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“Sunghyun was looking for you, did you see him?” Upon entering the facility, the director asked me this instead of caning me for being late for the curfew. I nodded my head slowly.
Kang Sunghyun was a senior at Danseon Orphanage, where I belong, and Ilyang Industry, which Kang Sunghyun worked for in a low-ranking position, was a sponsor of Danseon Orphanage. Ilyang Industry seemed to be a trading company, but it unofficially transported illegal items.
Therefore, Kang Sunghyun’s exploitation, Kang Woojung’s truth, and more were all formed under everyone’s tacit agreement. Anyhow, there was nowhere to avoid it.
Of course, the director wasn’t on board with this system from the beginning. The appearance of dungeons had left many children without a place to go, and the budget allocated to the orphanage was absurdly low. Without sponsorship, it was hopeless.
Kang Sunghyun wasn’t like this from the beginning either. Around three years ago, he still had a habit of violence even then, but he would occasionally bring us food and pull a blanket over our heads when we slept.
On the day the protection of the orphanage ended when he turned eighteen, Kang Sunghyun aimed to get a bit of money and waited, saying he’d give them a beating if his real parents came looking for him. However, the only person who came to look for him was a senior from Danseon Orphanage who was working as a low-ranking worker in the Ilyang Industry, and Kang Sunghyun followed them.
“Okay, hurry up and wash the dishes and watch over the kids cleaning. They’re young, so they’re clumsy with their hands.”
I nodded my head. I had missed dinner, so even if I didn’t get the distributed food, I still had to wash the dishes.
I went straight to the kitchen to finish washing dishes with the dining room teachers. As I shook my hands to get rid of the water, I walked back inside and found the kids diligently mopping the stairs and floors of the facility with a rag. I picked up the basin of used rags and went to the utility room. I rolled up my uniform sleeves and started the laundry.
Christmas was the busiest time of year for the orphanage. Internally, we called it peak season because it was the most visited day of the year by sponsors and service workers. We had to make sure the place was squeaky clean and get ready for the celebration performance.
By 9 p.m., we were done cleaning. We had about an hour of free time before lights out at 10 p.m. The room was quiet because if you talked, the teacher would call you outside. The kids did their schoolwork, read books, watched TV, or drew pictures. I mostly lay still in bed.
When I was asked to write what my hobby was in school, I couldn’t write “laying down”, so I wrote “watching documentaries”. Of course, the competition to occupy a channel on the TV was fierce, so I’ve only actually watched a few. As I lay on the bunk bed, with the graffiti-covered yellow ceiling close enough for me to touch with my hand, I thought about the scenes from nature documentaries I’ve watched in the past.
I used to watch documentaries about space or the ocean, but the one I watched the most these days was <The Rivers of Korea>. It was a documentary about the four seasons of rivers in Korea, filmed day and night. No matter how many times I replayed it in my head like a beam projector on a white ceiling, I liked the Gyeongsam River on a winter night the most.
It was a little cold in the river, but I was used to the cold anyway. The feeling of floating without a place to stand would be no different than now.
At 10 p.m., the lights went out en masse as a prayer of thanks played from a speaker hanging on the upper side of the room. Not long after, the room was filled with the sounds of the other children’s even breathing, small snores, and grinding teeth.
It was a little lonely to be the only one awake while everyone else was sound asleep. Of course, there were other sleepless kids, but even if we were in the same room, we couldn’t comfort each other.
So I thought about the transfer student. It was like a bedtime ritual now.
There was a lot of Christmas talk in the classroom these days. The kids didn’t call Christmas the peak season. For them, Christmas wasn’t a day where they could make a lot of money, it was just a fun day in itself.
Last week, he bought three sets of Christmas seals that no one else bought. The kids teased him, asking if he was an ambassador for tuberculosis when they saw him buying the seals, even though he complained that he didn’t have enough pocket money for the PC room bill.
He said that collecting Christmas seals was his hobby. He said he used one, stored one, and kept one, so I wanted to know what the difference between storing and keeping was, but I was disappointed that no one asked.
The other kids seemed to be secretly wondering who he was going to write a card to with the Christmas seals, but I wasn’t curious about that. It wouldn’t be me anyway, so I couldn’t listen.
