Died and Became a Star
When had he last felt this way?
Another bout of déjà vu?
He drew the blowing wind deep into his lungs and took in its scent. Sometimes, when he smelled the night wind, old memories would surface out of nowhere—the life of a spy who had lived countless false existences, switching cover identities one after another.
"I don't even know who I am anymore."
Crackle—
"Former Team Leader. What did you say? I didn't catch that."
Baek Yu-hyeon's voice came over the radio; he had been dozing for a moment when Jeon Su-hwan's muttered words reached him.
"Nothing. Just talking to myself."
Jeon Su-hwan was out in an operational zone in the Middle East, conducting surveillance at a designated point according to intelligence from above.
"Baek Yu-hyeon, you should transfer back to desk support before it's too late. You've got a family."
"I'm field material, sir. Saying this in front of you feels like showing off wrinkles to a chrysalis, but it suits me."
Su-hwan let out a short chuckle and continued.
"If you rot in the field too long, you'll get eaten someday."
"Aw, don't scare me like that."
After hours of lying still on the hillside, the desert night was bitterly cold.
"Maybe I should pull the blanket a little tighter…"
The moment he started to move, he heard the whistle of something cutting through the air.
Phit—
And only afterward, the distant crack of a gunshot.
Bang—
But Jeon Su-hwan never heard it. The bullet, faster than sound, had already passed through his head.
Crackle—
"Team Leader! Former Team Leader!"
Yu-hyeon's voice came over the radio, but there was no one left who could answer.
An agent who had fallen in the line of duty. To honor the noble death of one whose name could never be made public, a nameless star was engraved in the central lobby of the National Intelligence Service headquarters.
Jeon Su-hwan, too, had ended his life as a nameless star—yet when he opened his eyes again, he woke inside the body of a boy he had never seen before.
"Think the weather will start warming up next month?"
Yeon-woo climbed the hiking trail near his house at a near-running pace, blowing warm breath into his hands against the still-cold air. It was the morning routine he had kept ever since his days as an agent.
Now living under the name Ryu Yeon-woo, Su-hwan looked back over the past two months.
For the first week he had obsessed over why he had died. But discovering anything about the death of a man whose very existence was classified—let alone the operation itself—had been nearly impossible. He had fretted enough over why he had come back to life and how he had entered another person's body that those questions no longer mattered much. He simply concluded that some god of some religion, or an alien, or whatever it might have been, had taken pity on the lonely, devoted life he had lived and given him another chance.
"Only two months, but I've lost a lot of weight."
It had already been two months since he was discharged after the suicide attempt that had put him in the hospital. The original owner of this body, Ryu Yeon-woo, had been bullied since childhood for his frail personality and obese appearance. Then he had swallowed a handful of his father's insomnia medication—a story that was, perhaps, all too common in modern society.
The only connection Su-hwan had found between himself and Ryu Yeon-woo was that the time of his death in the field and the time Yeon-woo had been brought into the emergency room were identical. Into the place left vacant by that pitiful soul who had known only torment had come a lonely soul of his own.
"Whatever the reason, I can't waste a second chance at life."
He tagged the stone pillar at the 800-meter summit and started back down with vigorous strides. Yeon-woo's body, which had never escaped the grip of obesity, was now being driven harder than it ever had in its life under its new owner, steadily shedding weight.
Beep-beep—
Before he knew it he had descended the mountain, unlocked the door, and returned to the apartment where his new family lived. Dual-income parents out at work, little sister off playing with friends. In the empty house he stripped off his sweat-soaked tracksuit and, still in his underwear, put himself through a long session of bodyweight exercises before finally washing up.
"I really am good-looking."
Drying his hair in front of the mirror, Yeon-woo praised himself. Or rather, calling it self-praise was a stretch—he had only been living as Yeon-woo for a little over two months. The face in the mirror still felt like a stranger's.
Was this what people meant by an unscratched lottery ticket?
Once he peeled away the double chin and cheek fat that had been with him since elementary school, surprisingly sharp features began to emerge. He still had more weight to lose; the reflection was still relatively plump. Even so, compared to the triple-digit past, the difference was night and day. He had no idea how he would look once all the fat was gone, but—
"I'll definitely be handsome enough to act."
In his previous life, Jeon Su-hwan had been a man of fairly ordinary looks. That ordinariness had actually been an advantage for an NIS agent who could not afford to stand out. But living always as a nameless, faceless third party had, in equal measure, fed a growing hunger for a life where he could make a name for himself and be noticed—a glittering life.
Perhaps that was why, despite his taciturn nature, he had never failed to keep up with movies and dramas no matter where he was posted, treating them as his hobby. On overseas assignments he would watch musicals and performances in the host country for fun, and when a touring production came through he would see it two or three times. Gradually he had come to admire actors and yearn for that dazzling existence, sometimes even imagining, If there's a next life, what if I became an actor?
"Honestly, none of the conditions were right."
Looks, identity—everything in his previous life had already strayed too far for him to chase that dream. Yet the passion for the secret dream he carried had burned for a long time without going out. In the end, he had even quietly broken the organization's strict ban on identity exposure, timed his leave, and taken part in a commercial film shoot as an extra—literally just a passerby. No one knew, and he had not a single line, but seeing himself on the screen had been a profound thrill.
