The Number I See
I obtained this strange ability back in my third year of high school.
“Nice to meet you.”
“Huh. Yeah.” (2 / 37 / 4 weeks ago)
“4 weeks ago…?”
“What?”
I had come down to the trash room and accidentally ran into the old man from the next house.
Above his head, while he was smoking, floated an unfamiliar number.
Two, thirty-seven, four weeks ago…
It felt weird, but the guy was just some neighbor who greeted me as I passed by. Sometimes we would brush past each other awkwardly because I missed the timing.
“It was just muttering to myself.”
The old man glanced at me strangely, crushed out his cigarette, and left.
The number hovering above his head gradually faded away.
But the unease remained. What was this? A sleep disorder? Schizophrenia? Even though I was still a student, the stress wasn’t enough to fry my brain.
I wanted to believe I had just seen a hallucination.
“Fuck.”
“Was that something I said to you?” (1 / 247 / 8 months ago)
“No, sorry.”
Above my father’s head while he was drinking beer also had numbers.
“Sung-hyun. Are you studying?” (2 / 475 / 8 months ago)
“Mom.”
“Please let’s go to the university right in front of the house. We can’t afford to live alone, you know?”
“Ah… yes. I’ll go study.”
Above my mother’s head, who was urging me to study, the numbers appeared.
A translucent white hologram and three numbers.
Even after I was locked in my room, the numbers above my parents kept flickering in my head.
The first two differed, but the last one was the same for both.
1 / 247 / 8 months ago
2 / 475 / 8 months ago
Why was my father 1 and my mother 2?
I couldn’t understand what 247 and 475 meant, but it was definitely some kind of statistic. I knew it was pointless, yet I couldn’t erase it from my memory. 2, 37, 4. 1, 247, 8, 2, 475. The scariest part was that this might never end.
I kept repeating it in my head before I fell asleep out of anxiety.
This is just a temporary phenomenon.
My brain was short-circuited for a moment.
But the next morning.
“Ah…”
“If you make eye contact with a person, you should at least say hello.” (84 / 176 / 7 hours ago)
“Nice to meet you.”
“Why is this person so clueless?”
Above the forehead of the next-door auntie I ran into in front of the elevator, the number floated.
This time it wasn’t months, but hours. Only 7 hours ago.
The number was strange. 84 and 176.
The next-door husband of the auntie I had met in front of the trash yesterday was 2 and 37…
Right then, a conversation my parents had a few months ago flashed into my mind.
“Don’t get too close to the woman next door.”
“Why?”
“Haa… do I really have to say this? I hate it, but there are times when company people take me to a song room where they get girls. The head of the union really likes that bastard. Actually, the last time I was forcibly dragged to the place in the cultural square…”
“Mom, really?”
“It wasn’t me going into the room. I just happened to see. Don’t tell anyone!”
Song rooms that get girls. Forcibly dragged there, then happened to see. Don’t tell anyone.
‘Could it be?’
I was suspicious too. I wasn’t an idiot.
I knew that being a helper wasn’t just pouring beer and singing.
I had heard more than once that the head of the union would call her for a second round. There were even guides who specialized in second rounds.
According to my father, the next-door auntie worked in that kind of job.
Then this…
“Sex.”
The numbers above me were clearly related to sex.
The last number, displayed in hours, weeks, and so on… it was the timing of her most recent sexual encounter.
Something also came to mind about my parents’ “8 months ago.”
At that time the two of them had gone to a hot-spring healing hotel to celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary. Naturally, I was left behind with just my parents.
I could guess what the first two numbers meant.
**Partner Count** — the total number of unique sexual partners they had had.
And **Experience Count** — the total number of sexual encounters.
“That’s all there is to it.”
It was still just an estimate.
But it didn’t take long to gain full confidence.
Above the forehead of every single person I encountered, the numbers appeared.
Without a single exception. Everyone.
“Hey. Hasn’t the weather gotten a little better lately? At times like this, conditions get worse, so pay attention. There’s not much time left. Don’t drink too much energy drink just because you’re tired. Did everyone hear?” (1 / 41 / 2 days ago)
My homeroom teacher, 38 years old, newlywed.
Thanks to her, I learned that the numbers could be displayed in months, weeks, days, and hours.
A 38-year-old with **Partner Count** of 1…
That teacher must have vividly recounted her experience of calling outcall massages every time she had an affair while in the military.
An imagined outcall massage? Or did she just drink and get the real thing without going all the way?
Or was it similar?
I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Everyone had different colorful numbers floating above their foreheads.
The font was white and I could still see it clearly, so it wasn’t a visual impairment. I could have ignored it if I wanted.
But I couldn’t ignore it.
I could see **Partner Count**, **Experience Count**, and even the recent experience. How could I ignore them?
This was the most interesting experience of my life.
That was the problem.
(0, 0, -)
Just to be sure, I checked my numbers in the mirror.
Accessing my **Experience Count** was an overwhelming stimulus.
Studying was naturally impossible. I was too busy interpreting what the numbers floating in front of me meant.