He said his Christmas wish was to be a butler. The only deacon I knew was our facility’s sponsor, Deacon Kwon, so for a moment I thought he was a Christian. But as I listened to more of the conversation shared between the kids, I realized that a butler was someone who raised a cat.
For raising a cat to be a wish, it was a more extravagant wish than the wish to manifest as a hunter for someone like me. You can make money if you manifest as a hunter, but where the hell would you find use for a stray cat that wasn’t even a monster?
I couldn’t understand it, so the time I spent watching him grew longer and more persistent. Out of all the people I knew, he seemed to have the least sense of life, so I kept looking at him.
It was a bit misleading to call him an “acquaintance” when we’ve only exchanged a few words. But I just called him that. I hope he can forgive me for one-sidedly calling him that.
The most important thing in the facility was the number of people. The number of heads was the most important thing because the support fund depended on it. So even though we exceeded our capacity by a lot, it was said there was no helping it, and we kept receiving children in streams.
But while the number of children kept increasing, the amount of food, clothes, and necessities didn’t. Therefore, inside the facility, even children much younger than me were saying they wished they had more money and that they could live without worrying about money. They spoke such words.
When Kang Sunghyun got into a car accident, he proudly advised us on how to get more settlement money out of the other party and how to do a hit-and-run and not get caught. The intensity will probably rise soon. Like Kang Woojung.
Among the unofficially transported items of the Ilyang Industry that I will probably work for in the future were organs. There were plenty of seniors who placed a price on people based on their kidneys, blood, eyeballs, etc.
Teenagers without parents and no place of residence were the first targets of organ harvesting crimes, so I could be a buyer, but I could also be a seller at any time. I wanted to die without being able to sell anything because the idea of the price of money being set even inside my body gave me goosebumps.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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‘…It’s because you’re still young. When I was younger, I thought I wouldn’t do it either. But there’s no helping it… The older you get, the only thing you have left is money, especially for guys like us who can’t fit in anywhere. Though money can’t buy you happiness, it can keep you from being unhappy…’
Even the most successful hyung in the facility was like that, but there was no guarantee that I wouldn’t live like that. No, I will live that way. Anyhow, I wasn’t looking forward to the future because it was only going to get worse. There were okay days sometimes, but in the end, it was just a downward stairway.
I used to want to be a hunter. If I was very lucky, I may manifest as a low-ranking hunter, but then I’d be stuck in a dungeon doing what my calling was: stealing.
Every time I vaguely thought about the distant future, my heart felt tight. I pounded my fist on the end of my solar plexus, feeling like I had indigestion even though I hadn’t eaten. After a while had passed, it seemed to get better.
My insides felt like they’d been frozen and thawed a hundred times, rotting and decomposing. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be such a stench.
I wish I could smell like something other than a stench… Like a rose, for example…
“Wow! A Christmas tree!”
“Ooh, are these all presents? How many are there?”
“Don’t touch them yet. You’ll have to open them in front of the sponsors when they come over tonight.”
Unlike the loud wake-up call, it should’ve been a tiring morning, but the room was filled with excited voices today. And for a good reason. Because today was Christmas Eve.
My head was clearer than it had been in a long time. I felt refreshed. I hummed a folk dance song and arranged the blanket.
“Hey, what do you want to do for Christmas?” Choi Seorim, who shared the lower floor of the same bed as me, asked in an excited voice. He usually rarely talks to me, but he must have been in a pretty good mood right now.
I wouldn’t be there for Christmas, but I didn’t want to break the mood by saying that. My heart was palpitating all the same.
“…ManKyungGwan.”
Tilting his head for a moment, Choi Seorim soon said, as if he seemed to understand, “Oh, the new arcade? Were you also interested in such things?”
“…I want to go with a friend…”
Choi Seorim nodded, seeming like he both understood and found me pathetic. Still, he was a hyung I had known for a long time, so I was able to speak without stuttering in front of him. The more nervous and shaky I got, the more I stuttered, so even if I wanted to talk to him, I didn’t dare.
“Anyway, that’s so boring. I heard it’s snowing today, so Yeonhee and I are going to watch a movie, and during dinner we…”
Choi Seorim’s head was smacked by the teacher, who was doing the morning inspection of the bedrooms.
