What… what bus?
“…Try to be serious. Multiverse has been talked about scientifically too, hasn’t it?”
“…Isn’t what hyung is talking about from comics, not science?”
“Well… I can’t say it’s not, but then weren’t you and Kang Seojin originally the same person who split into two branches?”
…Is that right? It seems right, maybe.
“To be precise, I’m Kang Seojin and I entered Lee Hyun’s body… that’s kind of what it is.”
“Body switching?”
“…I think it’s closer to possession.”
“You’re going the occult route?”
Right. Strictly speaking, possession is originally in the occult category. I nodded roughly. Strictly speaking, it seemed closer to occult than multiverse.
“…This kind of thing really exists?”
“I know, right…”
Hearing my deflated answer, Jung Yoonseo frowned and asked.
“How was it when you first switched bodies?”
“What?”
“Confusing and all that… that kind of thing. I don’t know how to explain it.”
“…I did feel kind of crazy, but back then I vaguely thought I could resolve something, so I didn’t think much of it.”
“Resolve what?”
…Should I tell Jung Yoonseo about this too? I pondered and just deflected. If I was going to talk about it, I felt I should talk to Eun Haejin about it too.
“…Well. I’m not sure about it now.”
“I see.”
Jung Yoonseo tapped the documents he’d handed me earlier with his hand.
“Then what’s in here is really your life?”
“…How about not calling it ‘your’?”
“Then what should I call you? Seojin-ah? Or Hyun-ah?”
I thought for a moment. The conclusion came quickly.
“Just call me Hyun.”
At my words, Jung Yoonseo thought for a moment, then nodded.
“Okay.”
“…That’s it?”
I asked back in puzzlement at the interrogation ending faster than I thought.
“It ends like this?”
He found out about such an absurd thing by himself, and he’s just passing over it this simply? Moreover, Jung Yoonseo was originally a tenacious and suspicious person. But I couldn’t believe he was just believing me this easily.
At my words, Jung Yoonseo chuckled and crossed his legs.
“What more should I interrogate? The context is clicking perfectly now. There’s nothing more to interrogate.”
“…It’s weird for someone as suspicious as hyung to be like this.”
“I’m not suspicious, I just confirm things a bit. Actually, I’ve already checked several times. There were just too many things that didn’t make sense.”
Jung Yoonseo sighed. Seeing how tired he looked, he seemed to have worried about this problem more than I thought. Of course, work being busy was also a factor.
“First, you haven’t eaten, so should I order something?”
“Yes.”
“Anything you want to eat?”
“I eat everything well…”
Jung Yoonseo crossed his arms and said.
“Get an allergy test done. That’s Kang Seojin’s body.”
At the unexpected words, I nodded as if entranced. It was an idea I’d never had. Well, there would be some differences. There might be foods or medications that don’t suit me.
“I’ll just order Western food. Can you eat steak right now?”
“Of course.”
Jung Yoonseo ordered silently. I was reading the documents Jung Yoonseo had put down for a while when the food arrived quickly. I brought the food but couldn’t even think about unpacking it and was rummaging through various things when Jung Yoonseo tapped the documents and started explaining.
“This is the family register.”
“Isn’t that something only the person can get?”
“Well… right?”
“What’s this?”
“School records…”
At the exposure of my private life in more detail than I thought, I shut my mouth tight.
“Hyung, this is a crime.”
“I’ll apologize.”
“Can you end it with just an apology?”
Jung Yoonseo glanced at me, then set up the steak at my spot. Seeing he only ordered one, it seemed Jung Yoonseo didn’t plan to eat. Well, steak as a first meal would definitely be too much for Jung Yoonseo’s appetite.
I took a bite of steak and continued questioning.
“When did you find out?”
“I was certain last week.”
“So that’s why you called?”
“Well… right?”
Jung Yoonseo picked up the salad in front of him and ate it. What is he, a rabbit, eating only greens from the morning? Actually, it was ambiguous to call it morning—it was afternoon. Just from talking a bit, time flew by quickly and it was already two o’clock.
