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I desperately ran after my dream.
But some huge, transcendent being seemed to be laughing at me, saying, ‘It’s all in vain.’
I thought that on Christmas of the year I turned twenty-two, when I saw the health checkup results from the hospital.
Santa Claus gave me a 3-month time bomb as a gift.
Click, I unlock the front door and grab the cold handle.
The rusty hinges creak as my frozen body enters the house.
The sensor for the entrance light is broken and doesn’t work, so I fumble around to find the kitchen light switch.
Click, I squint in the brightened house.
“…I’m home.”
There is no answer to my muttered words.
The cold air, no less than outside, brushes my neck as if to answer instead.
Even though I’m wearing three layers of 7,000 won long underwear, I can’t feel warm for some reason.
Is it because of the record-breaking cold wave that is renewed every year, because I don’t have money to turn on the heating, because there’s a hole in my cheap padded jacket, because I’m going to die in 3 months, I don’t know.
The cold that permeated my heart went beyond pain and made me numb.
The 3-month time bomb embedded in my heart did not feel any emotion, as if to say it was a lie.
“Life is….”
I stared blankly at the computer, the most expensive item in my room, with the health checkup results delivered by mail in my hand.
And as always, I sit in front of the computer, turn it on, and enter any channel that is broadcasting.
It’s my old habit. When I crave a human voice in a lonely room, when the world torments me, when everything is empty, I turn on an internet broadcast and receive their energy.
And to share that energy with others, I edit videos and upload them to YouTube.
That’s how I used to overcome the pain.
But today, my hand didn’t reach for the editing program.
The broadcaster’s bright voice entering my ears passed through my head without leaving any language in my mind.
I know why.
Because I lost the reason for my life.
“Reason…, reason….”
I used to look for a reason for something.
The reason I’m an orphan is because my young parents didn’t want to raise me.
The reason I didn’t go to college was because I didn’t even have money to eat today.
The reason I’m alive is because I believed that this small thread would one day become a large ball of yarn.
“…….”
And now, I found the reason for something I had been avoiding.
I calmly scribbled on my notebook.
A small notebook used to organize thoughts or make plans.
On the last page, I wrote three lines.
Victim: Seo Joyeon, Perpetrator: Seo Joyeon
Weapon: Fruit knife
Time of crime: 12/25 24:00
The moment I wrote the short sentence, my vision suddenly blurred.
Drip. Drip.
I rubbed away the tears falling on the notebook and put the pen on the last line.
Cause of crime: ——————
But the words were not written.
The paper wet with tears did not accept the ink of the pen, as if to show the words I would write.
Thud, I close the notebook.
Christmas is almost over.
I got up from my seat to carry out my plan.
Suddenly, I remembered yesterday.
The sound of bells I heard while taking a walk, and the Salvation Army charity pot I saw when I approached.
I put the 2,000 won cash in my wallet there.
For what reason?
There was no particular reason.
My death will be the same.
Is this a flashback?
The memory of the day before permeates.
Click click
Tap tap tap
Drrr drrr
[Here.. like this… jump…]
Tap tap tap
[Ah, huh? It wasn’t here…?!]
Tap tap tap
I’ve added all the subtitles.
Next is the sound effects.
Hmm…
Shall I use this?
Whoosh
Tap
I move the mouse and drag one of the files in the sound effects list to the timeline box and adjust it.
So that the sound is not too buried in the original. Also, so that it doesn’t overpower it.
Drrr drrr
I turn the auxiliary wheel next to the mouse and examine the zoomed-in timeline.
The clips of the track in the dense timeline pass by.
Press the shortcut key to set the play bar to the beginning of the compound clip and press the space bar to play the video.
The subtitled video plays on the screen.
[Here.. like this… jump…]
[Ah, huh? It wasn’t here…?!]
Boom-!
The video I was editing until just now plays naturally on the auxiliary monitor.
In the video, the subtitles, screen effects, sound effects, and background music are well harmonized to dramatically show that the protagonist is in great shock.
