The colors spreading across the window made his eyes ache. It was the hour when the sun was going down; just as he was thinking that the breeze leaking in had grown rather chilly, a white hand popped out from somewhere and smoothly closed the open window. When he found himself briefly admiring the man’s not-short height and flawless proportions as he watched, the man, who had only been showing his back, turned his head slightly to look this way. Along with the softly fluttering curtain, that face slowly came into view.Am I dreaming?Lee Hajin blinked as he looked at the man in front of him. There was a gentle sort of beauty there, and the way his lips relaxed into a soft smile beat against someone’s chest to the point of sorrow. Just as he was thinking that the face seemed familiar from somewhere, the man who had smiled once came toward him at a quick pace.Ah, he’s going to bump into me.Before he could even finish the thought, the man passed lightly straight through his body. At that hollow sensation, Lee Hajin clicked his tongue this time. So it really is a dream.The man who had gone straight through him collapsed onto the small folding chair under the bed. He started talking about something in a quiet, steady murmur, and when Hajin moved closer, a small girl, who had been hidden by the man’s body, suddenly popped out. Her bloodless face and round eyes were simply cute, but even at a glance it was obvious that when she grew up she would be quite the beauty—her features were that pretty. As he watched her small mouth chatter away, he thought she resembled some little bird like a canary, and then looked around. The hospital bed, the IV stand, the room smothered in white no matter where he looked—everything about it said it was a hospital room, and with only one bed in what seemed like a private room, that single bed looked unusually large, making for a scene that, in its way, felt lonely.Why am I having a dream like this when I don’t even know what it means.If he quietly traced back his memory, he had definitely been on his way home after finishing a deal.But strangely, everything after that was spread over in solid black and he couldn’t tell. Did I doze off for a moment? Lee Hajin again looked down at the man and the girl.The tips of the man’s fingers were quietly brushing the girl’s hair back. Even Hajin, who was seeing the two of them for the first time, could feel that it was the touch of someone handling something precious—careful and tender in a way that showed. Their conversation was quiet and filled with ordinary things. When their eyes met, they smiled; when the man’s teasing slipped out here and there, the girl would flush and pretend to sulk. Gentle silence, familiar touch. The hospital room that held only the two of them was so full of those things that it felt hazy, as if this place alone belonged to some other world entirely.It’s quiet. From a corner of the hospital room that no one ever came to, Lee Hajin just stood there, wordlessly watching the two of them. Then, as if it were a lie, time would simply pass.The man would go home when it got late at night, then come back again a few days later, and from the look on his face as he walked in through the hospital room door, Hajin could tell without much effort. This was his only time. A face like someone who had been wandering aimlessly through some stretch of hell and had finally come back to his place of rest. At the girl’s voice calling, “Oppa,” the man’s exhausted face would gently melt. It was the face of someone relieved.The peaceful time passed in an instant, and inside that time, Lee Hajin simply watched the two of them in silence. He didn’t know when it would end, but he found himself thinking it was a fairly decent dream.The wait wasn’t all that long. When he lifted his head at a certain feeling brushing through his mind, the closed hospital room door was glowing faintly, as if to tell him it was time to wake up. For a dream uncharacteristically delicate for him, he let out a short laugh and got up from the place where he had always been sitting; just as he turned his body to step out of the room—── Please, look after this child.It was the man. Meeting a gaze he had never once crossed paths with until now, the words he spoke came out somehow wet. She acts like she’s strong, but she’s still so fragile. Along with his quiet voice, the man’s eyes lowered to one corner of the now-empty bed. His face was worn out.── She doesn’t know what kind of world it is when you have to live alone. She’s still far too young, so…She doesn’t know the hell that reality is, and I… I wanted to let her go through life without ever knowing it… He could see the damp cheeks of the man trembling. Eyes that resembled a plea already knew what despair was. As he thought that the face was familiar, Lee Hajin turned his steps to finally leave the hospital room. The ending for people who knew despair was always similar, and it was only natural for someone like him not to be the type who pitied them or felt sorry for them.Yeah, it should have been like that.Noticing that his feet refused to move, Hajin looked down at the silently crying man. The memories that had been spread over in pitch black were slowly resurfacing.He had been on his way home after finishing a deal. Daejun, who was driving, glanced uneasily at the rearview mirror and spoke. There’s a car behind us that won’t slow down, boss. Blinking his tired eyes, Hajin had told him not to start any pointless shit, just to let them go ahead, and then closed his eyes. He could feel Daejun still restless even as he said he understood. And in the next moment—fuck!—at that loudly ringing shout from Daejun, when he reflexively opened his eyes, there was the sensation of being slammed from behind, and the car that had jumped the guardrail was falling.Ah, so this is how I die.Lee Hajin remembered the last scene. At an incredibly close distance, the man who had clearly rammed into their car was crying his heart out, his face covered in blood. The face of someone wishing for something he could never reach was no different from the one now crying in front of him. Get out of here, now! A sentence like a bright red warning streamed through his head without end. Yeah, I should go. With that, he tried to step away lightly, but at the man’s voice, which he heard again, his feet wouldn’t budge, as if nailed to the floor.I’m this weak, I don’t have the confidence to keep living, and even so, even so, someone…Please look after this child. I’m begging you, someone… please, please…It was a voice shaped like a prayer. The tears that flowed down his cheeks showed no sign of stopping and kept endlessly wetting the man’s face. Once he felt he could no longer put it off, the feet that hadn’t been able to move finally lifted from the floor. When he walked toward the closed door without hesitation, the man’s sobs grew louder. The hospital room in the afternoon, sunlight spilling across the window, a time that belonged only to the two of them.A hand reached out.A palm stained by a lifetime of never knowing what mercy was.