Episode 2

 

“I understand this is shocking news. But this is already the second test, and with this degree of metastasis, we have to consider it definite…”

 

“No. I mean.”

 

I’m pretty sure I was in a traffic accident, so how is it cancer? Are you saying I was brought in because of a traffic accident, but it turned out I had cancer cells?

 

Seung-hyun rolled his eyes back and forth in confusion. The doctor, who had been watching Seung-hyun’s reaction, bowed his head and apologized.

 

“So-, sorry. Director Han.”

 

“…Director Han?”

 

“Pardon?”

 

“What?”

 

My name is An Seung-hyun. What do you mean by Director Han? Seung-hyun blinked and muttered.

 

“Is… the test result wrong?”

 

“I understand it’s hard to believe… but we also checked thoroughly. It’s your matter, Director Han, so of course we have to confirm it more definitively, right?”

 

So I’m telling you I’m not Director Han. Seung-hyun was about to say that but suddenly looked down at his hand.

 

“……?”

 

Seung-hyun had a habit of biting his nails. At the peak of it, he had bitten them so much that not only the white part of the nails but even the pink part was all chewed up, so his nail length was noticeably shorter than others.

 

But the nails Seung-hyun saw now were not short at all, but straight and pretty as  if they had never been bitten once. Even  if he had been unconscious for a long time due to the accident, could the length of the nail body grow this much?

 

“For now, I’ll prescribe you some painkillers.  If the effect wears off or you need stronger painkillers, please make an appointment anytime.”

 

As Seung-hyun stared blankly at his nails without answering, the doctor practically shooed him out. Seung-hyun, who came out, walked aimlessly and headed to the bathroom as if possessed.

 

“…What is this?”

 

And as soon as he entered the bathroom, Seung-hyun fainted again at the sight of himself reflected in the mirror.

 

***

 

“…….”

 

“He seems to have been quite shocked. It’s understandable… His health has deteriorated a lot recently, so that must have had an impact too.”

 

“I understand. It goes without saying… but I hope the director’s condition doesn’t reach anyone else’s ears.”

 

“Of course. When he regains consciousness, he can return home right away.”

 

At the sound of people’s voices, Seung-hyun slowly opened his eyes. He raised his hand to check his nails again and saw the same straight and pretty nails.

 

“Ah, Director.”

 

Seung-hyun turned his head to look at the man who called him. A man who seemed to be in his late twenties was looking this way.

 

“I’ll take you straight home. At least for today…”

 

“Director Han. Seung-hyun Han?”

 

“Pardon?”

 

Seung-hyun, who hadn’t fully regained his senses yet, mumbled with a dazed mind. He just put his name with that surname since they called him Director Han, but it felt strangely familiar.

 

“Yes. You’re Director Seung-hyun Han… right?”

 

“Me?”

 

“Pardon?”

 

The man standing next to him looked bewildered. The doctor had long since slipped out of the hospital room. But none of that mattered at all.

 

‘If it’s Director Seung-hyun Han… that’s the name of the villain in ‘The Law of Total Amount’.’

 

The face he encountered in the bathroom earlier was definitely not Seung-hyun’s original face. An Seung-hyun had a face that was often described as having a gentle impression, but the face reflected in the mirror had a cat-like impression with slightly upturned eyes.

 

Not only the eyes were different, but the entire face and physique had completely changed. A slightly higher eye level and a body with lean muscles. No matter how you looked at it, the person himself was different.

 

Even that alone didn’t make sense, but Seung-hyun Han? That he was Seung-hyun Han? It was so absurd that a hollow laugh escaped.

 

“Ha, haha….”

 

“…Director.”

 

“Then you must be Seok-hyung.”

 

“For now, it’s best for you to go in and rest. I’ll make up some excuse for the office, so please just go home and rest for today.”

 

Seeing that he didn’t deny it, it seemed to be true. Seung-hyun followed Seok-hyung into the car in a daze.

 

“Rest. I’ll see you again tomorrow.”

 

“……”

 

As soon as Seung-hyun arrived home and was left alone, he picked up his phone and started checking the situation he was in. Had he really become that Seung-hyun Han? Maybe, just like how his original name was the same as that villain’s name, it was simply a case of having the same name. It was a common name to the point where he just thought ‘Oh, the name is the same’ when reading the novel. It’s just a case of having the same name, but those people are all mistaken….

 

However, after searching through his phone and various places in the room, Seung-hyun had no choice but to accept the fact and sit down. This was clearly the world inside 『The Law of Total Amount』.

 

The names of companies popping up here and there and the contact information of characters saved in his phone were proving that fact.

 

“Ha, haha… It was already unfair that I was about to be outed and ran away only to get into a traffic accident. I must have died on the spot, right? That’s why this happened, right?”

 

Who was Seung-hyun Han? Seung-hyun sat blankly and recalled the contents of the novel he had last read.

 

『The Law of Total Amount』. It was a BL novel that Seung-hyun had enjoyed reading quite a bit, following quite typical clichés.

