An Actor Who Has Lived For 10,000 Years [EN]: Chapter 252

252. #46 – Choice (1)

-The power is off, connecting to voicemail….

Kim’s manager heard the automated message from the phone.

He immediately opened the keypad on his cell phone and pressed the call button.

BEEP-.

As soon as he heard the short notification sound, he calmed down as much as possible and spoke into the phone.

“Hee-sung, it’s me. Why aren’t you answering? Is your battery dead, or is your phone still off? Is something wrong? Call me as soon as you hear this.”

He hung up after leaving the voice message.

Then, he let out a long sigh he had been holding back.

“Haa… I hope nothing happened to Hee-sung?”

Kim’s manager bit his lip and shook his head.

“No. He must just be resting and not looking at his phone. Nothing could have happened….”

He tried to ignore the fact that he couldn’t reach Jin Hee-sung, as if trying to deny it.

But soon, he jumped up from his seat.

Jin Hee-sung’s ‘will’ kept popping into his head.

Jin Hee-sung had said he wrote it without much thought, in preparation for a possible situation, but…

He didn’t like the will.

A will wasn’t something anyone could write as a pastime; it wasn’t a simple or pleasant thing.

“No way….”

In an instant, anxiety froze the air around Kim’s manager.

He shivered at the sudden cold feeling.

Kim’s manager picked up his cell phone again and called Jin Hee-sung.

But as expected, his phone was still turned off.

He couldn’t just wait and do nothing.

To Kim’s manager, Jin Hee-sung was more than just the celebrity he managed.

“…I can’t.”

Trying to shake off his uneasy feelings, he stood up.

He opened the first drawer under the desk.

Deep inside, there was a passport and several documents.

He hurriedly packed a pouch containing items he had prepared in advance, just in case, into his bag.

A few hours later.

Kim’s manager boarded the earliest flight to LA.

His eyes were already bloodshot.

What time it was now, or what time it would be when he arrived in LA, didn’t matter to him.

He was focused only on getting to Jin Hee-sung as quickly as possible.

“Sir, I’ll prepare a drink for you.”

He blankly shook his head at the flight attendant’s kind offer.

His thumb never left his mouth, showing extreme anxiety.

Toc, toc-

The smooth ends of his nails were already jagged with teeth marks.

Kim’s manager continued to sigh anxiously.

“Haa… Hee-sung, nothing bad should have happened… Yeah, nothing will happen. He’s probably just resting.”

He swallowed a sigh and nodded.

“Yeah, if I arrive and he’s just sprawled out on the bed sleeping, that little… No, I’d rather he just drank a lot and fell asleep.”

Kim’s manager didn’t even take a nap during the flight; he stayed up all night with anxiety.

In front of LA Airport.

Kim’s manager didn’t even stretch his stiff body from the 10-hour flight.

He ran madly out of the airport and got into a taxi stopped at the entrance.

Then, he handed the address written on his cell phone to the taxi driver and said urgently.

“To here… please take me here.”

Kim’s manager’s urgent face registered with the taxi driver, and he nodded with surprised eyes.

“Okay.”

The taxi quickly left the airport.

Kim’s manager didn’t lean back in his seat and stared intently out the front window of the car.

It was before sunrise in America.

The dim dawn air enveloped the area.

Thanks to this, the taxi was driving quickly without any traffic.

Nevertheless, Kim’s manager asked the taxi driver with an anxious look.

“I… I have something very urgent; can you go a little faster?”

His English skills weren’t very fluent.

Perhaps his conversational struggles conveyed Kim’s manager’s urgency.

The taxi driver looked at Kim’s manager’s face through the rearview mirror and replied briefly.

“Okay.”

The taxi driver pressed harder on the accelerator.

The car shuddered once and then quickly sped towards its destination.

Kim’s manager’s thumb still couldn’t leave his mouth.

“Haa….”

All that came out of his mouth was a sigh.

He didn’t have a single second to enjoy the night streets of America.

The car sped ahead.

How long had it been driving like that?

Squeak-

The car stopped at the entrance of a hotel.

Kim’s manager quickly handed the taxi driver more dollars than the meter showed and said quickly.

“Thank you, thank you so much.”

Then, he ran towards the hotel.

While the hotel elevator ascended, Kim’s manager’s heart beat faster than ever.

His heart was pounding so hard that he could hear it in his ears because of his anxiety.

The time he had been traveling from Korea to meet Jin Hee-sung was approaching 20 hours.

Kim’s manager’s appearance was becoming increasingly haggard.

Kim’s manager’s breath became increasingly rapid each time the elevator slowly went up one floor.

“Haa… Haa….”

His nose was almost touching the elevator door.

He was ready to run out as soon as it opened.

Ding-

As soon as he arrived, he hurriedly got out of the elevator and ran to the room where Jin Hee-sung was.

After confirming that it was the correct room, he pressed the doorbell repeatedly.

Ding-dong-

Ding-dong, ding-dong-

He rang the doorbell several times, but there was no response from inside the hotel room.

Kim’s manager took out his cell phone and called Jin Hee-sung, just in case.

-The power is off….

But contrary to his wishes, Jin Hee-sung’s cell phone was still turned off.

He trembled his lips and knocked on the door.

Knock knock-

“Hee-sung, Hee-sung!”

He shouted, hitting the door with his clenched fist.

“Jin Hee-sung, open the door. Hee-sung.”

