Fate Can Be Changed

People believe fate cannot be escaped.

The family you're born into. The face you're given. The circumstances handed to you. All of it, they say, is already decided.

But Dohwan saw things differently.

Fate was like the weather. If rain looked likely, you packed an umbrella. If a typhoon was coming, you bolted the doors. The only real difference was whether you could read the forecast.

And Dohwan thought this way for a simple reason.

He could see it.

People's destinies.

Whenever the winter wind slammed against the building, the old window frames rattled like something screaming.

Angel's Haven.

For all the grandeur of its name, this orphanage was the whole of Dohwan's world.

And inside the head of that seven-year-old boy, one enormous question mark had been lodged for as long as he could remember, impossible to erase.

Why was I abandoned?

The damp gray walls surrounding him. The mold-smelling blankets. The sniffling of other children that drifted through the night. He wanted to know the cause of all this misery.

One Sunday afternoon, Dohwan found the courage to tug at the hem of the priest's vestments as the man prepared for Mass.

"Father."

"Ah, Dohwan. Come for confession, have you?"

The priest smiled kindly. But Dohwan did not fall for that smile.

"Why was I abandoned?"

The priest's hands paused for a moment. He closed his Bible, struggling to hide the discomfort on his face. Then the kind of irresponsible answer adults always reach for when soothing a child spilled from his lips.

"You weren't abandoned, Dohwan. That was… God guiding you here."

"Guiding me?"

"Yes. Every person is born with a path already set for them. We call that 'fate.'"

Fate. A vague word for a seven-year-old to grasp.

"So my fate is to live here? Without a mom or dad?"

"It may look like a trial now, but there will be a purpose to it all."

The priest patted Dohwan's head and hurried away.

That night, Dohwan could not sleep. He stared at the ceiling, chewing on the word fate over and over.

A path already set…

If that were true—if his life had already been written out like someone else's script—then where exactly was that script written?

Finding the answer took a full eight years. Or rather, it would be more accurate to say the answer found him, as if by fate itself.

In the autumn of his fifteenth year, Dohwan stopped dead in front of a television that had been left on by chance, as if nailed to the floor.

On the screen, a white-haired old man in a white hanbok was dissecting the faces of celebrities.

The panelists gasped in admiration, but their fuss never reached Dohwan's ears. Instead, a single offhand remark from the old man struck his mind like a bolt of lightning.

"Physiognomy…"

Dohwan's grip tightened around the water cup in his hand.

Written… on the face?

That predetermined path the priest had spoken of eight years ago. That vague script he couldn't even resent because he couldn't see it—was it actually written, plain as day, across every human face?

His heart began to pound.

Dohwan drifted toward the television as if entranced. The shapes of eyes, noses, and mouths the old man pointed out on screen looked like a cipher key waiting to be cracked.

The next day, the moment school ended, Dohwan headed straight for the city library.

Section 133. Eastern philosophy.

In the farthest corner of the stacks, his fingers stopped cold.

With trembling hands, Dohwan pulled the book free. The smell of old paper stung his nose, but to the boy it smelled like the fragrance of an ancient treasure map.

He dropped cross-legged onto the floor and turned the first page.

Between the dense thickets of difficult Chinese characters, countless drawings of eyes, noses, and mouths filled the pages.

A narrow forehead with compressed brows means hardship in early years, but…

Dohwan unconsciously traced his own forehead. Narrow. And rough. Exactly as the book described.

It's real. It's all written down.

A shiver ran the length of his spine.

The script God had supposedly written—the one the priest spoke of eight years ago—was sitting right here inside this battered old book. The reason he had been unhappy all this time. The reason his parents had abandoned him. Even the trials still waiting ahead.

Suffering without a reason was terror. Suffering with a reason was no longer terror at all.

There was just one problem. More than half the text was a tangle of obscure Chinese characters and archaic language.

Instead of giving up, Dohwan turned on his heel, ran to the language section, and hauled out a thick classical dictionary.

From that day on, the corner seat by the window became Dohwan's fortress. The moment school ended, he sprinted over and stayed until the library doors locked at ten at night, wrestling with that dictionary. Every unknown character he found, he wrote into a notebook and copied again and again until it stuck.

Eye. Eyebrow. Chin…

Blisters rose on the fingers that gripped his pencil, then hardened into calluses. When he got hungry, he filled his stomach with tap water from the bathroom and spent the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠money that should have bought bread on photocopy fees instead.

This was the only way he had of explaining his own life.

Two full seasons turned over that way.

And after the day he closed the final page of that book, Dohwan's world was completely transformed.

School became a playground where countless destinies waited to be interpreted. During class, staring at the teacher's face instead of the blackboard was far more entertaining.

