I Became the Lousy Side Top - Chap 107 Extra 2 - One More Chance
He still had one more chance.
Early in the morning, Mujin woke to a familiar scent wafting through the house. In front of him, countless empty bottles of liquor were lined up. They ranged from strong spirits to some soju that he’d bought at a convenience store when he’d run out. He’d finished all of them last night. Maybe that was why his head felt heavy, as if he was still dreaming.
Logically, he knew he shouldn’t be doing things like that, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop. His hand trembled slightly as he raised it.
Alcohol. He needed more alcohol. Maybe even drugs.
Mujin reached for his phone to contact Dongsoo, but felt a sudden sense of unease. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had anything besides alcohol in his apartment. Dongsoo had brought food for him once or twice, but he’d thrown it all away.
Yet the scent was still lingering. Mujin looked towards the kitchen in a daze. Through blurry eyes, he saw someone bustling around the room as if they knew every inch of it.
‘Impossible.’
He was dead. He’d died a meaningless death. There was no way he could be here now. Even if he was alive, this wasn’t where he’d go. He loved someone else, not Mujin.
He took out a cigarette and put it in his mouth. Had he been thinking about him too much? Was that why he was seeing this hallucination? As he pondered that, about to light the cigarette, a loud clatter came from the kitchen.
It was just a figment of his imagination; there was no need for him to be concerned. But his body seemed to move on its own.
“Ouch!”
When he reached the kitchen, he found the other man standing in the middle of the room, a blank look on his face. There was a dropped pot lying on the floor in front of him, and another one still bubbling away on the stove. It looked like he’d tried to make two things at once and had messed it up. He’d often cooked multiple dishes at the same time, so that part wasn’t surprising.
“Guess I’ll need to start over.”
The man sighed and picked up the fallen pot. Then, as he turned around, he spotted Mujin and jumped in surprise.
“What are you doing here?”
There was no need to answer, and yet…
“I heard a loud noise.”
“I just dropped a pot by mistake.”
“What were you making?”
“Quail eggs braised in soy sauce1. What a waste. Do you think we can still eat the ones left in the pot?”
“I won’t.”
“You’re so picky.”
The man grumbled as he wiped the floor before standing up. Mujin, who’d been staring at him, was the first one to speak this time.
“What’s on the menu today?”
“Fermented soybean paste stew.”
“I thought you’d decided not to make that anymore?”
“Well, sometimes you crave it, don’t you?”
And then the man smiled. Sometimes? If he made it, Mujin would eat it every day. He wouldn’t complain about anything he put in front of him.
“Yeah.”
Mujin answered with a bitter smile.
“I want to eat it.”
“It’s almost ready. Why don’t you go sit at the table?”
He placed the fermented soybean paste stew on top of a pot holder and then brought out the other side dishes. Since the braised quail eggs had been ruined, all that were left were the usual ones.
Mujin stared down at the food blankly.
“You’re not eating?”
“No, I will.”
Despite knowing that this was pointless, Mujin still picked up his chopsticks. The first thing he did was take a bite of the rolled omelette. Was it tasty? Was it foul? Mujin didn’t know, but he chewed it with all his heart and swallowed it down, following it with some rice. Then he took a spoonful of fermented soybean paste stew.
The pungent yet savory taste made his eyes well up with tears. He wished he had treated him better when he was alive. He should have cared for him, instead of focusing on his own selfish desires. He regretted it now, but wasn’t that always how it went?
Regrets always came too late.
“Jaewoo.”
Mujin called his name.
“Yes?”
He responded.
“Seo Jaewoo.”
“Yes.”
Mujin barely managed to choke out the words.
“Don’t go.”
He didn’t have to stay by his side anymore. As long as he was alive, he could go wherever he liked. There was so much he wanted to say, but the words wouldn’t come. As he struggled, the image of him began to blur.
Money, power… no matter how much he had, there were some things that remained out of reach, and bringing back the dead was one of them. Mujin put down his chopsticks and stared at Jaewoo’s vanishing figure until he eventually had to close his eyes.
“–tor! Director!”
When he opened his eyes again, he saw Dongsoo standing in front of him.
“Have you been drinking again? You’re overdoing it! Did you take drugs, too?”
