After that terrifying encounter that day, fortunately, there was no incident of meeting Yoon Taerim again. Since he’d received treatment, his information must remain at that Korean medicine clinic, but surely they wouldn’t carelessly use a patient’s personal information? There are personal information protection laws and medical laws in this world, right?
“Anyway, you’re hopeless, hopeless! A grown man calling his mom for something like this!”
Mom smacked Seungyeon’s back hard. Still, Seungyeon stubbornly linked arms with Mom.
“No, Mom. I’ve been thinking since I got hurt, and I’m going to become a completely different person from now on, you know? You know the saying about putting new wine in new wineskins? Like that, to become a new person, I thought I should start by changing my phone.”
It absolutely wasn’t because he was scared Yoon Taerim might call again that he was changing his number. Anyway, it wasn’t.
Seungyeon silently endured Mom’s irritation and went to the phone carrier store with her. He changed to the latest model, changed his number, and deliberately didn’t transfer existing data. They were all people he was going to cut ties with anyway, so what would be the point of transferring it? The status window seemed to let this level of deviation slide, as fortunately no penalty occurred.
Just changing one contact felt like he’d really become a new person. With a refreshed face, Seungyeon returned home, wolfed down two bowls of Mom’s bibim noodles, and patted his full stomach. Listening with one ear and letting it go out the other to Mom’s rebuke that lying down right after eating would turn him into a cow, he lay on the bed and fiddled with his new phone.
“First, I transferred the family’s numbers.”
Since he was unemployed, there was no one else he particularly needed, and there were no contacts he exchanged regularly. As for friends, they were all the same kind of hopeless people similar to Baek Seungyeon, and besides that, it was only full of potential victims he’d planted cuckoo schemes on to try to make a score. Looking at the empty contacts and chat windows, Seungyeon suddenly fell into thought.
“I need to figure out what the standard for specific people is too…”
That wasn’t the only thing he had to do. After the painful encounter with Yoon Taerim, Seungyeon felt a sense of mission that he had to thoroughly dig into the ‘real Baek Seungyeon’s’ past. He needed to know what kind of things he’d been doing to prepare for what would happen in the future, right?
Rubbing the corner of his phone, Seungyeon frowned with a serious face. After staring intently at the motionless, quiet screen, he sprang up from the bed.
“For background checks, you have to start with internet history.”
Seungyeon brought the laptop that was shoved in a corner of his desk and lay down on the bed. The laptop boot screen passed and the lock screen appeared.
“Hmmm…”
There was no need to worry about what the password was here. When he put his fingerprint on the power button, the screen changed. Sending thanks to the advancement of technology, he carefully examined the laptop.
There wasn’t much in the saved files. One game and a few meaningless folders were all. It didn’t seem like he played the game often, as an update window appeared as soon as he turned it on. After forcibly closing the game, he entered the browser. Seungyeon clicked his tongue at the bookmark history that appeared at the top of the screen.
“This is a total gambling addict.”
There were endless illegal gambling sites. Seeing that he even dated around with this mindset, he must have been quite diligent in his own way. Or was it not? Did he commit fraud to gather gambling funds because he had no money? Seungyeon sighed and deleted the bookmarks one by one. Even after pressing the X button over and over, there was no end. Mechanically clicking away, Seungyeon stopped his finger in front of an unusual site.
“What’s this?”
It was a bulletin board-style site that could be considered crude, perhaps made by an individual. Out of curiosity, he looked at the screen and clicked here and there. It continued like ‘Worry Consultation 1’, ‘Worry Consultation 2’ up to 13, and all the posts were just anonymous worry consultations. When he clicked on one at random, there was a poster who had recently been diagnosed with cancer and was complaining of depression, and below it were comments of encouragement.
The posts above and below were roughly similar content. Was this some kind of patient gathering?
Wondering if Baek Seungyeon had left any worry consultation posts, he quickly clicked on My Page.
Contrary to expectations, there wasn’t a single post left by Baek Seungyeon. Well, it made sense in a way since Baek Seungyeon wasn’t particularly sick, and no one around him was sick either. But what was he doing bookmarking this kind of site?
Wondering if there were any comments he’d left, he searched but couldn’t see a single one. As he clicked on this and that, even log records appeared. Looking at the visit records, it seemed he visited almost every night without fail.
