The Deceased's Wish
“Hagh—!”
The air tore out of me. My lungs burned like I'd just clawed my way up from underwater.
“I'm alive…….”
That was the first thing. And the second—call emergency services, right now—
“Hold on.”
My hand froze.
Nothing. No rain, no cars, nothing at all.
Darkness stretched endlessly in every direction, as if I'd been sealed inside somewhere.
“What the hell is…….”
I pinched my cheek, hard.
“Doesn't hurt.”
It's a dream! Of course it is. The worst nightmare imaginable, but a nightmare all the same.
All I had to do was wake up and it would end.
There'd be no horrific accident. Iyul would be fine. And I'd go back to my ordinary life.
“Whatever it was, I'm never going to that cursed event again.”
But time crawled past, and nothing changed.
“……Did I actually die?”
Come to think of it, surviving a crash like that would have been the stranger outcome.
So this is what the afterlife looks like.
“Ha, then take me already. Heaven, hell, anywhere…….”
The moment those words left my mouth—
POP—!
With a burst of fanfare, everything around me blazed into light.
“Agh!”
A brilliance that threatened to blind me—and a sound effect out of nowhere.
Ta-da-da-DUM—!
“……Huh?”
[Congratulations!]
[Deceased soul No. 392849384 — first winner in 100 years…….]
What on earth is going on?
The status window, for reasons unknown, began reciting numbers without end—reading off digits until it was practically wheezing, which somehow looked pathetic rather than impressive.
“What is this?”
Then a crudely animated cartoon played on the window. King Yama spun a roulette wheel inscribed with the names of the dead, and the winning soul would receive a Deceased Wish Ticket—the right to wish for one thing.
[What an extraordinarily lucky soul you are! Deceased Wish Tickets are normally granted only once every hundred years. However, the previous winner misused theirs, and the ticket was revoked—which makes you the new lucky soul in line!]
So that wish I made—'let me win the lottery'—actually came true like this?
Wait, what did “misused” mean, exactly?
[The chosen soul, Yuseongwoo, may make a single wish.]
Whatever. Didn't matter. What mattered was that an absurd opportunity had just landed in my lap.
“C-can I wish for something about my life?”
[Of course. King Yama's wishes have no limits!]
“Then—was Kang Iyul killed too?”
Please. Please say no.
[Two people died in that accident: Yuseongwoo and Kang Iyul. Joo Han, Choi Woonjo, and Han Sangyoon are in critical condition—but they're still alive!]
“……What?”
My mind went blank.
“And Go Jaeseong, that son of a bitch, is fine?”
Figures. Insults really do add years to your life. I should have cursed him out more.
“Can you turn back time?”
The window read my intention and posed a question of its own.
[Do you intend to make it never have happened at all?]
“Yes. If I just don't go to that event, that solves it, doesn't it?”
[Even if time is rewound, the future will repeat itself unless the root cause is eliminated.]
“The root cause…….”
Sadly, I didn't need to think long.
Why had IMPACTER been slumming it at provincial events in the first place? There was only one answer.
“……Because we were Mangdol.”
A ruined idol group—flops. Which meant that under the standing premise of “IMPACTER is a failed group,” the accident that killed me and Kang Iyul would happen again, one way or another. Wouldn't it?
I remembered the posts flooded with bitter self-mockery from fans: Is being a flop such a crime? Did we deserve to die for it?
Granted, there'd been plenty of reasons to fail. Lousy planning, terrible styling, poor song quality.
But the core of it was clear.
Go Jaeseong's disaster. The fallout from his half-baked apologies and glacial damage control had swallowed the entire team whole.
And now the other four members—the ones who'd suffered and worked themselves to the bone because of that bastard—were fated to die for it?
“That's not fair.”
Somewhere along the way, my fist had started shaking. What was left after the wave of rage swept through was only cold, hard reality.
Slowly, I spoke the answer aloud.
“Then I'll do it. I'll take his place.”
If Go Jaeseong—the walking catastrophe—were gone, the team wouldn't fail. If the team didn't fail, that horrific accident would never happen.
But once again, the window saw straight through me.
[A destiny already set in stone cannot be changed.]
Destiny already set in stone…….
“So IMPACTER's debut is off the table. I'd have to go back to before it was ever decided.”
Which left exactly one option.
“……The survival show!”
[You have one minute remaining.]
Seriously? This isn't a fan-sign event.
I polished the sentence in my head, over and over.
I could not afford to fumble this. I had exactly one shot.
“Turn back time four years, and let me join the debut survival show Boys Code alongside Kang Iyul.”
If I couldn't slide into the debut lineup of IMPACTER in Go Jaeseong's place, then I'd start at the very beginning—enter the debut survival show myself, shove him out, and become a member of IMPACTER in his stead.
Being an idol. I'd never dreamed of it once. But I wanted it more desperately than anyone.
Because both my life and Kang Iyul's hung on this chance.
Right. If even Go Jaeseong managed to debut, there's no reason I can't.
“And this time—”
If he was gloating right now about being the sole survivor, I hoped he savored every second. Because it would be the last happiness he ever got to enjoy.
“I'm debuting. No matter what.”
To save Kang Iyul.
[Executing the wish of the deceased soul, Yuseongwoo: “Turn back time four years, and let me join the debut survival show alongside Kang Iyul.”]
[Good luck!]
Darkness closed in again, and my body plummeted—falling and falling, with no beginning and no end.
“……Hagh!”
I jolted upright, gasping for breath.
Back in the afterlife again?
SMACK!
“Ow—!”
My backside exploded with pain.
What the—? This familiar palm-smacking technique could only mean…….
“Finally up? You said you had to leave early!”