“You only ever think of spending money and playing around! We’re busy today, so come right after school ends!”
After taking a glance around the room, the teacher’s sparks flew elsewhere.
“You, didn’t I tell you not to get sick? I told you to at least feel better by today! What do you expect me to do when you’re still laying here like this?”
Taewon had been suffering from a cold for three days. Normally, he would be moved to another isolation room if he caught an infectious disease, but there were too many cold patients nowadays to move him. As the teacher pulled back the thick blanket, Taewon spoke in a small voice, “…It’s so cold…”
“Cold my foot! If anyone hears you, they’ll think that we don’t even have heating! Just try and say that anywhere else.”
The teacher looked around, and the busy atmosphere subsided. The teacher let out a sigh. “You all eat the same food and sleep together, so why are you the only one making a scene?”
“……”
“Ha, we’re going to have a lot of sponsors coming… But look at you, unable to even take care of yourself…”
As soon as the teacher, who touched their temples as if they had a headache, left the room, Choi Seorim rubbed his head where it had been hit and pouted his lips.
“Did I actually go play? I can’t even say it in words?”
Normally, I would have agreed with him, but not today. Because I was really going. To the Gyeongsam River that awaited me.
I had only seen the Gyeongsam River through the screen of documentaries, but I’d known the way there for a long time now. In front of the school, take bus 17 to the intercity bus terminal. From there, you can take another village bus and get off at Duregol. The intercity bus fare to Gyeongsam was 6,900 won for teenagers and didn’t accept transportation cards. I didn’t have any cash, so I stole 10,000 won from the director’s drawer yesterday.
I’ve stolen hundreds of times, but this was the first time I’ve ever stolen something I intended to use, so I was as nervous as I was the first time I pickpocketed. It was only enough for a one-way ride, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t coming back anyway.
I wanted to clean and organize my belongings, but there was nothing that was mine anyway. They were all shared items.
I wore my empty bag and put on my hand-me-down shoes. This was also the last time. Because I would leave my old shoes on the bank of the river and disappear.
It was relieving. The things I thought about at my last moment… would it only be him? But it was funny how comforting that was. How creepy would that person find it? Anyway, he probably didn’t even know my name.
But it didn’t matter if he didn’t know my name.
There were many Kangs in our orphanage. Because the director was a Kang. I was named Inheon because I was abandoned in Inheon-dong. So even my first and last names were not mine. So that was why it didn’t matter if he didn’t know my name.
While I was in the orphanage, I received Christmas gifts every year, but they were not mine. I had to take what was left over after everyone else had chosen, and even then it had been touched, broken, and taken away without my knowledge. If it was left, I had to pass it on because I had grown older.
The same went for Christmas wishes. No parent took me in, winters were always cold, and there was no one to share the slightest word about the weather being cold today.
But this time was different. Whereas the wishes I’ve made in the past were for others to grant, this year’s Christmas wish was something that only I could grant.
Last week, we had a life respect education class at school. The counsellor had said, “Your life is not your own. It may seem like it is, but it is shared by many other people around you—family, close friends, and friends. So, you have to take responsibility for it.”
I was relieved and convinced when I heard that. My life is mine alone. I had to share everything else, but there was no one to share my life with. So I didn’t have to be responsible for anything.
The idea of disappearing from the world on the day baby Jesus was born seemed somehow quite special. Wouldn’t it be okay if I could at least choose that in my life that had nothing special about it?
I had no reason to go to school today, but I went anyway. Like the inertia that always ruled me.
My luck was good today. The light turned green as soon as I approached the crosswalk, and as soon as I reached the stop, the bus came. It was supposed to snow, but the sky was clear.
As I walked past the fence of rose vines with only a thin stem left, a butterfly fluttered in front of me, unbefitting of the season. The light pink butterfly was so amazing and beautiful that I unconsciously followed it for a while before I woke up.
I laughed when I remembered the ending of <One Lucky Day>. I’m sure the ending would be the same for me.
In literature class, we learned about novels and poetry. After reciting a poem that started with the line, “Am I ignorant of loneliness as I am poor?” The Korean teacher had said,
There are things in the world you can’t hide. Poverty, coughing, and love. The more you hide them, the more they reveal themselves.
