Chapter 1
As soon as I opened my eyes, I let out a deep breath. Air flowed refreshingly into my lungs.
I can breathe! I’m alive!
My relief at somehow surviving was short-lived. The unfamiliar surroundings made me realize I was somewhere strange.
This doesn’t look like a hospital. Where am I?
I tried to turn over and look around, but my body wouldn’t cooperate—probably because of the accident. Through it all, I noticed a clock on the wall. 3 o’clock.
Shit, that scared me! Why does it have to be 3 o’clock?
I got goosebumps remembering the final scene of that BL novel I’d read before losing consciousness. This was all Kim Hyunju’s fault for making me read that twisted story.
“Still asleep?”
I held my breath at the unfamiliar voice that came with the opening door. When you don’t understand the situation, it’s best not to move carelessly. This could be a kidnapping disguised as an accident.
Loan sharks had been chasing me because of my parents’ debt, so a sudden kidnapping wouldn’t be surprising. But I’d paid this month’s interest, so why now…?
I was curious to open my eyes and see who it was, but I decided to keep pretending to sleep and wait.
“Yoon Juwon…”
What? Did he just say Yoon Juwon? I’d heard that name somewhere before. Who was it? No, it couldn’t be…
My heart sank when I realized Yoon Juwon was a character from Kim Hyunju’s novel. I hoped I was wrong, but since Hahyun had called out Juwon’s name so many times in the story, I couldn’t be mistaken.
What’s happening? Did the accident damage my hearing? Otherwise, why would I be hearing the name of a fictional character? Am I losing my mind?
The thought that I might be going insane terrified me. I wanted to immediately ask the man who’d called me Yoon Juwon if he’d really said that name, and if so, why.
“Haah…”
The man sighed. Even with my eyes closed, I could feel the heavy atmosphere. It made asking anything impossible.
“Juwon.”
I clearly heard him call me that name again. Since I kept hearing it, either I was crazy or he was. But considering how sharp my mind felt despite everything, I didn’t think I was the crazy one.
So who the hell was this man who kept calling me by someone else’s name?
Could it be Seo Hahyun?
No, that’s impossible. He’s a character in a novel.
As I was thinking this, the man came closer and began touching different parts of my body. Though his touch made my skin crawl, I doubled down on pretending to be asleep.
“That’s right, don’t wake up. It might be better if you just stay asleep.”
Better if I stay asleep? What does that even mean?
I tried to ignore his hands moving over my body and focus on organizing the facts of my situation.
I’d left home to meet Hyunju, couldn’t avoid a car coming from the wrong direction, got into an accident, and woke up in a strange place. The clock showed 3 PM, and suddenly a man walked in calling me Yoon Juwon.
Without overthinking it, this was a cliché straight out of the transmigration novels that were so popular in genre fiction lately. Though it was shocking that it had actually happened to me.
Could this be a dream?
I suppose it’s possible to have a dream like this after reading a disturbing novel and getting into a car accident. But the hot sensation on my body felt too real to be just a dream.
“I’m going to try to stop it, but it won’t be easy.”
The man hugged me tightly and muttered something incomprehensible.
Now that I thought about it, his voice sounded strange too. In the novel, Hahyun’s voice was described as beautiful and matching his face, but hearing it in person, it was lower than I’d expected.
Anyway, that wasn’t important. What mattered was figuring out what was going on so I could prepare myself…
I tried to move away from his touch, but my body wouldn’t budge. I finally realized—I was tied up.
A strange room, a man calling me Yoon Juwon, being restrained… No matter how I looked at it, this was exactly like Hyunju’s bizarre BL novel.
What? Have I really transmigrated? Did I get into a car accident while trying to help someone with my meddling advice, only to transmigrate into a character who gets imprisoned by a lunatic and dies?
I felt like crying from the injustice of it all. My movie had just been released, I’d signed a contract for my next screenplay, and once I’d paid off all my debts, I was headed for a bright future—but before I could even take that first step, I transmigrated.
“It’s already 3 o’clock.”