“……Sis?”
My only living family. Yu Seong-ah.
“Yeah, that's me. Your sister. What of it.”
I couldn't believe it. I scrubbed at my eyes and opened them again—but everything stayed exactly the same.
“W-what year is it right now?”
“Seongwoo, what's with the crazy act today? You coming down with something?”
“……”
“Or is it because there are only ten students in your whole school?”
“Sis—how old are you right now?”
“Can't even count numbers now? Seven years older than you. Twenty-six.”
Seven years younger than the sister who'd been barely a year my senior.
I turned my head slowly and picked up my phone.
July 6th, 202X. It really was four years ago.
“……How old am I supposed to be right now?”
Seong-ah looked at me like I was hopeless.
“Why are you like this first thing in the morning? Keep it up and you really will be late.”
SLAM. The door shut.
And the moment she was gone, the status window appeared, as if it had been waiting for exactly this.
[S: In accordance with the wish of the deceased soul Yuseongwoo, time has been rewound four years.]
“Come on, warn me next time—before my sister decks me, at least.”
[S: ……Presenting Yuseongwoo's current basic information.]
[S: To facilitate smooth wish fulfillment, a game-style status window familiar to you has been provided.]
You just ignored me, didn't you?
“Ha…….”
Nineteen again, just like that.
A twenty-nine-year-old absolutely cannot enter an idol survival show, apparently?
King Yama was oddly pragmatic in all the wrong places.
“……If you're going to shave years off, why not shave off more?”
Nineteen sat right on the maximum age line for idol debuts.
It made no sense—but I had no choice but to accept the reality in front of me. My rear end still stung from Seong-ah's hand, after all.
Cautiously, I walked to the mirror. No dark circles carved by weeks of all-nighters. No hollowed-out cheeks. Seeing that glossy, smooth-as-a-peeled-egg face, I couldn't help but laugh—laughing hard enough to see my own Adam's apple bob—and then something caught the light inside my mouth.
“Whoa.”
There was one thing I'd forgotten.
“I didn't know it would recreate this, too.”
Nineteen-year-old me had been in braces. It caught me off guard—but brace-faced idols were, surprisingly, a marketable niche.
“Okay. Not bad.”
The really bad part was something else entirely: this floppy, swaying body with not a gram of muscle on it.
“Do you have any idea what I did to build that body—”
Just thinking about what I'd spent on protein over the years was enough to bring tears to my eyes.
Shelving the grief, I organized the situation I'd been handed.
One. I had gone back four years.
Two. Only I was restored to my nineteen-year-old self.
Three. Nyx Entertainment's in-house survival show would begin in one week.
Which meant the first thing I needed to do right now was—
“Hey! Aren't you going to work?”
BANG!
Seong-ah shouted through the crack of the door.
“Work?”
A high schooler going to an office—
Seong-ah's brow furrowed. She always made that face when I was talking nonsense.
“Don't tell me all that stuff about getting scouted on the street was a lie too?”
In that instant, my mind flashed white.
A week ago. An employee pressing a business card into my hand on the street. And printed on that card: Nyx Entertainment.
Contract papers. Practice rooms. A survival show.
Memories I'd forgotten came flooding back all at once.
“Unbelievable.”
King Yama's after-sales service was thorough, no doubt about it.
One blessing of IMPACTER's downfall: over those four years, Nyx Entertainment had never once needed to move offices.
The moment I pushed the same glass door I remembered from before my regression—
Danger Level: 90% (▼2%)
“It went down.”
First time since I'd come back.
The number that had never so much as twitched had moved.
What's the metric here, exactly?
Whatever it measured, a name like “Danger Level” was unsettling from the start.
A little explanation wouldn't kill you, you know.
[S: Excessive information carries a risk of inducing panic.]
[S: Necessary information will be provided at the appropriate time.]
“……Well, aren't you smooth with words.”
In other words: not telling me. I swallowed a sigh and headed inside.
Beneath the familiar Nyx Entertainment logo, the lobby walls were lined, edge to edge, with signed CDs from famous singers.
Casting director Song Inhyuk, who had poached every A-list idol imaginable from the major agencies, and visual director Kwon Jaehyuk, whose impeccable eye for aesthetics had won them praise far and wide.
These two had been hailed as powerhouses of the idol industry right up until they founded Nyx—though their management only grew more hopeless from there, until people started calling them not the “powerhouse duo” but the “punchline duo.”
So this is what the lobby looked like back then. I tried for a moment to picture the scenery Kang Iyul must have walked through on his way to work every day.
And now I'm walking into this place.
Following an employee's directions, I made my way to the practice room. The moment I opened the door, I swept my eyes over the crowd—and didn't find the face I was looking for.
Why…… why isn't Kang Iyul here?
My heart dropped like a stone.
Then—
“As announced, we have an important announcement today.”
Song Inhyuk entered the practice room.
“Starting next week, we will hold an in-house survival to select the debut lineup.”
The room stirred.
“A survival show?”
He surveyed the trainees once more, and then his lips parted again.
“And every moment of it will be broadcast on C-Net.”
This time, it wasn't just a stir—it was close to an uproar of pure joy.
“This is—this is insane.”
“We're going to be on TV!”
“Oh my god…….”
Everyone around me was electric with excitement, but I was alone in a different world.
No, but where the hell IS Kang Iyul—
I was about to lose my mind from the anxiety.
That was when it happened.
Creak— the practice room door opened again.
“I'm sorry. I'm a little late.”
That familiar voice.
My heart reacted before my head did.
And the instant I turned—my eyes met those of the person standing in the doorway.
Kang Iyul. Alive, and breathing.