 

The protagonist ‘Tae-sung Han’, who was born as the illegitimate child of a chaebol family but was born with the trait of a dominant alpha, rose from the bottom to the position of a director in the chaebol family, despises the traits of alphas and omegas.

 

To the point where he even considers himself pathetic for the fact that being born as a dominant alpha was the biggest factor in getting him to that position. Then one day, he receives a proposal from Chairman Han, the head of HJ Group and his grandfather.

 

「’It will be a proposal with no downside for you. He’s the youngest omega of the RF Group, even if he’s a recessive. I heard they cherished and raised him quite a bit in that family, so it wouldn’t be bad to marry him.’」

 

To marry Seon-hu Lee, the youngest son and recessive omega of the RF Group. He didn’t want to accept a marriage with an omega, but he accepts that proposal, acknowledging that marriage in a chaebol family is essentially a transaction.

 

From then on, it was a quite predictable story. Seon-hu, who grew up loved by his family, was a sweet and warm person enough to melt Tae-sung’s frozen heart. Although he was born with the easily overlooked trait of a recessive omega, he was also someone who didn’t get swayed by people and went his own way.

 

Although they clashed at first, the two naturally fell in love. However, if love is achieved too easily, it’s hard for a novel to unfold in an interesting way.

 

The character who disrupts the peace of the two in the novel was none other than Seung-hyun Han. He was Tae-sung’s cousin and the reason Tae-sung was able to return to the HJ Group.

 

As a recessive alpha, Seung-hyun was not a grandson favored by Chairman Han. Rather, he was treated with more disdain than his other beta or omega siblings.

 

Chairman Han, who often spat out things like ‘This is why a recessive is worse than half a person. It would have been better if he was an omega, at least we could have quickly arranged an engagement,’ eventually brought his illegitimate dominant alpha grandson into the house.

 

Naturally, Seung-hyun hated Tae-sung to death. He looked down on him as someone who had been wandering outside and came in, constantly picking fights and unable to hide his inferiority complex.

 

Still, he was a character who tried to act noble in the beginning, but Seung-hyun truly became a villain after being given a terminal diagnosis.

 

「’If I’m going to die no matter what I do, then you shouldn’t be happy either. I don’t care what happens to me. If I can only bring down Han Tae-sung…’」

 

Thanks to that, the comment section for the chapters featuring Seung-hyun Han always exploded with content like ‘Seung-hyun Han, the place you should be is the hospital. Oh, of course, a mental hospital.’, ‘Hey cancer cells, work harder.’, ‘Is he really terminally ill? He’s always running around energetically.’

 

“But you’re saying I’m that Seung-hyun Han. The Seung-hyun Han who, if he has a terminal illness, should either stay cooped up at home or can’t even properly harass the main characters while getting painkillers and IV drips….”

 

Seung-hyun muttered in a dazed voice. His self in reality must have died. He was in so much pain, he bled so much, it didn’t seem like he would have survived.

 

But now that he’s going to live a new life, couldn’t he have possessed a somewhat normal person? Why did he have to possess a villain out of all the many characters?

 

No. If there was at least hope that he could turn over a new leaf from now on and live an ordinary life, it would have been okay. But Seung-hyun Han was not that. He was terminally ill. Terminally ill to the point where he couldn’t even survive until the end of the novel.

 

Seung-hyun’s exit was absurd, if you could call it that. In order to obstruct Tae-sung, he went alone to a villa that Tae-sung and Seon-hu often visited, and suddenly had a seizure and collapsed in pain.

 

The sedatives and painkillers were in the car, and since he had entered quietly alone, there was no one to call an ambulance. In the end, Seung-hyun died and was only discovered after a few days. Chairman Han, who found out that he had died at Tae-sung’s villa, got angry until the end, calling him a stupid and embarrassing bastard, so even the funeral was held very modestly.

 

It was a death befitting the evil deeds he had committed, if you could call it that. But that was only satisfying when it was a story about a villain in a novel.

 

“Even if I don’t wander around places like villas and just stay cooped up at home, I’ve already been given a terminal diagnosis anyway. Then that means I’ll die within a year at most….”

 

Seung-hyun lowered his head, looking like he was about to cry at any moment. It couldn’t get any worse than this. If he had to think of something fortunate, it would be that since he became terminally ill after already dying, he felt less resentful about why he had to die?

 

“Are you telling me to check which is better between dying suddenly and dying slowly?”

 

A dumbfounded voice naturally flowed out. 6 months to 1 year. It was a new life that was too ambiguous to be happy about getting a chance.

 

“Let’s think positively. Positively about anything….”

 

The gloom did not go away, but he tried hard to think positively. Because that was Seung-hyun’s habit. If it was a situation he couldn’t escape anyway, it was a kind of defense mechanism to find even the tiniest positive aspect and try to protect his mental state even a little.

 

“…But if I think of it as a life I was going to die anyway… it’s not bad?”

 

Seung-hyun, who had been thinking for a moment, raised his head. If someone heard it, they might think, ‘He must have gone crazy from being in such a shocking situation,’ but Seung-hyun was quite sincere.