"Someone collapsed here!"
"Please call 119!"
"Koo Hyun-mo just suddenly—thud…!"
After the screams rang out, the darkness lifted, and people began murmuring and crowding around.
While everyone was flustered and uncertain, a faint figure lying on the ground was visible between people's legs.
"Hey, step aside for a moment!"
Pushing through the hesitating crowd, three burly men rushed in like a charge.
"Move to the side for a sec. We'll just squeeze past you."
"Out of the way."
"…."
Thugs 1, 2, and 3.
They fit the roles perfectly. Bulging muscles visible outside their tight shirts, menacing glares—anyone could tell these guys were no ordinary men.
Had Oh Jung-seop maybe borrowed some loan shark money?
The aura emanating from their faces was so clearly out of the ordinary that people parted like the Red Sea, stepping aside.
They gave off an overwhelming pressure, as if they were about to flip over a bowl of spicy beef soup and cause a scene over a debt at a funeral home.
"Hold on a moment."
Fortunately, they didn't seem to be here for debt collection. Rather, they quickly began checking the collapsed person and administering first aid.
"Hey! Hyun-mo!"
Just then, Manager Heo—who never showed up no matter how many times he called—suddenly appeared and shouted.
'Manager Heo?'
Manager Heo walked right past Hyun-mo, who was standing there blankly, and pushed into the crowd. Then he threw himself down in front of the person lying on the floor and cried out, his voice trembling.
"Our actor Koo—no, Hyun-mo—how did this happen? Hyun-mo! Wake up, okay?"
'…What?'
Why was he calling out Hyun-mo's name at the side of the collapsed person over there?
"Manager Heo. What are you doing…"
He was dumbfounded.
"I'm over here. This is not a good joke."
"P-Please help! Call 119, 119! What's wrong with you! Hyun-mo!"
Could this be some kind of hidden camera prank?
If that was acting, Manager Heo should be the actor instead.
"Hyun-mo, what's wrong?"
"Ah, it doesn't seem like his airway is blocked. Let's get him to the hospital for now."
"Hey, grab him from behind and hoist him up."
While Hyun-mo stood there dazed for a moment, Thug 1 lightly hoisted the collapsed person onto his back.
In the meantime, Hyun-mo pushed through the crowd to get a closer look. And in that instant, he felt like he'd been hit on the head.
'Holy crap. That's me…!'
It was clearly Koo Hyun-mo—his own self. The Koo Hyun-mo slung over that burly man's back was unconscious, drooping like overcooked spinach.
'This doesn't make sense…!'
Koo Hyun-mo slowly backed away, unable to believe the situation. His mind went blank, the surrounding noise buzzed in his ears, and his heart began to pound.
"Hospital—which way should we go? Ah. Hyung, they're saying that way."
"Yeah, got it."
It felt surreal to see his own limp body being carried away by that large man.
Hyun-mo gripped his shaky legs and barely managed to stay standing.
'How can this be? I'm right here—then who is that person over there?'
Unlike in movies, his hands weren't translucent, and he could still feel his own flesh. But still… somehow, this felt like he had become a ghost wandering around without even knowing he was dead.
"My goodness, Koo Hyun-mo… what in the world is this…"
As the unconscious Koo Hyun-mo was taken out in the hands of those thugs, the people in the funeral hall murmured and returned to their seats.
But Hyun-mo remained standing there blankly.
"Well, he was like a father figure to him since childhood. So maybe he's just in shock?"
No way.
At this point, he almost wondered if Oh Jung-seop had asked for a hidden camera prank on Koo Hyun-mo in his will.
Like maybe all these people were in on it, and Oh Jung-seop—even from beyond the grave—wanted to get back at Hyun-mo for that act of insubordination back then.
If not that, then maybe he really was dead. Even now, he was standing alone in front of the funeral hall, and no one seemed to recognize him.
'Am I actually dead…? No, wait…'
Then what about that strange script that appeared earlier…?
-Thwack!
Just then, something heavy and blunt whacked Hyun-mo sharply on the back.
"Ugh!"
Startled by the stinging pain that shot down his spine, he turned his head to see who on earth had dared to hit him.
