CBR 5

The street was quiet, but Jaewon made an effort to think and asked the pedestrian again. However, this time as well, his ears felt muffled as if submerged in water, making it impossible to understand the words. He even tried reading the lip movements, but it was in vain. As he kept asking, the pedestrian flinched with a frightened face and then turned around and ran off as they were.

“Ah…. This is driving me crazy.”

Watching the back of the fleeing pedestrian, he scratched the back of his head vigorously. Even after that, he caught and asked several pedestrians, but the outcome was the same every time. Conversations that flowed without a hitch turned them into Babylonians whenever the year came up.

“Isn’t this guy crazy?”

The last person looked at him as if he were a bug and left after Jaewon asked five times in a row. Giving up on utilizing human help, Jaewon turned his eyes to other methods.

He did his absolute best. Kiosk newspapers, street billboards, PC bang computers, and even a pedestrian’s digital watch. But nowhere could the year be confirmed. Everything was blurred hazily as if processed with a blur effect, making identification impossible.

Goosebumps slowly rose on his back. An unbelievable, bizarre phenomenon was taking place casually. Jaewon held onto his collapsing sanity and strove to think as logically as possible.

1. Due to aftereffects of the traffic accident, a problem arose in cognitive ability.
2. He is out of his mind.
3. In truth, he died and came to the afterlife.

He set up a few hypotheses, but none fit the situation perfectly. Except for the issue with the year, his cognitive ability was extremely normal, and judging by how terribly frustrated he was with the present state of affairs, he was definitely sane. The third one was somewhat plausible, but it was equally desperate.

‘Even coming to the afterlife, I’m still dirt spoon status??’

No, fuck, where was there such a rule? Jaewon had no god he particularly served, but he never doubted that he would go to a good place after death. Heaven and the underworld would each have their own capacity limits, so they would operate on a relative evaluation system, and Jaewon was extremely confident in that area. That was because he had neither the money nor the time to commit evil deeds.

Having drawn a ruined character in this life, he had lived turning on a happiness circuit that his next life would be different, yet a cramped studio apartment in the Korean peninsula, sneakers with worn soles, and a starving wallet were still all he possessed. This was hell in the true sense of the word. If God had either a conscience or business ethics, it couldn’t be like this.

‘Once a dirt spoon, am I a dirt spoon even after dying a hundred times over, or what kind of bullshit is this?’

Jaewon briefly cut off his thoughts. Otherwise, he felt he would lose his mind out of rage. He took a deep breath to calm the fury that felt like it was burning through all his brain cells. In his bloodshot eyes, his own reflection in a shop window came into view. The sight of a man with wildly disheveled hair and a pale complexion wearing a worn-out jumper was destitute beyond belief.

Jaewon looked at his own figure, which could not easily be distinguished from a homeless person at a horse racing park, with a wretched heart. Perhaps because his body had become small, the jumper looked laughably large. The moment he thought that somehow his height had shrunk as well, his eyes widened.

Memories submerged in his subconscious burst like flashes. The clothes in the closet, the shining bookshelf, the printed type erased in an instant—things like that flashed before his eyes scene by scene like snapshots.

They gathered in one place and finally created a certain possibility, and the moment Jaewon recalled it, he ran back the way he had come.

Thump!

The poor door without a door lock generously accepted him, who had left with nothing on. Sprinting into the house, he flung the closet open first. Among the mostly dark-colored clothes, a white shirt stood out like a swan among ducks. Having black decorative lines on the sleeves and collar, it was recognizable as a school uniform at a glance. Jaewon hurriedly pulled out the shirt and examined the chest area closely. Above the light blue name tag, the name was reflected in his pupils.

Bae Jaewon

Thinking he might have misread it, he rubbed his eyes roughly with the back of his hand. But looking at it a second time, it was still his name. After standing dazed for a while, he turned his eyes to the emblem embroidered on the pocket.

Jon Se High School

Jonse High School

Reading the text inside the emblem, he felt his mind grow faint. In his entire life, he had never heard of or seen a high school with such a name.

