To You, In Mourning #001

TW: Death, Car Accident, Suicide

The traffic light blinked red. Doyoon was on his way home after getting off of work. His apartment complex was right there, just past this crossing. It was a normal but exhausting day and he was desperate for some rest. His eyes kept glancing at the signal.

A soft thud, the sound of something rolling. It was right then when a soccer ball, something that didn’t fit a four-lane crossing, rolled onto the street.

‘Huh.’

In the few seconds it took for him to utter a sound in his mind, a child wearing bright yellow shoes jumped out from the crowd to follow his ball. He looked like he was somewhere around kindergarten-age. His black-haired head was small, and his feet were just as tiny.

The light was still red. He could see the bright headlights of a car from not too far away. He couldn’t figure out what was first–the urgent car horns or the sound of passerby screaming. His ears rang from the noise.

Doyoon moved without thinking. All he knew was that in just a few seconds, that small, tiny body would be torn to shreds. He shoved the small back he could barely reach as hard as he could. When he came to his senses, the bright light was swallowing Doyoon whole. For a second, he could see the child’s eyes go wide, as if he was going to start crying in a second.

Don’t cry. That’s what he wanted to whisper to him. But Doyoon was out of time.

The sound of a child crying. The sound of people screaming, urgent footsteps. It felt like all the noise of the city swept in at once. Pain overwhelmed him, as if he was burning up.

He could see the orange sunset from his bleary eyes. It was unbelievably beautiful and peaceful. Doyoon closed his eyes, the color of the sunset carving itself into his retinas.

And his eyes didn’t open again.

---

He thought he could hear crying. Crying that was so full of grief that just listening to it made him sad.

It must be a misunderstanding. Nobody would cry for me with such sadness.

---

The quiet hum of a machine tickled his ears. He could smell something unfamiliar. Doyoon forced his eyes open. It felt like he had woken up from a very, very long sleep. Like he had been floating in his dreams for a long, long time and was being greeted by the morning.

He looked at his surroundings. The ceiling was white, and his blankets were even whiter. The space was huge, but seeing all of the medical equipment surrounding his bed made it obvious that he was in a hospital.

Didn’t I die? He knew that death was inevitable seeing how the car couldn’t slow down. He felt his body shattering and ripping apart. He didn’t expect to be alive, but…

Doyoon heaved himself up to a sitting position. Even though he couldn’t strain any part of his body, there wasn’t a single broken bone anywhere. But Doyoon found something strange. Crossing down from his shoulders were a pair of arms that were too pale. His fingers long and slim, perfect for the piano. He felt a chill run down his back.

“….what is this?”

His body felt different, as if he was in someone else’s body. Seeing it again, he noticed gauze wrapped around his left wrist. He tensed his wrist only for a sharp pain to erupt.

“Eugh.”

He grasped his wrist. His whole arm tingled from the sharp pain that rode through his veins. He found himself shocked and confused when, finally, the door opened. The man who had just entered looked at Doyoon sitting awkwardly on the bed and let out a sigh. He was a man dressed neatly, seeming to be around his mid to late thirties. The man looked exhausted as he approached Doyoon.

“You’re awake.”
“……”
“Why did you do this again? The chairman is extremely displeased.”

Doyoon blinked, unable to comprehend what this man, someone who he had never seen before in his life, was saying.

“I’m incredibly sorry for saying this to someone who just came to, but no matter how many times you try to commit suicide, all the chairman feels is annoyance. If you find something to be uncomfortable, please just tell me to relay the information.”
“…… Suicide?”

It was a hard word to just move on from. The man bit his lip as Doyoon spoke. He could see a tinge of worry in his sigh.

“Are you going to tell me that cutting your wrist in the bathtub four days ago was a mistake? It was really dangerous this time. How long are you going to keep doing such dangerous things? Do you really, honestly want to die?”

