A Blank Document

When you create a new document in the program called Dangerous Naram Noona Inside My Heart, the screen fills with a pristine white background. You type out your text, insert tables where needed, drop in images, shapes, or charts, and eventually a finished document stares back at you. As I looked at one I had painstakingly completed, a stray thought surfaced: normal people are like finished documents, and I am like that blank white page.

When I first joined the Supernatural Research Institute, a battery of precise examinations confirmed that my physical age was in my twenties. My genes were identical to a human’s, and Director Jeong Yongjin himself had declared that my body was no different from anyone else’s. Apart from my bizarre ability, I was essentially ordinary. That had been his official verdict. So if I truly was an ordinary person, as he claimed, where had all my origins gone?

Ordinary people usually have parents, siblings, friends. They accumulate memories and experiences as time passes, forming their values along the way. Yet even though my body was in its twenties, there was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠nothing inside me. Everyone else carried something within them like a completed document, but I could not even remember something as basic as my own name. I was a brand-new file. A pure white document with not a single line of text, let alone tables, shapes, pictures, or charts.

Half the reason I had been so obedient at the institute for the past year was the absence of those origins. Emptiness breeds melancholy, and melancholy breeds thoughts of suicide, but an immortal who cannot die has no choice but to simply accept his fate. The guy who cleaned the Hwanjong isolation rooms, got killed, came back to life, was scorned as a monster, and simply nodded along without protest. That was me—Woo Suho.

“Ah, hello? I’m Kang Naram! So you’re the infamous [0_4_138] everyone’s been talking about! I expected you to be terrifying, but… you look surprisingly normal!”

My first meeting with Naram was purely business. I possessed the same abilities as the Hwanjong yet worked as a cleaner, wandered parts of the institute freely instead of being locked in an isolation room, and therefore required constant supervision. Naram had been assigned as my watcher.

“Do you understand Korean? I’ve never seen [0_4_138] speak before… Can you speak English?”

“Watch and size?”

“?”

“What the hell are you saying~ you crazy bastard~ I’ll kill you~ you son of a—”

To be honest, it was annoying. Up until then, the only interest anyone had ever shown me stemmed from a mix of disgust and morbid curiosity. Imagining that Naram was talking to me with the same attitude one might have toward a monkey at the zoo made it impossible for good feelings to form. So I had recited lines from old Hong Kong movies to blow her off.

“Bù shuō zānghuà.”

This woman spoke Chinese at a native level…

“Wǒ zài wèn nǐ yīcì. Nǐ jiào shénme míng……?”

“I don’t know Chinese…”

She had kept firing off fluent Chinese at machine-gun speed, so I finally muttered the words in a low voice. That was when Kang Naram broke into a smile as bright as sunlight.

“I knew you could speak Korean! Ahem, let me introduce myself properly this time. My name is Kang Naram. It’s nice to meet you, [0_4_138]. Please take good care of me for the next month!”

Naram was like an ocean wave. I was nothing more than a powerless wreck drifting on the sea, helplessly swept along by the current. How many men in this world could refuse a handshake from a woman who was both adorable like a small animal and beautiful enough to rival any celebrity? Holding someone’s hand, I learned that day, could feel this warm and comforting. For the first time, I understood the warmth of another human being.

Over the year I spent with Naram, many moments remained etched in my memory. She gave me the name Woo Suho instead of the cold serial number [0_4_138], filled my blank mind with knowledge, and helped me imagine the outside world through photographs and stories since I could never leave the institute. Even if she was simply kind and helping me out of pity, it was only natural that I would develop feelings stronger than fondness for the one warm, gentle person in this entire world.

My frozen heart began to melt.

I had never cared much for others, yet every time I met her I became aware of my racing pulse and grew nervous that she might notice. That was when I became certain. I was an ordinary person. The moment we were alone, I turned soft and fuzzy like someone burrowing under a blanket. I felt love for the opposite sex. I slept. I ate. I was simply a slightly cold young man who happened to possess a peculiar and strange ability.

The decisive moment when I fell for Kang Naram came on a night when the sky was densely embroidered with embroidered stars.

“Are you okay?”

“With what?”

“If the researchers find out you tampered with my collar, they won’t let it slide…”

“It’ll just look like a simple malfunction. Don’t worry too much. And if we get caught… well, we can think about it then… Ah, anyway, enough of the gloomy talk. Suho, look at the sky! Isn’t it beautiful?!”

