Superstar From Age 0

The image of Jung Ga-ram, who was moved from the intensive care unit to the general ward, faded away.

“Ga-ram!”

Kwon Yoon-chan and his mother clung to the bed that was being moved.

Kwon Yoon-chan's eyes shook greatly.

Jung Ga-ram's face, which was exposed after the artificial respirator was removed, was so pale and thin that it was obvious that he was sick.

He wondered why he didn't notice it.

Jung Ga-ram, who was moved to the general ward, had a grim expression as if he was having a nightmare.

The screen changed slowly and a strange voice was heard.

“…We conducted the test and if you look here…”

It looked like a doctor's office.

There were a doctor in a white gown, a couple, and Jung Ga-ram with some color on his face.

The doctor explained something and Jung Ga-ram and his parents listened carefully.

None of the three seemed to be very worried.

But the audience couldn't open their mouths.

Even without subtitles, they could clearly tell that this was the past because Jung Ga-ram's appearance was so different from before.

As if showing the before and after right away, there was a bigger difference than they thought, so they unconsciously stopped breathing.

They knew the predetermined future, but rather, because they knew it, their hearts pounded and they became anxious.

“…You have about six months left at most.”

The audience stirred at the doctor's words and the subtitles below.

They knew his condition was bad, but they didn't expect it to be terminal.

The hearts of the audience who had been immersed in Jung Ga-ram throughout part one sank.

“…What?”

“The probability of surgery is not high either…”

Jung Ga-ram and his parents were stunned by the unexpected news.

“No, no. That can't be… I wasn't even sick…!”

“Some people don't feel pain. That's why there are many patients who don't know until it's too late for surgery.”

Jung Ga-ram shook his head frantically with a panicked face.

“Rea, really… It's not true…”

The doctor looked at Jung Ga-ram and his parents who denied it and explained in detail.

As the explanation went on, Jung Ga-ram's face became paler.

His parents also closed their mouths and couldn't say anything.

***

Jung Ga-ram and his parents came out of the doctor's office.

Jung Ga-ram and his parents looked blank as if they couldn't think of anything because of the sudden death sentence.

The audience who had built up an emotional bond with Jung Ga-ram during part one felt the same way.

Then, from the opposite doctor's office, a family came out with a noisy sound.

It was a boy of Jung Ga-ram's age and his mother.

A man who looked like his father who was sitting on a waiting room chair ran to his family.

“How did it go?”

The boy burst into tears when he saw his father.

Jung Ga-ram, who seemed to have lost his mind and looked at the floor without seeing anything, raised his head at the sound of crying.

‘Ah, he too…’

‘He too is like me.’

He felt a surge of sympathy for Jung Ga-ram and bit his lip.

The audience also felt tears welling up in their eyes at another misfortune.

“No. He said no…!”

In the midst of the noise, the boy's voice was not very loud, but it stuck in Jung Ga-ram's ears.

The audience also paused.

“He said no…! It's another disease! He said this can be cured with medicine!”

“Look! He said no!”

“Oh my God. Buddha…!”

“Wooaaah…!”

The boy's face, who sincerely rejoiced in his life ahead, was reflected in Jung Ga-ram's eyes.

It was reflected in the eyes of the audience.

The boy and his family thanked God, buddha, all the gods in the world with tears in their eyes and smiled brightly.

And Jung Ga-ram's vision was filled with the boy's family who rejoiced with him.

‘…Why? Why?’

The noise in the waiting room suddenly sounded like he had gone deaf and he couldn't see anyone but one person in his sight.

His whole body stiffened as if someone was holding him back and he couldn't turn his head.

‘Why me?’

‘Why me?’

‘He's fine…’

‘Why only me…why only me…?’

Jung Ga-ram's face turned pale.

His breath slowed down and then quickened.

His lips and chin trembled and his clenched fists were damp with sweat.

Then he heard a sobbing sound from behind him.

It was also a cry, but Jung Ga-ram felt his heart sink.

Only then did he realize it.

‘I'm really dying.’

He suddenly felt suffocated.

Jung Ga-ram's expression collapsed.

He was filled with despair over the incurable disease and anger over why he was the only one who got sick.

He was terrified of the sudden death and he was jealous of the boy who could live unlike him.

Anger, frustration, jealousy…

All kinds of dark emotions wrapped around Jung Ga-ram's face.

Without a single line of dialogue, with his raw expression, his eyes, his trembling, Jung Ga-ram's mind was revealed.

The audience held their breath at the sight.

They couldn't even blink.