She had an unexpectedly scary number. The school principal at her age pitying her…
All day long I was lost in such thoughts, and I was going insane.
So I prayed desperately inside.
Please let this crazy number not appear, I admitted that it was fun in a creepy way, but it wasn’t the time right now… I prayed earnestly. If it continued like this, I would be too immersed in those numbers and ruin my life.
‘Show me later. Not now, later!’
I lifted the prayer with a feeling like I was about to cry.
Right after. The white hologram faded at high speed and eventually disappeared.
“Eh?”
I rubbed my eyes and checked again and again, but the numbers didn’t reappear.
As if nothing had happened.
It was supposed to be resolved. Since the prayer was answered, I should have been grateful, but somehow no smile came out. I wasn’t sure whether I had really had a chance without any careful consideration… but I had definitely wasted the opportunity.
I promised myself in my heart that I would forget about it, but there was no guarantee it would come true.
“Too bad.”
Regret came belatedly, but the lost ability didn’t return.
Fortunately, I was able to shake off that regret soon.
That evening, an accident occurred.
“FUCKING BRAT!! I only asked you to shake the tambourine, not to sell your asshole!”
“Let go…!”
“Answer me!!”
“You crazy bastard! You can’t even run two laps a day and you charge 30,000 won per hour? Can you even live? You knew everything and still came here to cause trouble!”
“UWAHHHHHH!!!”
“Hit her? You hit her?”
The next-door unemployed man (2 / 37) and his wife (84 / 176), both dressed in sexy lace panties, were fiercely fighting in the hallway.
It wasn’t just a quarrel. It was a real brawl.
It was a man-versus-woman fight, but the auntie wasn’t backing down at all. Thanks to her dirty fighting skills.
Just hearing their vicious voices… I could guess why that couple was fighting. It had nothing to do with the numbers I had seen.
The auntie was selling her body, and the old man apparently wasn’t pleased with that.
“YOU BITCH!!!”
“You only earned money, huh? Why the hell am I a helper…!”
“Let’s die together!”
I couldn’t even think of stopping them and just stood there blankly.
“Enough already.”
When my father, who was coming home from work, gently pushed me aside and stepped forward.
“The hallway is a public space…”
“Mind your own business!”
“There’s a student studying at my house.”
“What do I care?!”
The next-door man’s eyes rolled back as he swung his fist at my father. I blocked it with my shoulder and returned a body shot.
“Ugh!”
That was it. My father had been a boxing champion until university.
In the ambiguous atmosphere… my father turned around with a look of pity at the pitiful couple next door, opened the front door, and gave me a nod.
“Let’s go inside.”
Thanks to the brief commotion, I learned something.
‘It’s all for the better.’
Losing the ability to see other people’s **Partner Count**, **Experience Count**, and even the timing of their recent sexual encounters… it was actually good. There was definitely something fun about it, but if I messed up, I might have gotten caught up in pointless trouble.
“Eat your meal. Forget what you just saw.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Mom. You two came together?”
“You heard about them at home? Those people really… I don’t know why they live like that. Tch.”
It was also fortunate that the numbers above my parents didn’t appear.
If I remembered correctly, my father was 1 and 247, my mother 2 and 475.
If it had been before marriage, it wouldn’t have been a problem that the other person had been there, but according to what I knew, the two of them said they were each other’s first love.
The parties themselves had clearly said so. But if the numbers I saw were true, my mother had not been my father’s first love…
‘No. Let’s forget it.’
It probably wouldn’t be easy to forget, so I just treated it as an illusion.
There was no point in digging further.
And time passed.
The shock from the ability to see counts gradually faded.
The next-door couple who fought like dogs eventually reached a compromise and continued their married life. The following year they had a child. The unemployed old man would occasionally do tile work, and the auntie continued working as a helper for several years after.
My parents were still in good terms.
Even I, who had experienced something bizarre for a short time, came back to my senses and lived my life normally.
Occasionally seeing something disgusting too.
Actually, there was a time during my civil service exam preparation when I desperately wanted the ability back. I had doubts, but with no evidence I had forced myself to ignore it, a quiet period… the ability was desperate. But the ability that returned after I gave up on it wasn’t in good condition.
One day, while soothing my regret and somehow living, an old feeling came rushing back after a long time.
73.
A faint afterglow spreading across the neatly styled hair. At first I thought I had seen it wrong, but it gradually became clearer.
“Wait a moment, let me see you.”
“Doctor?”
“A question related to the Inbong-dong Park development plan. How many times have I told you I haven’t prepared? Do you know how much trouble I had at the briefing because of that?”
“The department didn’t submit the materials.”
“Then you should have notified me!”
I tried to say I had delivered it and that you didn’t see it, but my mouth went dry.
73… the next one was 887. Soon the third number also became clear.
The ability to see counts had suddenly returned like this.
“Does the city council seem funny to you?” (73 / 887 / 1 year and 6 months ago)
Right in the middle of being gang-raped by some slut.