The math teacher who roared like a tiger. The other kids trembled—but Dohwan propped his chin on his hand and snickered to himself.

Loud voice, weak pupils. You're actually a coward, aren't you?

It was the same when he looked at the friends who chattered noisily every break. He could tell that the boy who looked like the happiest kid alive had mouth corners trembling, microscopically, as if he were about to cry.

It felt like secretly peeking at the answer key to a test no one else could see. That thrilling secret filled the lonely orphan boy's days.

Only I can see it. Who you really are.

Matching the drawings from the book against real faces was the most fascinating, most entertaining game in the world. And so Dohwan quietly honed his skill, cradling that secret alone.

Then came twenty.

The day he aged out of the system and walked out through the orphanage gates, Dohwan felt none of the fear the other kids carried. If anything, he was excited—leaving the small fishbowl of school meant he could see so many more faces.

And he didn't need to worry about making a living.

He had physiognomy.

Dohwan started working as a face reader at the Korean Folk Village in Yongin. Unlike fortune-telling shops that fretted over age and credentials, this place only cared whether your character and skill were solid.

He put on a worn hanbok, stuck a white fake beard to his chin, and sat down on a straw mat. At first, customers sat down for a laugh, muttering that some kid couldn't possibly know anything. But when they left, their faces had gone pale, or they were weeping as they set down extra payment.

"Miss, yours is a face with no luck in men. Seeing anyone right now? If you are, end it. That guy hits you, doesn't he?"

Dohwan's intuition was razor-sharp.

But an unexpected obstacle found him too.

"Hello? Can you read my face?"

Foreign tourists.

The first time he faced a white customer, Dohwan couldn't hide his bewilderment.

What the hell. The features are… completely different.

Deep-set eye sockets. An aggressively high bridge of the nose. Thin skin. Apply traditional Eastern physiognomy as written, and every Westerner came out as an "ill-fated type with no parental luck and a stubborn streak."

It was uncharted territory where the existing statistics simply didn't hold.

An ordinary face reader would have waved them off with a "No English." Dohwan was different. Stubbornness took root.

People live the same way everywhere. Just because the race is different doesn't mean fate is different.

From that day on, Dohwan watched the foreigners who visited the Folk Village—watched them, and watched them again. And before long, he understood.

The height of the bone structure might differ, but the pathways by which joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure moved the facial muscles were universal.

The angle the cheekbones pull when someone smiles. The shift in the pupils when desire hits… It's all the same.

Just as he had at fifteen in the library, Dohwan started from scratch again—building a revised set of data values in his head that fit Western bone structure. And he studied English while he was at it. Reading a destiny was useless if you couldn't communicate it.

He kept an English conversation book open beside his mat and drilled sentences like a madman whenever there were no customers.

"You, be careful."

"Money fly away."

"Bad man. Break up."

It was crude Konglish—but combined with those piercing eyes, it exploded into a strangely mystical charisma. Rumors of the "mysterious Eastern sage of the Folk Village" began circulating among foreign tourists.

Three years like that.

Dohwan was certain. He had become the one and only face reader who could read not just Eastern faces, but the faces of all seven billion people on Earth.

But the Folk Village had grown too small for him. It was a tourist attraction, after all. Every face there wore the excited mask of someone out for a good time.

Dohwan felt a thirst.

He wanted to test this universal theory of fate he had built—against raw, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠unprocessed desire, against the desperation of people fighting to survive, against the full spectrum of lives that crossed every border.

"Let's go. Somewhere with more faces to read."

Leaving the Folk Village, Dohwan headed straight for Itaewon—a place where every nationality, every race, every desire tangled together. He rented a small space in a back alley and hung a sign.

A straightforward English sign. At first, the place was dead. But curious foreigners began trickling in one by one. They wanted Eastern mysticism, and Dohwan delivered on that expectation.

No—he overwhelmed it.

"Oh my god! How did you know?"

Blue-eyed whites. Curly-haired Blacks. Arabs in hijabs. The races differed, but to Dohwan's eyes they were all just transparent glass plates waiting to be read. If anything, Westerners' facial muscles—so open with emotion—were far easier to read than Eastern ones.

This was the moment when all that desperate data-gathering and conversation practice at the Folk Village finally paid off.

"You—watch your business partner. His nostrils are too thin. Wealth is leaking out."

"You've got a relocation number next month. Start preparing to go home."

Fluent English layered over the depth of Eastern philosophy produced devastating force. The rumors spread fast across social media. Three years later, foreigners lined up outside Dohwan's shop every weekend.

The result: money accumulated, and a reputation with it. But for Dohwan, that success meant something beyond wealth and fame.

It was a clear, clean answer to the exhausting question mark that had circled inside his head since childhood.

See, Father? You were wrong.

