1.
INTRO – Return
I look at Earth from space.
A massive celestial body that appears like a blue sun. It took some time to recognize it as Earth.
It’s not a small, peaceful blue pearl-like star. Its overwhelming size and speed are terrifying. It feels like it could leave its orbit and charge toward me at 110,000 km/h at any moment.
There’s no breath of wind, no vibration of sound around me. It’s just the scene I see, like a muted TV screen.
Is this a dream?
No, if it were a dream, I would be able to see myself, like watching a movie.
I raise my hand to check ‘myself.’ But there’s no hand that I can lift. I look down but can’t see my body. There’s no head to lower in the first place. Yet, I clearly perceive and recognize the scene. What am I?
Suddenly, another scene unfolds.
This time, my vision is filled with people. Men and women dressed up glamorously laugh and chat under the open night sky, sipping drinks. Everyone seems joyful and appears to have no worries. Like people in music videos or advertisements, they look perfectly happy now.
I know that no one lives a life without any worries. Still, I’ve always envied other people and their lives. Even before I realized I had ruined my own life.
The TV version of me always looked the happiest.
Pretending not to be tired, pretending to be innocent, pretending that the love from fans is everything, pretending to live diligently in a bright and healthy world where common sense prevails…
Sometimes, I even mistakenly thought that I was completely happy while smiling in front of the camera. I wished I could be filming something continuously for 24 hours. I didn’t want to return to a life behind the camera; I preferred the life of me on the screen in front of the camera.
The people visible here also look artificially happy as if they are in a staged scene.
Surrounding me are brightly lit high-rise buildings. This is undoubtedly a big city. Yet, like in space, I still hear no sound.
No one recognizes me. Of course, they can’t. I still have no body and no voice.
【Over there, there! The place where they put up the barricade at the edge!】
Suddenly, I hear the clear voice of a single person. It’s a young student dressed like a traveler, wearing shorts and a crossbody bag. The excited face of the crossbody bag points somewhere with a finger while looking back at the companion. However, the companion, wearing a cap, looks reluctant.
【The spot where that K-pop star jumped?】
【It looks like people are lining up over there to take pictures! Let’s go and take some too!】
【What’s so good about taking a picture at a place where someone jumped and died? And the line is so long.】
Despite the grumpy face, the cap follows where the crossbody bag leads. I can only hear the conversation between these two.
I suddenly look around once again.
Lush decorations and lighting on the rooftop of high-rise buildings, skyscrapers shining profusely from all directions.
Without a body, I finally realize where this place is.
Before I know it, the two people stand at the end of the line, looking down at the city beyond the barricade. The cap frowns and shivers.
【How distressing must one be to think of jumping off from here? Ugh, it’s horrible!】
Yes, this is Bangkok, Thailand.
The 32nd-floor rooftop bar where I, in distress, jumped off.
As soon as I realize it clearly, my nonexistent limbs start trembling.
All at once, all noises begin flooding my ears. The friction sounds of cars driving on the roads, honking horns, loud DJ music, laughter and voices of people.
It’s not just the noise of this city. Someone’s wailing, pleading for forgiveness, curses of jealousy and envy, cheers of joy and awe, whispers of love intoxicated with sweetness… these are the sounds of the entire world.
Having been in complete silence, I am suddenly thrown into a cacophony of noise. I try to cover my non-existent ears and scream with a voice that doesn’t come out. My silent scream that reaches no one.
Soon all sounds fade away.
This time, everything I see is wavy and undulating, like submerged in water. Even the sounds I hear are refracted, like listening to sounds from outside water while being underwater.
Where is this?
The silhouettes of people blur in an enclosed room blocked by walls. The more I focus, the calmer the waves get, and my vision becomes clearer.
It’s a room with four people sitting across from each other with a sofa table in between.
Mumbling, mumbling.
The voices of people start breaking in bits and pieces.
【Don’t you ever think about cutting off one of their limbs… They could only jump… Pushing them repeatedly… Don’t you think so?】
The words from a man sitting towards me pass through the waves, partially conveyed. The man continues, leaning his upper body towards someone sitting opposite him.
【If such a thing happened to someone I love, I… just compensation… legal punishment alone… I wouldn’t be able to forgive them… JI
I swim forward slowly as if navigating through water. It’s not easy. It’s like being submerged in the deep sea with strong pressure. The man’s words come through like a radio with poor frequency, intermittently cutting off and reconnecting.
Finally, I approach the sofa where the four people are seated.
I first recognize the face of the man in front of me. Anyone even slightly interested in the South Korean economy or upper-class social circles would recognize that face. The second son of the late Chairman Woo-Yeol Lee of Hanse Group.
Beside him sits an unexpected person. One of the few people I could open my heart to and trust in my life. Actor Ji-In Jung. Ji-In hyung…
Even though I don’t know why hyung is here with that man, seeing his familiar face in front of me makes my soul ache.
