This is a dream. It doesn't make any sense.
Everything that had been so perfect had now become so utterly ordinary.
Hyun-mo closed the script in a daze and dropped his head low.
Then the fluorescent light flickered on, and he was back in reality.
It felt as though a terribly unpleasant energy was seeping out from the script.
"Hey, Hyun-mo, what are you doing in there? Get out here!"
The grim reaper who had been waiting outside cracked open the bathroom door and peeked in.
"I'll be out in a second."
Koo Hyun-mo pushed the grim reaper back and firmly shut the door.
"It's a curse, a curse..."
This script was a monstrosity, a complete monstrosity.
On top of that, it belonged to a dead person.
From the moment he opened that wretched script, imbued with Oh Jung-seop's vengeful spirit, he had been gripped by strange delusions. This absurd script was clearly under Oh Jung-seop's curse.
"I... I need to get rid of this."
Hyun-mo tossed the script straight into the bathroom trash can. But somehow, before he knew it, the script was tucked back into his back pocket.
"Huh? Wha—what the—!!"
This time, he threw it into the trash bin inside the stall and slammed the door shut.
"Goddammit!"
Once again, the script was neatly tucked into his back pocket.
A chilling shiver ran up the back of his neck. He had the eerie feeling that he would never be able to escape this script—or Oh Jung-seop.
"This is all because of Oh Jung-seop... That crazy bastard Oh Jung-seop...!"
Hyun-mo burst out of the bathroom and ran straight to Oh Jung-seop's funeral hall.
"Whoa! Hey, Hyun-mo, what's going on? Where are you going?!"
Some figure—whether grim reaper or something else—was chasing after him from behind, but at that moment, he wasn't scared of that at all. What terrified him far more was Oh Jung-seop, who seemed to be smiling at him from among the chrysanthemums, watching him.
"What the hell do you want from me..."
Hyun-mo walked slowly toward Oh Jung-seop's portrait.
"Just leave me alone…."
They had only met because of that father and son role.
Sure, he'd listened to some advice back then, and for a—just for a while—he'd even followed it a little.
'Anyway, my acting never satisfied you. You never acknowledged me, not even once... Method this, singularity that—I was making good money and doing just fine on my own….'
But Oh Jung-seop's photo seemed to mock him, asking back, 'Really? You were doing just fine?'
Thud.
"Fuck…."
His legs gave out, and Hyun-mo dropped to his knees in front of the portrait, tears streaming down his face.
He didn't even know why they were flowing.
Not because he was sad, nor because he missed him.
'That insufferable old man!'
It was because he felt wronged. Yes—tears of pent-up injustice. A surge of frustration with nowhere to pour out.
'No—I can't die like this!'
Maybe he should just burn it.
If throwing it in the trash wasn't enough, then burning was the only option.
Yes, if he burned it, maybe everything would go back to square one.
Hyun-mo grabbed the script and ran straight to the far end of the parking lot, to an empty patch of sand and gravel.
"Whoa—hey, where's he going?!"
"Hey! Where are you off to?!"
Hidden by the building and with a huge truck parked nearby, it was the perfect spot to burn the script to ashes. He scraped a shallow hole with a flat stone and surrounded it with rocks.
Someone might report it, but right now, getting rid of this ghastly script—something that shouldn't exist in this world—mattered more.
Click-clack.
He lit the edge of the script with a lighter, watched the flame catch, and set it down on the ground.
If only he had some gasoline.
'Burn bright. Please. Just disappear like this. Let things go back to how they were. As if none of it ever happened.'
The script caught fire, and as the flames blazed up, he felt a moment of relief—but it didn't last.
"What…?"
The flames were indeed blazing fiercely. The script was clearly engulfed in fire, and yet… its form remained completely intact.
"What the hell!"
Why wasn't it burning away?
The paper held the fire, but neither burned nor went out.
"…?"
How was this even possible?
He rubbed his eyes hard and looked again—still the same.
"Wh-what is this…?"
And strangely, the flames seemed to be flowing in reverse.
The burning fire, as if rewinding, crept backward… backward, and began sucking the smoke back in.
The roaring blaze shrank in an instant, and before he knew it, the script lay there perfectly intact, as if it had never been lit at all.
Then, the flames vanished without a trace in the blink of an eye.
"Goddammit!"
Hyun-mo stared blankly at the script, then started slapping his own face wildly.
It hurt.
So this definitely wasn't a dream.
"What the hell…."
He had clearly seen it catch fire, yet the script remained unscorched and perfectly fine.
"That's impossible…"
It was a demon.
Possessed by a demon, for sure.
The situation was almost like a scene out of a horror movie, and Hyun-mo slowly began backing away.
'There's no escaping…'
And he realized—he would never be able to escape from the ghost of Oh Jung-seop.
"Fine, I get it…."
His voice carried a tone of surrender, or maybe resignation, as he muttered under his breath.
"Hyun-mo, I really don't know what's going on with you, but…."
Behind him, the three grim reapers were silently watching Hyun-mo.
"Come on now, let's actually go."
If they weren't taking him to die, then where were they trying to take him?
"Where... to?" Hyun-mo asked.
The grim reapers let out a small chuckle.
"Home."
***
"Good lord..."
No matter how he looked at it.
No matter how he turned his head this way or tilted it that way.
It was a face so remarkably lacking in any distinctive features.
"How... could a face end up like this?"
Eyes, nose, mouth. They were all there, sure, but each feature looked like it existed only for function—utterly plain and unremarkable.
Well, for an adult man, his skin was on the better side, so with some decent care, it might not be totally hopeless. But no... even then, there was no saving it.
It was the kind of face that would blend right into a crowd—so average it would disappear without a trace.