Drugs… At that word, he remembered something. He’d heard that a new drug had just been smuggled into the country and had ordered Dongsoo to get his hands on some of it. Last night, he’d tried it along with the alcohol.
“What was the name of that drug?”
“The one I brought you yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“‘Somnus2’. It means dream.”
Dream. Yes, that was a fitting name for the drug.
“Can you get more?”
“It’s not difficult to obtain.”
“Then do it.”
Dongsoo hesitated as if he had something to say, but he eventually left without a word. He knew that no amount of persuasion would be effective just then.
The second time he took the drug, nothing happened. He thought that maybe the first time was just a coincidence, so he stopped taking it for a while. He also stopped drinking as much. But eventually the pain became too much to bear again.
Taking a chance, he tried Somnus once more. This time, he saw what he’d been yearning for. Jaewoo was sitting in the kitchen, peeling garlic. When he asked him why he didn’t just buy pre-peeled garlic, Jaewoo said it tasted better this way.
Mujin sat in front of Jaewoo, who was working diligently, and began to peel one himself with clumsy hands.
“What’re you doing?”
Jaewoo asked, his eyes wide.
“What? Is it so strange for me to help?”
“It really is. You’ve never helped before.”
“That’s true. But sometimes people want to try something new.”
“Well, I appreciate the help, but that’s not how you peel garlic. Here, watch me. Grab it like this and then pull.”
Jaewoo held out his hands and showed him the trick, then returned to his seat and started peeling again. There was still a mountain of garlic left, and if Mujin had his way, he’d stay until it was all gone. With that in mind, he intentionally slowed down his peeling.
“What are you going to do with all this?”
He already knew the answer. Jaewoo would make a large batch of pickled garlic, stored in a plastic container with a tacky red lid. He still had it sitting on his kitchen counter. He could have eaten it at any point, but he couldn’t bring himself to. He couldn’t bear the thought of it being gone. He wanted to preserve whatever traces of Jaewoo’s presence still remained.
“I’m going to pickle it.”
Jaewoo explained in detail how to make pickled garlic, smiling all the while. He should have asked him this before. He felt like an idiot for only showing interest after he died.
His chest ached. How wonderful it would be if he could meet Jaewoo again someday, healthy and alive.
“Are you crying?”
“No.”
“You are. Did you rub garlic-juice into your eyes?”
Mujin let out a sob that somehow transformed into a helpless laugh.
“It’s not that.”
“Just go wash your hands and then rinse out your eyes.”
Jaewoo pushed Mujin away from the table, then resumed peeling garlic.
He couldn’t afford to get addicted. Outside of the regular dangers, the company’s chairman also had a rule forbidding drug use for people above a certain level. But even though Mujin knew that, he couldn’t bring himself to stop using it. His once strong body was gradually wasting away, and his eyes were constantly bloodshot.
“Have you been eating?”
They hadn’t met for quite some time, and yet that was the first thing Hyunjin said to him, his voice rough.
“Sure.”
He’d eaten. He always devoured whatever Jaewoo made for him.
“Are you just getting drunk and not actually eating anything? That’ll ruin your body.”
“No, not really. I’m eating as much as I can stomach.”
Hyunjin looked at him with suspicion. For the first time in a while, Mujin hadn’t called for any ‘entertainers’ or ordered an excessive amount of alcohol, yet his condition looked really bad.
“Are you on drugs or something?”
This time, Mujin didn’t answer, clamping his mouth shut.
“Have you gone crazy?”
Hyunjin said in disbelief and stood up.
“I’m leaving. If you’re going to be like this, don’t bother calling me any more.”
“How are you okay?”
“What?”
Jaewoo wasn’t there anymore. No matter how much he might force himself to live for his younger siblings, there was no way he wasn’t suffering. Mujin could see his shoulders trembling as he turned to leave, and he knew how much pain he was in. Yet he no longer tried to even talk about Jaewoo. In that case, wasn’t Mujin the better of the two? At least he was making an effort to see him. Those thoughts ran through his mind as he watched Hyunjin walk away.
Vroooooooooom!
Today, Jaewoo was vacuuming. Starting from the kitchen, he vacuumed up every inch of the living room, looking pleased with his work.
Mujin watched Jaewoo for a moment before turning his gaze towards the coffee table, lined with alcohol bottles and drugs. The dissonance between those two images kept him from being completely absorbed by his dream.