While chewing food and rummaging through the still-plentiful documents, I picked up another bundle tied together.
“Then what’s this?”
“It’s what I compiled from the Kang Seojin side materials. The parts that matched what Hyun-ssi said.”
“…What are you, a profiler? Who did you have do this?”
At my words, Jung Yoonseo stopped eating and looked at me.
“I did it. All of it.”
“All?”
It’s not a small amount of documents, and the busy Jung Yoonseo compiled by himself what I said from this book and what I didn’t?
“…If what you said is really true, who else would I tell about this? It wouldn’t be good if it got out.”
…Jung Yoonseo was as forceful as doing a background check without permission, but he was also several times as cautious as that. Unable to find words, I just nodded. Jung Yoonseo thought for a moment, then asked.
“What was Kang Seojin like?”
“Kang Seojin?”
“What kind of person?”
At Jung Yoonseo’s words, I kept silent for quite a while. It felt strangely odd that I couldn’t precisely tell what kind of person Kang Seojin was. But it was true. …There really wasn’t much to say. And I never imagined a moment would come when I’d have to explain Kang Seojin. Especially when I was Lee Hyun.
“…Exactly the same as now.”
That was what I barely managed to say after a long while. I put down my fork and added an explanation.
“The personality and everything were the same as now. The appearance is a bit different, but the height and body itself seem similar, though strictly speaking, now seems a bit more sensitive. I used to often hear I looked indifferent. Age-wise, I was three years older than now. Twenty-nine.”
“Still younger than me though.”
“Hyung isn’t that old either. Where else is there a thirty-one-year-old team leader?”
“I’m a special case.”
I chuckled at Jung Yoonseo’s answer. And continued explaining.
“Well… there really wasn’t much. Everything in the book is true. I lived alone since high school, and I was often class president. I went to university for physics.”
“You liked physics?”
“It was pretty fun. I was just good at math and science.”
“Surprising… You give off a natural humanities student vibe.”
“So until recently, working on a business graduation thesis was… really hard.”
“I bet. You dropped out of university, right?”
Jung Yoonseo’s question felt strange. Actually, when I first met Jung Yoonseo, I knew everything about Jung Yoonseo in detail while Jung Yoonseo knew nothing about me, but now Jung Yoonseo knew everything about me in detail too.
“Yes.”
“Mm…”
“As you know, tuition was a big burden.”
“Do you think about going back to school now?”
I shook my head at Jung Yoonseo’s words.
“I can’t take the college entrance exam twice. I’ve forgotten everything.”
“How did you become a broadcast writer?”
“When life was really hard… I was working part-time at a meat restaurant and the owner there was a drama fan. So while working, I’d occasionally watch dramas on the restaurant TV. And it was fun.”
“Enough to want to write?”
I recalled that time. Back then, while desperately saving money, I worked four part-time jobs a month and even went out for daily labor on days off to earn money. Still, money was always insufficient. Just when some money would accumulate, something would happen that required money to go out again. But back then, I didn’t really have any thoughts. I did think I didn’t want to live like this, but I also didn’t have thoughts about how I wanted to live.
I just thought I’d live like this forever and meet death unluckily.
Then while grilling meat at the meat restaurant, I’d occasionally watch TV, and a female protagonist whose life was quite miserable appeared. She seemed to have an even harder life than me. At least I could work, and I had no family to support. I just had to take care of myself.
The content wasn’t that impressive. It was a story where the female protagonist with a hard life eventually overcame it, but somehow those glimpses I stole left a deep impression.
And a week later, I got fired from that meat restaurant.
During the time I worked at the meat restaurant, I started working at a pub, and the morning cafe opening shift I had changed to weekends when they said they’d raise my hourly wage. After that, as my part-time job hours kept changing, getting fired and hired repeatedly, Tuesday and Thursday mornings became free.
At first, I tried to fill even that time with work, but strangely, I kept thinking about that drama. I gave up looking for more part-time work and just started going to the library. At the library, I initially read literature books indiscriminately. And I started investing a bit of my part-time pay into watching movies and dramas.
