GBH 76

It was uncharacteristic coming from Song Yi-heon, who had always attended school diligently even if it meant sprawling out to sleep once there. However, just as he had calmly surveyed the unfamiliar house, Se-kyung responded calmly.

“Come to school. You can do it while attending school, can’t you?”

“It’s not something that will end quickly.”

After a moment of silence, Song Yi-heon turned his head to examine Se-kyung. The yellow light of the bright full moon blurred faintly on Song Yi-heon’s forehead and bridge of his nose. His lips, also blurred in the moonlight, revealed the truth.

“This is where I used to live. I thought the guys I lived with would still be here, but they sold the house and went somewhere.”

He had just received help escaping, and since he often received help from Se-kyung, he judged it was okay to tell some truth. Crucially, Choi Se-kyung knew that the original Song Yi-heon and Kim Deuk-pal were different people, so he deserved to know some of the truth.

Song Yi-heon took out his phone from his pocket and showed him a photo he had received from the chairman on the day the final exams ended. As Se-kyung looked confused between the environmental group and the gang, Song Yi-heon zoomed in on the part with the gang members.

“The guys in the photo are the ones I lived with here. They’re part of the Chilseong faction, managing nightclubs and lodging businesses. No, they used to. Somehow the guys chasing me have taken over and are running it now.”

It was a business that Kim Deuk-pal had helped establish as a young action leader, experiencing all sorts of dirty situations and fighting. It shouldn’t have been lost so easily.

Even if the subordinates were one thing, it was still unbelievable that so much business had been taken over without the boss doing anything about it.

The boss. Yes, if the one who had laughed holding his stomach at Kim Deuk-pal’s college entrance exam scores had been fine, this situation wouldn’t have happened.

The fact that the organization had been shaken enough to lose the business in such a short time meant there must have been problems with the boss’s well-being too. He bit his lower lip tightly at the thought that the boss, who had shared joys and sorrows while building the business together, might not be safe.

Se-kyung carefully examined all the masked people on the screen before returning the phone.

“So you’re part of this organization too?”

“I was.”

Now that he was dead, maybe he was an honorary member. One corner of Song Yi-heon’s mouth twisted. Before he knew it, he faced Se-kyung and told him what needed to be done next.

“They’ve lost their house and business, so they’re just doing gangster things now. I need to find them. Find out what happened. Earlier, I was chasing those gangsters to find out where the subordinates went. Since that failed, I’ll have to find another way.”

Choi Se-kyung was smart enough to understand with just this much explanation. Perhaps because they were in this house, a cold sharpness circled around Song Yi-heon, treating others condescendingly as he did when living as Kim Deuk-pal. A cold determination overlaid his appearance of a well-raised rich young master.

“Now that I’ve told you, go home. Don’t follow me anymore. I’ll return to school after I resolve this on my own.”

“You want me to wait quietly at school?”

“You understand well.”

Indeed, Choi Se-kyung was convenient in that he understood without needing long explanations. However, understanding and being persuaded were separate issues. Also, considering Se-kyung’s innate violent and cruel nature, it wasn’t unusual that he remained calm even after hearing about the connection to gangsters.

Not being persuaded and not being afraid, it was natural for him to offer help.

“I’ll help you. It’ll be tough to investigate gangsters in Song Yi-heon’s body. If I help, you can do it while attending school.”

“That’s for me to—”

He was about to reflexively refuse Se-kyung’s help when he sensed something odd. Not ‘Song Yi-heon’, but ‘Song Yi-heon’s body’? He definitely said ‘Song Yi-heon’s body’. He wouldn’t have unnecessarily used a term distinguishing between Song Yi-heon and Song Yi-heon’s body.

The ambiguous statement put him on the defensive. Song Yi-heon expressed hostility towards Se-kyung for the first time in a while.

“What are you? How much do you know?”

Se-kyung’s eyes, shadowed by the brim of his cap, didn’t look dark, and his lips drew a mysterious line. Like a gambler not easily showing their hand, Se-kyung silently smiled as if adjusting the atmosphere to his advantage.

Eventually, Se-kyung went down from the wooden floor and kicked a pebble at his feet into the pond while standing on the stone step. The pond was dry, so there was no sound of ripples spreading, only a small sound of the pebble rolling on the dirt bottom. As the sound of rolling stopped after hitting stones at the bottom of the pond, Se-kyung turned around, and his eye level matched Song Yi-heon’s, who was on the wooden floor.

As their eyes met, Se-kyung’s eyes engulfed in darkness became visible. The eyes, which he thought would be enjoying this, were not smiling at all.

“That you’re about half the real Song Yi-heon? At least the body is definitely Song Yi-heon’s, born between the chairman of A Construction Company and the actress mother.”

“…”

“At first, I thought it might be something like dissociative identity disorder caused by mental breakdown… multiple personalities splitting within a single body, you know.”

It was one body but two completely separate personalities, so the suspicion leaned towards dissociative identity disorder. However, the more deeply he considered it, the more strange points there were.

In dissociative identity disorder, the personalities are created by the brain, so there are no traces of them having lived in society. For example, if a person named Younghee develops multiple personalities named Bill and Charles, there would only be the school Younghee graduated from, not schools that Bill and Charles graduated from. Even if Bill and Charles had different personalities, they only existed in Younghee’s brain and couldn’t engage in independent social activities.

But this wasn’t a fake Song Yi-heon. There were traces of him having actually lived.

“In Gangneung, you had a conversation related to an inn owner and a violent organization called Chilseong faction. And just now, you were being chased by gangsters. You know the structure of this house well, like someone who lived here for a long time, and you say the people you lived with were gangsters. The more I get to know you, it feels like you’re not a split personality, but a person who was fully alive. For instance…”

Even to herself, it seemed like a crazy idea, but there was no other way to explain the current situation.

