Ranker Who Lives Twice

My name was Jae-won.

However, I never wanted to be anywhere.

***

“Is that really true?”

“It’s true, hear me out. My mother said she saw… She said there were police and ambulances all around. The scene was chaotic.”

Son Jae-won never really listened to anyone other than his parents. Even if he overheard something, it would go into one ear and flow out the other. So, even if his classmates got together and talked about something, he never paid much attention to their words. Even if he happened to overhear something, it was easy for Jae-won to pass the news off as just ‘something funny or weird must be happening’. But strangely, at that time, Jae-won heard his classmates’ conversations very clearly.

“Ugh, that sucks. No matter how you look at it, it’s suicide…”

“She probably met the wrong parents.”

‘Suicide.’ The moment Jae-won overheard the girls’ conversation, his surroundings became eerily quiet. All he could hear were the words of the two female students in the distance. It was as if they were whispering next to his ear. Their voices were very clear.

“To be honest, I thought she was a bit… You know. She didn’t even say anything. Even when I tried speaking to her, she’d avoid eye contact. And she always made a gloomy face. Who would want such a gloomy person next to them all the time? The whole neighborhood is up in arms because of her suicide. My mother even said that house prices would fall…”

From a certain point, the clear voices of the classmates’ conversation reverted to murkiness.

Jae-won could now only hear the light laughter and high tones contained in a few words of their conversation. It was like the two were having so much fun gossiping. They spoke as if they knew something like this would happen. Their knowing voices reflected disgust, mockery, contempt…

It was all annoying for Son Jae-won. Bang! He slammed his hand on his desk and jumped up from his seat. In an instant, the eyes of all his classmates turned towards him. In most cases, a sudden noise would not garner much attention, but everyone was surprised by the sudden loud sound. Moreover, Son Jae-won, who was known to be just as quiet as Min Chae-young, had suddenly reacted violently like a madman, so his classmates had no choice but to look at him with perplexed looks. However, he ignored the stares and left the classroom.

The other students looked at his fleeting figure and wondered what was wrong with him, but soon, they returned to their conversation as if nothing of note had happened. They returned to talking about their daily lives. No one talked any further about Min Chae-young.

***

Son Jae-won did not know why he had shown such a sudden, violent reaction. He only realized later that his heart was pounding, and when he came to his senses, he got up and left the classroom after slamming his hand on the desk. He had felt an emotion that was completely unfamiliar, since he was always one to think and judge rationally.

However, Son Jae-won did not try to forcefully erase his current feelings. For now, he just stood and let himself be swayed by his raging emotions.

A moment later, when he looked at himself objectively, his reckless actions seemed strange even to himself. Yet, somehow, he felt strongly that he had to move impulsively as he did a moment ago. His footsteps reached the first floor, the school office.

“Chae-young’s home address? Why do you want to know that?” With a perplexed expression, the homeroom teacher looked at Son Jae-won in puzzlement. He was not questioning why Jae-won needed his classmates address because he wanted to safeguard one of his students, who took the extreme choice to end her life by suicide, from a curious classmate. It was just out of annoyance.

The homeroom teacher was on the alert, concerned that there was something that he had not yet grasped, and that Son Jae-won may create a fuss. In a country where teachers were criticized for failing to take proper measures to counter the poor home environment of their students, giving out a classmate’s address may cause further headache for him.

“I can’t tell you, so go back to the classroom.” Therefore, the homeroom teacher tried to shoo Son Jae-won away, using the excuse that a student’s personal information was private and should not be leaked. No, to put it bluntly, the homeroom teacher was blatantly suspicious of Jae-won’s motives. He wondered if Jae-won had anything to do with Chae-young’s suicide.

Because of his homeroom teacher’s suspicions, Son Jae-won became even more annoyed. He knew that the homeroom teacher was a poor-quality human being, but he did not expect the homeroom teacher to be so uncaring.

However, Jae-won knew that if he got angry or made a scene, he would be the one treated like an idiot. He understood he had to think more calmly at times like this, and he knew very well how to solve these problems relatively easily.

“Teacher, you received a gift from Seung-jae’s mother on the school’s sports activity day, right?” Jae-won spoke in a crude manner. However, his voice was loud enough for the other teachers in the office to hear.

Naturally, the homeroom teacher had no choice but to jump up in fright. His face was beet red. “What are you talking about…?!”

“Three million one hundred thousand won. I even remember the conversation you had. The exam paper…”

“Chae-young… You asked for Chae-young’s home address, right? Wait a minute. It’s here somewhere.”

Seeing his homeroom teacher moving frantically and haphazardly, Son Jae-won burst out laughing. There were always people in the world who needed to be threatened before being willing to act properly.

***

“Here.” Skipping the mandatory after-school study session, Son Jae-won went straight to the address that his homeroom teacher had given him. Chae-young was using someone else’s address or there was a difference between the address recorded in the student register and her actual address, so Jae-won only arrived after riding the bus for a long time and climbing to the top of a hill.

It was a public apartment. Moreover, it must have been at least several decades old.

Soon, Son Jae-won saw something that he had only seen on TV before. It was the first time he had seen it, so he was a little surprised by the sight. However, he did not let it show. No, he did not want to show.

Jae-won saw a yellow police line sectioning off one corner of the block and a white outline drawn on the asphalt floor. “…” He stood in front of the white outline for a long time.

