Déjà vu again.
He inhaled the blowing wind, savoring its scent. Sometimes, the scent of the night breeze brought back old memories.
The life of a spy, living multiple fabricated lives while changing his undercover identities.
"I don't even know who I am anymore," he muttered.
tch!!! tch!!!
"Team Leader Jeon? What did you say? I couldn't hear you properly." Baek Yoo-hyun's sleepy voice came from the other end of the walkie-talkie, roused by Jeon Su-hwan's murmur.
"Nothing, just talking to myself."
Jeon Su-hwan was in a Middle Eastern operational zone for intelligence gathering. He was conducting surveillance at a designated point based on intel from headquarters.
"Baek Yoo-hyun, you should go back to desk duty before it's too late. You have a family."
"I'm a field operative, sir. It feels a bit like showing off in front of you, but this really suits me."
Jeon Su-hwan chuckled and continued, "Stay in the field too long, and it'll eventually swallow you whole."
"Aw, don't try to scare me, sir."
The desert night was bitterly cold as he remained stationed on the hill for hours.
"Maybe I should wrap the blanket tighter…"
Just as he was about to move, he heard a whistling sound.
Whoosh!!!
And then, belatedly, the distant sound of a gunshot.
Bang!!!
But Jeon Su-hwan didn't hear it. The bullet, traveling faster than sound, had already passed through his head.
tch!!! tch!!!
"Team Leader Jeon! Team Leader Jeon!"
Yoo-hyun's voice came through the walkie-talkie, but there was no one left to answer.
An agent who died in action.
To commemorate the noble death of someone whose name cannot be revealed, a nameless star is engraved in the central hall of the National Intelligence Service headquarters.
Jeon Su-hwan also ended his life as a nameless star, but when he opened his eyes again, he awoke in the body of a completely unfamiliar boy.
"I wonder if the weather will warm up next month?"
Yeon-woo briskly climbed the mountain near his house, blowing on his hands due to the lingering cold.
Su-hwan, now living as Ryu Yeon-woo, reflected on the past two months.
For the first week, he obsessed over why he had died. However, finding out about his death, which was a secret in itself, let alone the operation, was next to impossible.
He had pondered over why he was alive again and how he had come to inhabit another person's body, but now, after much contemplation, it didn't seem so important anymore.
He concluded that some god, alien, or some unknown entity, taking pity on his lonely and dedicated life, had given him another chance.
"It's only been two months, but I've lost a lot of weight."
It had already been two months since he was discharged from the hospital after his suicide attempt.
The original owner of the body Su-hwan now occupied, Ryu Yeon-woo, had been bullied since childhood for his timid personality and chubby appearance. Then he swallowed a handful of his father's sleeping pills – a rather common story in modern society.
The only connection Su-hwan could find between himself and Ryu Yeon-woo was that the time of his death during the operation and the time Ryu Yeon-woo was brought to the emergency room were the same.
And so, he, a lonely soul, had entered the space vacated by a pitiful soul who had only known torment.
"In any case, I can't miss this second chance at life."
He tagged the stone pillar erected at the 800-meter summit and vigorously descended. Yeon-woo's body, once trapped in obesity, was being pushed to its limits for the first time in its life, shedding weight under its new owner.
Beep!! Beep!!
Yeon-woo, having descended the mountain, unlocked the door and returned to the apartment where his new family lived.
His parents were both at work, and his younger sister was out with a friend. In the empty apartment, he took off his sweat-soaked tracksuit, exercised in his underwear for a while, and then showered.
"Hmm, he's quite handsome."
Yeon-woo admired himself in the mirror as he dried his hair.
Well, it wasn't exactly self-admiration. It had only been two months since he started living as Yeon-woo. The reflection in the mirror still felt like a stranger.
Perhaps this was what they meant by an unscratched lottery ticket.
As Yeon-woo shed the double chin and chubby cheeks that had been with him since elementary school, strikingly defined features began to emerge. He wasn't even close to losing all the weight yet. The reflection in the mirror still showed a relatively plump physique.
Nevertheless, it was a world of difference compared to his past, when he weighed over 200 pounds.
He couldn't imagine how he would look once he lost all the weight.
"I'm sure I'll be handsome. Handsome enough to be an actor."
In his previous life, Jeon Su-hwan had a relatively ordinary appearance. This ordinariness was, in a way, an advantage for a National Intelligence Service agent, for whom standing out was problematic.
However, always living as a nameless, faceless third party, he gradually developed a yearning for a glamorous life where he could make a name for himself and be recognized.
Perhaps that was why, despite his stoic nature, he always made sure to watch movies and dramas, even in foreign countries, as a hobby. When he was stationed overseas, he would attend musicals and plays as a pastime, sometimes watching touring musicals two or three times when they came to his assigned country.
He gradually came to admire actors and yearn for that glamorous life, sometimes imagining, "If there's a next life, maybe I could become an actor."
"Honestly, all the conditions weren't in my favor."
His appearance, his identity – everything in his past life had deviated too far from his dreams.