I was lying down for the entire class, but I didn’t fall asleep. So the words sounded even to my silent ears. The teacher’s words seemed both right and wrong.
Poverty, I may be poor, but poverty does not touch me. I don’t go hungry unless I miss a meal. I’ve never gone to sleep shivering in the cold on the street, either. I was dressed in clothes that were appropriate for the season, even if they weren’t brand new. So I’ve never tried to hide my poverty. And yet, the me who uses that as an excuse to steal from others is pathetic.
Coughing, I’ve hidden my cough quite a few times. It’s inevitable when you live in a group. Even if you seem to have a cold, you’ll still get sharp stares if you keep coughing. It’s not uncommon to get hit on the head for being too loud. So if you keep your head down and swallow hard, you might be able to control your cough.
Love, it seemed like the teacher put poverty and coughing before love to emphasize the word, but I didn’t know because I’ve never received love, nor have I ever given it. My feelings for him… cannot be called love. I feel too guilty to attach a pretty word like unrequited love to it.
What I would like to attach instead of love are feelings. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t kill the feelings I wanted to kill. I did everything I could to kill those feelings. I looked around me and thought, “Why am I the only one making a big deal out of this, why am I the only one when everyone else is in the same situation as me?”
But I decided to stop it all now. I didn’t want to comfort myself by drawing in other people’s misfortunes. I just felt it was unfortunate that they were in the same situation as me.
When I walked into the classroom, the atmosphere was especially chaotic. But the person I wanted to see wasn’t there. He wasn’t there even when the homeroom teacher did the morning assembly, and he didn’t even show up when the first period started.
Was he not coming to school today? I kept glancing at the back door of the classroom.
I wanted to see him smile one last time. It was like seeing the snow on the trees melt and the light green budding flowers bloom into a lovely full bloom. I wished I could press pause on that moment, like a scene in a documentary where moments were filmed slowly and played back quickly…
I always wanted time to go faster. But I wanted to preserve the moment when he laughed. Even if it wasn’t a smile that was necessarily directed at me, it was okay. He was unexpectedly good at laughing and unexpectedly kind, so I was satisfied as long as I could catch a glimpse of him from afar.
Are you really satisfied?
Something whispered in my mind.
Actually, I wasn’t. In fact, I wanted more. I wanted so much that my heart felt heavy.
But it didn’t matter. Because the heavier you were, the deeper you sank.
Ah, he came.
I knew the sound of his footsteps.
The sound of footsteps resembling himself, laid-back and cheerful, came from the hallway.
Soon, slide, the back door of the classroom opened. The eyes of the kids, needing an excuse to do something else during this boring class, turned straight toward that side. I also turned my gaze, lying down. In the disorderly atmosphere of the classroom, the teacher also looked toward the back door.
“Lee Juwon, are you a university student? Do you come into class as you please?”
Laughter erupted among the children. But the expression of the boy, who would usually grin and say, “I’m sorry!” didn’t look so good. He looked around slowly, as if he were in an unfamiliar classroom. For a moment, I thought I had made eye contact with him. I was uselessly surprised and buried my face in my arms again.
His seat was at the very back, against the wall, so he could have just sat down right away, but he came across the back of the classroom. Something was a little strange. The only empty seat left in our classroom was… next to me.
The sound of those familiar footsteps gradually approached.
And then, I felt someone plop down next to me.
I couldn’t resist and slightly lifted my head up to glance to the side.
“Hello?”
We actually made eye contact. My heart pounded more than I could handle.
Something touched my back. Now I felt like my heart was going to come through my back. I knew whose hand it was, but I didn’t know why.
Had I perhaps fallen asleep? Was I dreaming? I couldn’t stay still, my heart felt like it was going to explode. I suddenly sat up and lifted my head. If I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again, he’d disappear. Like an illusion.
But he was really there, sitting next to me. And he called my name.
“Hello, Kang Inheon.”