So what? Mister, please get your hands off me and shut up. Let me think…
Wait, why did he suddenly tell me the time?
Remembering the significance of that hour, my spine tingled and my hair stood on end.
The only time that mattered during the imprisonment was right before Hahyun killed Juwon. Did that mean this was that moment? That I’d die in an hour?
“There’s not much time left.”
Having survived a terrible car accident, I couldn’t die again.
With the man who might kill me right in front of me, I tried to stay as calm as possible while recalling the original story to find a way to survive.
First, I tried to remember why Hahyun wanted to kill Juwon. To change the outcome, I needed to eliminate the cause. Hahyun made his extreme choice because no matter how hard he tried, Juwon never accepted his feelings.
“Hyung, please try this just once. Please…”
“Even if it’s cursing, please say something to me.”
“No, you don’t have to talk, but can’t you at least look at me?”
Hahyun had desperately clung to him, but Juwon consistently rejected him from beginning to end. But at this point, Hahyun had already given up on everything. Even if I accepted him now, it probably wouldn’t change the ending.
What should I do?
Suddenly, a line from a drama popped into my head.
“I wish I’d never known… I want to lose my memory and go back to when I didn’t know anything. The way things are now, nothing we do will work, right?”
When I recalled that line, a sudden realization struck me.
If you can’t undo what happened, there’s only one option.
Pretend to have forgotten everything!
The reason Hahyun wanted to die was because he thought Juwon would never forgive him for his crimes. So if Juwon lost his memory, eliminating the need for forgiveness entirely, it might change Hahyun’s mind without anyone having to die.
If my end was predetermined to be death anyway, trying something before dying would be showing proper respect for the life I’d lived until now.
I decided to take a gamble in this final moment before death.
Tick-tock, tick-tock. The clock sound grew louder. Looking up, I saw it was already almost 5 o’clock. The bed shifted. It seemed the man had stood up.
Now’s my chance. I should wake up and say “Who are you?” pretending I don’t remember anything.
But just as I was about to open my eyes, the man gripped my ankle firmly. I bit my lip hard to suppress a groan at his crushing strength.
“Why did you have to be a model? If you weren’t a model, I wouldn’t have done this to you…”
More incomprehensible words. Was Hahyun’s reason for loving Juwon because he was a model? That part wasn’t properly explained in the original story, so I had no information.
Suddenly, Hahyun’s hand—which had been touching my ankle and the top of my foot—stopped moving. Though confused by his inexplicable behavior, I tried my best to think rationally.
This place was both inside a novel and reality. In reality, countless variables arise, changing outcomes accordingly. So I shouldn’t be too surprised if things happened differently from the original. Thinking this way, my fear and terror gradually subsided.
He kissed the top of my foot and then spoke abruptly.
“I didn’t want to go this far either… but I can’t kill you. If you die, both I and Hahyun would have to die too…”
Just as I felt relieved by the words “can’t kill you,” I was startled by what came next—the mention of “Hahyun.”
The man I’d thought was Hahyun was speaking about him as if he were someone else. Then who the hell was this man?
I wanted to open my eyes and demand answers immediately, but fearing that one impulsive moment might ruin everything, I kept my mouth shut.
“So… if I take away your last hope, none of us will die, and the three of us can live happily. Right?”
My life hung on every word spoken by Hahyun—or rather, this man.
To distinguish between the original story and new information, I focused less on the man’s words about “taking away your last hope” (which made me tremble) and more on the phrase “the three of us.”
It seemed certain that I was Yoon Juwon, a former model. The kidnapping situation was also the same. However, this man wasn’t Seo Hahyun, and Seo Hahyun still existed somewhere. In conclusion, there was an extra man who hadn’t been in the original story.
More importantly, while this man didn’t intend to kill me, he planned to do something to take away my “last hope.”
What would be a model’s last hope?
At that moment, Hyunju’s last words echoed in my mind.
“I’ll have to go with the classic approach. I’ll take him to the basement.”
The original story has changed.
