An Actor Who Has Lived For 10,000 Years [EN]: Chapter 255

255. #46 – Choice (4)

How much time had passed?

The 10,000-year life that started again at the threshold of death.

And the life lived as ‘Jin Hee-sung.’

Since that day, I couldn’t grasp how time was flowing, or if it was flowing at all.

It was just a repetition of hellish days.

Waking up, I lived in such overwhelming pain that I couldn’t even open my eyes properly.

After the day the memories of the past 10,000 years flooded in at once.

Those memories didn’t leave and were clearly imprinted in my head.

And every day, every minute, every second, these memories tormented me as I lived my current life.

I felt like my head was so full that no new memories could fit.

The pain, felt as a headache, was beyond description.

“Ugh….”

Even a little bit of thinking made my head throb.

Kim, my manager, had come to see me, worried.

Since the day I met him, I hadn’t taken a single step outside the hotel.

I was just wasting time endlessly in the hotel room.

How many days had passed, anyway?

Ding-dong.

The hotel room’s doorbell rang.

Ding-dong, ding-dong.

“Hee-sung!”

I, who had been frowning, snapped out of it at the sound of Kim’s voice from outside the door.

“Oh, come in.”

He came without fail today as well.

Opening the door, Kim smiled brightly and handed me a clear plastic bag.

“Today it’s Korean food.”

At his words, I swallowed a sigh and shook my head.

“I’m okay. I’m not hungry.”

Kim peeked into the room behind me and continued.

“Do you only eat when you’re hungry?”

Kim, my manager, peeked into the room behind me and continued.

“If you don’t take this, I’m coming in and eating with you?”

Same line as always.

At his words, I quickly snatched the bag from his hand.

“Okay. I’ll eat it.”

“You should have done that from the start.”

Kim looked at me, raising the corners of his mouth as if he had succeeded in a mission.

“Did you eat everything I gave you yesterday?”

“Yeah, you should go eat too, hyung [older brother or close male friend].”

“Okay.”

As I nodded and tried to close the door, suddenly.

Thud.

Kim blocked the door with his foot and said.

“Hee-sung.”

At his call, I barely managed to lift my blurry eyes.

“Yeah.”

Kim still blocked the door with his foot and murmured.

“You… it’s been a week already. If I hadn’t come to LA, you would have just stayed in the hotel room without eating, right?”

At his words, I lowered my gaze.

That might have been the case.

The food in my hand.

Kim had been bringing me meals every day.

I hadn’t eaten these meals because I was hungry.

What was the point of the food going into my mouth?

It was no different from eating it because of his earnest request and concern.

I wasn’t hungry, and there was no room to feel such physical changes.

For a week, I was just living in hell.

I didn’t even know how I was spending 24 hours a day.

I didn’t know how many days had passed either.

I was just struggling in pain.

I didn’t choose reincarnation to feel this pain and live so wretchedly.

However, the reason I’m still experiencing this suffering is because too many memories of 10,000 years poured in at once.

I, too, desperately wanted to escape the pain and live a proper life.

“Hee-sung, what’s wrong….”

Kim asked, placing his hand on my shoulder.

“Ugh….”

At his small touch, memories began to flood in again like a tide.

“…Sorry.”

Kim was surprised and took his hand away.

“Hyung, I’m sorry. I’m tired, I’m just going to rest.”

“Okay. Call me right away if anything happens. And turn on your cell phone now.”

“Okay.”

As soon as I came into the room and put the bag of food he gave me on the table, I immediately covered my head with both hands.

Only then did I see the cell phone far away.

I didn’t know when it had been lying on the floor under the sofa, or if it was turned off.

I sighed and pressed the power button on the cell phone for a long time.

***

Meanwhile, at the same time.

A person holding a cell phone tightly in her hand with her arms crossed.

She fidgeted with her hands and looked at her watch.

“Wow… are you really not going to contact me?”

Song Yu-na pouted her lips and shook her head.

“Does this make sense?”

She plopped down on the bed and waved her hand in the air, staring at the empty space.

“Okay, let’s think calmly. It’s not just anyone. I… Song Yu-na, came all the way from Korea to LA to confess.”

Song Yu-na’s shoulders lifted even higher.

“I confessed first and even ki…ssed.”

She blinked repeatedly as if she was reminded of that time.

“Anyway. So Jin Hee-sung called me back to the room and suddenly hugged me tightly.”

Song Yu-na got up, seemingly unable to understand at all.

“Yeah, that’s the fact. What’s the problem?”

Her deep sigh warmed the air.

