Drdrdrdrdr—
A sudden vibration made his shoulders flinch. Kim Min-seok glanced back and forth between the phone pressed against his ear, ringing with a dial tone, and the phone vibrating on the desk.
What the…? The thought crossed his mind. His head felt sluggish, as if it wasn’t functioning properly.
Ha Jun-seo, who had been silently observing, picked up the vibrating phone from the desk and handed it to Kim Min-seok. He hesitated before accepting it, then stared at the shattered screen. The caller ID displayed a number—his own. The very number of the phone he was currently holding to his ear!
“What the…?”
Kim Min-seok frowned and muttered under his breath. A chill ran down his spine. Hastily, he ended the call, and the vibration from the broken phone stopped instantly.
“Jun-seo?”
His hands trembled as he gripped the damaged phone as if it were a razor-sharp blade. Normally, Ha Jun-seo, always gentle and quick to comfort him at the slightest sign of fear, did not move this time.
“That phone—check it. Everything about where Ha-yoon is… it’s all in there.”
Ha Jun-seo’s voice was calm. Kim Min-seok turned to Choi Sang-hyuk this time. Choi Sang-hyuk nodded slightly, confirming Ha Jun-seo’s words.
Gulp.
His dry throat swallowed hard. His heart pounded violently. Setting his new phone down on the desk, Kim Min-seok firmly grasped the shattered one. Then, he began tapping at the screen.
The first thing he opened was the call log. There were no outgoing calls—only a long list of missed calls. Every single missed call was from the same number—his own, the number of his new phone.
Gulp.
Another dry swallow. His fingertips trembled lightly as they hovered over the cracked screen. Next, he opened the messages. A series of received texts popped up. He selected the most recent one.
As soon as he read the message, he stopped breathing.
[This is Kim Min-seok. Please contact me if you have this phone.]
[I am the owner of this phone. I will reward you, please reach out.]
[My name is Kim Min-seok. I don’t know who has this phone, but I will make it worth your while if you contact me.]
[Could it be that the person who has this phone right now is Seo Ha-yoon?]
They were all messages he had sent from his own phone.
How the hell were they here?
Just in case, Kim Min-seok checked the phone’s contacts and gallery. But this wasn’t his phone.
“This… is weird. This isn’t my phone. So why… why is it connecting to my number?”
Kim Min-seok asked in a trembling voice.
“That’s Seo Ha-yoon’s phone.”
Choi Sang-hyuk answered. Kim Min-seok frowned, unable to understand.
“But it was broken… That’s why you gave me a new phone, wasn’t it?”
Just then, Ha Jun-seo stepped closer, placing a hand on his shoulder as he spoke.
“Think about it. If the phone was broken to the point of being unusable, how could the hospital have contacted us in the first place?”
Kim Min-seok’s eyes widened. He hadn’t thought of that. If the phone had been completely nonfunctional, there was no way they could have used its saved contacts to call them. Why hadn’t he realized that before?
“That’s the very phone that was supposedly broken. Ha-yoon thought he was calling and texting your phone, but in reality, that number belonged to Seo Ha-yoon. He’s been trying to contact himself all this time.”
Ha Jun-seo explained kindly, but it felt like his brain had stalled—none of it made sense.
“I… I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
His body suddenly felt weak. Seeing him sway, Choi Sang-hyuk grabbed his arm and guided him into the chair in front of the desk. Kim Min-seok stared down at the cracked screen, studying it over and over as if doing so would somehow make him understand what was happening.
Choi Sang-hyuk silently watched him for a moment before suddenly opening another drawer. He pulled out a file and handed it over. Kim Min-seok took it and flipped it open. Inside were documents tracing a 22-year-old orphan named Kim Min-seok. He flipped through the pages, but there was only one conclusion.
There was no such person in South Korea.
“The person you call ‘Kim Min-seok’ doesn’t exist.”
Choi Sang-hyuk’s voice was heavy.
“But… I’m right here.”
A chilling realization crept up Kim Min-seok’s spine at the thought of his own existence being denied.
“What diagnosis did the doctor give you?”
Choi Sang-hyuk asked. Kim Min-seok recalled the words the doctor had told him at the hospital.