If there were even one unique trait, he could lean into it as a charm point, but this face had none of that. Just painfully ordinary.
"Ha... I really can't get used to this..."
Hyun-mo, who had never been ugly a day in his life, simply couldn't believe he had to live with this face now.
"Alright. Fine. Hoo... It's absurd and ridiculous, but fine... It's already come to this. I just have to figure out what to do next, and the next after that."
But where was he even supposed to start?
"...First."
Right. First, he'd force himself to swallow this insane reality, even if it made him sick.
Sure, it was absurd—like being possessed by a ghost, inhabiting someone else's body, and having a script fly around spouting nonsense.
But the fact remained: the person in the mirror wasn't Koo Hyun-mo—it was someone else's face.
And that proud, confident man he used to be...
"No! Please, no! Anything but that!"
Even if he wanted to turn things back, he couldn't—and the sheer misery of this situation sent a wrenching pain through his chest.
But what could he do?
"Right... so you're Shin Hyun-mo, then."
He had no choice but to pull himself together and face reality head-on.
First off, the differences in face, physique, and overall polish were enormous... but if he compared himself and Shin Hyun-mo, there were three things they had in common.
First, their surnames were different, but they shared the same given name.
Second, Koo Hyun-mo was a top star, and Shin Hyun-mo was a nobody actor—but still, both of them were actors.
And third.
They had both been fairly close to Oh Jung-seop.
He was certain that the starting point and the intersection of all of this stemmed from that man Oh Jung-seop's delusions.
Whether he'd performed a shamanic ritual, thrown some kind of curse, or cooked up some scheme—he didn't know how or why this had been orchestrated.
But all that obsessive talk about method and singularity had clearly led to this absurd phenomenon.
"I shouldn't have gone to pay my respects..."
He felt resentful toward Manager Heo, who had persuaded him to go to the funeral.
If only he hadn't set foot in that funeral hall, maybe he wouldn't have ended up in this ridiculous situation. But the water had already been spilled.
"With this bland shell... fine. I have to find some way to fix this and get back to my own body."
He'd have to deal with the mess somehow, but...
There was an even more urgent problem.
"How am I supposed to live here...? Ugh—shit! A bug!"
The fact that from now on, he'd have to spend days on end in this rough, filthy, squalid place where bugs would pop out from every direction at any time.
Leaving behind a panoramic Han River-view penthouse to live in a shack like this...
"Haah..."
Hyun-mo stared blankly at the warped bathroom door, covered in layers of taped plastic, with a look of total defeat.
"Hyun-mo! Quit fooling around and get out here!"
Even through the door—which had zero soundproofing—the shout from outside came through loud and clear.
"Hurry up and come help set out the snacks! You didn't even get a proper meal at the funeral, did you?"
Fortunately, the shady bastards who had dragged Hyun-mo here by the scruff of his neck weren't actually grim reapers. Despite their menacing faces, they claimed to be actors too.
Mostly bit parts—thugs, gangsters, henchmen for generals, or "Troublemaker 1, 2, 3" types.
Anyway, they had brought Hyun-mo—who had been wailing in the hospital bathroom—to a place that looked like a ruin on the outskirts of Seoul, and depressingly announced, "This is our house."
"Jeong-geon. Look at that bastard Hyun-mo—what's he doing over there?"
"Beats me. Dude was grabbing his balls and throwing a fit in the hospital bathroom, and now he's holed up in the bathroom at home doing the same crap. Hey! Shin Hyun-mo! Come out and let hyung take a dump."
"Leave him be. He's probably in shock over Jung-seop hyung-nim."
"What the hell does Jung-seop hyung-nim have to do with his balls? Right, Sang-tae? Hurry up and come pour us some drinks."
Their loud chatter made all the tension drain out of him.
He was dumbfounded.
'You want me to pour drinks for Oh Jung-seop?'
Because of whom did he end up like this, and now he's supposed to pour him drinks? Right now, he feel like spitting into that very glass.
"Hey, shouldn't we get that guy's head checked out? He looked pretty messed up, didn't he, Sang-tae?"
"Honestly, it does seem serious. Hyun-mo, I'm counting to three—if you're not out by then, I'm breaking the door down. One, TWO!"
At that threatening ultimatum, he instantly understood why the bathroom door was crookedly closed.
"Ah, fine! I'm coming out, alright?!"
For now, given the size difference, he had no choice but to do as they said. Just looking at those muscles was enough to kill any attitude he might have. Picking a fight didn't seem like it would do him any good.
"Look at that little punk! Hey, his temper's changed, hasn't it?"
Still, the way they kept trying to look after him—even if it was overbearing—suggested that despite their appearances, these guys had a lot of heart.
Rough as they were, they seemed to genuinely care about Shin Hyun-mo.
'Come to think of it, what happened to the real owner of this body...'
Even if Koo Hyun-mo's body had a 36-month grace period, he still didn't know where Shin Hyun-mo's soul—the original owner of this body—had gone, or what had become of it.
Maybe he'd already crossed the River Styx...
"Ugh..."
Just thinking about it gave him an eerie chill.
"SEVEN!"
"Ah! I said I'm coming out! What kind of sloppy counting is that?"
Anyway, those bastards really know how to make a person lose their mind... Such annoying pricks.
-Grrrrowl.
Just then, hunger hit him.
Right, even a ghost eats well before dying—so a living person should definitely eat first. He decided to fill his stomach and think things over after.
"Hoo..."
Hyun-mo wiped the damp tears from the corners of his eyes and took a deep breath.
He had no idea how he was going to get through this, but he figured if he took it one step at a time, a clue would eventually show itself.