Han Seorin

When I opened my eyes, a white ceiling filled them. A machine beeped in a steady rhythm. An IV needle sat in my arm, and the air smelled of disinfectant.

If I were dead, it would not be a place like this, so I must have lived. That was the strange part. The feeling of my ribs being crushed was still vivid, and yet my chest did not hurt at all.

"Patient Han Seorin? Are you with us?"

A nurse leaned in close. Han Seorin. A name I was hearing for the first time.

"You woke after three days. What a relief."

"I... I'm..."

The voice was wrong. Clear, high, and thin. It was not mine.

"A mirror, please..."

In the hand mirror she passed me was a girl I had never seen. Silver hair fell tangled to the nape of her neck, and blue eyes stared, glazed like glass beads. I could tell the face was pretty, but what struck me first was the color of it, pale as paper. And the light in those eyes was dead. They were the eyes of someone with no will to live.

In the consult before discharge, a psychiatrist turned through the chart and spoke without particular feeling.

"This is the first time you tried to take your own life. They found you quickly, which was fortunate. There was no guardian contact on file, so the Academy student office handled the paperwork."

I could not answer.

Han Doyun had been beaten to death by the C-rank villain Cheolgon. Han Seorin had tried to die by her own hand. At the same hour, on the same threshold, one of them had wanted to live and the other had wanted to die. Something had slipped between them, and only I was left in this body. Where the original owner had gone, I could not know.

"Come in for outpatient care once a week. I'll prescribe the medication."

"...Yes."

That was the first answer I gave as the owner of this body.

The one-room was on the fourth floor of an old building near the Academy. I did not know the passcode. I stood at the door for ten minutes, then on the off chance set my hand to it, and the fingerprint lock opened. So the things this body remembered, this body would tell me. The feeling was uncanny.

Stale air pushed out when I opened the door. One cup in the sink. Two bottles of water in the refrigerator, and milk past its date. Not the traces of a life being lived, but of one being endured.

"...Excuse me."

I greeted an empty room and stepped inside. Absurd. It was my body, and yet I felt as if I had walked into someone else's house. No. It was someone else's body, and I was the one pretending it was my home.

A student ID lay on the desk.

"An A...?"

I read it aloud and still could ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠not believe it. I, who had scraped through eight years on Physical EnhancementF-, had been given an A-rank body. Was I supposed to laugh, or cry?

Right. Because of this rank...

The Rift had opened in this world fifteen years ago. The sky over Seoul tore, and monsters poured out, and in that same season a portion of humanity awakened to abilities. The government founded the Hero Association to manage ability users. Ranks ran from S down to F. Take the awakening test, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and a lifetime rank was stamped on you like a seal.

At thirteen, my result sheet had looked like this.

They said the minus after the F was the first in Association history. Even so, I had wanted to become a hero. The retreating back of whoever saved me during the Rift incident had stayed in my eyes.

I failed the Academy entrance exam twice and spent eight years grinding as a civilian-contract hero. Chasing pickpockets. Rescuing cats. When a fight broke out, guiding civilians clear. While my peers appeared on broadcasts, I was famous only in the Association break room. And yesterday — no, three days ago — I died and became a single line of news.

While I was looking around the room, disciplinary papers turned up in a drawer.

Memories left in this body rose to the surface. The story was simple. Right after enrollment her manifestation had turned unstable, and in an accident during practice she froze a classmate's arm and left a serious injury. The victim recovered, but the rumors remained. A dangerous A-rank. A monster. She had lost her parents early in the Rift incident, and there had been no one at her side. No plot. No secret. A lonely girl of about twenty had been carrying, alone, a weight she could not bear, and then she had simply let it go.

The hand that closed the papers trembled.

"...I'm sorry."

I did not even know who I was saying it to. I did decide one thing. The life you let go of, I would live through.

The problem was the body.

First, height. One hundred seventy-four centimeters had become one hundred sixty-six. Doorknobs sat too high and shelves too far, and with every step my feet landed somewhere they should not. I nearly caught the entryway threshold and fell, three times.

Second, my center of gravity. I kept forgetting there was a chest. Bend at the waist and I pitched forward. Run, and it hurt. Twist sideways through a doorframe, and I struck the edge.

"Ow.... No, how do women even—"

Third, washing. This one is hard to talk about.