Jung Ga-ram's despair and the boy's happiness were like two different worlds, like light and darkness that could never mix, on the screen.

The audience was swept away by Jung Ga-ram's black emotions.

It was easy to immerse themselves because they had been watching Jung Ga-ram until now.

They knew what kind of kid he was, what kind of personality he had, how he smiled and what he liked.

The audience couldn't honestly congratulate the boy's joy that passed by in a moment.

Rather, they felt a vague resentment.

‘Why are you doing that in front of me?’

The stronger the light, the stronger the darkness.

The more vivid the boy's face became, the more the audience could feel Jung Ga-ram's despair, jealousy, and fear of death. They couldn't take their eyes off for a moment.

***

The result didn't change even if they went to another hospital.

“…No. No. Mom… Mom! Say something. Just listen to mom. You said everything would be fine if I listened to mom? Then it would be fine? Dad. Dad too… Say something! You said I could do whatever I wanted when I grew up! You said I could do it when I became an adult…! I'm only eighteen now… I'm only eighteen…”

“Ga… Ga-ram…”

“If I only have six months left…”

Jung Ga-ram's lips trembled.

“…I can't be an adult…”

After that, Jung Ga-ram locked himself in his room and couldn't do anything. He glanced at the few video-related books on the bookshelf, but soon turned his head away.

“…Don't you want to do anything?”

His mother's question was careful.

She remembered Jung Ga-ram's anger.

He had always listened to his parents and studied hard without playing properly, but it all became useless.

She couldn't forget his voice screaming that.

“No.”

“…Do you want to try making a video?”

Jung Ga-ram felt a surge of emotion at his father's words.

“Now? Now you say that? When I wanted to do it, you stopped me! And now, when there's no reason to do it anymore?!”

“Ga-ram…”

Jung Ga-ram felt frustrated as he looked at his parents’ faces, filled with pain.

He didn't know where to vent his anger and despair.

He felt suffocated by their pitiful and sympathetic gazes.

At the same time, he wanted to scream so badly that his insides boiled. But then he thought, what's the point of getting angry when he was going to die anyway?

And then he wanted to cry his eyes out until he dried up.

He felt his whole body was full of guilt, resignation, and rage.

He felt like something else had taken over his body.

He couldn't control his fluctuating emotions.

Jung Ga-ram cried.

He sobbed.

“I want to travel. I want to travel.”

He wanted to leave Seoul, go somewhere where no one knew him or his illness.

So Jung Ga-ram decided to go on a trip.

***

Jung Ga-ram woke up to the warm sunlight and smiled faintly.

The audience felt a pang of sadness at his peaceful expression.

They had seen how much he struggled with his turbulent emotions in the previous scene and they could imagine how much pain and hardship he had endured to reach that state.

“Are you awake?”

“…Hmm.”

“Why are you smiling?”

“…Your eyes… are so… swollen.”

Kwon Yoon-chan frowned at Jung Ga-ram's words. But his eyes were so puffy that he looked funny.

“You should have told me if you were in pain. And why did you stay in a house with no boiler or hot water? Oh, I’ll call the doctor. Your parents will be here soon. The uncle went out to pick them up.”

“…Okay.”

Kwon Yoon-chan turned his back on the weak Jung Ga-ram. He bit his lip and tears welled up in his eyes.

The doctor came and left and Jung Ga-ram breathed heavily.

Kwon Yoon-chan felt relieved at that sound.

“Did you watch the videos?”

“…Yeah. It hurts a lot, huh.”

Jung Ga-ram smiled faintly.

“…Six months… No, it's been a month. So five months left.”

Kwon Yoon-chan's heart sank at Jung Ga-ram's calm words.

His condition was worse than he thought.

His hands trembled with anger.

But he couldn't yell at him for being so calm when Jung Ga-ram looked so sad. He couldn't say anything.

He wasn't calm, he had accepted it.

He had accepted the inevitable reality.

He had given up.

And Kwon Yoon-chan knew very well what giving up meant.

“…Is there no other way?”

“There is surgery, but… the chances are not high.”

The only certainty was that death was closer than life.

Kwon Yoon-chan bowed his head. Tears fell as he saw Jung Ga-ram's smile.

“I didn't want to show you this.”

“…I'm sorry.”

“For what?”

“Just everything…”

He felt sorry and miserable and regretful for thinking of himself who wanted to die, for seeing Jung Ga-ram who was really dying.

