Chapter 2

2. The Second Seventeen

“Gag!”

Blood gushed from his throat. His consciousness blurred. An invincible mercenary? All just barking.

No matter how much they praised him as an immortal, a human dies when a bullet hits. That's how it was; Woo Jin-hyuk, the living legend of the mercenary world, was just a human.

The heat of the battlefield, which had enveloped Jin-hyuk's cooling body, gradually dissipated.

“Captain! Stay with us! Don’t close your eyes! Hey, you! Please.”

‘Mireung. Calling me a brat.’

He didn't know why. In the moment of death, an absurd thought that didn't fit the situation flashed through Woo Jin-hyuk's mind.

Madman.

He laughed. But there was no breath he could draw from his punctured throat. He could only barely lift the corners of his mouth.

Woo Jin-hyuk, with a hand heavier than a thousand pounds, struggled to lift it. Seong Mi-reung, with trembling hands, took Jin-hyuk's hand.

“Sob. No! Don’t close your eyes! If you close your eyes, you'll really die!”

The sound of gunfire like rain. Occasional explosions. Mixed with Mi-reung's sobs, all the sounds gradually faded away.

The approaching silence. A familiar song flowed into Woo Jin-hyuk's ears.

– Do you regret it? If we live again, can we be a little different?

The pungent smell stung his nose. Seventeen years ago, in the ship where seventeen-year-old Woo Jin-hyuk was smuggling. The old MP3 player's receiver carried the song to Jin-hyuk's ear, his head bowed.

And.

His consciousness faded.

***

Beep— Beep—

The darkness was replaced by the sound of sirens coming from a distance.

– Ha. Ha.

Something helping Woo Jin-hyuk breathe. He unconsciously let out a rough breath. His eyes slowly opened. A blurry shape appeared, then.

“Student! Come to your senses!”

– Student.

His situation of being carried in a vehicle was soon recognized.

– I didn’t die.

But the word "student" didn't fit.

The owner of the voice slowly came into view. A black hat, an orange shirt. Their appearance, as called "student," was as out of place on a battlefield as it was.

Woo Jin-hyuk tried to get up.

“Student! No, don’t move! Just lie still.”

People stopped Jin-hyuk from getting up. He had to lie back down, having barely managed to lift his body. He tried to speak but couldn't.

His consciousness blurred again.

Thump thump. Thump thump.

The sound of his heart was loud, confirming he was still alive. Jin-hyuk slowly opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was the bright fluorescent light.

– Where am I?

Woo Jin-hyuk's eyes moved from the light to the ceiling, then to the curtain walls surrounding him.

– Doesn’t look like a field hospital.

“Jin-hyuk!”

At the sound of his name, Jin-hyuk turned his head. A middle-aged woman came into view. She stood up, pulled back the curtain, and shouted.

“Teacher! Here! My child has woken up!”

Woo Jin-hyuk, whose mind was still not clear, slowly followed the people moving in front of him.

***

“Jin-hyuk. Do you remember? This is your room.”

Woo Jin-hyuk shook his head. He couldn't remember. It was a room he had never seen before.

He took a few steps into the room. His gaze, which had been slowly scanning the room, stopped at the mirror reflecting him.

Shaggy hair covering his eyes. Tall and overly thin. A pale face like a patient.

The face that still didn't feel right was there. The age confirmed in the hospital was seventeen. And the name, Woo Jin-hyuk. A boy with the same name. But his appearance was far from the seventeen-year-old Woo Jin-hyuk he remembered.

“It's okay. It's okay. Your memory will come back slowly.”

It was a traffic accident. The reason the boy with the same name as himself was taken to the emergency room in an ambulance.

‘The driver was drunk. According to witnesses, the accident was so severe that the student was thought to be dead when hit by the car. This should be called a miracle. Fortunately, there's nothing wrong with his body.’

He learned the details of the accident from the police who had visited the hospital.

‘I heard the child couldn’t recognize his parents. Does he have no previous memories? Not even of the accident?’

‘Yes. The doctor said the child seems to have lost his memory temporarily due to shock.’

Woo Jin-hyuk, who hadn't experienced the accident and whose body wasn't his own, naturally had no memories of the boy's life. Or rather, he couldn't have any.

However, it was diagnosed as amnesia due to the accident. That wasn't all.

“Jin-hyuk. You don’t wear glasses, right? Are you okay?”

It seemed he originally wore glasses. But Woo Jin-hyuk could see clearly without them.

Given the shock of the accident and the resulting amnesia, it wasn't hard to accept that the shock had also caused a physical change.

Jin-hyuk's parents didn't try to dig deeper.

Apart from the amnesia and sudden change in vision, the test results showed no problems. However, Jin-hyuk had to stay in the hospital for a week.

The medical staff recommended it to monitor his condition further. A traffic accident isn't something that's fine just because it seems fine.

A few days passed, and Jin-hyuk still felt no symptoms. On the contrary, his condition was getting better.

He was discharged.

***

“Still, don’t overdo it and get plenty of rest. Did you hear the teacher?”

The middle-aged woman, who was Jin-hyuk's mother, approached the window and drew the curtains while speaking.

“Yes.”