Jeon Su-hwan looked again at the reflection of Ryu Yeon-woo in the mirror.
Honestly, reincarnated with a face like this at this age… even that vague dream from my past life is worth chasing.
The noble sacrifice of his previous life had certainly been a brilliantly shining star. But this time, perhaps he could become a slightly different kind of star.
Ring-ring—
"Ah, phone."
He dug through the clothes he had discarded and pulled the smartphone from a pocket. The screen showed the word Mother. For someone who had lived his entire previous life as an orphan, the title still felt deeply awkward. He shook off the stray thoughts, swiped the screen, and answered.
"Yes, Mother. It's Yeon-woo."
His own name, and the word Mother, still a little strange on his tongue. If the original Yeon-woo had not kept a steady diary, he would still have been pretending to have amnesia. And perhaps because some of the original Ryu Yeon-woo's feelings lingered, he felt no rejection toward the family that had suddenly appeared in his life.
"Are you home?"
"Yes. I finished my workout, came home, and washed up."
Yeon-woo deliberately answered brighter and more cheerfully. Lee Seon-ok, the mother who had always known a depressed, timid, occasionally rebellious son, was both astonished and secretly happy that he had changed one hundred and eighty degrees since the incident two months ago.
"Is there anything special you want for dinner?"
"Come on, I'm on a diet these days."
"Oh, right. I forgot. What's So-hyun doing?"
Yeon-woo hesitated for a beat, then answered with perfect naturalness.
"She just ran to the convenience store down the street. She'll be right back."
"That little rascal didn't sneak out to play again, did she?"
"So-hyun wants to hang out with her friends too. I'm really fine now. Do you know how happy I've been lately?"
After her son's suicide attempt, Lee Seon-ok would have preferred to stay glued to the house, but work left her no choice. Out of worry she had ordered her daughter to stick close to her brother all through the vacation, forcing the girl to suffer through what should have been prime playtime.
"All right, all right. Mom will trust her son, okay?"
"Yes, Mother. See you this evening."
Click.
The original Yeon-woo's family had lived in Seoul, but after the incident the family learned he had been bullied. They had moved to Daejeon, where his maternal grandmother lived. The students involved had been punished or forcibly transferred according to the severity of their actions, but for Yeon-woo's fresh start—and because his father, a civil servant, had been reassigned to Sejong the previous year—the move had made sense.
His new parents were hardworking people; the household was not wealthy, but it lacked for nothing. A little sister raised without a care in the world, and a reasonably harmonious home.
Yeon-woo immediately made another call.
"So-hyun."
"Yeah, Oppa! Should I come home right now?"
Her older brother going through something so serious must have been a considerable shock even for a young sister. She sounded ready to rush home that instant for his sake, yet the desire to keep playing still colored her voice. From the music in the background, it seemed she had already gone to a karaoke room with newly made friends.
"No. I'm sorry you had to transfer schools because of me."
"There you go again with the apologies! I'm fine. The kids here seem nicer than the ones in Seoul."
"Really? How are you so kind? Your heart's so pretty."
"Aaaagh! I heard something I shouldn't have! Stop the verbal abuse!"
So-hyun had always gotten along well with her brother, but open affection still made her a shy teenager. She had noticed that ever since the big incident, her brother spoke more like a father. Yeon-woo, who in his previous life had been a complete orphan with no siblings at all, simply had no idea how cringe-inducing K-sibling affection could be. By the standards of his past life, a little sister young enough to be his daughter had suddenly appeared. He was simply glad to have a kind, cute, bouncy new little sister. This bright, cheerful girl standing at the opposite pole from the dark life he had lived somehow felt as if she neutralized the darkness he carried.
"Okay, okay. Who said you weren't a middle-schooler with that overacting. I'll hang up for now. Have fun and come home later."
"Okay. Got it."
Click—
I never even knew my parents' faces, let alone had a little sister.
After ending the call, Yeon-woo felt a sudden, unbidden sadness for the dark and lonely previous life of Jeon Su-hwan—because the new fence around this life was so bright and cheerful. If he had had even one family member in his past life, would he have been less lonely? He dismissed the thought as pathetic and forced it down.
Time passed, and before he knew it winter break was over. Yeon-woo was about to make his first day of school at the new high school in Daejeon. He believed that having entered a new body meant he should live a new life. Yet actually putting on a school uniform and heading to class felt strangely novel. Counting from his previous life, wasn't he already in his forties?
"Hmm. A school uniform at this age…"
"Hm? What was that, son?"
Opening the passenger door of his new father Ryu Cheol-ung's car, Yeon-woo answered.
"Nothing, Father. I'm off to school."
"Kid's so bland. You sure you'll be okay on your own?"
"I'm a high schooler."
Ryu Cheol-ung fretted over whether he ought to accompany his son on the first day of transfer. He worried that if he insisted on going along when his son was already refusing, it might only give bullies fresh ammunition—calling him a daddy's boy or worse.
But at that very moment, Yeon-woo was already walking through the school gate and climbing the hill with quiet confidence, having already finished designing what he would do first in this new life.