When he opened his eyes, he subconsciously touched his head. He expected that his head would be covered in blood, but unexpectedly, his hands were clean. He saw a messy desk and clothes strewn everywhere. Junmin stood up from the floor. The small kitchen had a foul stench, and his friends were sleeping on the floor.
“It wasn’t a dream?”
He hurriedly looked at the monitor. 1988. Those four numbers entered his eyes clearly. He walked past his snoring friends and went into the bathroom. He checked his face in the mirror that had a corner broken. His eyes looked exhausted, but he was not injured. It was the him from a year ago. The loud bang that muffled his ears, the shock that followed after that, his body that flew through the air, as well as the people that looked at him with shock. That was then followed by the memory of Haejoo screaming in the rain as she looked his way.
“I’ve really returned.”
It was a shocking matter. Unless he was in a dream, he really came back from the dead.
“It’s just as that woman said.”
The woman he saw at the boundary of life and death – just like what that woman with an indescribable beauty said, he really came back to life.
“They say animals have souls….”
There was a time in his early twenties when he picked up three stray dogs by the road and raised them. The dogs had ugly features all over their faces. That woman told him that he was given another opportunity because he looked after those dogs dearly. He never knew that such a trivial good deed would allow him to go back in time. As unbelievable as it was, though, he really came back to life.
He couldn’t hold back his glee and came out of the bathroom, waking up his friends. His friends, who earned money by playing minor characters in various theatrical pieces, woke up in vexation.
“You guys should treat dogs well in the future.”
“Dogs? What dogs?”
“You don’t know dogs? I mean dogs, the ones that bark.”
“You hated them though. What changed your mind?”
“What do you mean, I hated dogs? Where can you find a bigger dog lover than me?”
“What the hell man, did alcohol get to your brain after drinking too much? Hey, everyone you know knows that you hate dogs. What nonsense are you saying? If you are still drunk, then get some more sleep. Leader[1] told us that we’ll have our schedules full tomorrow with a historical drama. I think I’ll rot in the countryside for about two weeks. He got us historical dramas from all the three major companies, RBS, KBS, and YBS. With those, we won’t have to worry about money for the time being.”
Another friend, in the corner, spoke,
“Hey, how long do you think we can keep doing this? We’ll be forty in a couple of years.”
“What can we do? We just have to keep trying ourselves out at the TV station. Let’s get some sleep first.”
His friends giggled before going to sleep again. Junmin couldn’t understand. He hated dogs? He was given another chance at life because he saved some dogs. Just as he was thinking about that, he saw faint colors emanating out of his friends. The area around their ears had turned cloudy as though it was painted with pastel. He rubbed his eyes, wondering if he was hallucinating, but the cloudy colors still remained. One of them had a red color, and another one had a blue color. The one sleeping in front of the fridge had a grey color, and the one next to that had a yellow color.
After staring at the colors for a while, he came to a realization. The colors varied according to what he thought of his friends’ acting skills. The one that had a hard time memorizing lines was black, and the one that could memorize but had terrible acting was grey. The ones that were decent looked red, blue, and yellow. Junmin went back into the bathroom and looked at the mirror. Unfortunately, his ears reflected in the mirror did not have any color.
“I’ll be leaving for a bit.”
“Can you buy some ramyun on the way back? We’re out.”
Just as he was about to rush out wearing shorts and a baggy t-shirt, something came to mind. He opened the closet and took out his suit. He changed into his only suit and put his shoes on.
“What the heck? Why did you change your clothes?”
“Reasons.”
He even put his necktie on before going towards the streets. He grabbed a bus and headed towards Daehak-ro immediately. Everything was the same as though his death was just a figment of his imagination. Junmin immediately headed to the streets with the small theaters. He saw the building, that Yecheon resided in, that he had been to many times. He bought a ticket and went inside. There were 10 minutes until the play started. He sat down on one of the narrow chairs. Before he embraced this new life of his, he had to check something first. After more people came in, and one of the members of the troupe made an announcement, the play started. The lights turned dim, and an actor appeared on the stage right in front of him. All of them were familiar faces. Eventually, Haejoo came up. Her good, yet awkward acting hadn’t changed. So I’ve really returned to life. Joy overwhelmed him.
At the same time, Junmin discovered it. There was a beautiful light circling around Haejoo’s ears. Unlike his friends at home and the other members of the troupe, her color was composed of multiple different colors. Sometimes it was yellow, sometimes it was blue. It felt as though a rainbow was hanging on her ears.
He smiled.
He could begin again.
He would finally make that woman into an actress that was sought out and loved by all people.
After the play ended, Junmin approached Haejoo. He wasn’t embarrassed like in his previous life. He was planning to say it boldly this time.
“Do you have any thoughts on doing acting properly?”
* * *
“Time of death: 20:28.”
Those words reverberated in my ears. Hearing that, I could neither become angry nor deny it. I didn’t cry either. Crying would be shameful here.
“Because of you!”
She called herself a friend of Junmin’s, huh. The woman wearing a doctor’s gown shouted. When she struggled, the nametag on her gown fell off.
Kang Seoyeon, neurosurgeon. That seemed to be her name.
I picked up the nametag and gave it back to her. The nametag was smacked away into the air, and my cheeks felt like they were burning.
“Because of you!”
She kept repeating those words. I felt my insides churning. Even though I hadn’t eaten anything, I got the urge to empty things out. I quickly went to the bathroom and grabbed the toilet. What came out after an intestine-churning vomiting was just some murky stomach fluid.