“What is this? Did he periodically delete content?”
For just lurking, the habit-like history of coming and going bothered him. Unless there was some purpose, would a busy kid who had to gamble and commit fraud have spent time on something like this?
The more he looked, the more question marks piled up on Seungyeon’s face. With an uneasy feeling, this time he clicked on the chat window. As soon as the screen changed, his eyes widened involuntarily at the chat history that appeared in a rush.
There were several chat windows, but among them, it seemed he repeatedly talked with just one person. The last chat was sent by that one person just an hour ago. Next to the nickname ‘shhh’ was the red number 61. Realizing those were unread messages, he clicked on the chat window.
[shhh: Hyung]
[shhh: Why haven’t you been logging in lately?]
[shhh: You don’t really have something wrong, do you?]
[shhh: You’re okay, right?]
[shhh: Hyung, please contact me]
[shhh: I don’t need you to meet me, just let me know if you’re alive or not, just put a single dot. Please…]
All 61 chats were like that. From worry to pleading, Seungyeon was bewildered by the request to please just let him know if he was alive. What kind of relationship was this to contact so desperately? Seungyeon scrolled the mouse wheel up a bit more and scanned through the content. The more he read, the more his mouth dropped open.
[shhh: My mother was like that too. She got the cochlear implant surgery too late, so it was too late in the end]
[Me: Ah… really, it was a similar case to mineㅠㅠ]
[shhh: Don’t worry. Hyung won’t get that bad. Since you went to the hospital now, you can get treated quickly]
[Me: Thanks for the comfort… haha But really, it’s not empty words, I’m alive because of you. You saved me]
[shhh: This hyung is saying weird things again]
[Me: Really!ㅠㅠ If it weren’t for you, I couldn’t have talked about this… You really don’t know how precious you are to me]
[shhh: But you know what?]
[Me: Hmm? What?]
[shhh: I’m similar. So I want to see you in person soon, hyung. I feel like I could give you everything]
“Huh…?”
Is this a conversation between a romance scam victim and perpetrator? Seungyeon ground his fingernails and scrolled the chat window all the way to the top. Looking at the chat with ‘shhh’ from beginning to end made it even more shocking.
“Baek Seungyeon, you trash bastard…”
The chat started from Baek Seungyeon. Seungyeon had spoken to shhh first. The start of the chat was a lengthy and desperate message saying he was diagnosed with some unfamiliar disease about hearing and was having such a hard time, and seeing the post that person left, he wanted to ask for advice. ‘shhh’ immediately sent a reply to Baek Seungyeon who said he was struggling with a disease that didn’t even exist. It seemed clear how the two had formed rapport.
‘shhh’s mother had gotten sick and was struggling, then took her own life, and from that incident, he was also shocked and was receiving various treatments. Baek Seungyeon approached first, saying he was also suffering from that disease. The chat that started with asking if he could give advice continued for 6 months after that.
Inside the chat window, the two were like lovers. It seemed they had even planned to meet in person. It just fizzled out when Seungyeon possessed the body on the day they were supposed to meet.
Seungyeon reviewed that conversation over and over. As far as he knew, Baek Seungyeon was healthy. There was no way he was wrong since he’d done all sorts of tests when hospitalized. There was no such thing as the hearing disease that kept being mentioned in this chat window.
“So that means he lied to this person, bullshitting that he had a disease that didn’t even exist.”
To someone who actually lost family to that disease, is that something you do? The promiscuous sex life was better. Isn’t this just non-recyclable waste-grade trash?
Grabbing his throbbing head, Seungyeon groaned for a long time. There are things people should do and things they shouldn’t do, isn’t this really not okay?
Even if others were one thing, he felt he needed to properly explain and apologize to this person called ‘shhh.’ Hesitating, Seungyeon tapped the keyboard. Typing with only one hand didn’t give him speed. Seungyeon pressed each letter with a praying heart. Even if a penalty occurred from his current actions, he had no choice but to trust that the nullification pass would work well.
When he had typed up to ‘Hello, shhh. I have something important to tell you’ in the chat window, a new chat came in from the other person.
[shhh: You finally logged in?]
Seungyeon’s fingers stopped in mid-air. Before he could react, a second chat immediately followed.
[shhh: I told you, if you cut off contact as you please, I’d barge into your house]