Except for one time.

“Ah, wait. No way.”

Jaewon held his head and frantically dug through his memories.

‘Never heard it from someone else, but I do remember pronouncing it aloud. I read it with my own eyes. Not on a screen, but on paper.’

In his head, publications he had encountered until now flipped through rapidly. Floating among pages packed tightly with printed type, his mind stopped at a certain point.

Jonse High School.

It was the high school attended by the main character of the last novel he had read. At that moment, something struck his mind like lightning. JOHN NASE, 4 days, good luck…. At the end of it, Jaewon discovered a very small and precious entity he had forgotten.

“Fuck, my lottery ticket!!!!”

∞ ∞ ∞

For two hours, Jaewon had been lying on the floor like cold rice. After throwing his body around and going wild, he had no strength left to throw a fit anymore. Though he had flipped the whole house upside down, he couldn’t find even a scrap of paper resembling a lottery ticket. An old flip phone was the only meaningful artifact discovered. Hoping against hope for any information, he searched the inside and outside of the device thoroughly, but it was merely the same model as the one Jaewon used in the past, with nothing saved on it. On the phone, as clean as if factory reset, no clues could be found.

Looking into the air with hollow eyes, he suddenly recalled the first page of the book.

‘This book must leave your side within 4 days.’

‘You must send 7 copies to people who need good luck.’

They said John Nase, who obeyed, won a 2 billion won lottery, and the president who disobeyed and threw it away was assassinated; yet he, who threw the book away and picked it back up, ended up trapped inside the book while leaving behind the winning lottery ticket.

“Kheh, heh….”

His lips twitching, Jaewon began to sob. If he had known it would turn out like this, he would have sent that damn book off riding in a palanquin. But even so, where was the sense in giving 2 billion won and taking it back? Even Satan would get stabbed with a knife if he acted like this. The more he thought about it, the more indignant and enraged he became until he couldn’t bear it.

At first, he thought he had regressed to the past. The strangely younger-looking face and relatively smaller body provided more than enough possibility for that. Especially since Jaewon was someone whose height had grown 3 cm after going to the military, he could recognize the difference right away. However, truly many elements shattered his hope: Jaewon had never attended Jonse High School, and the studio apartment was also different from the place he had lived in. What about a world where he couldn’t see or hear what year it was this year? Above all, the sensation of being wrapped by letters and dragged into the book gave no room for mental victory.

‘I thought I was seeing hallucinations before dying.’

The conclusion Jaewon reached was one. Even at this very moment, he didn’t want to believe it, but it seemed he had entered inside a novel. And into the very novel that his cousin Jung Soojung loved so dearly, at that.

‘What was the book title again?’

Inside his brain, which had fallen into a total panic, memories were jumbled up in disorder. Sniffling, he began to organize his ruined mind.

‘{That Guy is Handsome}? {Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do}? {My Love, That Bastard}?’

There were too many books he had read so far, so he couldn’t get a grasp on it. Arranging his memories sequentially, Jaewon eventually recalled the title of the book he had read most recently. At that moment, he squeezed his eyes shut and balled his hands into tight fists.

“…”

Looking considerably more aged than a minute ago, Jaewon opened his eyes wide.

‘I will definitely return no matter what.’

It wasn’t the time to just be frustrated. He had to return to reality as quickly as possible. The redemption period for lottery winnings was one year from the start date of payment for the corresponding round.

‘The time given is one year.’

Jaewon glared at the ceiling where blue mold was spreading. Up to now, there had been nothing free in his life. At this moment, when he had gained and lost free money for the first time in his life, he couldn’t leave his mind and body idle for even a second.

‘The goal is an early conclusion. Find the main character and bring it to a conclusion with a swift battle.’

Stories invariably had an end. Jaewon raised his arm and wiped away the tears beaded at the corners of his eyes. Two hours were more than enough for despairing. He would overcome this mysterious tragedy and return to the reality where 2 billion won was waiting. He kicked the door open and took his first step into this unknown world.