“Fine, so… stop crying already.”That hand of Lee Hajin’s went not for the hospital room door handle but for the man’s cheek. Awkwardly wiping at the wet skin, he let out the words in a voice that sounded almost embarrassed, and the crying man’s gaze lifted.Their eyes met, and as he looked at Hajin, the man smiled through his wet face like someone seeing salvation for the first time in his life. At the pitiful smile, Hajin clicked his tongue, and then the man’s face slowly began to blur. As if the space were breaking apart, everything started to smear into a chaotic wash, and even amidst it all, the man’s damp voice reached him over and over again. Thank you. Thank you so much. And… His vision went dark. The sound faded further and further away.And… I’m sorry.With those words, everything receded.***The world at large was constantly in an uproar over the sudden incident. The death of Lee Sihyeon, a member of the popular idol group Lemegeton. The hot topic keywords on every portal site were plastered with nothing but that, and although a flood of reporters and fans swarmed to the hospital he’d been taken to, security was so strict that no one could get inside. Because of that, all kinds of speculation and rumors ran wild; the tide of mourning seemed ready to rise, only to quickly twist into something vicious instead. Maybe that was only natural. Out of all the members, Lee Sihyeon was the only one who had more antis than fans.[Anonymous] Maybe he just got what he deserved from the heavens lolololololThat top comment had more likes than dislikes. Most of the replies under it were just as vulgar or malicious, and although there were the occasional comments saying people shouldn’t insult the dead, most of those slipped under without a sound. He did all that male-prostitute crap and now what’s he gonna do, can’t take that money with him to the afterlife; what a pity, seriously. He was gonna quit Lemegeton and move to TW, and in the end he just quit life itself lolololololol. Divine punishment, amirite? Yeah, agreed, bye.When the hate comments kept escalating, as if even the public felt this wasn’t right, opinion swung back around into sympathy. The people who’d been typing those comments—where had they gone? Isn’t this too much, no matter what—comments saying that insulting a dead person like that was going too far started to rise to the top. Every last act of theirs was laughable.At that time, Lee Sihyeon’s younger sister had identified her brother’s body and collapsed on the spot, sobbing so hard she fainted, and the members who had rushed there in a hurry all stood with dark expressions, unable to speak. The only one who showed tears, Seo Rajoon, hadn’t even been able to bring himself to lift the white cloth; he only stroked the back of Lee Sihyeon’s hand, stiffened by rigor mortis, a few times. The sensation of a touch that wasn’t alive made him shudder all over, and when he finally broke into louder sobs, Lee Sanyoo, unable to watch any longer, took him outside. Once again, silence settled over the mortuary.They simply had no words.The last time they had seen him, all that existed were curses and blame.Without any consultation with them, rumors had spread that he was leaving the group, and they had heard it not from him, but from other people. Even when the members, demanding to know the truth, pressed him for answers, all Lee Sihyeon did was try to retreat silently into his room. Grabbing him by the shoulder and cornering him like that might have been something fated to happen.With a worn-out face, when Lee Sihyeon had said they could talk later, the one who snapped was the hot-tempered Kang Euihyun.“How long the hell are we supposed to keep putting up with you, you son of a bitch!” Like someone whose pent-up resentment had finally burst, a stream of rough curses and accusations poured out. Lee Sanyoo said nothing, and Yoo Chan had just gone into his own room. In the middle of it all, only Seo Rajoon had hesitated and tried to break them up, but it hadn’t done a bit of good.Lee Sihyeon had seemed spaced out the whole time.Even when he was shaken, grabbed wherever they could get a hold of him, he never answered back like [N O V E L I G H T] he usually did, and it stayed that way until the exhausted Kang Euihyun slung out another curse and turned his back on him.Even when Seo Rajoon came over late and patted his shoulder, asking if he was okay, he stayed out of it for a while, not quite there, and then suddenly shot to his feet and went over to the manager, who’d been watching in a panic this whole time. What he said then was that he had to go to the shoot. A shoot? Everyone could only stare, speechless, but even as the manager, sweating bullets, shook his head and said it would be impossible to make it in time anyway, that they should cancel, Sihyeon forcibly snatched the car keys out of his hand. Before anyone could stop him, he was already out the door, and at the sight, the curses Kang Euihyun had been holding back burst out again. “Ah, fuck, that psycho bastard!” The chair he kicked clattered loudly as it rolled.The ring of a bell came quite some time after that.As did Lee Sihyeon, who came back cold.They said it had been a car accident. It was very late at night, and the place was deserted, so the paramedics hadn’t been able to get there right away. The car had gone over the guardrail, and in that wrecked body… hearing that he had been left there for about an hour with his breath still in him, in agony, left them all speechless, unable to open their mouths. Kang Euihyun lowered his head. No matter how many times he blinked in disbelief, Lee Sihyeon lying there didn’t change. No matter how angry they’d been, no matter how much they’d hated him, no matter how frustrated and furious he’d made them. Even so—We never told you to die.“Hey. Get up.”“You’re putting on a show again, aren’t you? Like nobody’s gonna see through it… you think I’m gonna fall for this?”Even as he realized how badly his voice was shaking, Kang Euihyun didn’t stop talking. Like he was afraid that, if those weren’t really his last words, he’d never get another chance. “Lee Sihyeon, get up. If you get up now, I won’t get mad. I’ll let it go. I’ll let it all go, so… so…”“Please.”…But it wasn’t long before the tears he’d been holding back finally burst out, torn from him by the sight of Lee Sihyeon’s cold body, which showed no sign of rising no matter how many times that trembling voice urged him.And then, the evening of the very next day.The internet started to be flooded with shocking news articles saying that Lee Sihyeon, who had been declared dead, had opened his eyes again.

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