The end.
orcinus’ very long note:
this is the second time the gyeongsam river has appeared in yess & yes…
well, this is all for the main story. i rather like this ending, i think it fits well for the type of story telling we’ve been seeing until now. still, the plot hasnt ended yet, and we’ll see the rest of it in the side stories. i’m glad to have been able to share the main story with you all
There were many scenes that overlapped with scenes from the beginning of the novel, and I’ve pointed out quite a few of them, but I’m not sure if I’ve indicated them all in my notes. I also hope some of my translator notes could’ve helped a bit with the cultural and historical context of some of the phrases throughout the novels. Personally, this is one of my favourite novels due to the emotional storyline, so I hope everyone has enjoyed it as well
In the end, Inheon never made it to the Gyeongsam river because he was dragged around to have fun by Juwon… even the 10,000 won he had for the bus was used to feed Juwon. And it just happened to be this specific day that Juwon told him to be happy and live for a long time :,) Maybe Juwon will never know how much this meant to Inheon, and he’ll never know that he not only saved his life once from the sudden dungeon in the park, but also a second time because he’s the reason Inheon didn’t go through with his plan
I’ll try my best to not split most of the extras, but some of them are a bit long, so I have no choice… Thankfully, I say I’d be able to at least keep a few all in one part. Thank you all for reading this far <3
That’s really bittersweet like the rest of the story. A fitting end.
Thank you for your translation !
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa i love them so muchhhhhhhhhhhhh ♡♡♡♡♡ i want them to be happy in the extras
I’m kinda sad now it’s already ending… :<
makes me feel like i’m sending my child off to college or something…
tysm for translating this wonderful story! although i did like the ending, i cant wait for the side stories lolol
🥲 This is such a sad but at the same time happy ending. It’s really all thanks to that damn dungeon that everything worked out in the end. 🤧
Thank you. What a great read. When he saw the butterfly on the way to school!
Thank you for translating. It was short but sweet, I’m looking forward to the extras. Want them to be happy 👊
Thank u for translating this novel, I’m kinda sad that it’s going to end soon
Thanks a lot. This story is great
This is also my one of favorites
And now I’m crying in my bed bcs this is so good and I really love fact that we have more chapters of them bcs if we were not at this moment i wouldn’t be just crying but cried my eyes out 😭😭😭
Beautiful ending 😭 I knew his trip to the past was their actual past but to think that that day was when KIH was gonna kill himself.. 😭
God this is the prettiest most well written ending ㅠㅠ its ties together sm, juwons effect on inheon, his dislike for cats, the river, and the mirror of following the butterfly
I love the format (idk the right word) of the story, where the timeline is not linear from start to end. Although it was confusing at first, it was interesting to see how every little detail gets their backstory.
Thank you so much for this translation! It’s an advanced Christmas gift from you to us!
Thank you for sharing with us this rollercoaster ride of a story! At the beginning I didn’t expect much from the emotional line, only to be smacked right in the face by the feels. I stand corrected,,
Looking forward to reading the s̶m̶u̶t̶, extras now 💕
So that’s why he decided to die with mc’s urn in the river 🥺 if mc didn’t swap bodies at that moment, ml would’ve prolly died young 😞 Glad they were each others past and future. Mc saw only cared in the future, and for ml, mc was his light in the past. Now they’re both together in the present 🥺
Glad that we were able to see it end up till that ‘past’ scenes in the dungeon. Makes it all seem connected. Sad that we’re at the end of the main storyline QwQ thank you for your hard work~
Wow. Inheon’s POV is quite depressing…
I liked the ending, though; it fits the flow of the story pretty well.
The novel itself was well-written, and I really appreciate how good the translation was!
Thanks for the links fo the poem and the wikipedia page about the novel. Both are very sad – the poem is beautiful.
I love endings like this 😭
I love endings like this 😭
It’s so emotional that he actually saved him from going to the river unknowingly.
Without him, LJW, there wouldn’t even be an S-class hunter in Korea (in this novel) No KIH, No male god.
But… Anyone noticed the butterfly?
I just cried my eyes out last night when MC went back in time and met his parents again and now I’m crying because they literally saved each other and they were meant to be. The fact he actually went back to the exact day that ML wanted to unalive himself just hits so hard. He was on his way to the bus stop, but when MC said he was hungry he spent the 10.000 won for the ticket on Pizza he didn’t even like. And then MC cheekily exchanged shoes with him at the end. Omg I am in absolute tears 😭