It wasn't the height that scared him. It was how quiet the bridge had become.
The wind had stopped. The sound of traffic behind him had faded away. Even the river — dark, wide, endlessly moving — had lost its voice.
Kang Joon-seo stood on the outer railing of Mapo Bridge, his knuckles white against the rusted steel. Below, the Han River stretched like a lidless eye, cold and blind. The metal felt warm from his palms, though it shouldn't have. March wind cut through his thin coat, rattling the zipper.
He looked down. The surface was smooth. Too smooth.
No one shouted. No one grabbed him. No last-minute plea. He hadn't told anyone, so there wouldn't be. This was the kind of exit that didn't require goodbyes. When you'd already said too many wrong things in the years leading up to it.
His shoes—cheap ones, soles half-peeling—hung over the edge. He leaned forward. Gravity took over.
The fall didn't rush as he thought it would. It felt slow, like his body delayed the inevitable, one last act of rebellion.
And then—
Cold.
No, not cold. Violent. The river didn't welcome him. It devoured him. His legs slammed into something unseen. His chest seized. Water surged into his throat, his ears. He didn't flail. He didn't scream.
He'd expected fear. A survival instinct. A final burst of I-want-to-live panic. But it never came.
Just pressure.
Like everything—every bad decision, every missed opportunity, every shouted word, every silence, every debt, every betrayal—was crushing him from all sides at once. Metaphorically. Literally. Like the river had weight, and it remembered him.
He didn't close his eyes. They were open, stinging. A blur of green-black light above. He didn't think of God. He didn't see faces.
He just sank.
Deeper.
Quieter.
And then—
Nothing.
Almost.
Because in that moment where his mind should've gone dark, something else arrived instead.
A sound. Not through his ears. Inside his head.
A voice.
Smooth. Calm. Detached. It didn't echo. It didn't judge.
"Do you wish to try again?"
Joon-seo didn't answer. Couldn't. His lungs were full. His body was shutting down.
But something inside him still heard a last flicker of himself, far beneath layers of exhaustion, cynicism, and disgust.
The voice asked again.
"Do you wish to try again?"
He should have said no. He'd earned this, hadn't he? A clean end. Finally. No more shame, no more pretending.
He tried to think of something clever. Something final. But all that came out—silent, desperate, pathetic—was one word.
"...Yes."
And then—
The water vanished.
But the choking didn't.
Kang Joon-seo's body convulsed, lungs desperate, retching for air that wasn't thick and cold and full of river water. His hands clawed at bedsheets—sheets, not steel. Not water. He coughed hard enough to pull something in his side, then gasped, wheezing, as warm air filled his chest in frantic, gulping bursts.
A ceiling loomed above him—cream-colored, low, cracked in the corners.
He blinked.
A poster of TVXQ was taped unevenly to the far wall. A chipped desk sat beneath a sunlit window. A secondhand monitor hummed faintly, the kind with a bulky back and a faint green glow. There was a bookshelf too—sagging, one corner stacked with middle school textbooks and a dusty manhwa anthology he hadn't thought about in two decades.
The mattress groaned as he sat up too fast.
Pain lanced through his temple. Not the dull ache of suicide. Not death.
A clock radio on the floor buzzed faintly with a news segment:
"...traffic delays near Seoul Station... current temperature, nine degrees..."
The voice was younger. Not the calm, otherworldly one from the water. A real one. Familiar.
His.
He stumbled off the bed. His knees buckled; the bones were smaller. Lighter. Wrong.
He staggered to the mirror by the closet and stared.
The boy staring back had black hair that still curled at the ends, not yet flattened by years of gel and indifference. Eyes that hadn't gone bloodshot from insomnia. Skin unscarred by stress, lips uncracked by winter cigarettes.
Fifteen.
He gripped the edges of the mirror, knuckles white, trying not to scream.
The door creaked behind him.
"Joon-seo! Get up, you'll be late for school!"
His mother's voice. Not hoarse. Not hollowed out by shouting matches and smoking alone in the dark. Firm. Sharp. Alive.
And in that moment, the smell hit him.
Gyeran-mari. Leftover rice reheated with soy sauce. Kimchi, pungent and bright. The scent of a Thursday morning in March, the kind he never noticed the first time around.
His knees gave out.
He hit the floor hard, gasping again—not because he couldn't breathe, but because it was too much. The details. The sounds. The fact that it was real.
His hands clenched in the worn carpet. The ache in his throat wasn't from water anymore.
It was grief.
Because he knew this day. March 9th, 2006. He knew every minute of it. What he said. What he didn't. What he ruined.
And this time, he couldn't afford to blink.
The ache in Joon-seo's knees hadn't faded when the light blinked into existence.
Not a bulb. Not sunlight.
It was in the air.
Right in front of his face, hovering like a heads-up display from some MMORPG—but cleaner. Harsher. No ornate borders. No fantasy font. Just bold white text on a dark gradient pane.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZING...]
His breath caught.
Welcome, Kang Joon-seo. Synchronization complete.
VERSION: Fatum_OS_1.0.
Then the text flickered and rearranged
[USER STATUS]
Name: Kang Joon-seo
Age: 15
Condition: Stabilizing
ATTRIBUTES
• STR (Strength): 4
• INT (Intelligence): 9
• DEX (Dexterity): 5
• STA (Stamina): 4
Stat Points Available: 0
Skill Slots Unlocked: 0/3
Before he could even react, another pane slid in.
[QUEST: Divergence Point]
Description:
Everything begins again. You know the pattern by now. But this time, something within you is different.
You said yes. Let's see if you meant it.
Objective:
✅ Option A: Apologize to your mother for yesterday's outburst. Sit down for breakfast with your family.
💬 Reward: [SILVER SKILL CARD – "Calm Heart" (Passive)]
Your mind holds steady when others waver. In moments of pressure or conflict, you remain composed—unshaken, deliberate. Reduces emotional volatility and improves clarity during high-stress encounters.
❌ Option B: Walk out. Say nothing.
💬 Reward: 50,000 Won
Timer: 00:10:00
Joon-seo stared, frozen. He didn't remember exactly what he'd said yesterday, but he remembered the door slam. His mother's voice behind it. Min-woo's flinch. The quiet that followed. The burning shame hours later that he buried under headphones and a skipped dinner.
Apologize?
He clenched his jaw.
It was easy to think of it like a game. Interface. Rewards. Stats. Easy to choose the option that gave him a silver skill card.
But it wasn't a game. That tone in the quest window - clinical, detached - belied how personal it all felt. Like the System knew him. Knew what that word "apologize" cost him.
Joon-seo stood.
He wiped his eyes, forcing the System out of view with a mental command - Dismiss. It faded, but he could still feel it, like a weight pressing between his eyes.
He stepped toward the door. His legs were heavy, like moving through water again.
Each step down the hall was a memory. Each scuff mark on the wall. The flickering kitchen light. The voice behind it.
His mother's back was to him, plating eggs. Min-woo sat curled in the corner of the couch, scribbling on the inside of a cereal box with a red crayon. The TV buzzed with some morning cartoon.
He opened his mouth.
And then he saw the third figure.
His father.
At the table.
Coffee cup in hand. Looking up. Not yet angry. Just... tired.
Kang Dae-sik wasn't supposed to be home this morning.
He hadn't been - not last time.
The coffee cup froze halfway to his lips. He looked at Joon-seo.
So did Mi-young.
So did Min-woo.
Three pairs of eyes on him. Waiting. Like the world had paused right there.
Joon-seo's lips parted.
He took a breath.
And—
[TIMER: 00:06:59]