"Hyun-mo, what are you doing? Get a grip, will you?"
This person—Thug 3 from earlier? One of the three burly men who had rushed over to the collapsed Koo Hyun-mo just moments ago.
'But wait, who is this guy? I'm a spirit—how can he see me, and how did he hit me?'
As Hyun-mo stared back in bewilderment, Thug 3 let out a deep sigh.
"What are you doing, spacing out like that? We've gotta go now."
Hyun-mo shuffled back, trying to avoid them as they approached with their intimidating presence.
"C-Can you… see me?"
"Ah, here we go again…"
Eventually, Thug 3 and Thug 2—their large frames filling the hallway—ambled over toward Hyun-mo.
He wanted to ask why they were suddenly acting this way, but with both of them looking so threatening, he couldn't even get the words out.
"Wait, hold on…"
"Come on, let's just go quietly, Hyun-mo."
Dressed in sharp black suits, their fierce faces gesturing with their fingers, telling him to come along—it all looked…
'Grim reapers?!'
Yes, now that he looked again, that had to be it. Sure, they weren't wearing traditional horsehair hats or black robes, but modern grim reapers might look exactly like this…
"A-ah… I don't want to go. I don't want to die."
"Why are you being so adorably difficult today, of all days?"
"Y-You guys… you're grim reapers!"
"You're raising a real ruckus, aren't you? Snap out of it! Move it—we need to feed Mal-rang."
"No, seriously—what the hell…!"
"Get over here. Or do I have to come get you? Sang-tae, grab him!"
"…!!"
Before he could even ask what was going on, Thug 2 and Thug 3 rushed over and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, dragging him along.
"Ah! Let go! I said let go!"
He didn't want to be dragged off to the afterlife like this.
But their strength was so immense that his feet barely touched the ground—he was practically floating. Hyun-mo couldn't put up any resistance and was helplessly hauled away.
'Is this really how I die…'
Life was truly fleeting.
The Hannam-dong penthouse, the LA villa, the five supercars he'd struggled to import, the watch collection he'd built up by mobilizing every connection he had—
After death, none of it meant anything. The realization felt hollow.
'So this… is the end of my life…'
Come to think of it, actor Koo Hyun-mo was the kind of actor who didn't have a single impressive final line to murmur on his way to the afterlife.
Pathetically, even though he'd spent most of his life as an actor.
[Don't smile so carelessly. Because every time you do, my world falls apart.]
Or something like:
[Can you hear that foghorn? It's the sound of my ship heading into the harbor that is you.]
That was all he had.
'Compared to that, Oh Jung-seop had so many great lines.'
He remembered Oh Jung-seop's final line from the film that was expected to win at Cannes this year—
A dying man's last words, full of futility:
[The magnolias that bloomed so brilliantly have fallen, rotted, and decayed. The scattered, withered petals along the path I walked have made my life seem so fleeting.]
But… even with the same lines, he knew he could never deliver them the way Oh Jung-seop did. That thought only made him feel more pathetic.
[Perhaps… if it's you, a singularity might just be possible.]
Oh Jung-seop, you were wrong.
The boy who used to call you "Father" with a bright smile—"Dae-han"—in the end, no singularity ever came to him.
He couldn't even get close to method acting, so how dare he talked about a singularity...
[A singularity is that moment when, inexplicably, an actor and a role become perfectly aligned and the boundary between them disappears—a state that cannot be reached through theory or training alone.]
Anyway, that damn singularity, singularity!
He'd love to reach that level just once, but he was about to die soon, so he couldn't even do that.
He must have been so neurotic that he started having delusions about that strange script... Come to think of it, Oh Jung-seop, who had passed a day earlier, might be waiting for him in the afterlife.
"Haha..."
Even the road to the afterlife, he was following along—what a tiresome connection this was.
A laugh of disbelief escaped him.
"Hey, Sang-tae. What's wrong with this kid?"
"......"
"Well... Jung-seop hyung-nim did look after Hyun-mo quite a bit."
Suddenly, tears welled up in Hyun-mo's eyes.
"Ah, seriously. Looked after? Who looked after whom!"
"What? You crazy?"
Hearing the grim reapers say that without knowing the truth, a wave of injustice washed over him.