***

About an hour passed as Son Jae-won circled around the public apartment complex. He watched the place where the local ladies gathered and listened in on their conversations.

Jae-won was careful not to garner any suspicious looks, as there should not be the slightest hint of him trying to overhear their conversations or of him investigating. Fortunately, the atmosphere in the neighborhood was chaotic because of the previous evening’s suicide incident.

While listening in on others’ conversations, it was not difficult for Jae-won to pick up on a few fragmentary facts. After that, he went into a nearby playground and collapsed on a swing. Complex thoughts whirled around in his head.

Her father came in drunk last night and started kicking up a storm…

I heard it’s not even her biological father?

Her mother remarried but soon left without her daughter once she found out about the father’s alcoholism.

She had such a pretty face, too. She should have waited it out a little longer and run away from home. Although maybe she couldn’t handle it anymore.

Such a pitiful death. Ugh!

“…”

Besides that, there were several other words that mostly referred to Min Chae-young in the same way. They called her a poor child or someone unlucky.

Son Jae-won could not think of anything else. The scenes of what he overheard kept flashing past his eyes the whole time he was seated on the swing. He recalled seeing her come to school well before seven o’clock with her face down on her desk. She could not even make eye contact with Jae-won. Whenever he greeted her, Jae-won remembered that she turned her head to the side in a hurry. And when he handed her a hamburger one day, she took it without a word and ate it mechanically. He knew she was sneaking peeks at him while he was reading, but he pretended not to know. He recalled this vividly.

Moreover, what made Son Jae-won crazy was that he remembered each and every interaction with Chae-young clearly. He probably could not have recalled any of these details before, but why was it so clear as if they all happened yesterday? He knew from an early age that he had great memory, incomparable with the average person, but such a gift never felt like such a curse as it did now. Furthermore…

‘…if I had looked for Chae-young then…’ When Min Chae-young was absent from school, Jae-won may have been able to save her life if he had followed his instincts and intuition.

If the story the people in the neighborhood were speaking of was true, then the period of her absence was the time when Min Chae-young was going through the most difficult time. At that time, she must have been desperately waiting for someone to help her.

Perhaps, with nowhere to escape, Chae-young felt safest at school, where she could lay down her worries and concerns. However, no words could describe how sad she must have felt when even that singular sanctuary was taken away from her.

Sigh. When Son Jae-won raised his head, the sun had already set, and the surrounding was getting dark.

Because of this, the weather was also turning very cold. However, his heart was infinitely colder. ‘Everything is crazy.’ This was the conclusion he came to after many complicated thoughts. This world was not sane.

At seventeen, a young schoolgirl who could no longer stand domestic violence committed suicide. However, instead of being angry or sympathetic to her plight, the world was ridiculing or making fun of it.

If only someone in her neighborhood had extended a helping hand. If her homeroom teacher, who was aware of her home environment, had paid any attention to her during her continued absences. If only her seat partner and her classmates had paid a little more attention. If he had valued his daily routine with her, which considered ordinary… In the end, everyone contributed to her demise.

The thought was so ugly and disgusting that Jae-won felt like he was going to throw up.

However, this did not mean that all the responsibility should be evenly distributed amongst everyone. The locals were just indifferent, as they always had been. The homeroom teacher just did not want to get wrapped up in something annoying. Her classmates did not consider Min Chae-young as a friend. Jae-won took her presence in his daily routine for granted. It was ridiculous to pin any blame on anyone and hold him or her accountable. Even so, there was one thing that was completely unforgivable.

“It’s very windy,” Jae-won muttered under his breath. He pulled the collar of his polo tee up, which his mother had forcibly made him wear to school because of the changing weather. His face was hidden deep underneath the collar of his shirt.

***

During the darkness before dawn, there was a middle-aged man drunkenly stumbling towards an alleyway, where dim lights barely lit the road ahead. “Ah, fuck. Why is it my fault that bitch offed herself?! She made a fuss and put on a show all by herself, so why is everyone blaming me? Let’s be real, she wasn’t even my daughter, and her mother’s not around. I’ve taken care of her all this time. They should give me a freaking medal!”

The middle-aged man had visited the police station so many times over the past few days. Today, he had been detained for almost a day. Although he was released because no charges were filed against him due to a lack of evidence found during the investigation, he felt bitter about being framed by a girl who betrayed his good graces without even an iota of thanks. So, to make himself feel a little bit better, he got drunk.

The police spoke to the middle-aged man about his alcoholism and his need for treatment, but they had no way of knowing his deep thoughts. The whole world was crazy. No one understood him. While walking with such dissatisfied thoughts, his face bumped against something. “…Huh? What are you, man? Why are you standing in my way? Are you ignoring me as well…?!”

“Min Chae-young’s father, Go-hyun. Right?”

The middle-aged man, Go-hyun, glared at the stranger, who was standing with his back to the streetlight. Without even realizing it, he gasped as he was forced to take in air. Even though it was clearly dark, and it was hard to see the other’s face…the viral ferocity in the stranger’s eyes flashed for a brief moment. The stranger had eyes reminiscent of a tiger he saw once at a zoo. “You, what are you…!”

“Right. You’re Go-hyun.” The reply came in a low voice.

Bam! In an instant, without even feeling a strong shock, Go-hyun became unconscious. And he never woke up again.

[The Black King likes this ‘dream’.]