Chapter 702

Can his current self be called the same as his past self? Maru thought that the answer to that question was no. He believed that the accumulated experience would change the nature and tendencies of a person. His current self should be different from his past self of a few days ago, from his past self of a few months ago, and from his past self of a few years ago. However, just like a randomly changing graph had a set standard, he also thought that he had some things that did not change within him; one of them being his challenging mindset. Taking a step forward without fear even when the environment or the circumstances change should be one of the traits that represented Han Maru.

Maru put down the mouse for now. On his monitor was an old diary entry. What was he thinking back then as the person who wrote it? Maru wanted to ask his past self that.

It felt way too different. When he had a look at the diary he wrote in the past, he felt as though it was another person who wrote it. He had the memories of writing such a diary, but he could not remember what kind of feelings he had that made him write something like that back then.

“I tried to focus on studying, but I reached the limits of my concentration too soon. I don’t think I can expect the great concentration I get when I look at scripts during studying. I must look for another way for the sake of a stable life.”

Maru read the sentence on the screen out loud. It was from one of the entries he wrote during his first year. When he grabbed a script, all of his neurons awakened and did their work, but when it came to school work, they became lazy ponies and didn’t do any work. While it was a pity, there was no need to be so disappointed. It meant that he had talent in acting after all. He had a talent that not many people had, so he should have been happy, yet his past self wrote the diary with disappointment.

He picked out some words that the diary entries had in common and wrote them down on a piece of paper. Stability, future, probability, success, profits. These five words were distributed everywhere as though they were the crux of the issue in his diary entries.

“Stability, future, probability, success, profits.”

Maru read those words out loud. They were definitely important elements in life. However, he was only in his first year of high school back then. He also had the wisdom of his previous life to a certain extent. There was no need for him to be so hurried. In fact, that was when he should accept many different forms of experiences in life, ones that he could not experience in the life before this, and broaden his horizons.

So what if he wasted some time because he took the wrong path? So what if he failed and fell down for a bit? He was young and the future was limitless. Rather than going through the same life as the previous one and aiming for a white-collar job, wouldn’t it be better to pioneer the unknown and enjoy his second life as someone who got another chance? The way his past self was looking for a ray of hope at the edge of a cliff felt not only unfamiliar but also like it was to the point of uninterpretable.

“I looked into getting a freight truck driver’s license. I looked into the job transfer rate of the sister company to our school. I looked into the wages at the company that my father works at.”

Along with those five words, the other information that showed up quite often was about employment. He could still remember right now. He looked into all sorts of jobs. He especially looked into those that had a future for him even if he was employed upon graduation without going to college.

Maru chuckled in vain. Why was his past self so hung up on things like this? Every single action sounded like he was going to die the day after he didn’t do so. It was as though he had a wife and kid to feed.

Things that didn’t match his own values and ideals continued to occur. As he looked at the remaining entries in the diary and thought about what happened back then, he felt an even bigger sense of disparity. He was unfamiliar with this guy who wrote them.

Maru went to the kitchen and got a cup of cold water before coming back to his room. He felt like all the blood in his body was rushing to his brain. He felt so hot and needed something to cool him down. When he drank some cold water, he calmed down a little. He stared at the monitor for a while before picking up a note and going to sit on the bed.

“Is the drastic difference in nature a result of the memories after all?”

The woman in a white suit said that his memories would eventually become faint. As though to prove that, the memories of his previous life had become faint to the point that he had almost forgotten everything. He could only remember the big events, and he could no longer remember what kind of events occurred between them nor the people he met.

“But it shouldn’t change the fact that I died at twenty-nine.”

His last memories were pretty clear. While he was working as a road manager, he got employed by a mid-sized company, and not long after admission, he died. The reason for his death wasn’t clear. From how he saw the woman in a suit when he woke up, it was likely that it was a sudden death. Perhaps all those drives that were late at night during his manager days ruined his body.

“Then I met that woman and got a new life.”

When he opened his eyes after that vain death, he met that woman in a white suit. He walked down a beach with her and talked to her under a white parasol. He heard about the circumstances behind how he got another chance at life. Apparently, an elderly lady had yielded that opportunity to him. He didn’t know why that lady yielded that to him, but for some weird reason, the name remained in his mind. Yoo Bokja. It was a rather affectionate name for some reason.

Thus, he started anew and wrote this diary that he was seeing on the monitor. Why did he look at the future with such a narrow vision like that? There should have been many other important things in life, not just stability and success.

He realized the disparity between his current actions and past actions when he thought about what he did in his 1st year. It was when he became the devil’s advocate for the unity of the acting club. Back then, he smoothly did the things that he would find unacceptable to do right now. While he understood what kind of intentions he had when he made enemies out of everyone around, he couldn’t remember the reason why such thoughts came to mind in the first place. He could have just persuaded them to understand each other, yet under the pretense of ‘efficiency’, he just solved it in a violent manner. It was good that things ended well. Had it not gone well, he might have left the acting club just like that. Meaning, he might not have met Junmin in the first place. His past self thought nothing of the important crossroad in his life. He could get a glimpse of what he felt back then when he read the diary. Those lines made it seem like the acting club, the people around him, and basically everything didn’t matter that much. It looked as though it didn’t matter if club activities didn’t go well since it wouldn’t make him any money.