He didn’t know what he was supposed to feel or understand. Why was he being interrogated about a suicide attempt when he had come in for a car accident? Doyoon slowly blinked and turned his gaze to the man in front of him. Then, he spoke in a soft tone to the man who was obviously in the wrong room.

“I’m sorry, but I think you came to the wrong person.”
“……”

His throat must have been hoarse. His voice sounded thinner and different. Doyoon ignored the strange sense of dread as he cleared his throat. The man gawked at Doyoon. After a long silence, the man calmly began speaking.

“Doyoon-nim, where exactly does it hurt? Is it your head?”

It was now Doyoon’s turn to be surprised.

“How do you know my name?”
“….I get what you’re trying to pull now. Are you going to ask where you are and who you are now? This method is so old that even dramas don’t do this these days.”
“….?”

The man fixed his glasses with an incredulous look. It didn’t look like he was joking. Doyoon stamped the exhaustion creeping into his body and asked politely.

“Who are you? Do you know me? Were you someone at the scene of the accident?”
“….did you just say ‘accident’?”
“Yes. The car accident I was in. I wanted to know if the incident was taken care of and if the child is okay.”

The man’s incredulous look slowly morphed into shock and a bit of suspicion. Doyoon felt a bit resentful at being treated like someone completely out of their mind. The man stiffly took a step backwards.

“I’ll call the doctor immediately.”

The man looked solemn, as if he had just announced someone’s terminal illness. And unlike his entry, he shut the door with a loud clatter. He was alone in his large hospital room, just like that. Doyoon rubbed the back of his neck with his unfamiliar-feeling hand. Something felt wrong.

---

The face in the mirror was pale-looking–almost sickly. It was a beautiful face, but there were bags under his eyes and he was so thin he looked gaunt. Under one eye was a dark mole. His hair looked like it was dyed wine-red and seeing the multiple piercings across both ears made Doyoon dizzy. He touched his unfamiliar-looking face. The person in the mirror did the same. He grabbed a lock of his red hair. So did the reflection in the mirror.

His tall stature and neat features were nowhere to be seen. The person in the mirror wasn’t 28-year-old Kim Doyoon.

Ye Doyoon, age 24. That was what the man who called himself his father’s secretary had told him. He thought he had died, only to wake up in someone else’s body. He had no clue what was going on. But it looked like the people in front of him were equally confused.

Doyoon was dragged from one exam to another all day, but not a single person could figure out a problem. In the end, the doctor declared that it was temporary amnesia due to stress. He had a feeling that if he pressed the fact that he didn’t have amnesia and was, in fact, some else, he was going to be strong-armed to the psychiatrist instead.

Even though he was going through something completely unbelievable himself, seeing everyone around him collectively lose their minds made him calmer.

“So you’re saying… … So, Mr. Secretary, you’re saying that I’m the second son of the Yesung Group chairman?”

Yesung wasn’t as giant of a conglomerate as Doyoon’s workplace of Mirae Group, but it was still a massively successful corporation. Waking up to be given generational wealth–would this count as succeeding in life?

“To explain and provide you with ample notice, but the only one you’re blood-related to is your father, the chairman.”
“Are you saying it’s a remarried family?”
“The more exact phrasing would be to call you an illegitimate child.”

The dark truth jumped forward. Of course life wasn’t going to be easy. How did he wake up in a body where the only similarity they held were the two letters of their names? What if this was a dream he was having while he was comatose? Maybe he was in the afterlife? Doyoon brushed his hand over the young-looking face in the reflection.

Secretary Kim shot Doyoon a weird look as he kept patting his own body around before explaining the examination results for ‘Ye Doyoon’. Thanks to that, he was able to learn that Ye Doyoon had an older half-brother and a younger half-sister, that he was suffering from depression and that this was the third time he had landed in the hospital after attempting to take his own life.

“What should we do about school? If it’s difficult for you to attend, we’ll have to have you take some time off.”

Doyoon tilted his head at Secretary Kim’s question. Ye Doyoon was twenty-four, so maybe he was still a student.