If only he could go back to that day, he would have pulled himself out of the sea, he would have stopped himself from saying that he wanted to die, he would have slapped himself for not noticing Jung Ga-ram's fading condition.

He felt like it was all his fault that Jung Ga-ram was lying there, and he cried silently as Jung Ga-ram spoke.

“I'm more sorry. For lying to you. But I hated seeing you like that. That's why I couldn't tell you.”

“…”

“I was comfortable with you not knowing anything. And your family too.”

“…”

“It was just my selfishness.”

He couldn't imagine how hard it was for him to hide his pain for his selfishness, and Kwon Yoon-chan couldn't stop crying.

***

Fortunately, Jung Ga-ram's condition improved gradually.

“He can be transferred to Seoul Hospital tomorrow.”

“Oh, thank you!”

“Then let's arrange the schedule.”

As Jung Ga-ram's parents went out of the ward to talk with the doctor, Kwon Yoon-chan, who visited every day, sat next to the bed.

“Oh, who has my phone?”

“I have it.”

Kwon Yoon-chan handed him the phone he had been holding.

Jung Ga-ram looked blankly at the videos placed on the most visible part of the phone screen and asked Kwon Yoon-chan.

“Did my mom and dad see this?”

“No. They didn't have time to look at it. But why did you put it there? It's like you’re asking them to see it.”

“Hmm.”

Jung Ga-ram looked around, afraid that his parents might hear him, and opened his mouth.

“I told you I wanted to be a film director, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So I've always wanted to make videos and enter contests and stuff like that. But my mom and dad wouldn't let me. They said I should go to a good college and get a good job and do it as a hobby. They made me study a lot since I was young. But… this happened.”

Kwon Yoon-chan couldn't even nod and just listened quietly.

It was the opposite of the day it rained.

“So I felt a little… no, a lot of resentment.”

Jung Ga-ram looked at the phone screen again.

“I left them there because I thought maybe my mom and dad would feel a bit… regretful. That they shouldn't have done that. That they should have let me do what I wanted to do… And maybe that would ease my mind…”

Jung Ga-ram chuckled.

“But seeing you cry, I realized it wouldn't work. Mom and dad would cry too. I should delete them soon.”

Jung Ga-ram, who had confided his feelings to Kwon Yoon-chan that he couldn't tell his parents, deleted the videos without any hesitation.

He smiled brightly as if he was relieved and looked at his phone, then put it down next to him and said to Kwon Yoon-chan.

“Oh, but they don't have half-cooked eggs here.”

“Are you still complaining about half-cooked eggs?!”

Kwon Yoon-chan laughed along with Jung Ga-ram's cheerful laughter.

***

The next day.

Kwon Yoon-chan headed to the hospital as usual.

Jung Ga-ram and his parents were planning to go back to Seoul right away today.

Jung Ga-ram asked him if he wanted to come along, but he didn't think there was anything for him to do there.

“But I think I should go at least once… How much money would I need?”

He was thinking about finding a suitable part-time job when he stepped on the floor where Jung Ga-ram's ward was located.

“Room 502! Room 502!”

“Call the doctor right away!”

He saw nurses and doctors running with loud voices.

Room 502.

That was where Jung Ga-ram was.

Anxiety crept up on him.

“…But they said his condition was good?”

They said Jung Ga-ram's condition had improved enough to choose the long trip to Seoul. His hand, which he didn't even realize had clenched, trembled as he ran with a pale face.

A four-bed room. A four-bed room, so it could have been someone else.

He felt sorry for the others, but… it couldn't be Jung Ga-ram. It had to be anyone but Jung Ga-ram.

But the world always brought him the worst.

People were surrounding Jung Ga-ram's bed.

He heard urgent voices and someone ran out and in of the ward.

In a corner away from the crowd, he saw Jung Ga-ram's mother crying.

White was supposed to be a bright color that evoked positive feelings, but at that moment, it looked more like death than black.

He stared blankly at the scene and noticed something.

A phone was lying on the floor where people stepped on.

It was Jung Ga-ram's.

Someone had kicked it and it slid from Jung Ga-ram's bed to Kwon Yoon-chan's feet at the entrance.

The screen of the broken LCD was dead black.

Kwon Yoon-chan slowly reached out and picked up the phone.

His hand shook as he turned on the screen.

It seemed that not all of Pandora's box’s misfortunes had come out yet.

He looked at the phone screen that Jung Ga-ram had last seen and his eyes shook violently.

[For views? The increasingly serious YouTube manipulation broadcasts!]

There, he saw a screenshot of when he and Jung Ga-ram first met.