By Zephyria 
A familiar voice, one I could never forget.
I quickly turned my head. My eyes met the person who had come close behind me.
As if mesmerized by those kind eyes, the words slipped out of their own accord.
“Seong Hae-min….”
I thought I had seen him wrong, but I hadn’t. It was the person I had passed by earlier. It was Seong Hae-min.
The thought that I hadn’t seen him wrong brought on an almost overwhelming emotion. I instinctively raised my hand to grab him, then hesitated and pulled it back.
“Do you know me?”
Seong Hae-min asked, looking puzzled by my action. My heart sank.
“Ah….”
Since Min Si-hu had also acted as if he didn’t know me, it was within the realm of expectation that Seong Hae-min wouldn’t know me. Yet, a shock like a meteorite falling washed over me. My head spun. I was aware that I was acting like a mad person. But I couldn’t tear my gaze away from Seong Hae-min’s face. Tears welled up.
My words got lost somewhere in my throat, trapped and wandering. I opened and closed my mouth repeatedly, but I couldn’t retrieve my words from the labyrinth.
As I remained silent, Seong Hae-min furrowed one eyebrow with a perplexed expression.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t remember. It seems I don’t remember you…”
“…….”
“But have we met somewhere before? You do look familiar.”
Really…
Really, you don’t know me?
Why?
Those words alone swirled near my throat. But they couldn’t be uttered. I felt like a Little Mermaid who had lost her voice from shock. Tears were about to overflow, but I thought I’d be remembered as a truly strange person if I cried here, so I clenched my lips and held back my tears.
“…….”
“…….”
Only a chilling silence continued. Around us, groups coming out of lectures, some people rushing to avoid being late for class, and others gathered in the cafe for conversations passed by. Here, only I stood still, as if time had stopped for me.
Min Si-hu, who had been showing signs of wanting to leave for a while, looked around, then nudged Seong Hae-min’s arm.
“Hey, hey.”
Seong Hae-min, who had been gazing at me, scratched the back of his head. Exchanging glances with Min Si-hu, he gave a perplexed smile and bowed his head.
“Uh, if you have nothing to say, we’ll be going. We have a schedule.”
“Goodbye~!”
Min Si-hu, who was polite, bowed respectfully, and I remained frozen like a stone until they moved away.
I didn’t know what state of mind I was in, standing in the middle of the library entrance. It took a long while for my senses to return. I slowly lowered my hand, which had unconsciously reached out to grab them as they moved away.
I thought I had been steadily improving for the past month since returning to reality, but seeing Min Si-hu and Seong Hae-min slip away before my eyes left me in utter confusion.
‘Am I… really sick?’
That was the extent of my thoughts. What was all that I had experienced in that novel? Why didn’t they know me? Was I having delusions about real people? Had I developed a mental illness?
My head was so foggy, I couldn’t comprehend how such a thing could happen.
I don’t remember how I got home. Returning home exhausted, I immediately turned on my computer and searched for ‘Min Si-hu’ on the internet.
“My Top Pick in Final Moon Tour is Min Si-hu”
“Contestant who shocked the panelists today… The monstrous Seoul National University’s Min Si-hu”
“(Clip) Tears flow! Let’s be together and move forward, Min Si-hu’s ‘Dream’♪”
As if his words about appearing on TV were true, the search results poured out without even needing to dig. Along with his name mentioned in various communities, several broadcast clip videos were also easily found.
Without even having time to be surprised that we were from the same university, I scoured every post and video mentioning Min Si-hu. The program Min Si-hu appeared on was a famous one, even known to me, who knew nothing about broadcasting. It was a singing competition for ordinary people.
In the video, Min Si-hu was praised by many for his handsome appearance and outstanding singing skills.
It was definitely Min Si-hu. From his looks to his voice and eyes, it was impossible to mistake him. However, he was not the same person as the Min Si-hu in my memory. His way of speaking, his actions, his personality, everything was different. Only the shell was the same. The person on screen felt utterly foreign.
After spending a long time tracing Min Si-hu’s footsteps online, I accidentally stumbled upon his social media account.
I raised an eyebrow at the profile description. Seoul National University, Composition major.
I pondered his major. Composition, composition, composition…
It wasn’t surprising. Because…
I remembered the strange conversation I had with Min Si-hu in the novel.
“Yeah, I’m composing…”
He said it himself.
“…Huh? What did Si-hu just say?”
“Composition? Did I say composition?”
“My lips moved first.”
Of course, Min Si-hu had acted strangely then. He looked bewildered as if he didn’t know what he had said, and claimed he had never thought of it… At the time, I brushed it off as a joke, but looking back now, it was a suspiciously bizarre behavior.