Still, his hidden passion for his dream hadn't faded for a long time. He even secretly broke the agency's strict rules against revealing one's identity to participate as an extra in a commercial film during his vacation – a mere passerby with no lines.
No one knew, and he didn't even have a single line, but seeing himself on screen brought him immense satisfaction.
Jeon Su-hwan looked at Ryu Yeon-woo's reflection in the mirror once more.
'Honestly, having been reborn with this face and at this age, I might as well try to achieve that vague dream from my past life.'
The noble sacrifice of his previous life was certainly a brilliantly shining star, but couldn't he become a slightly different kind of star this time around?
Ring!! Ring!!
"Ah, the phone."
He rummaged through his discarded clothes and pulled his smartphone from his pocket. The word "Mother" appeared on the screen.
Having lived his entire previous life as an orphan, it was a truly awkward title.
Shaking off these thoughts, he swiped the screen to answer the call.
"Yes, Mother, it's Yeon-woo."
His own name, and the title "Mother," still felt a bit strange.
If the original Yeon-woo hadn't diligently kept a diary, he would still be pretending to have amnesia.
And perhaps influenced by the original Ryu Yeon-woo's feelings, he didn't feel any resistance towards the concept of family, which he was experiencing for the first time.
-"Are you home?"
"Yes. I finished exercising and came home to shower."
Yeon-woo deliberately answered in a bright and cheerful voice. His mother, Lee Seon-ok, was both surprised and secretly happy that her son, who had always been gloomy, timid, and sometimes rebellious, had changed 180 degrees after the incident two months ago.
-"Is there anything you want to eat for dinner?"
"Aw, Mom, I'm on a diet, you know. You can't tempt your son."
-"Ho ho. Alright. What's So-hyun doing?"
Hesitating for a moment, Yeon-woo replied casually, "She went to the convenience store just now. She'll be back soon."
-"That girl, she didn't sneak out to play again, did she?"
"So-hyun wants to have fun with her friends too. I'm really okay now. I'm so happy these days."
After her son's suicide attempt, Lee Seon-ok wanted nothing more than for him to stay home, but she had no choice but to go to work. Worried, she had ordered her daughter to stay by her brother's side throughout the school break, causing her daughter, at the prime age for fun, to suffer.
-"Oh, alright. Mom will trust you, son."
"Yes, Mother. See you tonight."
Click!
Yeon-woo's original family had lived in Seoul, but after the incident, when they learned about the bullying he had endured, they moved to Daejeon, where his maternal grandmother lived.
Of course, the students involved were punished or forcibly transferred depending on the severity of their actions, but the family moved for Yeon-woo's fresh start and also for his father, a government official who had been transferred to Sejong the previous year.
His new parents were hardworking people, not wealthy, but their home wasn't lacking. A relatively harmonious family with a cheerful younger sister.
Yeon-woo immediately made another call.
"So-hyun."
-"Yeah, Oppa! Should I come home now?"
The incident had been quite a shock for his young sister as well. She sounded ready to come home immediately for her brother's sake, but her desire to play was evident in her voice. Hearing music in the background, it seemed she had gone to karaoke with her new friends.
"No, I'm sorry you had to transfer to Daejeon because of me."
-"Not again! Don't say you're sorry. I'm fine. The kids here seem nicer than the ones in Seoul."
"Really? Why are they so nice? Their hearts are beautiful."
-"Ugh! I can't believe I heard that! Stop the verbal abuse!"
So-hyun, who had always been close to her brother, was a teenager embarrassed by overt displays of affection. She thought her brother had become especially fatherly after the incident.
Yeon-woo, who had been an orphan, had no idea how cringe-worthy K-sibling affection could be. In fact, based on his previous life, his younger sister was young enough to be his daughter.
He was simply happy to have a sweet, cute, and bubbly little sister. His bright and cheerful sister, the polar opposite of his dark past, somehow seemed to neutralize the darkness within him.
"Alright, alright. Such a drama queen for a middle schooler. I'll hang up now. Have fun and come home safe."
-"Okay. Bye!"
Click!
'Bye…? Kids will be kids.'
After ending the call, Yeon-woo felt a pang of sadness for his past self, Jeon Su-hwan, whose life had been dark and lonely, in contrast to the bright and cheerful family he now had.
Would he have been less lonely in his previous life if he had just one family member?
He forcibly suppressed such melancholic thoughts.
Time passed, and winter break ended. Yeon-woo was about to attend his first day at his new school in Daejeon. He believed he should live a new life in this new body.
But as he put on his uniform and prepared to leave for school, Yeon-woo felt a strange sensation. Considering his previous life, he was actually in his forties.
"Hmm, a school uniform at this age."
"Huh? What did you say, son?"
Opening the passenger door of his new father, Ryu Cheol-woong's car, Yeon-woo replied, "Nothing, Father. I'll be going to school now."
"You're being strange. Are you sure you'll be alright by yourself?"
"I'm a high school student, you know."
Ryu Cheol-woong was worried about whether he should accompany his son on his first day of school. He was anxious that if he went along, despite his son's objections, it might give other students a reason to bully him again, labeling him a mama's boy or something similar.