“Does it make sense that there hasn’t been a single call yet?”

She immediately walked to the closet, put on her coat, and stood in front of the mirror.

Muttering and checking her face in the mirror.

“You told me to wait for a while. Then that means you’ll contact me first, right? I can’t stand it anymore.”

As if she had been preparing to visit at any moment, Song Yu-na’s clothes, coat, and bag were all set up on one side.

She put on the bag she had prepared in advance, put on her shoes, and then.

Finally, she checked her appearance in front of the full-length mirror.

“I’m going to meet you and say all sorts of bad things, Jin Hee-sung….”

About an hour later.

This hotel she visited for the first time in a week.

“Wow… there are so many people passing by during the day?”

She got out of the taxi and recalled the night a week ago.

Then she hurried into the elevator.

“Ahem.”

She was already standing in front of Jin Hee-sung’s hotel room door.

As soon as she cleared her throat, she pressed the doorbell firmly.

Ding-dong.

“What, why isn’t there any response?”

Song Yu-na tilted her head and pressed the doorbell again.

Ding-dong, ding-dong.

After the doorbell rang several times, she felt a presence in the room.

Footsteps getting closer little by little.

Feeling Jin Hee-sung approaching her, Song Yu-na shook off the wrinkled coat with her hands and took a stance.

Bang.

As soon as the door opened, Song Yu-na shouted, looking at Jin Hee-sung’s face.

“Why haven’t you contacted me!”

Her brow was furrowed, not even 5 seconds after taking a calm stance.

Jin Hee-sung was startled and swallowed hard.

It seemed he thought it was Kim, his manager, who had come to bring him a meal.

“Ah… Yu-na ssi [term of polite address].”

“No, you told me to wait. But why haven’t you contacted me?”

At Song Yu-na’s urging, Jin Hee-sung hurriedly avoided her gaze and replied.

“…I’m sorry.”

“Is ‘sorry’ all you have to say? What’s the reason….”

Jin Hee-sung hurriedly opened his mouth before she could finish speaking.

“I couldn’t contact you because I wasn’t feeling well. I’m really sorry.”

At his words, Song Yu-na relaxed her distorted face, and only then did she take in Jin Hee-sung’s appearance.

‘Now that I see it, his complexion isn’t good, and it seems like he’s lost weight in the meantime?’

Song Yu-na quickly scanned Jin Hee-sung and drooped her eyebrows.

At a glance, Jin Hee-sung’s appearance was haggard, like someone who had been sick for days.

“Should I… buy you some porridge?”

She asked in a rapidly softened voice.

Jin Hee-sung shifted his gaze, which he had been avoiding, to her.

“No. Kim, my manager, bought it for me.”

“Where, why are you sick? Did you go to the hospital?”

Despite Song Yu-na’s worried words, Jin Hee-sung just shook his head blankly.

“I’m okay. I’m just not feeling well.”

“Ah… I see.”

It was Song Yu-na who had come to argue.

Before she knew it, she was answering in a much lower decibel.

A moment of silence flowed between them.

When Jin Hee-sung didn’t continue the conversation, Song Yu-na crossed her arms and said.

“I’m going back to Korea now.”

At Song Yu-na’s words that she was returning to Korea, Jin Hee-sung nodded.

“Is that so?”

At his indifferent attitude, Song Yu-na bit her lip.

She glanced at Jin Hee-sung out of the corner of her eye and said.

“So contact me when you come to Korea. I’m not good at waiting for a long time.”

Jin Hee-sung’s gaze was fixed on the empty air, not on Song Yu-na.

He nodded slowly.

***

The elevator that came down to the hotel lobby.

“Ugh, that’s outrageous. I came all the way here, is this how you treat me so indifferently?”

Song Yu-na kicked the innocent floor carpet with an angry face.

“You didn’t even tell me to come into the room. I wasn’t even thinking of going in in the first place….”

She looked up at the high place where Jin Hee-sung would be in the lobby.

She shrugged her shoulders while staring at the ceiling.

“But you said you were sick, so… I can’t say anything more….”

There was someone who caught Song Yu-na’s attention as she turned her head to leave the hotel.

It was Kim, the manager, who was talking to the staff at the front desk.

“Oh, isn’t that Kim, the manager?”

As he was always with Jin Hee-sung, they couldn’t not know each other’s faces.

Kim, the manager, was talking to the hotel staff at the front desk as if he was passionately explaining something.

“So when you clean that room, please check what I told you carefully. Do you understand what I mean?”

He was talking to the staff using gestures.