“That was me, huh.”

There was physical evidence here, so he couldn’t deny that. He had the memories of it as well. It was just his emotions back then that were missing. It felt like an art gallery had popped up between his current self and his past self. Inside that gallery, the photos of the old times were hung up on the walls, allowing him to look at the past, but he could not understand the emotions and intentions that each of those photos had.

Were memories all like this? Would the passage of time separate the emotions from the incident itself and disappear, leaving behind only the events that could be interpreted in multiple ways? When he discussed transcendental cognition with writer Lee Hanmi a little while ago, he said that there were memories that transcended the physical body. Yet, when he looked at how he acted just two years ago, it made him wonder if he was the same person.

Were memories that shallow? Or was there something beyond his cognitive abilities happening?

Maru thought about all the events that happened from his previous life until now. There were no contradictory things anywhere. While there were some questionable decisions and actions that he took, his actions for the past year were all within his realm of understanding. The problem was 2 years ago, when he just came back to life, all the way until he entered his 2nd year.

He looked at the words he wrote on his note. He found himself avoiding challenges, distancing himself from adventure, and despising the unknown. A rather headstrong man was there.

At the same time, that man looked like he was desperately trying to protect something.

“Just what was it?”

Maru looked at his note before sighing. Right now, there was nothing he could find out. He only felt that there was something that he desired in the past. He didn’t know it, he felt it. It was a signal that he couldn’t even tell if it was true or just a mistake.

If he could record his current state in detail, it would be good material to reflect on in the future, but god did not allow that. Maru grabbed his pen and tried to write down what happened in his previous life, but just as he had expected, his body didn’t listen to him as though his hands were broken. This was probably why the records in his diary were fragmented and abstract.

God prevented him from reflecting on his life. Despite the fact that personal history had an insignificant influence on society or the greater world, god did not allow for recording. What could be the reason for that? His memories will remain behind anyway. Was there an absolutely necessary reason for not allowing him to write down things that were meaningless and unbelievable in the eyes of others? Or was it to simply prevent him from mentioning the past?

“So there’s no way of finding out, even if the memories of my previous life and my current life, have changed?”

The words he subconsciously uttered had considerable weight. He felt a chill run down his spine, and his eyes opened wide. If he had that as the hypothesis, he would have to suspect every single thing. That would be beyond just exhausting, it would be painful and utterly horrific. His memories changing unconsciously meant that he was becoming something completely different from before.

At that moment, Maru remembered the change in his emotions. He was definitely conscious of the fact that he had become more proactively amicable to the people around him.

“Contradiction.”

He was originally very proactive and challenging. The way he focused on harmony with the people around him showed no difference. So then, why was he so hung up on the fact that his personality changed when it happened? That meant that he was a cold, uncooperative, safety-seeking man before his personality changed.

He kept discovering the contradictions in his thoughts.

* * *

“What a busy life.”

“You tell me,” Maru said as he flipped over the script for New Semester.

Byungchan, who was driving, told him that there were drinks at the back.

“But hyung, are you okay with time? You don’t need to give me a ride.”

“It’s fine, I have time now. I’m a team leader not only in duties but in position too.”

“Ah, right. Congratulations on your promotion.”

“Sounds way too late at this point, but thanks anyway.”

Maru grabbed the business card that Byungchan gave him. Externally, he acted as a team leader from a while ago but had a really weird position within the company, and now it looked like he had found his position.

“For it though, I had to quit my dream to become an actor.”

“Don’t. You can always try later.”

“No, I’ve given up now. The president connected me to an audition, telling me to check myself objectively, and I failed that miserably. That’s when I felt that the office suits me better. After I gave up, the president properly supported me as well. It’s a good thing.”

“If you say so. Then since you started, you should aim to be the president of a super agency.”

“That’s the plan. Anyway, the company got a new department to handle the management of youths, and I’m in charge of it. Before, I was the only one in it, but there’s three of us now.”

“So you got two subordinates?”

Byungchan laughed in embarrassment.

“That’s why I’m going to be focusing on you and Sooil only. Thus, you’re going to call me a lot in the future.”

“That’s better for me. But when are you going to treat me since you got a promotion?”

“I was wondering why you weren’t mentioning that.”

Byungchan started slowing down. They had arrived at the middle school, the location of the shooting set.

“I’ll go back to the company and come back when you finish.”

“I can go back home by myself.”

“I was ordered to safely bring you home by the president. This means that you’re on the list of managed people. Doing two dramas at once is not easy. Moreover, there’s school as well. You’ll only have an easier time saving up energy if you don’t spend any on transportation. Once that mini-series drama starts, you’ll probably go to school after shooting all the way till dawn pretty frequently.”

“Yes, okay then. See you later.”

“Alright. Good luck with the shoot.”

Maru got off and asked a question before he closed the door,

“Uhm, hyung, have I changed a lot from before?”

Byungchan stared at him for a while before replying with a smile,

“I guess you did become a bit cheerful.”

Maru nodded and closed the door.