Fate cannot be rewritten—but it can at least be blocked, and it can be avoided.

It was early evening, dusk settling in.

He had closed the shop early for once and was heading out when he noticed a small child standing across the crosswalk. About seven years old, maybe. A boy whose face was covered in wounds.

Out of habit, Dohwan scanned the child's face—and found himself stopping mid-step, as if spellbound.

A gaunt forehead. Sunken eye sockets. Thin, compressed lips. The face of someone thoroughly isolated, with nowhere to lean. Twenty years earlier, the little Kang Dohwan who had crouched in a corner of Angel's Haven was standing right there.

Just like me.

A bitter taste filled Dohwan's mouth. The lonely lot he had spent a lifetime denying was stamped onto that child's face, perfectly preserved. A fate that could neither be avoided nor blocked—not right now.

And then—

As he started to turn his head away without thinking, Dohwan froze.

"…!"

A pitch-black storm cloud was descending furiously over the child's face.

Death Shadow.

The shadow of death, as physiognomy named it. A blood-red point appeared at the exact center of the brow—the Indang—and pulsed as if it meant to sever the child's life line.

Wait. This is…

An omen of unavoidable death.

That child is fated to die soon?

The old priest's voice rang in his ears like a hallucination.

Every person is born with a path already set for them…

Was the ending God had handed a seven-year-old child supposed to be death on this cold asphalt?

Don't make me laugh.

Dohwan's eyes blazed.

A set ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠path? God's will? If that was fate—then he would change it.

Screeeeech—!

Out of the gathering dark, a truck blew through the light and came hurtling forward like a thing gone mad. The green signal had just flipped, and the child stepped onto the crosswalk.

"No!"

Dohwan threw himself forward without a second to think. It was instinct—the urge to save his past self—and pure stubbornness, the will to rewrite fate no matter what.

"Get out of the way!"

He shoved the child hard. The small body tumbling onto the sidewalk seemed to move in slow motion.

And then—

CRASH—!

A massive hunk of metal slammed into Dohwan's body. The world flipped. The agony of bones shattering lasted only a moment before the cold of the asphalt against his cheek was all that remained.

Through his fading vision, the child on the ground stared blankly at him.

…

Dohwan forced his eyes open. He had to check.

The child's face. The black Death Shadow that had blanketed the brow just moments before had vanished as if it had never been.

And that wasn't all.

It changed…

Even the physiognomy that had been so chillingly identical to his own—that desperately lonely face with nowhere to lean—had disappeared without a trace. Across the child's once-empty features, surprise and sorrow and the soft light of a long life still ahead were gently rising.

Thank God.

He hadn't merely saved a life. He had twisted, wholesale, the wretched fate of a child who would have spent a lifetime drowning in loneliness the way he had.

See, Father? You were wrong.

There is no such thing as fixed fate. Changing destiny was possible. Dohwan had proven it himself.

It's okay. It's really okay.

A bitterly lonely orphan's life. But in the final moment, he had sacrificed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠himself to cut short another version of his own misfortune—not a bad ending at all.

Dohwan closed his eyes slowly, a satisfied smile on his lips.

And so, Kang Dohwan's time ended.

Or so he thought.

"Hey! Wake up, you drunkard!"

A dull kick to the ribs snapped Dohwan's eyes wide open.

"Hah—!"

The air flooding deep into his lungs was cold. Too cold. This wasn't the acrid exhaust of Seoul. Rotting food garbage, the stink of urine, and an unfamiliar dampness.

Dohwan staggered upright. His body was heavy—muscles hanging limp like waterlogged cotton, joints creaking.

I got hit by a truck. Why doesn't it hurt? Is this a hospital?

He didn't even have time to process the situation.

"Get out of here before I call the cops!"

A Black man in a security guard's uniform was shouting, swinging a baton.

English?

Dohwan looked around blankly. A forest of tall buildings. English signs. Yellow taxis rolling past on the street.

This was not Itaewon.

"Where… is this…"

The voice was wrong. It wasn't his voice—thick, rough, phlegmy and coarse.

Dohwan lifted a trembling hand to his own face. A scruffy beard. Rough skin. Sunken eyes. This was not his face.

He staggered toward the glass of a nearby shop window and nearly threw himself against it. The moment he saw the man reflected there, his breath caught in his throat.

Kang Dohwan was not there.

A young Asian homeless man with tangled black hair, grimy skin, and a tattered field jacket stared back at him with hollow eyes.

"…Who are you."

The Asian man in the glass moved his mouth.

Dohwan was too stunned by his own unfamiliar appearance to notice one crucial fact.

That the two pupils beyond the glass had already reached a realm beyond mere features—a divine domain where the fortunes and calamities of human beings were reflected in color.