Idol of the Heavenly One - Chapter 26.2
Was she always like this? At the company, once she was past thirty, I thought she looked mature. But outside, she looked unmistakably like a young girl. When she answered the phone her eyes were dull and lifeless, yet here they were shining clearly.
“Did you use vacation leave to come today?”
“Huh? How did you know? Yes…! I used vacation leave!”
I had imagined this kind of scenario before. What if I ended up joining YEARZ, and then ran into her? And if I did, what should I ask? Should I ask if she has any close colleagues at the bureau? Who does she usually eat with? Is doing fandom activities alone actually fun?
Or maybe…
“What’s your name?”
“Ah, I’m Lee Ji-eun.”
Should I ask if she was very sad when I died? Of course, in this life I would never die, and she would not even know that I ever existed as that middle-aged man. I still checked the Afterlife Processing Division website from time to time, but there was still no one who looked like me there.
“Your name is pretty.”
“T-thank you…”
That was why, right now, she could not possibly remember even one gram of my past self.
“If work at the bureau gets too hard, then throw yourself into fangirling.”
“Huh? Oh… I already live like that. I think of fangirling as my real life, and the office as my fake life.”
Her sharp wit made me laugh out loud. She had always said that her real life was fandom and her job was just a fake one. Some things had not changed at all.
“And I recommend the Hong Kong brand coffee cookies.”
“Huh? Cookies? Out of nowhere?”
“They’re delicious. They’re my favorite, so please try them.”
“Ah, really? Thanks! I’ll definitely try them…!”
No, those Hong Kong brand coffee cookies were the ones she bought two years later when she went on training in Hong Kong. Back then she said, why hadn’t she tried them earlier, that she had been missing out on life all that time. They became her ultimate cookies. The most I could do for her now was to save her from losing out on those two years.
“Ji-eun.”
“Huh, huh? I… I’m way older than you though…”
After finishing her autograph in the album, I looked up at this junior officer and smiled. She did not remember me, but still, being able to meet her like this was such a joy.
“Thank you.”
Because she was my precious friend, the one who had grieved for me when I died, the one who remembered me, the one who gave me the happiest three years of my working life.
After I finished the autograph for the last fan, I slipped off the stage under the excuse of going to the restroom. Before I had completely disappeared from view, my eyes had welled up and I almost lost it, but luckily the fans did not see me crying.
“What’s this? Why are you suddenly crying?”
“….”
“Huh? Why is Cheonmyeong crying?”
My manager-hyung was startled to see me crying out of nowhere and asked what was going on, while the head makeup artist calmly brought the makeup kit as if this had happened many times before.
Joo I-rip, who had come down with me saying he would go to the restroom too, was frozen in place, unable to move. He flailed his arms helplessly in the air and circled around me like a raccoon washing cotton candy.
I barely managed to hold back the laughter and tears threatening to burst out at the same time.
It had been a long time since I shed tears. Really, such a long time.
The moment those tears streamed down my cheeks, an indescribable sense of relief spread through my chest. It felt as if something that had been weighing me down for so long had finally lifted, as if a long-blocked road had finally opened and I could take a deep breath again.
I must still hold affection for the “me back then” who lived through fifty years. Even if my life now was far more brilliant and happy, the person I was then was undeniably the first life I had ever lived. That was why I could not shake off the instinctive feeling that he was the “real me.”
Looking back, the me of that time had always blamed himself.
Why did I have no parents, why was I so timid? Why did I sit clutching comic books, finding solace only there? Why did I fail to change, no matter how hard I tried? I would glare into the mirror, silently pointing fingers at myself, scolding myself for being pathetic, for being lacking. I berated myself so often.
But now, looking back, I thought even that self was precious.
Even while trapped in anxiety and insecurity, I still tried to find bits of joy. Even without anything worth showing the world, I endured day after day. It was because of that ‘me’, who persevered, that I was who I am now. Perhaps back then, I had been far stronger than I ever realized.
Maybe that was why. As the tears flowed, I wanted to say thank you to the ‘me’ of long ago.
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