‘…What if that was related to reality?’
A hypothesis struck my mind.
My heart began to pound rapidly. It was just a one-in-a-million chance, but I felt like I had found a small breakthrough in a problem I thought would never be solved.
‘Are the people I thought were characters in the novel… all real people?’
Do Yun-hyeok, Lee Beom, Ban Seo-yi, Ban Pyo-ran, Jeon Jae-hyung… countless faces flashed before my eyes. My chest fluttered with excitement.
But for now, it was just my delusion. The possibility of chasing a phantom was high. I calmly suppressed my emotions and scrolled down.
Looking at his photos below, I recalled Seong Hae-min and Min Si-hu I had encountered earlier that day.
‘What do I want to do with them?’
In fact, this was the most important question, more than anything else. The feeling of injustice that they didn’t know me came first. So, what should I do from now on? But I couldn’t know.
‘What am I going to do by grabbing people who don’t even know me?’
What was certain was that they didn’t recognize me at all. And in reality, I knew nothing about the real them either. Min Si-hu alone was so different from his novel counterpart that I was startled multiple times.
In other words, he was Seong Hae-min, but not the Seong Hae-min I knew. The events I experienced, or thought I experienced, with them in the novel were known only to me.
So, even if they looked like the novel characters from my memory, shouldn’t this be kept to myself?
‘But….’
Seong Hae-min’s worried expression flashed before my eyes. How he genuinely rejoiced at my cheap concern, cried that I was safe, threw himself to embrace me, and bled in my stead.
The real Seong Hae-min didn’t even know who I was, but at least to me, the Seong Hae-min from the novel was real. Like my family who had always worried about me. Faced with this discrepancy and gap, I felt utterly powerless.
I let out a long sigh and clutched my head. My stomach felt uneasy.
I didn’t even know what I wanted. Since I couldn’t reach a conclusion, I couldn’t decide on a course of action.
‘Should I have asked for their numbers?’
I had managed to ask Ban Pyo-ran for his number.
But I shook my head. There was nothing I could do by contacting people who didn’t know me. Right now, they and I were strangers with no connection. Telling them, “We met in a novel, and you were characters,” would surely make them think I was crazy. It was natural. Even I would think it was crazy.
As I recalled the harsh reality, my chest ached as if pierced by a skewer. I gritted my teeth and clutched my chest.
I didn’t know what to do.
After that day, for several days, I aimlessly wandered near the library with the vague feeling of wanting to see them again, without knowing what I wanted to do. I knew it was useless, but my feet led me there.
However, I couldn’t meet them again. In fact, hoping to run into them by chance on this vast campus was greedy. Besides, even if I met them, I hadn’t decided what to do, so it might have been fortunate that I didn’t. Relief and regret alternated daily.
‘What… do I want to do?’
I asked myself the same question every time. But I couldn’t find an answer. While I couldn’t make a decision, time just slipped away aimlessly.
❖ ❖ ❖
“Are you not feeling well lately?”
As I was resting on the lawn in front of the building after class, soaking up the sun, a classmate passing by handed me a can and asked.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but cheer up.”
My classmate patted my shoulder and left coolly after leaving the can. I looked down at the can I had received by chance. It was a normal ion drink, the kind you could get from any vending machine.
I stared at it for a moment. My classmate had probably given it to me casually because I was sighing and acting strangely all the time, but for someone living with a few screws loose, it felt like a wake-up call.
Live in reality.
The silver can seemed to tell me so. I sighed and muttered.
“Yeah… I need to get a grip.”
I shouldn’t be bound by strange past memories.
Because my mind was in turmoil, I had been isolating myself from my classmates. Nearby, the sounds of a market being set up were boisterous. People gathered in small groups, laughing and chatting, eating food. I opened the can, took a gulp of the cold drink, and watched them.
This was the ordinary, everyday college life I had longed for. I believed I could be compensated for my high school years by hanging out with classmates and studying.
But why do I feel so empty…
I thought it was time to finally shake off the lingering remnants of the novel. I hadn’t seen Min Si-hu and Seong Hae-min since that day either.
I guess I’ll have to get used to this hollow feeling now.
I was staring blankly with my eyes cast down while sipping a drink when suddenly a shadow fell. Someone standing in front of me blocked the sunlight.
The unusually tied shoelaces immediately caught my eye.
‘Who tied their shoelaces like that….’
Who was it….
A feeling of distant longing brushed past my eyes. I traced my memory, staring intently only at the shoes. The shoes approached me with long strides, without hesitation.