The first day I showered with a towel over my eyes and soaped myself by feel. The result was wretched. Shampoo got in my eyes, I slipped, and I cracked my shin on the rim of the tub. Underwear was worse. I had no idea what the things in the drawer were for, or how to put them on, so I stood there holding them for ten minutes. Who could understand the state of mind of a twenty-eight-year-old man — no, a twenty-year-old woman — searching the internet for how to put on underwear?

"...Why am I looking this up."

By the third day I gave in and forced my heart into line. Only as much as I needed, calmly, apologizing to Seorin as I went. Even so, whenever I stood before the mirror I still did not know where my eyes were supposed to rest, and I found myself staring into empty air.

The greatest enemy was the hair. The silver tangled every time it dried.

"How is anyone supposed to do this every single day..."

I took up the comb and wrestled the knots for ten minutes before laughter finally broke out of me. For the worries of someone who had died and come back, they were absurdly small. And yet that smallness was, strangely, a comfort.

It was on the fifth day that I decided to try the ability. Using it at home seemed dangerous, so I booked a private training ground on the outskirts of the Academy. On a weekday afternoon the place was empty.

I stood in the center and steadied my breath. In my past life, Physical Enhancement had been the feeling of gathering strength into muscle. This was different. A cold spring, rising from deep in the body. I held out my palm, and frost formed in the empty air.

"Oh..."

I let my guard down in the moment I admired it. Power surged all at once, and the entire floor of the training ground turned to a sheet of ice.

"Ah— ah— ahhh!"

I lost my balance, slid, and sat down hard. Then I rolled once and hit the wall with a thud. Needles of frost shot all the way to the ceiling, and my breath spread white.

Sprawled like a starfish, I stared up at the ceiling and muttered.

"...The output doesn't fit the body."

A-rank output had been forced into this slight frame. I thought I understood why Seorin had gone into runaway. But I had eight years. Eight years of using a weak power as efficiently as I could. Time spent enduring on precision, because I never had enough strength.

I got to my feet and, instead of drawing the power up, focused on narrowing it. The tip of a finger. A single point. Click. An ice needle, thin as a pin, rose. I lengthened it, shortened it, bent it. Until the sun went down I repeated the same motion. Change the body all you like; fundamentals were still fundamentals.

Around the time it grew dark, an ice bird sat on my palm, worked fine all the way to the tips of its wings.

"...You really were this gifted, Seorin."

Gratitude and apology tangled together, and my mouth went bitter.

About ten days later, a familiar name crawled along the bottom of the news.

The moment I saw the face on the screen, my ribs throbbed again. As I was now, I might be able to take him down. But a solo villain hunt by an Academy student broke the rules, and Seorin had a disciplinary record. Cause an incident, and the last place this body's owner had been trying to keep would be gone.

"I'm not rushing. I've already died once. This time, I climb the right way."

I turned the phone off.

There was, in truth, one thing I had been avoiding all along. Messenger alerts. The unread messages numbered over a hundred, and most of them were from a single person.

From four days ago, when I had come into this body, she had not missed a single day. It meant there had been at least one person who worried for Seorin. That was a relief, and at the same time it frightened me. I did not know how Seorin spoke, or how close the two of them had been. What if I was found out? What was I supposed to say to her?

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

That evening, the doorbell rang. My heart dropped. I hesitated a long while, then opened the door.

A small girl with a short bob stood there, her eyes red. Her shoulders heaved; she was out of breath. Without a word, she threw her arms around me.

"Wh— ah...?"

I went rigid. I did not know where to put my arms. The feel of a girl clinging to me was so strange that I tried to step back, and she only held on harder.

"You idiot.... You complete idiot...."

"I'm sorry..."

"How long have you even been at the Academy, and you try to kill yourself?!"

I felt her shoulders trembling. The nape of my neck grew wet. In Han Doyun's life, no one had ever held me like this. Han Seorin had had someone. That fact stabbed a corner of my chest. And the pain of a Han Seorin who had tried to die even with a friend like this stabbed me all over again.

Carefully, I raised a hand and patted her back.

"...I'm sorry."

"...If you're going to apologize, then eat. You skipped another meal, didn't you."

"Yeah..."

Hayun sniffled and lifted her head. Face a mess of tears, she held out a convenience-store bag. Triangle kimbap, banana milk, cup ramen.

"Second semester's starting, so you can come back. Okay?"

"Yeah..."

Looking at that face, I thought it for the first time. What this body had let go of was not only a life. It was this girl. And from now on, it was my turn to hold on.