“We need further evaluation, but from what we’ve observed so far, the patient appears to be suffering from dissociative identity disorder.”
“Don’t worry too much. In most cases, memory loss or dissociative disorders caused by severe head trauma tend to improve over time. Of course, continuous treatment is necessary.”
“For a dissociative disorder of this level, we usually recommend at least short-term hospitalization. However, since this case resulted from a strong head injury, outpatient therapy with regular counseling would be a better approach.”
“Dissociative… identity disorder?”
“That’s right. You should’ve listened to the doctor more carefully.”
Choi Sang-hyuk declared as if making an official statement.
“You’re not Kim Min-seok. You’re Seo Ha-yoon.”
Kim Min-seok opened his mouth to immediately argue, but Ha Jun-seo was faster.
“Choi Sang-hyuk! Could you say it more gently? What if he panics and has a full-blown attack?”
“Does this look like a situation where sugarcoating things will help? He wanted to know. And he had to find out eventually.”
“So you say all that, but then why did you keep it a secret this whole time?”
“And what about you?”
The two of them started arguing. Kim Min-seok blinked vacantly as he listened to their bickering.
“My soul… wasn’t switched? I really developed dissociative identity disorder… and I was Seo Ha-yoon all along?”
He muttered in a daze. But no matter how much he thought about it, that couldn’t be right.
He was Kim Min-seok. He knew it. The fact that he had lived as Kim Min-seok for 22 years was so vivid, so real. And yet, they were telling him he was nothing more than a personality created by Seo Ha-yoon? That he never actually existed?
At some point, Ha Jun-seo had finished arguing and approached, lightly patting his shoulder.
“Think about it, Ha-yoon. You keep saying you’re Kim Min-seok, but do you remember which orphanage you came from? What school you went to? What gosiwon you lived in? Where you worked? Do you remember even a single thing clearly?”
“…No. I know I grew up in an orphanage, lived in a gosiwon, and worked part-time jobs. But the moment I try to think about it, it’s like… my memories have been erased.”
“In the end, the only thing you were absolutely sure about was a phone number. But that phone turned out to be Seo Ha-yoon’s, didn’t it?”
“…Yeah.”
Kim Min-seok nodded blankly.
“I’m not a psychiatrist, so I don’t fully understand the mechanics of it. But here’s one way to look at it. When Ha-yoon nearly died because of Seo Chang-seop, he must have desperately wanted to escape. To disappear into a place where no one knew him. And so, he created Kim Min-seok.”
“That kind of thing only happens in movies.”
Kim Min-seok protested. Ha Jun-seo nodded.
“You’re right. But movies are based on reality.”
“Then why me? Why did I end up being Kim Min-seok? I’m nothing special. I have nothing. There’s nothing about me to envy.”
Choi Sang-hyuk, who had remained silent, finally spoke.
“No exploitative family, no history of abuse, plain looks that don’t seduce men, a body untouched by anyone. Someone who doesn’t rely on others but works hard to survive on his own. Kim Min-seok was exactly the person Seo Ha-yoon wanted to be.”
“And that person he wanted to be… was just Kim Min-seok?”
Kim Min-seok couldn’t hide his disbelief. Choi Sang-hyuk opened his mouth to say something, but Kim Min-seok quickly cut him off, raising a hand to stop him.
“Enough! Just stop. My head is a mess right now. I don’t understand a damn thing, none of this makes sense… just, stop for a second.”
Finding Seo Ha-yoon was something he had wished for. But now that he was faced with this reality, he couldn’t accept it. It was absurd. Incomprehensible. It didn’t feel real. It was just… ridiculous.
“You’re right. There’s no rush… Take your time to process everything.”
Ha Jun-seo comforted him gently.
Kim Min-seok placed a hand on the desk and pushed himself up from the chair. As Ha Jun-seo instinctively reached out to support him, he raised a hand to stop him, shaking his head.
“I just… want to be alone for a bit. I’ll go to my room and stay by myself for a while. That’s okay, right?”
“…Alright. Go to your room and get some rest. Try to get some sleep if you can.”
Kim Min-seok forced strength into his trembling legs as he stepped out of the study. Even in his dazed state, he made sure to take both phones with him.