‘I’ll come to see you. Even if it’s not for long, I can spare a day or two.’
Hyung had promised to come meet me in Bangkok. But I didn’t wait for him to keep that promise.
‘Hong-Seo, let’s endure it. As time passes, circumstances will change, and things that seem hopeless now might open up… You have to hold on to seize the opportunity. Let’s endure it, okay?’
Even those kind words from hyung couldn’t hold my feet firmly on the ground as I jumped into the air.
I wanted to see hyung’s noticeably pale face more clearly.
At that moment, a new voice stopped me.
【I can’t say it’s not a tempting offer.】
I know whose voice it is.
If I had eyes now, they would have either been wide open, frozen without blinking, or perhaps clenched shut.
【But, I’m not the victim.】
A soft, deep voice continues, wrapped in a calm and firm tone. Husky, and somewhat tired-looking…
This time, it’s not just my soul that aches. The pain is so intense that it feels like my spirit, just like my vanished body, might tear apart and shatter into pieces.
Pain? Do I deserve to feel pain? I didn’t even have the right to look at his face.
【His social reputation is already tarnished. X-boy… yes, even if he really did such things, if it hadn’t been revealed this way, it wouldn’t have come to this. So the right thing for me to do now is… at least, revealing the same about Seo-Kyung’s actions to the world. They say there was prostitution and sexual bribery… but it doesn’t make sense that there are only providers but no recipients, right?】
However, greedy I dare to look at him. His face wavers between the waves flowing between us.
His facial features are solid, but the expressions enveloping them were always gentle. Or were they only softened when he looked at me?
He draws on the filter of the cigarette in his hand. A cigarette… he’s smoking again. He said he quit with difficulty. Because of me? Because I left like that?
【Personal revenge isn’t for him or anyone else. It’s just my outburst of anger.】
I understand what he’s saying.
While listening to their conversation, I remember once again the reason why I ‘drastically’ jumped off the 32nd-floor rooftop bar.
X-boy scandal.
He says he will reveal the sins of the ‘high-ranking person’ involved in that scandal to the world for me.
How can he say that? Despite me making such a selfish choice. I thought he would hate, despise, and want to obliterate all memories related to me.
I want to get closer to him. I want to see his face more clearly. I want to ask for forgiveness and feel that special feeling of him looking at me one more time.
Why did I not disappear?
If this place is the afterlife or somewhere in the middle ground between life and death, ‘existing’ in this place was agony. Here too, I had to take responsibility for my choice and its consequences.
I was bearing the responsibility for trying to escape by disappearing. With all my memories intact, unable to forget anything, and watching the pain of those dear to me.
As I tried to push through the waves and get closer to him, everything disappeared from my view once again. His face also blurs and scatters.
This time, it’s in darkness.
I hear no sound and see nothing. Only the flow surrounding and engulfing me, the sense of waves, is all that I feel. I am in deep and heavy water where no light reaches.
So, am I a god?
Looking down at Earth from space with no form, transcending time and space as a spiritual being. Did I become a god after dying?
As I slowly look around in the same darkness everywhere, I suddenly realize that I’m not breathing. As soon as I become aware of it, the suffocating pain rushes in. Without a body, I can’t breathe, nor do I need to. Yet, I feel suffocated and struggle without a body.
No matter how much I stroke, the surface is far away.
No matter how much I scream, my voice doesn’t reach anyone.
No way I could have become a god. A soul that cowardly took its own life as a way to escape, abandoning someone who said they loved me, could never become a god.
【Here is news about idol group ‘Titan’ member, actor Hye-Ahn Yoon.】
Like receiving hints piece by piece, I hear a voice from somewhere again. I desperately move what feels like limbs to identify where the sound is coming from. I listen keenly to the unstable voice mixed with interference and noise.
[Hye-Ahn Yoon was found at Bamseom after jumping off Dongho Bridge last April, right? For months, many people felt pity as he remained unconscious. This afternoon, miraculously, he regained consciousness.]
In the far-off distance above my head, I began to see light rippling the surface… If I could just reach it, I might be able to breathe… But even an imaginary body can get tired, and I slowly start to sink again.
The distancing light, the hope, the helplessness of merely watching, without being able to reach it, was more horrifying than suffocation.
【Once again, we’re revisiting the case.】
The voice, without a determined source, continues to chatter, indifferent to my excruciating pain.
As I stop floundering, I sink deeper into the darkness. The light grows distant.
【Yes, it’s shocking. At 2:44 PM local time in Bangkok today, Seo-Kyung Lee, former Managing Director of Nox Hotel & Resort, was murdered.】
In the moment my vision blurs, some force snatches me. A taut force tightly grips and yanks me up in an instant.
Like a helpless fish hooked on a merciless fishing line, I rise toward the light.
The moment I leap above the water’s surface…
I am finally breathing.