“It’s as if someone else’s soul has entered Song Yi-heon’s body.”

“…”

“Someone who lived in this house and is connected to gangsters. I think that person’s soul is now inside Song Yi-heon’s body. There’s someone in there who’s skilled at fighting, doesn’t hold back what they want to say, and is rough but caring.”

Se-kyung’s index finger poked the center of Song Yi-heon’s chest. It was spot on.

Whoosh. The overgrown garden bushes swayed. Song Yi-heon’s short hair, stiff like a garden sculpture, was also swept like grass. Song Yi-heon’s lips quivered, unable to remove the finger gently digging into his chest.

He never expected Choi Se-kyung to guess the truth. So surprised that his mind went blank like a sheet of paper, he panicked like a refugee in a conquered fortress. Not knowing why he was denying it, he babbled instinctively. His stiff tongue moved clumsily.

“…How can it make sense that someone else’s soul is inside? Even if what you’re saying is true, if you knew I was such a strange guy, you should avoid me. Why are you chasing after me?”

Se-kyung lifted the brim of her cap. A cool breeze brushed her forehead where her hair had been pressed, and her eyes, with eyebrows now visible, were proud as if showing off a hidden jewel.

“Do you know Don Quixote?”

“No.”

The immediate answer of not knowing Don Quixote while preparing for college entrance exams was so clear that Se-kyung couldn’t help but smile slightly. It wasn’t an artificial smile maintained to pretend to be nice, but a natural smile from relaxed muscles.

“It’s a novel written by Cervantes. There’s a passage that goes like this.”

His soft low voice recited the passage.

“To dream the impossible dream, to love the impossible love. To fight the unbeatable foe, to bear the unbearable sorrow. To run where the brave dare not go, to reach the unreachable star.”

The low voice ended dreamily.

“That’s how people usually live. Dreaming of an unattainable utopia and striving to achieve it.”

Her eyes, joy swirling like waves in a dark night sea, looked directly at the soul contained in Song Yi-heon’s body.

“I want to catch you.”

Se-kyung’s hand brushed over Song Yi-heon’s cheek. Because what he truly loved was the soul, not the body, Se-kyung didn’t touch Song Yi-heon’s body. But as if that was enough, Se-kyung’s eyes sparkled as if reflecting stars.

“Liking you, whom I don’t even know, is my unreachable star.”

Confessing to a soul whose name and age he didn’t know, and who might not even be human and could disappear at any time, seemed as reckless as Don Quixote. But Se-kyung was brave because he was proud of the soul he loved. He boldly reached out towards the unreachable star.

The fine hairs on his cheek stood on end, following Se-kyung’s hand that almost touched his cheek. Not knowing if it was the hair that tickled or Se-kyung’s confession, Song Yi-heon, in confusion, swatted away Se-kyung’s arm. Yet Se-kyung’s pure smile didn’t break.

“Ah, damn. I don’t know.”

He ruffled the back of his head as if trying to shake off troublesome thoughts. Without saying where he was going, Song Yi-heon left first, his short hair sticking out in all directions on the back of his head. When he was far enough that Se-kyung left behind couldn’t see, Song Yi-heon scratched furiously near his heart. It seemed the tickling was probably from the confession.

Just as Se-kyung’s clumsy side was lovable, he found Choi Se-kyung purely confessing his feelings lovable.

* * *

The next evening, since he had been spotted by rival gang members at dawn yesterday, Song Yi-heon couldn’t stake out at the same convenience store, so he came out to find the organization’s whereabouts in a different way.

Before getting started in earnest, he stopped by a convenience store to satisfy his hunger, but his mood was not good as he scanned the cup noodle shelf. And when the cause of this uncomfortable mood calmly chose cup noodles beside him, he couldn’t help but groan.

“Urgh.”

Se-kyung was holding cup noodles in both hands, facing the final decision after much deliberation. As he had been contemplating for a while without making an easy decision, he snatched the cup noodle from Se-kyung’s right hand.

“Eat this one. The left one is spicy.”

They left the convenience store after heating up sausages to eat while the noodles cooked. At one parasol, a group of college students had piled up snacks and beer, having a drinking party.

Sitting at the farthest parasol from the college group, he took a bite of the sausage with its wrinkled plastic packaging, and hot meat juice burst in his mouth as he chewed the chunky meat with a crunch. Song Yi-heon secretly glanced at Se-kyung while exhaling hot breath from the sausage’s heat. He was biting into processed foods quite well. The kid who couldn’t even eat tteokbokki has grown a lot. He snickered, then asked, thinking it unlikely that Choi Myunghyun would have allowed her to wander the streets so late.

“Don’t they say anything at home?”

“Both of them are busy. They recently went on a trip for their wedding anniversary, and it seems work piled up while they cleared their schedule for the trip.”

“I see.”

Still thinking of ways to send her home quickly, Song Yi-heon witnessed the college students at the parasol in a straight line making a toast. On this hot summer day, the sound of them guzzling beer cans with droplets of condensation formed on the surface could be heard from here.

As Song Yi-heon couldn’t take his eyes off a man gulping down beer with his Adam’s apple bobbing, already feeling thirsty, Se-kyung blocked his view with her palm.

“It’s only a few months left. Be patient.”

Though it was only a few months until he became an adult, Song Yi-heon’s soul might return before then. But there was no need to tell Choi Se-kyung that fact, so he went along with Se-kyung’s dissuasion.

“…Alright, let’s have a drink together later.”

Though he hesitated slightly, remembering Se-kyung’s confession, he was quite smooth, but

“So you won’t be here until then.”

Se-kyung was not one to be fooled.