Chapter 3

“He really has star power,” the first woman gushed. “Even his individual fancam views were in an entirely different league, and his dramas keep topping the buzz charts.”

Lowering her voice, the second woman insisted, “You have to see him in the flesh to understand. I saw him at a broadcast recording once, and honestly, the camera doesn’t capture half of it.”

“True, you did say that before,” her friend conceded. “Even in a packed airport mob, he was the only person who stood out like a luminescent light.”

Returning from the counter with a tray laden with coffee cups, the woman marched straight toward the spot where Seo Mu-yeong was standing. Practiced in the art of dodging, he took a smooth step sideways.

The problem was that another customer was striding in from that very direction. The person Seo Mu-yeong clipped was a young man in his early twenties who looked like a university student. The fleeting bewilderment on the youth’s face quickly curdled into sharp, venomous irritation.

“Hey, watch where you’re going! Why are you barging into people?” the young man snapped, glaring at him.

It was a scene Seo Mu-yeong had lived through countless times before.

Whenever reality failed to match perception, human temper flared. After all, the student couldn’t possibly believe his own eyes were defective, yet something had abruptly materialized in his path.

“I apologize,” Mu-yeong offered quickly, keeping his voice subdued.

Yet the youth’s expression only contorted further, his face broadcasting loud and clear: My life is already shitty enough today, and you just had to cross my path.

“Excuse me, you think an apology just covers it?” the student sneered, puffing out his chest. “Can’t you see you almost made me spill coffee all over my clothes?”

Almost spilled meant not a single drop had actually spilled. Mu-yeong glanced down at the plastic tray in the youth’s hands; the cups were completely empty anyway, leaving nothing to overturn.

There was zero reason to waste breath on him. Mu-yeong quietly stepped backward. By the third retreating stride, the youth’s focal gaze warped in sudden bewilderment, his eyes scanning the empty air in confusion.

“Order one hundred and eight!” the barista called out.

Stepping smoothly to the counter, Mu-yeong collected his pastry and iced coffee. Choi Sijin’s face smiled back from the printed cardboard sleeve—the fifth Choi Sijin he had encountered today.

Only after the bag of cream buns lifted into thin air did the barista flinch in belated recognition. Mu-yeong turned his gaze toward the agitated student.

The young man remained rooted in place, his face flushed red, having completely forgotten why he was angry in the first place. He never even registered Mu-yeong slipping past his shoulder.

Mu-yeong took a bite of the custard bun and slipped out of the cafe in silence. Having no presence did come with its own petty perks: never getting targeted by thugs, never being called on in class, and cleanly slipping away from pointless altercations.

Just as that smug thought crossed his mind, a familiar prickle of danger spiked down his spine, and he leaped back. A motorcycle tore through the exact spot where he had been standing a split second before, engine roaring in the open air.

Mu-yeong swallowed hard. Pocketing settlement money was nice from time to time, but that had been a near-fatal brush with death. His ankle throbbed with a faint, stinging ache from the violent backward jerk. Watching the motorcycle vanish into the distance, he let out a delayed breath.

Looking down at himself, he winced. Coffee had sloshed from the crushed plastic cup, soaking through his unzipped windbreaker to drench his t-shirt in icy brown liquid. His clenched hand had pulverized the custard bun into a gooey paste.

Good thing he had worn a black shirt. Choosing a soft cream bun that wouldn’t choke him even without a drink had also been hard-earned wisdom born of survival.

Wringing out the hem of his soaked shirt, Mu-yeong gulped down the remaining mouthful of coffee, chewed the squished cream pastry, and climbed into his van.

It was time to go hunt down Choi Sijin.

The tracking app’s arrow remained pinned to a commercial filming studio. Parking nearby, Mu-yeong crunched on ice cubes in the driver’s seat, waiting for Choi Sijin’s manager to emerge.

The moment the manager came out to the van, Mu-yeong slipped from his vehicle and followed. The manager was frantically throwing open every car door in search of something. Mu-yeong took the opportunity to check the glove compartment and passenger visor, scouting for anything incriminating.

Hopefully there would be something worthwhile this time. Though he had been tailing Choi Sijin for quite a while, he had yet to turn up any truly devastating dirt.

Choi Sijin didn’t frequent nightlife clubs, didn’t gamble, and never drove after drinking. Seeing as he visited his parents once or twice every week without fail, he even appeared to maintain solid family relations.

He exhibited minor personality defects—power-tripping over his managers or treating fans like nuisance chores—but in the current media landscape, blasting petty attitude controversies online would barely make a dent in the celebrity’s armor.

Just as the manager slammed the car door shut, Mu-yeong slipped out through the narrowing gap. One of the studio staff members smoking nearby ambled over to the van.

“What are you looking for?” the staffer asked.

“Ah, Sijin-ssi told me he left this behind,” the manager explained with an awkward laugh, holding up a pristine white porcelain-like bottle.

Right then, the phone clamped in his hand vibrated violently. The manager sprinted back inside the building with nervous haste.

Leaning against the exterior brick wall, another staff member asked,

“What did he say?”

“Perfume,” the first staffer replied, blowing a plume of smoke.

“Isn’t that the tenth time today? If he needs something, he should ask all at once. What a diva…” Scoffing, the man suddenly checked himself and shook his head. “Then again, if it’s Choi Sijin, running back and forth twenty times is worth it. The guy is irreplaceable. Hey, I used to utterly loathe Choi Sijin, you know? Wondering how the hell he took first place and got pushed so hard.”

“Yeah, that was pure inferiority complex on your part,” his colleague smirked.

“No, fuck, honestly on screen he looks just average, right? What was it—even in that old boy group of his, wasn’t that kid Hyuk or whatever way more handsome?”

