photo were his own. It didn’t look forged.
That comic didn’t even have the stalker’s name or proper face shown in the first place. Just a psycho stalker who desperately chased after Jang Wonha, a Korea University janitor. That’s how he was described.
Sangho began rummaging through the sparse furniture with a dumbfounded expression. In the desk drawer were a scheduler recording Jang Wonha’s every move and several USB drives. The USB drives connected to the computer contained all video files of Jang Wonha’s appearances organized by date. In the most recent six months, there were thousands of photos and videos taken while following Jang Wonha around.
“What is this…”
Sangho broke out in a cold sweat and accessed the internet, trying to authenticate with his resident registration number. But only an error message saying it was incorrect authentication appeared—authentication itself was impossible. When Sangho took out the resident registration card with trembling hands and authenticated, a window immediately popped up saying authentication was complete.
At that moment, a phone alarm sounded from Sangho’s pants pocket.
Ding-dong.
Sangho stared quietly at the phone he pulled from his pocket. It was the same model he’d used, but without the tattered basic case. When he pressed the screen, a fingerprint recognition button appeared. When he pressed his finger firmly, the phone immediately unlocked. The wallpaper was also basic, with only the minimum apps installed.
Opening the message inbox immediately, the same texts he’d received that morning were there. But at the very end was one more text he hadn’t seen before.
[[WEB] Korea University Personnel Department. Congratulations on being accepted as an Environmental Sanitation Worker. Please submit employment-related documents via email starting X month X day.]
“Environmental Sanitation Worker?”
Sangho’s bewildered voice leaked out. If he wasn’t crazy, ‘Sangho’ had been accepted as a Korea University environmental sanitation worker and would start work. It was exactly as the comic he’d read. Sangho blinked his eyes while turning the phone screen off and on again in bewilderment. The text message didn’t disappear and still read ‘accepted.’ Sangho couldn’t take his eyes off the text message for a long while.
***
From that day, Sangho burned all traces of stalking in his house. The photos plastered all over the wall, detailed information about Wonha, article clippings, even personal information—everything. Without even looking at the writings about what Wonha liked and disliked, his very personal preferences, he burned them on the gas stove. He also disposed of the writings about Dohyun filled with strangely excessive anger.
Sangho quickly accepted his situation. It seemed he’d possessed the stalker who appeared in that comic.
But Sangho quickly realized that aside from his resident registration card changing a bit, the ‘stalker Lee Sangho’s’ world wasn’t much different from the world he’d lived in. Near his house was the prestigious Korea University, and he was unemployed, living in a semi-basement studio apartment paying monthly rent. His miserable life wasn’t much different, but there was one good thing. He’d gotten a job as an environmental sanitation worker at the nation’s top university.
Moreover, the conditions were quite good. Korea University, a national public university, even treated environmental sanitation workers as regular employees. Looking at the welfare benefits for Korea University sanitation workers online, Sangho felt joy as if he’d been accepted to some major corporation. The monthly salary wasn’t much, but employment was guaranteed, and he only had to work from 6 AM to 3 PM before going home. And seeing he could even reserve the resort used by faculty and staff, Sangho was enraptured.
So Sangho immediately sent documents to the Korea University Personnel Department.