Kim, the manager’s face was full of anxiety and worry about Jin Hee-sung.

“Yes, I will clean it carefully.”

“Thank you so much. If anything happens, this is my room here. Please contact me here.”

Kim, the manager, bowed his head to the staff.

Only then was he a little relieved, and he smiled and turned around.

“Oh? Yu-na ssi.”

When he turned around, Song Yu-na was in the lobby, glancing at him.

“Hello.”

Kim, the manager, greeted Song Yu-na happily.

“It’s nice to meet you here. What brings you here, Yu-na ssi?”

She rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly and avoided his gaze.

“I… just came to see something….”

Kim, the manager, didn’t bother to ask for a detailed answer.

He made a sound and carefully said to her.

“Could you have a cup of coffee with me for a moment?”

“With me?”

“Yes, there’s something I want to ask you.”

Song Yu-na tilted her head and replied.

“Yeah, sure.”

A small cafe located across from the hotel.

They sat facing each other and took a sip of warm coffee.

“Haa….”

Kim, the manager, sighed without realizing it.

He put down the mug and asked Song Yu-na.

“Yu-na ssi, is Hee-sung okay?”

“Yeah, well… he said he was sick….”

Song Yu-na inadvertently revealed that she had met Jin Hee-sung.

Nevertheless, Kim, the manager, didn’t even show any surprise.

Since Song Yu-na came to that hotel, it was obvious that the two had met.

Moreover, it was Kim, the manager, who told her Jin Hee-sung’s hotel name and room number.

Kim, the manager, was the only one who knew the room number of the hotel where Jin Hee-sung was staying alone.

She asked Kim, the manager, about Jin Hee-sung’s whereabouts through her manager.

In fact, Kim, the manager, couldn’t help but know.

The emotions that flowed between Jin Hee-sung and Song Yu-na.

Rather, he couldn’t not know.

“I’m so worried about Hee-sung. I’m making sure he gets his meals every day, but I don’t know where he’s sick. Why is he just staying in his room like that….”

At his words, Song Yu-na nodded and said.

“That’s right. When I saw him earlier, his face was a mess. Does he eat all the food that Kim, the manager, gives him?”

“So I sometimes see the trash that comes out of the hotel in the lobby, and it seems like he’s eating it….”

Kim, the manager, sighed repeatedly.

No less than his expression, Song Yu-na’s face was also full of worry.

“I’m worried about his acting career, but more than that, I’m worried that Hee-sung’s body will be ruined. I need to know what’s going on so I can help him.”

At Kim, the manager’s words, she frowned, realizing that Jin Hee-sung’s condition was even more serious.

“If he’s not telling Kim, the manager, it doesn’t seem like a simple problem.”

Song Yu-na fiddled with the mug and lowered her gaze.

Kim, the manager, looked at her and carefully asked.

“Yu-na ssi.”

“Yes?”

“Did you see anything strange when you met Hee-sung a little while ago?”

At Kim, the manager’s words, Song Yu-na tilted her head.

She rolled her eyes and thought of Jin Hee-sung, but she couldn’t find anything special to convey to him.

“Um… he said he wasn’t feeling well. So he lost weight and looked gaunt….”

Kim, the manager, focused on her words.

When she didn’t notice any changes in Jin Hee-sung, he started with a word.

“Is that so? Hee-sung’s eyes are a bit….”

At his words, Song Yu-na blinked and snapped her fingers.

“That’s right. Hee-sung must not have slept well; his dark circles are really dark. It’s hard for makeup next time if it gets darker….”

Song Yu-na covered her dark circles with her hand and sighed.

Looking at her, Kim, the manager, tried to raise the corners of his mouth.

“Ah… dark circles. That’s right, it’s gotten worse.”

He hurriedly drank his coffee and glanced at Song Yu-na’s face, which was worried about Jin Hee-sung.

‘Hee-sung’s eyes… didn’t you notice that they changed? Or maybe, the relationship between the two is not as deep as I thought….’

At that time, he met Song Yu-na’s eyes.

Kim, the manager, asked her as if to change the subject.

“So when are you going to Korea, Yu-na ssi?”

“Ah, I’m going soon. Hee-sung still hasn’t said anything, right?”

The two continued to talk about Jin Hee-sung for a long time.

Jin Hee-sung’s sparkling eyes had turned cold.

Of course, Song Yu-na couldn’t know about the change.

No, Jin Hee-sung himself didn’t even know.

That his changed eyes….

That they return to their original eyes when he is with Song Yu-na.