"What do you guys even know..."
Oh Jung-seop had humiliated him in front of others countless times with his scoldings—what kind of looking after was that?
"Hey, are you crying? Huh? A man crying? Come on, hyung-nim probably went to a good place. Aish, look at that snot. Hey! Go wash your face properly. We'll have a smoke while you're at it."
The grim reapers pushed Hyun-mo toward the hospital restroom.
"Ha... This is ridiculous."
What strange grim reapers.
Were they being considerate because he'd just died? Or maybe they wanted him to go to the afterlife looking clean.
"Huuuh..."
Thinking that he was really going to die like this, the tears wouldn't stop. He roughly wiped them away with the back of his hand and staggered over to the sink. Turning on the cold water, he splashed it all over his face. Once, twice, three times... Only after letting the water hit his face until it went numb did he finally feel like he was coming back to his senses.
But then.
"Huh? Wh-Whoa! What the... What... what is this! Wh-Who are you!"
He lifted his head and looked in the mirror—his familiar features were nowhere to be seen. Instead, a plain, unremarkable face stared back at him, fixedly.
In an instant, his legs gave out and he stumbled.
"Wh-How did this... no, wait."
Frantically, he splashed more water on his face noisily and looked in the mirror again, but it was still that same nondescript face.
"What the hell happened. No, my face. My face!!"
He'd built his entire acting career on his looks. That handsome face had carried him through all the criticism about his bad acting and got him to the top. And now they were telling him to go to the afterlife with this face...
"Ho-How... how can this be..."
No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn't understand why this was happening to him.
He'd never committed any crimes, had always acted faithfully, made money, paid taxes. Sure, he'd acted a bit... thoughtlessly at times, but he'd worked nonstop and lived diligently all this time—so why on earth...
"Ah! Wait... that script!"
In the midst of his confusion, the suspicious script he'd dismissed as a delusion came back to him.
"Gasp, it's really here..."
He patted himself down all over, and there it was—tucked neatly into his back pocket, the script now in his hand.
[For detailed inquiries, please check the back of the script.]
Earlier, he'd been too dumbfounded to pay it any mind... but it had definitely said to check the back.
-Flip.
He opened the script and quickly flipped to the back pages. As he turned past the still-blank pages, the bathroom lights suddenly went out with a click, and a spotlight shone down on Hyun-mo.
"Aish, why did the lights suddenly—!"
[At the request of actor Oh Jung-seop, a rehabilitation service for actor Koo Hyun-mo's ruined acting skills!]
And on the very last page of the previously blank script, text began to appear.
[A customized project for actor Koo Hyun-mo, who acts abysmally! Step by step from the very bottom! For real acting with a broad spectrum. The ultimate sweet-and-salty solution! 'Possession' Your soul has possessed the body of Shin Hyun-mo, a bit-part actor who has remained unknown for seven years.]
"What?"
Reading the following explanation with trembling hands, the situation was this:
He had to live for 36 months in this dull, nondescript face—and even then, only if he achieved that damn "singularity" thing could he return to his original body.
"That's insane... Why! Why on earth!"
[To reclaim Koo Hyun-mo's body, you must reach the pinnacle of acting within 36 months.]
Even reading it again, he was dumbfounded.
"...So why do I have to..."
This was a curse. Oh Jung-seop's curse.
Sure, he had been disrespectful a couple of times, but was this really the way to handle it?
"Oh Jung-seop, why are you doing this to me!"
The penthouse, the supercars, the villa, the watches he'd painstakingly collected like treasures—and above all, the perfect face and physique that God had given him. And he was supposed to trade all that for this pathetic state and live like this for 36 months?
Because of Oh Jung-seop??
"W-Wait! No way."
Thinking about "physique" suddenly triggered a thought.
"No... no, no, no..."
Hyun-mo, with trembling hands, lifted the waistband of his pants and checked the crucial area.
"AHHHHH!"
The moment he confirmed it, the sky came crashing down.
"F—, WHAT THE HELL! WHAT KIND OF JOKE IS THAT THING? GODDAMN IT!"
Ironically, this part turned out to be the most powerful motivation of all.