HACKED 117

“Chinese characters?”

It was so out of the blue that I couldn’t immediately grasp the meaning of the question.

“I know your surname is Yeo and your name is Myeong, but I’m asking which characters you use. Is it pure Korean?”

“No, it’s not that. Why are you asking all of a sudden?”

“You said you were curious. About my name.”

I didn’t see the connection between revealing San Gun’s true name and the Chinese characters of my own. Feeling like an idiot, I answered for now.

“It is ‘Myeong (命)’ as in ‘Life’.”

The Chinese characters for the word ‘Yeo Myeong’, which refers to the ‘faint light of dawning day’, are ‘黎明’. Nevertheless, my name used the character ‘命’. It is a name that, if read carelessly, could be mistaken for ‘Yeo Myeong (餘命)’, meaning ‘remaining life’ or ‘time left to live’. Though my surname wasn’t that specific ‘Yeo (餘)’ character anyway.

Since the person who registered my birth was the director of the orphanage, I never got to ask. Why they named me Yeo Myeong after a hangover cure and then attached a Chinese character that had no relation to it. Looking only at the characters, ‘明’ (Light) is easier and simpler than ‘命’ (Life).

Was it because I was a life abandoned in the orphanage’s baby box, so they simply attached the character meaning life? Or… was it a meager kindness wishing for me to live a long and peaceful life? Pity?

If not that, then it might just be… a very dull and anti-climactic conclusion where that was the first character that came to mind when they thought of ‘Myeong’, so they just went with it.

Either way, I don’t know the answer. It happened nearly thirty years ago, and since I wasn’t such a meaningful existence to the director, there is a very high possibility that even the director who named me has forgotten.

“‘Myeong’ as in ‘Life’…”

San Gun fell into thought with a subdued face. His eyes contained reflections of the past rather than the present, and specifically, reflections of a distant, ancient time. It was an expression I was seeing for the first time on him.

Watching him like that made me feel strange.

By now, I know that the Incarnations are not simple game characters. Because I have realized poignantly the fact that they too have their own beliefs, egos, and personalities.

Therefore, I think of them as people. If they possess all the conditions of being a person, what use are things like stats or rarity? Yes, they are just people who happened to be born a bit uniquely and possess slightly different abilities.

But the San Gun of right now… seemed like a being in a place even further and higher, in a position that I, a mere human, could never reach no matter what I did.

Suddenly, I felt afraid. No, perhaps it was anxiety. But why?

Without even being able to define exactly what emotion I was feeling, I opened my mouth impulsively.

“I actually didn’t like games. Rather than not liking them, I should say I just wasn’t very interested.”

“Is that so?”

“But Jaeyoung… I mean, the kid who was my younger brother, liked games. That’s why I started. Because of that, I ended up continuing even after he died. ‘UserMyeong808’ is the nickname I used commonly in every game.”

“……”

“I didn’t even seriously consider making composing my profession either. I thought a vague talent like mine was only fit for making a bit of pocket money. I thought it wouldn’t stand a chance in the real professional world…”

No one told me that I didn’t have talent or that I should quit and look for another path. However, I defined my own limits. That this was as far as I would go.

Perhaps back then, I was afraid of putting my work out into the world under my own name and being formally evaluated. So I tried to stay an amateur by making all sorts of excuses. Settling for evaluations that said I was good ‘for an’ amateur.

“But Jaeyoung told me. He found out there was an instrument sound called the 808 bass, and asked if it wasn’t a perfect match for my birthday. He said it felt like I was born with the destiny to do music. That’s why the stage name I registered with the Korea Music Copyright Association also has 808 in it.”

For reference, people in the same industry all assume, without exception, that the 808 is taken from the * TR-808. Everyone thinks that so naturally that I’ve never even been asked what the stage name means. This is why professional habits are scary.

It’s a funny thing. To think that a name and birthday arbitrarily given by a stranger, an orphanage director I share no blood with, would come to define me as a human being.

But if you think about it, many things in the world flow and are decided in that way. Even the Incarnations right now—don’t their titles, appearances, and even abilities change according to public opinion?

As a similar example, a certain overseas game has a term called ‘Innocent Monster’. The characters of that game have their appearances and abilities decided by their deeds while they were alive, but those deeds aren’t necessarily only things proven to be true. They include misunderstood facts or rumors spread maliciously and intentionally.

