“Woo Jung-yoon. Twenty-eight years old. Detective Sergeant, Major Crimes Unit 1, Gangnam Police Station. No parents. No siblings. No girlfriend. Haah…”
Jung-yoon rubbed his face, covered in confused emotions, with his cold hands.
The faint trace of a smile disappeared, and he stared straight ahead.
It was something he’d repeated every day for six months.
He once again ran his hand over his face and head.
The familiar face stared back at him from the mirror.
Though the back of his head had once been shattered…
Standing before that same face, Jung-yoon mumbled like a robot with a single input:
“Woo Jung-yoon. Twenty-eight… Woo Jung-yoon.”
He closed and opened his eyes.
The blood-covered Jung-yoon in the mirror was gone, replaced by the intact face of Woo Jung-yoon.
“Should I say it’s a relief that the face and name are the same…?”
Jung-yoon stared at his reflection.
Not just the name—his face, too, remained unchanged.
There, in the mirror, stood the same Woo Jung-yoon.
But there was one difference.
“Detective Sergeant Woo Jung-yoon of the Major Crimes Division.”
He was no longer the Woo Jung-yoon whose head was crushed to death in front of a reservoir with no one around.
Now, he is Detective Woo Jung-yoon.
Today marked seven months and eight days since he became that man.
“Don’t make a mistake.”
If memory serves right, today was the day of the most important incident in the entire novel.
It was the moment he had been waiting for.
Assignment to the Cold Case Special Unit—the first step toward finally facing that bastard.
Six months ago, the first thing he saw upon waking up was a white ceiling.
The familiar hospital scent that brushed his nose gave him a fleeting moment of joy: “I’m alive!”
No one could imagine opening their eyes after death only to find themselves in someone else’s body—especially a character from a book.
It was something he’d never even imagined.
He wondered if he was dreaming.
Was he in a coma?
Could this all be a hallucination just before death?
For days, he waited for the end to come.
He counted down to the day death would fully claim him.
But nothing changed.
And in time, reality made it clear that what he was experiencing was real.
Even if he told someone, who would believe him?
It took him quite a while to come to terms with and accept the situation.
Migraines struck him as if his soul had been pulled out and stuffed back in.
The delusional nightmares were just a bonus.
It was as if something was scolding him not to resist.
He even sought out a shaman, wondering if he’d been possessed by a ghost.
But all he got were vague, unhelpful answers:
“You have one soul, but two bodies. And yet, also one heart…”
What the hell does that even mean?
“Your past and future—it’s all fate. Even your name.”
The cryptic words only added to his confusion.
In the end, there was only one solution: give up and accept it.
And so, Jung-yoon became Woo Jung-yoon, simply because he had no other choice.
But acceptance naturally brought resentment.
Resentment toward his mother, who used his name in a novel inspired by his father’s case—toward her cruelty and indifference.
He understood why she used his name, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that the book was the reason for everything that had gone wrong.
And worst of all, even his boyfriend Jung-rok, who had done nothing wrong, died a meaningless death.
Because of that damn book, he lost everything.
Just as I was about to be consumed by the feeling of resentment, Jeong Rok’s voice suddenly seeped into my ears.
It was the kind, familiar voice that called my name every day.
That voice, while awakening Jung-yoon’s consciousness, also made the present, which felt like a lie, something I had to live through.
If all of this is fate, as someone once said, and if this is my last chance to catch the murderer, like the ending of a book, then I had no reason to reject it.
So I accepted it.
Once I accepted it, everything that happened became my reality.
Fortunately, after being injured and hospitalized at the scene of the criminal’s capture, I had time to study about Woo Jeong Yun.
I spent that time erasing past memories and replacing them with the fictional Woo Jeong Yun from the novel.
Even though I wasn’t perfect, I worked hard to raise myself to a level where I wouldn’t attract suspicion.
In The Third Eye, Woo Jeong Yun was a former taekwondo national team member who had won medals in major competitions before becoming a police officer.