“And yet the moment you saw him in the flesh, it all made sense?” the second staffer asked with an amused smirk.

“Gave me whole-body goosebumps, man!” the first staffer exclaimed, shivering theatrically. “I swear I thought someone was blasting a spotlight from behind him. Holy shit, I’ve worked production for three years, but I’ve never seen aura like that on anyone.”

Tapping the ash from his cigarette, the second staffer chuckled, “Told you. Out of everyone who’s seen Choi Sijin in real life, not a single person ever badmouths him. He’s famous and successful because he earned it.”

The staffers flicked their cigarette butts onto the pavement and walked off. In the heap of charred ash, a glowing red ember smoldered.

Mu-yeong hurried over and ground the spark dead beneath his boot. The sharp, acrid stench of burnt tobacco was suddenly overtaken by a faint, drifting floral fragrance.

He lifted his head. A canopy of cherry blossoms in full, riotous bloom crowded his field of view, pale pink petals undulating on the breeze.

Come to think of it, it had been right around this time of year when Mu-yeong had vowed revenge: a crisp April day when spring had ripened and flowers burst across the city, during his final year of high school.

Yet the bitter karmic knot tying Seo Mu-yeong to Choi Sijin had begun far earlier than that. And the person who had foretold it was none other than his maternal grandmother.

***

Seo Mu-yeong’s parents were killed in a sudden car crash when he was eight years old. Church acquaintances he saw every Sunday came to pray for him and manage the funeral arrangements.

“What on earth should we do? I hear both the child’s mother and father were orphans. Isn’t there anything we can do for the poor boy?”

The mourners debated in hushed tones while Mu-yeong lay curled on a mattress in the chief mourner’s room. But on the final day of the funeral rites, his grandmother appeared—his mother’s mother, whom he had never met or even heard spoken of in his life.

Smooth hair parted in a severe traditional bun, an iron-straight posture, eyes fiercer than a tiger’s, and a slight, dragging limp. Clad in a crisp black suit, the elderly woman swept the orphan away to a house perched on the remote fringes of an unfamiliar city.

His grandmother was a mudang, a spirit-possessed shaman. Looking straight into the terrified boy’s eyes, she handed down her prophecy.

“Once you turn eleven,” she proclaimed, “there won’t be a soul under heaven who does not adore you. Your body will thrive simply by drawing breath, and wealth will flow in whenever you stretch out your hand. Like an inexhaustible spring, your fortune will pour forth without end.”

Yet what followed was far more grave. “Keep your wits about you, child born under such a fierce early fate,” the shaman warned, her gaze piercing his marrow. “Before you turn twelve, a catastrophic calamity will crash upon you.”

The grandmother exhausted every spiritual remedy to ward off the approaching ill omen. Leaving Mu-yeong’s hair uncut to grow wild down his back was merely the most trivial measure among them.

Even so, in the year Seo Mu-yeong turned eleven, Choi Sijin’s family came knocking.

Though Sijin was the exact same age as Mu-yeong, he was far shorter and emaciated to the bone. His face was sallow, and he could barely support his own weight to walk. Yet the men flanking him like a royal guard were uniformly burly, scarred mobsters.

In a heartbeat, both Mu-yeong and his grandmother were bound fast with hemp rope. With a gleaming blade pressed to the old woman’s throat, Mu-yeong had no choice but to obey their every demand.

The henchmen cleared out, leaving only the two young boys alone inside the quiet shrine, seated across from each other before a pair of flickering candles. Choi Sijin smoothed out a slip of paper and began to read aloud.

“To ■■■, born in Seoul on the year ■, month ■, day ■, hour ■,” the sick boy read, “will you sell me your name?”

“Y-Yes,” Mu-yeong stammered, trembling in terror.

“How much will you sell it for? Will you sell it for a hundred won?”

“Yes…” he wept.

Choi Sijin seized Mu-yeong’s tightly bound hands. Dropping a single coin onto the sweaty palm, he forced the boy’s fingers closed around it.

“Here is your hundred won,” Sijin chanted, his voice taking on an eerie cadence. “I bought your name. I bought your name. Choi Sijin, born in Seoul on the year ■, month ■, day ■, hour ■, has bought the name of ■■■.”

At that exact moment, the candle sitting before Seo Mu-yeong guttered and blew out. A violent wave of vertigo crashed through Mu-yeong’s skull, pitching him face-first onto the wooden floor. His vision blurred into darkness as all strength vanished from his limbs.

By contrast, the flame before Choi Sijin flared with monstrous vigor, expanding in a crackling roar. His sickly pallor vanished as vitality flooded his cheeks, and he sprang to his feet with a triumphant shout.

“Mom, nothing hurts anymore!” Sijin cried.

Waiting outside, Sijin’s mother burst through the door and threw her arms around him in a weeping embrace. The boy chattered with a radiant, carefree laugh.

“Mom, ■■■ is my name now,” he whispered excitedly. “Nobody knows this name except our family, right?”

Clutching him tight, the woman sobbed, “Yes. ■■■, my precious son. You are ■■■ now.”

Only after muttering that stolen name three times in breathless reverence did she loosen her embrace. The thugs who followed her inside hurled the bound grandmother to the floorboards and began dousing the sacred hall in gasoline. Choi Sijin whined, tugging at his mother’s sleeve.

“Why did you wait so long to steal the name for me?” he pouted. “You should have done it sooner! Do you have any idea how much pain I was in all this time?”

Stroking his hair soothingly, she coaxed, “We had to find the absolute best name under heaven for our Sijin. And everything has its appointed hour. The shaman said that boy had already weathered all the mortal hurdles, which means my darling Sijin has nothing left ahead of him but pure bliss.”