“Do you remember?”
“What?”
“You told me you’d do whatever I wanted, just the once.”
“…I did, huh?”
Jaewoo answered reluctantly, his gaze staring off into the distance.
“Will you listen to what I want?”
“I guess I have to, right? But if you ask too much, I might run away.”
“It might be an unreasonable request.”
“What is it?”
Mujin approached Jaewoo and looked him dead in the eyes.
“Please be alive again.”
“What?”
“That’s all I need. It’s okay if you don’t become mine right away.”
There’d be opportunities. As long as he was alive, Mujin could find a chink in his armor someday. He just needed him to live.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Jaewoo hesitated, then reached out and gently stroked Mujin’s cheek.
“But I understand this much: you wanted me to live.”
Jaewoo’s normal appearance began to change, until he looked the same as he did that day in the hospital. His skin was bone-white, and blood dripped from his lips as he smiled sadly.
“Then does that mean you don’t need me anymore?”
“You’re just a hallucination.”
“But I’m a hallucination that you want.”
“Right. So I’m not ready to let you go just yet.”
Jaewoo smiled brightly. Mujin smiled back at him, but a deep sense of despair welled up inside of him. He realized that he was going to live the rest of his short life like this, lost in a haze of alcohol and drugs. Yet even knowing that, he couldn’t let Jaewoo go.
Not even after Dongsoo came with a warning from the chairman.
“He said to stop using the drugs, immediately. If you don’t, you’ll be risking your position as a director in the company. Sir, you’re walking a dangerous line.”
Mujin knew. He knew all of that. But he was so addicted to seeing Jaewoo that even though his body was breaking down, he didn’t want to stop.
It was really pitiful.
Mujin started taking more care of his body and focusing on his work. As long as he did his job right, the chairman wouldn’t care if he took drugs or drank too much. With that in mind, he did his best to act the same way he had before. It was around then that he heard the news.
Someone unknown had appeared at Hyunjin’s side. At first, Mujin had been left dumbfounded, but he’d quickly been filled with rage. How could Hyunjin move on to someone else so soon after Jaewoo’s death?
‘Did he not really love Jaewoo at all?’
His mind was plagued by all kinds of thoughts. For a moment, he even considered getting rid of the interloper, before he found out that his name was the same as Jaewoo’s. He’d hesitated, and then gone to see him in person.
Although their names were the same, their appearances were slightly different. But their personalities were so similar, and their cooking skills were exactly the same… Mujin kept changing his mind second by second until he finally realized.
‘Jaewoo has come back to life.’
That day, he’d dismissed his subordinates, the ones who had destroyed the restaurant. He’d returned home and sat on his sofa, lost in thought. Then he’d gathered up all his drugs and gave them all to Dongsoo.
“Dispose of these.”
Dongsoo took them all, his expression lighter than it had been in a long time.
He didn’t need the visions anymore. The real thing had returned. Was it even possible for a dead person to come back to life in a different body? There were so many unanswered questions, but Mujin believed in Jaewoo.
“So, what will you do now?”
Because he was so deeply addicted, Mujin would sometimes hallucinate even without taking anything. The imaginary Jaewoo continued speaking to him.
“Will you force him to return?”
“No.”
“What about imprisoning him? Or you could always threaten him again.”
“No.”
Once again, Mujin denied his ideas.
“All no. Then what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to let him be.”
“Why?”
Because he was alive again. He was breathing in the peaceful air, exactly as Mujin had hoped for. He was satisfied with that, for now.
The hallucination began to fade. Mujin heard Jaewoo’s voice saying something, but he ignored it. It was time to face reality again. If he wanted to prepare for the future, he needed to start amassing power now. Mujin hadn’t given up on anything yet.
“So for now, just be happy.”
That would be enough. Mujin smiled faintly as he thought of Jaewoo, alive and in the same world once more.
He had another chance. That was enough.
Footnotes
- 메추리알 장조림 – mechulial jangjolim – Quail egg jangjorim. Jangjorim is a type of Korean side dish where something, usually beef, is braised in soy sauce with shishito peppers.
- 드림 – deulim – regards/dream. Google translate says ‘regards’, Naver dictionary says ‘dream’. I tried to pick something with a similar meaning that would be more obvious to an English-speaking audience.