Why am I alive? Why did that person die? I could feel the sensation of the kiss we exchanged just a few short hours ago, yet that person left for a place I could not reach.
I left the bathroom and walked through the corridor. The people I came across looked at me strangely, but I didn’t care. The moment I left the hospital, an intense headache assaulted my head. I felt like I had experienced this scene somewhere before.
When I came to, I was standing on a bridge. I couldn’t remember how I came here. I looked around, the moment I saw the black river water flowing beneath, I sighed in relief. If I was at home when I came to, I would have felt even more horrible. It was obvious that I would be disgusted at myself for trying to live on by myself by going home.
It didn’t take that much hesitation as I grabbed the banisters. My body was smoothly heading forwards as though I’d done this before. Now, I just needed to put strength into my arms and stand over the guardrails. It would all be over.
One step. All that was left to put everything down was just one step.
Just then,
“Don’t you want to start over?”
I turned my head slowly to the left, along the guardrails. There was a woman standing about five meters away from me. I hadn’t seen her before, yet she looked familiar.
“Start over?”
“Yes, start over.”
“Start what over?”
“Do you really not know?”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t even have the energy to speak right now. I’m going to put everything into jumping off.”
“Will jumping off change things?”
The woman’s words clearly touched my nerves. I let go of the banisters and looked at the woman.
“What are you saying?”
“Lee Junmin.”
That person’s name came from the foreign woman. I looked around as though I’d sinned. Was she a relative? Was she here to pick a fight with me? Or to console me?
My legs started shaking. Just seeing someone who knew Junmin made me feel like the floor beneath me had disappeared.
“What would you do if you could live your life again?”
“Live my life again?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not possible.”
“In this world, sometimes, the things that aren’t possible do happen from time to time. I mean, really absurd things.”
“Forget about getting me to do something just because I’m a woman who’s about to commit suicide.”
“I know it too well.”
“Know what?”
“Know what ‘you’ know.”
“What ‘I’ know?”
The woman raised her head. There was nothing in the sky, but the woman’s lips moved as though she was talking to something.
“It’s about time. Now, you must make your decision. You just need to answer with a yes or a no. Simple, isn’t it?”
“This will change if I just say yes?”
“Yes. It will. It will change somehow.”
I laughed in vain.
“I don’t need anything like that. Even if I live my life again, there’s no meaning in….”
“Living your life again means turning the clock to the past.”
“Turning the clock to the past?”
“You know what that means, right?”
“…Will that person come back to life as well?”
The woman wordlessly nodded. At that moment, there was a smile on the woman’s face. For some reason, the smile looked tragic.
“Time will go back to the past as long as I say yes?”
“Yes.”
“The dead will come back to life?”
“Yes.”
“That sounds way too good to be true. What does that leave you?”
“Let me just say entertainment. I don’t know the details either. What I can be sure of is that the moment you say yes, time will rewind and everything will start over.”
This was absurd. It was 1989, where cutting-edge science was blossoming in all areas. Who would believe in something like that? However, unlike what I was thinking, my heart had already decided on an answer.
“I’ll do it. What do I need to do?”
“You just need to say ‘yes’.”
“Yes, I will do it.”
“Wait. Before that, there are a few things I must explain to you. First up….”
The woman paused before staring at me.
“Do you really want to live again?”
“You said you know me as much as I do, right? What would you do?”
“If it was me, I would have chosen to live again.”
“Me too.”
“I see. That must be the case. Good. I will start explaining now. The moment you say ‘yes’, the clock will turn back one year. Of course, Mr. Lee Junmin will come back to life too. Everything will be just as it was in the past. That accident would not have happened, and no one will be sad. However, there will be a few restrictions on you.”
“Restrictions?”
“Yes.”
The woman took away her smile.
“First, you will lose your memories.”
* * *
Pss, he opened his eyes because of the noise from the TV. Maru scratched his head and yawned. What time was it now? The sky he saw outside the veranda was purple. It was 6:23. It seemed that he just fainted while watching the video. It was Sunday today, but there was no shoot today. Today, he got to rest, which didn’t happen a lot.
“Man, they ate a lot,” he said as he looked at the traces – empty bags of snacks – that Jiseok and Daemyung left behind.
He collected them and put them in a trash bag, but the trash bag looked like it was about to burst. He stuffed them all inside a 10L trash bag before putting the bag outside his house. An old lady holding a bible walked past him. He didn’t know whether she was going to the church or coming from the church. God, huh. Maru smiled at the granny he met eyes with before nodding. The granny glanced at him as though she had seen something strange before walking off.
He returned to the house and tidied up the videotapes. He got a clue at least. Conversing with the ego inside him. That should become a foothold to improve his acting skills more.
‘But is this also a form of mental illness?’
He was rather happy to have found a colleague in the same situation as him, but there being another ego inside himself was definitely not normal, no matter how hard he thought about it. When he received mental consultation at the psychiatrist’s before, he was told that he was normal, but an ‘inner self’ was definitely not normal.
“Jung Haejoo, it would’ve been great if I could have met her in person.”
As unfortunate as it was, there was no way to meet a dead person in this world. Well, it might be possible for the fellows up there. Maru stretched his arms out and went to the kitchen. For now, he decided to make breakfast.
[1] Referring to the ‘leader’ that schedules jobs for minor actors.