His mother patted Jin-hyuk's shoulder in response. She then turned on the fan and closed the door.

Woo Jin-hyuk's gaze moved to the calendar next to the mirror.

July 2010.

Exactly seventeen years before July 2027, when he had been living. Jin-hyuk's eyes fixed on a date on the calendar.

July 15.

So.

The day Jin-hyuk opened his eyes in the hospital, a week ago. That very day.

The day that was etched deeper in his mind than any other.

The day seventeen-year-old Woo Jin-hyuk boarded a smuggling ship in Busan. In the world he remembered.

The day he first opened his eyes in the hospital. Jin-hyuk thought it was a dream. But it was a dream he couldn't wake up from.

If this was a dream, it wasn't an ordinary one. Perhaps the real him was in a deep coma, dreaming a dream he couldn't wake up from.

Or maybe his soul had entered someone else's body, traveling back in time.

At some point, Jin-hyuk gave up on the questions.

What did it matter? Adapting to the unrealistic situation wasn't difficult. The hell he had lived in wasn't anything like reality.

It was unknown.

Perhaps this boy, who had the same name and age as himself, was the original him.

Perhaps he had been living a terribly cruel dream all this time.

Perhaps he had finally returned to his real self.

Perhaps he had woken up from a long dream, forgetting who he had been until yesterday.

Jin-hyuk decided not to think deeper.

The place where he opened his eyes was reality. And Jin-hyuk would live that reality. That was his conclusion.

His gaze moved to the guitar standing next to the desk. He had never played a guitar before. But he felt he could.

He picked up the guitar and sat down. The feeling of holding the guitar was familiar, like holding a rifle that had been part of his body.

He naturally held the strings with his left hand and plucked them with his right. A good sound came out.

When a familiar song flowed out of his mouth without him realizing it, Jin-hyuk's hands were instinctively playing the guitar accompaniment to the melody.

Do you regret it?

If we live again, can we be a little different?

Jin-hyuk's hands paused, and the song stopped.

A surprising vocal, as if someone had played an audio file.

Indeed, that was the case.

His mind was clearly his own, but the sensations of the body were entirely those of this body, the boy with the same name.

Jin-hyuk's hands instinctively hit the notes he thought of, and his body sang the song sensually. He was singing, but he wasn't singing.

Jin-hyuk felt this way. It was a strange sensation.

He was unconsciously stroking his chin. He had been doing actions unconsciously that the previous Jin-hyuk wouldn't have done.

***

“Jin-hyuk. What’s wrong? No appetite?”

Jin-hyuk's mother looked at him with worried eyes. His father, sitting next to her, had the same look.

It wasn't that he had no appetite.

When he first ate in the hospital, the experience was so new that he couldn't easily pick up the spoon. But this meal was completely different.

White rice. Kimchi. Fried egg and seaweed. A few side dishes and miso soup. It was a picture of an ordinary family's ordinary meal.

But.

Not for Jin-hyuk.

The previous Jin-hyuk had grown up in an orphanage. He had run away at sixteen after beating up the director who beat him regularly.

After many twists and turns, the smuggling ship Jin-hyuk boarded unexpectedly led him to a youth training camp run by a mercenary group.

It wasn't a typical PMC (Private Military Company). It was a shadowy mercenary group optimized for offense, composed of killing machines.

In the Afghan War, the Syrian Civil War, the Iraq War... They were everywhere the smell of blood was. For 17 years, he had lived only on the battlefield, moving along the inland routes.

At first, under surveillance, and later, by his own choice.

Or could it be called his choice?

When Jin-hyuk gained a certain degree of freedom as a mercenary, he still stayed on the battlefield.

With hands stained with too much blood and eyes filled with too much horror, he couldn't live an ordinary life with ordinary people.

His comrades also stayed on the battlefield. People called them "wolves."

Bodies that were human, but souls that could no longer be human. The food of the wolves, even if it was a feast, was far from such a warm meal.

Of course, he had always eaten Korean food before joining the mercenary group. But eating an ordinary meal as a member of an ordinary family was a dream Jin-hyuk could never reach.

Jin-hyuk looked at the people sitting in front of him, holding his spoon.

Middle-aged parents.

They looked a bit tired and a bit shabby, but they were warmly and ordinarily there.

A dream of family he had once vaguely imagined.

“Even if you have no appetite, take a few spoonfuls. You need to...”

Jin-hyuk silently picked up the spoon. Soon, he unconsciously started shoveling food into his mouth.

His mother's eyes widened.

“Oh, why is this kid doing something he never did before? He'll overeat. Eat slowly.”

Huh?

Something fell on the back of his hand.

Tears. He couldn't remember the last time he cried.

“Honey... this kid...”

His mother, with worried eyes.

“It's okay. It's okay. Son. Everything will be fine. Don’t worry.”

His father, soothing him gently.

But.

Jin-hyuk couldn't understand the meaning of "it's okay." He didn't understand why he was crying. Perhaps.

“It's delicious.”

“Huh...?”

“The miso soup... it's so delicious.”

Maybe it was because of the miso soup.

Bulging cheeks from shoving in the rice. Eyes smiling. And spouting lines that didn't fit at all.

Jin-hyuk cried endlessly.