Early in the morning before dawn.

Time and the people around him were not important to Kim’s manager now.

He knocked on the door violently, as if he had lost his mind.

“Hee-sung, Jin Hee-sung!”

He put his ear to the crack in the door, hoping to hear even a little sound from inside.

But contrary to his expectations, not even the slightest sound or movement was heard from inside the room.

Kim’s manager dumped the bag he had placed next to him into the hallway.

A bag full of items.

The documents and miscellaneous items inside were scattered in the hallway.

Kim’s manager pushed the items away with his hands and hurriedly searched for something.

“…Found it.”

What he was desperately looking for was Jin Hee-sung’s hotel room key.

Just in case, he had received an emergency key from the local manager during the last awards ceremony.

He grabbed the key card in his hand, got up, and brought it to the door.

Click-

The door finally opened.

Kim’s manager’s breathing became increasingly labored.

He bit his lip and hurriedly opened the hotel door wide.

“Hee-sung!”

He entered the hotel room while desperately calling for Jin Hee-sung.

The living room was visible as soon as he entered.

In the middle of the living room, there was a table and chairs.

He saw Jin Hee-sung sitting in the chair with his body completely limp and sprawled out on the table.

Kim’s manager was startled to see Jin Hee-sung and shouted at him.

“Hee-sung, why didn’t you answer when I was shouting like this outside?”

Just the fact that Jin Hee-sung was in the hotel room made him let out a long sigh of relief that he had been holding back for several hours.

Only then did he relax and lower his shoulders, which had been raised high, and approached Jin Hee-sung.

“I thought something had happened to you….”

At that moment.

Kim’s manager stepped on something.

“What is this….”

Under his feet were a large number of pills spilled under the table where Jin Hee-sung was sprawled out.

The moment he saw it, Kim’s manager’s eyes widened as if they would pop out.

It didn’t matter what kind of medicine it was.

Whether it was sleeping pills or cold medicine, if he had swallowed so many pills, Jin Hee-sung would not be okay.

Kim’s manager’s face turned pale in an instant.

“Hee-sung… Hee-sung?”

With trembling pupils, he carefully touched his body and moved his gaze to his face, and Jin Hee-sung’s blank eyes met his.

Kim’s manager was not surprised by the meeting of eyes but sat down in his seat as if all the tension had been released.

“Haa… I’m glad, I’m so glad.”

Even at his words, Jin Hee-sung was staring blankly into the air.

At that sight, Kim’s manager shook his head violently and tried to come to his senses.

“Hee-sung, you didn’t eat these pills… did you?”

When he asked him quietly, Jin Hee-sung replied without any change in expression.

“Yeah.”

A short word.

Kim’s manager stroked his chest at the answer, but Jin Hee-sung’s eyes were unusual.

Somehow, they were chilly.

Kim’s manager looked down at the pills on the floor and asked Jin Hee-sung.

“Then what are these pills? Are they sleeping pills?”

“I couldn’t sleep, so I was going to take one, but my hand slipped….”

At his answer, Kim’s manager frowned and replied.

“…Is that so?”

“Yeah.”

“Is that really what happened?”

Kim’s manager bent down, made eye contact with Jin Hee-sung, and asked again.

“You weren’t… trying to do something… trying to take sleeping pills, were you?”

Jin Hee-sung glanced away and muttered.

“No.”

The sky came into view at the end of his gaze.

Now the sun was beginning to rise in the dim sky of LA.

***

A few hours ago, before midnight.

I held the medicine tightly in my hand and looked at the clock.

11:10 PM.

The last of the long 10,000 years; now there are only 50 minutes left.

If I die here… reincarnation or anything, I’ll just return to nothingness.

“I don’t have a goal… a dream, or hope that I have to live for.”

Honestly, there was no reason to live.

The Oscar.

That award that I didn’t receive at the awards ceremony a while ago.

It’s a little disappointing that I didn’t receive that award.

But that award was not what I wanted in the first place; it was not my dream.

It was the dream of ‘Jin Hee-sung,’ the owner of this body that I am in now.

So it’s a little disappointing, but since I wasn’t Jin Hee-sung in the first place, it’s just a slight disappointment, that’s all.

I think I’ve really done everything in my past life for 10,000 years.

So I have no choice but to have no more wishes, dreams, or goals.

Because I’ve really experienced everything beyond imagination.

I squeezed the sleeping pills tightly and narrowed my eyes.

“But… there’s only one thing left….”

I bit my lip and muttered softly.

“…Regret.”

No, is it really right to see this feeling as regret?

What came to mind with the word regret was ‘Song Yu-na.’

When I was living in difficult pain, the only moment I kissed her.

Like a lie, all the pain disappeared.

And at the same time, I realized.

I have met countless people in my 10,000 years of life, and I have spent millions of days and tens of millions of hours, and I have had tremendous experiences that cannot be expressed in words.

But in that long time, the only person I truly loved was Song Yu-na.

She was the only one.

I realized that the moment I kissed her.

If I choose her with the heart of loving Song Yu-na, I have to reincarnate for 10,000 years and live this life again once more.

It is too cruel a choice to choose reincarnation like that.

I closed my eyes tightly, thinking of Song Yu-na.

“Just once… I want to see you just one more time….”

When I closed my eyes, my head was filled with Song Yu-na’s face.

In the end, I put down the medicine and picked up my cell phone and called her.