“What school are you talking about?”
“Business Administration at Hankook University. You’re currently in your third year.”
“…..huh?”

He stiffened at the familiar words. Business Administration at Hankook University….. It was his alma mater, the one he had graduated from only a few years ago. Was Ye Doyoon his underclassman? Then there must be some sort of connection between them.

“Doyoon…. What year did I start attending?”
“Do you remember something?”

The number that came out of Secretary Kim’s mouth was six years apart. This was long after Doyoon had graduated, so there was a low chance of them knowing each other. Doyoon slowly shook his head.

“I don’t remember, but….. I should go to school. When can I leave?”

Secretary Kim slowly fixed his glasses. He just couldn’t get used to that polite, well-mannered tone just now. This included the soft gesture as he pointed at the chair next to bed and his honest expressions.

He had seen this face for more than a decade, but it felt like he was meeting someone completely different. Did personalities also change due to amnesia? Then it might be better for his to not return, he secretly thought to himself as he turned his head.

“I’ll ask the doctor.”
“Okay. Thank you.”

The only thing Doyoon had asked of Secretary Kim between then and his departure from the hospital was dyeing his hair. He didn’t quite know if it was just preference or if he had been some kind of aspiring celebrity, but Doyoon found himself surprised every time he looked at the mirror. And on top of that, every time he washed his hair it bled red–almost like real blood. It gave him chills. He hesitated for a bit before looking for hair dye and now his hair was back to black. The real owner would understand–he could just dye it back whenever. The same applied with the piercings in his ears, but he was too scared to touch it. He just let it be.

But even after regaining his hair color, nothing really felt real. His shorter height and his skinny arms and legs, even his soft, almost melodious voice just didn’t feel like his own.

Secretary Kim had completed all of the paperwork on his own, so all Doyoon had to do was leave the hospital room. He bowed to the nurses in charge of his room as he passed. They gave him an awkward smile and bowed in response. As expected of those in charge of a VIP section, none of them began talking in front of the patient–but they looked like they had a lot to say.

…….had the original owner of the body made a scene or something before? Or, honestly, if a patient came in covered in blood, being scared made sense. Doyoon had no way of knowing that his first guess was the correct answer as he walked away.

He found himself arriving at an apartment not too far away from Hankook University. Secretary Kim had to guide Doyoon–who didn’t even know his own address–up the elevator and give him a tour of his own place.

His home was on the 25th floor, which was close to the very top. He was in trouble if the elevator broke down, worried Doyoon. He had never lived somewhere so high up before. While he worried, Secretary Kim opened the door to room 2501. He assumed there would be a living room right at the door, but there was a large door that opened to a shiny white marble floor that made him scared to step on with a built-in closet and a full-body mirror on one wall.

As soon as he followed Secretary Kim through the door, there was a hallway that he had to cross to get to the living room. The ceiling and walls were all white, and all of the furniture seemed void of color. Doyoon looked around the large house that was so big it felt empty before turning to ask.

“Is everyone in my family out right now?”
“You don’t live with them. You lived by yourself since you were twenty, and this home is under your name.”

Secretary Kim said, as if stating the obvious. It made sense–after all, he was an illegitimate child. Maybe it was more uncomfortable living together than not. Did that mean that Ye Doyoon lived in this large house all alone? It sounded unreal.

Doyoon had grown up poor. Just thinking about money made him sick and tired. His life was such that even after getting into the best university in the country and getting hired by a successful company, there was no way his life would’ve gotten better. The house that had just landed on his lap was supposed to feel like he had won the lottery. But strangely, he didn’t feel happy. What had happened to this home’s real owner, Ye Doyoon? His head was filled with all kinds of thoughts.

After Secretary Kim had left, Doyoon threw himself on a sofa that laid in the center of the living room. This sofa was so much softer than the bed in his original home. Sleep washed over his body.

Doyoon closed his eyes, hoping to wake up from this nonsensical dream.