It was a perfect video at a glance, but I repeatedly play the video two or three times and check carefully to see if there is anything strange.
Are there any typos in the subtitles?
Are the screen effects off by a few frames?
Are the sound effects and background music at the right volume?
Is the color grading awkward?
It’s good.
I murmured, slightly raising the corners of my lips.
It means that there is nothing to be a problem.
I move the mouse and export the edited result as an .mp4 file.
Because it was a computer built solely for editing, encoding was completed quickly even though it was a long 15-minute video.
Then I check the encoded result one last time.
Smooth screen transitions.
Not excessive various effects.
Immersive content of the video.
And….
There are no controversial scenes.
Perfect.
After checking the most important thing, I open the internet window and access YouTube.
With a natural hand movement, I put the video and the thumbnail I made in advance and press the next button.
When the page turns, it asks if I want to monetize the video, if there is any content related to s*x, firearms, or crime in the video, and finally how I want to upload it.
I click [Yes] on the monetize button and insert ads in places that do not interfere with the video.
And I schedule the upload for the time I always upload, and wait for the copyright and ad suitability to be reviewed.
38%
51%
.
.
.
94%
100% upload complete processing complete…
Ah.
I was happy.
I can’t do it anymore.
The church says that those who take their own lives go to hell.
The temple says that those who have lived their lives are reincarnated.
But I was not a believer, nor was I a Buddhist.
Then, to which god should I ask for an answer to this phenomenon that happened to me?
“Get out of the way!”
I push someone blocking the front with my hand and run to the calendar at the end of my sight.
A large calendar hanging on the wall.
Small letters are written in various colors on various dates, but it is not those things that caught my eye.
“20…, 17?”
Four numbers printed in bold font on the left corner.
Two of the four numbers had changed.
I could think of it as just a dream or a hallucination, but I’ve never had such a vivid dream. Of course, I’ve never felt a hallucination.
My brain was reminding me that this moment was real.
The calendar on the wall told me.
You went back 10 years.
And yesterday was Christmas.
“…Crazy.”
Without realizing it, my mouth moved and I muttered.
“Crazy? This girl is even swearing? You haven’t been beaten enough yet?”
“Sis, isn’t it because she was hit too much?”
“Is that so? Hey, Seo Sua. Don’t tell the director that I hit you?”
“What are you staring at? Lower your eyes?”
Girls surround me, who is frozen, and utter harsh words.
They looked like older elementary school students, but I had to look up to meet their eyes.
Only then did I understand the situation.
This was the orphanage I went to when I was a child, these were the older girls who were with me in the orphanage, and this place where I was standing was the girls’ room where men could not enter.
“Why am I here…?”
The reason was simple.
“See sis, I told you you hit too hard.”
“No, this girl is just weak.”
“Isn’t it better? If she doesn’t remember, she won’t snitch.”
I turned my head towards the mirror attached to the wall.
Red swollen cheeks. Messy hair. Eyes wet with tears.
There, a girl in yellow clothes is watching me.
“What is this….”
I had become a girl.
The girl in the mirror widened her big eyes even more.
And then, my vision was turned upside down and the world turned dark.
My body lost all strength and I collapsed on the spot.
“Hey, hey! What’s wrong with her!”
“Oh my! I told you, you hit her too hard!”
The voices of the panicked children sound blurry, as if echoing in a cave.
Why did I go back 10 years and become a girl?
It’s a phenomenon that my head can’t understand at all.
Some huge, transcendent being seemed to be laughing at me like this.
‘There is no particular reason.’
Just like my death.
You think this chapter was thrilling? Wait until you read I Became the Protagonist's Attachment Doll! Click here to discover the next big twist!
Read : I Became the Protagonist's Attachment Doll
Something is missing, this chapter makes no sense. One second he’s tipping the Salvation Army, the next second he’s running to look at a calendar? No breaks, no “Suddenly…”, his female body’s been struck to the point of transmigration but he doesn’t even notice THAT?
The chapter has been fixed now. Happy reading!