San Gun, who had only been listening to my story the whole time, asked back for the first time.

“Did you love that kid?”

“I don’t know… No, yes. I did love him. As family, as a brother. Even though it wasn’t the kind of love he wanted at all.”

“So a dead love is still exerting a great influence on you.”

At those words, I felt something inside me being organized. The guilt, sense of identity, sense of betrayal, unpleasantness, hatred, and longing that the adult me of today still holds for Lee Jaeyoung, who stopped forever at seventeen… those complex and old emotions.

“I… I think love is a shackle. A shackle more terrible, persistent, and cruel than any other yoke in the world.”

Lee Jaeyoung’s confession and death were a trauma that twisted my entire childhood. Whatever my feelings for Lee Jaeyoung were, that one thing is a clear fact.

However, at the root of that trauma is the me who grew up lacking affection and craving love. If I hadn’t been starved for love, and if I hadn’t forced the play-acting of a family upon Lee Jaeyoung alone, he and I wouldn’t have crossed paths in the first place.

So I made a vow. That I would never love again. Whether it be family, friends, lovers, pets, or anyone else… I would never create an object of attachment.

I was afraid of everything in the outside world. Afraid that I might come to love someone, afraid that someone might come to love me. Despite not even having anyone to be that way with due to my desperate lack of sociability, my defense mechanism acted first and built a wall. I saw everyone in the world simply as people who had hurt me and people who were planning to hurt me.

To someone like that, only the worlds inside creative works felt safe. Characters made of text, images, and source code filled the empty space of my non-existent interpersonal relationships.

It didn’t take long for me to escape reality and fall into virtual worlds. Even though my actual home was a single rented room with poor ventilation, I spent money to expand my house in games to the maximum limit and piled up housing items. Even while surviving on instant meals all month, I decked out my game characters with top-tier equipment.

But I didn’t regret it. Because they didn’t act or speak outside of their given ‘settings’ and ‘character traits’. Because they wouldn’t suddenly betray me, and they wouldn’t try to die with me…

That’s right. Love is a shackle. A terrible shackle that has been binding my whole life.

Not only the time I have lived so far, but also for the remaining time, I must struggle endlessly to avoid the shackle called love. Until the moment I die.

That’s why I didn’t want to become attached to the Incarnations of this world either…

“Love is a shackle?”

San Gun repeated my words slowly as if savoring them. Then, he muttered with an somehow blank look.

“Even though I was born as a puppet of a narrative, I didn’t want to believe in things like destiny.”

A faint smile spread at the corners of his mouth.

“Yeah. It seems there really is… such a thing as destiny. Right here and now, for me and you.”

I quietly retraced his words. At first listen, they were just words without context. Love, shackle, narrative, destiny. What relationship could there be between these words.

Then, for a moment. A thought flashed through my head.

Destiny. A word made of two characters. ‘Un’ (運), and ‘Myeong’ (命).

‘…Could it be.’

I asked cautiously, half-uncertain.

“Then… by any chance, is your name, Mr. San Gun.”

“……”

San Gun neither affirmed nor denied. Instead, he smiled broadly. Innocently, like a child. His eyes curved and the flesh beneath them puffed up, making his impression much softer than usual.

“The fact that we both have single-syllable names feels like destiny, too. Doesn’t it?”

He looked like a person who had finally become refreshed after revealing a secret he had kept alone for a long time. Like someone who feels relieved in this moment even if they have to pay a steep price for revealing the secret later…

“Ah, I don’t know. What’s done is done. I just hope Myeong doesn’t go around talking about it everywhere.”

“Of course I won’t tell anyone… More than that, is it really okay for you to tell me?”

“At this level, it probably won’t get caught by the ‘line’. Maybe.”

“‘Maybe’?”

“If it gets caught, there’s nothing I can do. What can I do other than die?”

“Please don’t say things like that. Okay? Even as a joke.”

Just as I was about to add more nagging, a hot sensation suddenly came from my hand. Before I knew it, the cigarette had burned down to the filter, and the fire had reached the vicinity of my hand.

“Ah.”

I reflexively loosened my hand and dropped the butt. The fire on the cigarette butt that fell on the cold floor flickered a few times and then went out. It was a minor thing, but somehow I couldn’t take my eyes off that spark.

Because the sight of that spark fading away seemed as if… it were saying that this was all there was to the destiny of a burnt-out flame.