Thankfully, he wasn’t a troublesome character.
He was enthusiastic, righteous, and always active and diligent in everything he did.
He was kind and cheerful, a man of justice, the exact opposite of me in many ways.
After receiving the book, I had an argument with my mother over the issue of my name being used carelessly, and from that, I learned at least that much.
However, at the time, I didn’t care about the character’s traits, so I didn’t listen further.
I just hated that my name was used, and I wanted to end the conversation quickly.
And even more so because it was related to my father’s case.
It was dreadful.
Now, reflecting on it, there was no point in regretting it, but sometimes I wished I had listened more carefully.
Would things have been different if I had listened to my mother’s words that day?
It was a late regret.
In the end, I lived as Woo Jeong Yun without any useful information about the future.
After discovering the incident with my father and my name, I became angry, and because the words didn’t enter my mind, there wasn’t much I remembered.
There wasn’t any useful information about how “Woo Jeong Yun” played a role in the novel or how he contributed.
Ultimately, becoming “Woo Jeong Yun” meant confronting things physically.
And the long, tedious process of becoming him continues.
While wearing the mask of “Woo Jeong Yun,” I sometimes fell into sadness.
Was this the kind of righteous and brave person my mother wanted me to be?
If I had been this courageous, I wouldn’t have fallen so easily to the one who killed Jeong Rok…
But I couldn’t afford to be lost in despair for too long.
There was a mountain of things to learn as “Woo Jeong Yun.”
From taekwondo, which I had never tried, to legal terms I wasn’t familiar with, and even the slang used by detectives.
Therefore, at some point, the plot of the novel no longer seemed very important.
Once I had become the novel itself, what I did was the story, so there was no need to consider how the actual novel unfolded.
In fact, I didn’t have the energy to worry about that.
Just not standing out in front of others drained all my energy.
Unlike throwing punches or running, which I had never done before, I was quickly led into sleep every night without any time to suffer.
Even so, there was one thing Jung Yoon wanted to achieve.
The ending of the novel.
That was the one thing she wanted to make happen, no matter what.
Jung Yoon steeled himself as she recalled his terrible last moments.
He believed this was all the will of the heavens and vowed to create the ending with his own hands.
For Jeong Rok, it had to be that way.
The guilt and longing for Jeong Rok kept Jeong Yoon going.
He endured for six months in the Criminal Investigation Division through hard work.
Of course, sometimes it felt like his efforts were meaningless, as his name still felt unfamiliar and, in some ways, eerie.
He should have gotten used to it by now, but it still didn’t feel right.
Even though the characters were the same, the feeling that it wasn’t truly his never went away.
Jung Yoon couldn’t forget the terrifying moment when he was about to die.
He was still struggling in fear.
The fear and shock from the moment he first opened his eyes were like scars, similar to the moment of his death, and they occasionally tormented him.
If he was going to live as Woo Jeong Yun from the novel, he sometimes wished that his previous memories could be completely erased.
But that was futile.
The fear that visited every night still haunted me, and some days it even took the form of a monster.
I thought things would improve if I lived like Woo Jeong Yun from The Third Eye, but the situation didn’t get any better.
When I was about to give up, if it hadn’t been for the voice that suddenly seeped into my ears, I wouldn’t have been able to endure, still wearing clothes that didn’t fit.
The last words he said before he died.
The whisper that lingered in my ear.
The eighteenth.
You are the eighteenth.
***
Just in time, Jung Yoon arrived at the parking lot and turned off the ignition.
The voice that refused to be forgotten made his face scrunch up involuntarily.
After trying to shake off the thought, he checked his face in the rearview mirror as if it were a habit before getting out of the car.
It was something he repeated several times a day to avoid making mistakes as “Woo Jeong Yun.”
With familiar movements, he rounded his cheek with her fingertips and glanced at the watch on his wrist.
The time was just past 8:00 AM.
He headed toward the office, his eyes catching the words Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency engraved on the huge mirror that covered the wall.