Despite her fragile, delicate appearance and gentle demeanor, Naram was a woman of strong drive. She wasn’t always like that, but when she decided something had to be done, she charged forward with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the reckless courage of a Viking from the Middle Ages. I stared at the sparking collar with a wry expression, then followed her suggestion and looked up at the night sky. Massive stars made of dust and gas were sending their signals across unfathomable distances. Ancient people had gazed at those white dots and given them the names of heroes from mythology. It was undeniably a beautiful sight, and sharing it with Naram made the moment impossibly happy. Yet I couldn’t understand it.

There was no reason for her to bear the risk of sabotaging the collar just to see this view.

Curious, I asked.

“Doing something in secret is fun, you know? It’s thrilling and exciting. Of course we should still follow the law and ethics. But this isn’t a crime worthy of death, is it…?”

“Releasing a monster that comes back to life even if you kill it is definitely a crime worthy of death.”

“Suho isn’t a monster, he’s a person. And it looked like it must be suffocating to be trapped inside the institute all the time. In my book, this level of mischief is perfectly fine.”

It really was enjoyable. Unlike the occasional glances I stole at the sky from the trash dump, this came with real thrill and fun. I nodded in genuine approval.

“You’re a lot like the night sky, Naram.”

I pointed a finger toward the heavens. From her perspective it probably looked like I was indicating the huge moon.

“S-suddenly saying something like that… my face is turning red…”

“Unlike me, you already have so much.”

Naram, who had been covering her flushed cheeks with both hands, suddenly froze.

“Born into a golden-spoon family that every Korean would envy, with a prestigious education, a house in your own name, a loving family and friends, and countless memories.”

If I took an enormous eraser and wiped away all the countless celestial bodies embedded in the vast space before us, along with the drifting clouds, only an empty darkness resembling me would remain.

“That’s why I said the night sky looks like you. You’re densely filled in. That’s why I think you’re ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠someone as magnificent as the night sky, unlike me.”

The night possesses a mysterious magic. It had cast a strange spell on me that made me spill pointless words. For a second I worried I had used her as an emotional trash can, but my concern was unnecessary.

“Then we just have to fill it in one by one from now on. If you think of it that way, Suho, your heart will someday be packed full of countless stars just like that night sky.”

“And why do you think there’s nothing there? You have me right next to you. Saying that makes me sad~”

Kang Naram smiled like warm sunlight.

“Still, if it’s hard, I’ll help you. Hehe.”

I thought Naram was a magician. She had used a powerful spell that made me instinctively avert my gaze. From that moment on, the blank white page no longer felt empty. Because all you had to do with something hollow was fill it.

“Haa… haa…”

I arrived at Area 0. The once orderly office-like space was now a disaster zone. Documents and office equipment used for work lay scattered across the floor. Researchers’ corpses were visible here and there. I headed toward the emergency evacuation area where Naram should be waiting. The emergency evacuation area had been designed to protect staff (excluding 4th class personnel) in the event of a Hwanjong-related disaster like this one. I knew the details were written in the manual.

The Supernatural Research Institute did not consider 4th class personnel as staff that needed protecting, so the manual contained no further details for me. One question remained. How could humans possibly cope with a Hwanjong disaster that caused supernatural phenomena? Although the creatures could be crammed inside the institute through isolation procedures, they could not be perfectly controlled by human wisdom. If they could, researchers and 4th class personnel would not have died during experiments.

However, the moment I witnessed the bizarre scene before me, that question was largely answered.

Every time I cleaned Area 0, I had seen the emergency evacuation area’s hatch tightly sealed. That pure white hatch had vanished. In its place stood a massive door carved from stone. Across its surface, lumpy black mucus-like substance crawled. The mucus moved in regular patterns, and the way it looked like the strands were biting one another and bleeding was utterly horrifying.

Hanging above the exact center of the door was a human head. It looked exactly like the severed neck of a decapitated corpse on display.

“A Hwanjong…”

I did not know this one. None of the documents I was permitted to read contained any data on a Hwanjong like this. As I stared up at the door in stunned silence, a familiar voice reached me.

Of course I could not answer. Anyone would freeze if a decapitated head mounted in the center of a door suddenly spoke to them in the voice of the person they loved.